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The Black Dog Thread

Started by Grugz, 02 January, 2016, 09:54:32 PM

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TordelBack

Ach Jayzus, sorry to hear you're struggling. I'm outrageously lucky enough to have the wife-and-2.5-kids (well, the eldest is a bit pudgy...), and thank feck for that because I'd be dead in a ditch long since without them, but this is the thing about depression: all that good fortune doesn't matter a jot.  In fact, my very darkest moments are almost always about the degree to which I am a complete disaster as a husband and father, and how I've ruined their lives with my ongoing uselessness, and everyone would be better off if... well, you can fill in the rest.

What you might imagine as a major measure of success in life, a wonderful wife and children, is the very stick depression beats me with, and the obstacle I find hardest to get past when I'm climbing back to 'normal' - because those shortcomings have been further worsened by whatever episode I'm caught up in.

Point of anecdote, depression is not an artefact of a hard life, or level of real-world tribulation endured. It's stuff what is broke in your noggin.

Right now I'm just disturbed by Sharkie identifying with Emperor Molari, a genocidal despot by any measure...

I, Cosh

Quote from: TordelBack on 07 November, 2016, 11:28:30 AM
Right now I'm just disturbed by Sharkie identifying with Emperor Molari, a genocidal despot by any measure...
Great hair though.
We never really die.

Prodigal2

#197
J you're one of the most decent fellas I have never met. Best wishes to you fella. I wish I had more-if I had I would direct it your way in a heartbeat.

Bat King

#198
I'm struggling at the moment.  Thought Bubble was a lovely island of freedom from it - but that's gone and I'm back where I was.

Currently it's my physical health causing most coffee my depression. I've been very ill with three months in Hospital earlier this year, many on here know about that. It isn't essential to know what is wrong but you can read the gory facts here

I'm still in a mess physically though much stronger and mostly back at work (off sick today due to physical issue and more so the depression it is causing).

I long to be normal and in this physical sense there is such a normal that people can expect to have.

But I know I have Depression and I know it is a fickle thing.  Like Tordel I often get bouts of depression about my kids, who are the best thing in my life. I had custody of them after my divorce and if I hadn't I'd never have made it.

I often feel my mental illness has ruined my childrens' lives.  They don't. I dwell on minute details, of single events where I think I failed them. They don't. Not only don't they dwell on those events they don't even remember them or do remember and don't think I did anything wrong.

There are a few that I know did affect them and oddly I cope with those better. I say 'oddly' but those ones have been addressed, so I guess that's why I cope with those better. They are very small in number and the ones that torture me are far more in number.

So I know that my Depression isn't always based on things that are real. Though the big bit at the moment is... Sadly neither of those things helpn when I'm in a full blown Depression...

Blog
http://judgetutorsemple.wordpress.com/

Twitter
@chiropterarex

JayzusB.Christ

Thanks again, all.  I've tried to write words of support on this thread for other people in the past, but often felt that nothing I could say could ease their depression.  But in my case, your posts really have helped me.  I appreciate it.  It's true of course that depression is something wrong with your own mind rather than outside ills - my brother, as I've mentioned before, is living in a hospital caring for his terminally ill baby, and though his life is falling apart, he doesn't suffer depression as I know it.

Bat King; I really hope your mental and physical health improves soon. 
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Tjm86

Quote from: Bat King on 07 November, 2016, 12:15:18 PM
I dwell on minute details, of single events where I think I failed them. They don't. Not only don't they dwell on those events they don't even remember them or do remember and don't think I did anything wrong.


This is probably the worst part of depression etc, the amplification of errors.  What we see as a major catastrophe is for others a minor blip / normal event.  It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it what it is like.  Nor is it easy to explain the emotional accompaniment.

I personally think this is where therapies like CBT have it right, or at least do for me, where they focus on a more balanced analysis of events that try to offload the emotional baggage.  I think the same is true of thankfulness exercises where we do spend a bit of time reviewing things that we have to be grateful for.  Kids is definitely one for my money. 

Thought Bubble isn't gone Bats, it's just over for this year.  If nothing else you still have the memories and those are just as real as anything else in your head.  Savour them while they are still fresh perhaps?

My biggest challenge is changing my relationship with the anxiety / depression effects of my condition.  Treating it as an interesting visitor, distancing from it and simply letting it be there.  Rather than the old feedback loop that led to some very interesting places.  Today was another roller coaster of terror / anxiety but I got to the end of it.  I hope your (and JBC's) day looks a little brighter with hindsight.

There's an odd song that keeps looping around my head from time to time.  I can't for the life of me remember what film I remember it from but it seems to fit at times.  I remembered enough of the lyrics to be able to track it down:

QuoteI Just Want To Celebrate another day of living,
I Just Want To Celebrate, another day of life.
I put my faith in the people, but the people let me down,
So I turn the other way and carry on anyhow.

The Legendary Shark

Watch it, Tordels - I have access to mass-drivers, you know...

Is quipping okay on this thread? I don't know if quipping's okay on this thread. I hope so, because even though this is a seriously serious thread it could sure use a chuckle now and then.

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TordelBack


JayzusB.Christ

Tordelback wins five more internets to add to his collection.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Grugz

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 07 November, 2016, 09:22:13 PM
Watch it, Tordels - I have access to mass-drivers, you know...

Is quipping okay on this thread? I don't know if quipping's okay on this thread. I hope so, because even though this is a seriously serious thread it could sure use a chuckle now and then.

  aye quipping is fine, I've been accused of making light of illness before and y'know what I have and would do again, its often better to try and make fun of life especially your own or the alternative is feeling sorry for yourself and letting the black mutt gnaw your leg off (been there got the t-shirt) and ranting and telling everyone with your tales of woe helps too just don't bottle nowt up, again I know that doesn't help!

  I was accused of being selfish and good at playing the victim in the past, I was upset at that but thinking about it ,yes I am and sod you cos if its being selfish to want to get you back to being you however you do it then be so.
don't get into an argument with an idiot,he'll drag you down to his level then win with experience!

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,26167.0.html

Eric Plumrose

So. Precedent Trump. Takes the edge of Bricksit. For now.
Not sure if pervert or cheesecake expert.

JayzusB.Christ

I know.  I was already beginning to hate the world I was waking up to every morning. Now I hate it more.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Theblazeuk

Yeah, I woke up this morning with anxiety about my wife's health, money and what kind of future we're heading towards for the first time in ages. Not really something I suffer from.

JayzusB.Christ

Shit. Hope you don't get it too bad, blaze. I'd forgotten just how dreadful the anxiety / depression vicious circle is. 
Me, I've been trying to eat and sleep well, and have avoided alcohol for a few days (I'm normally a very frequent, if not always heavy, drinker). I also had a long chat on the phone last night with a friend and fellow sufferer. I'm beginning to feel just a tiny bit better (or at least less terrible). Hopefully I'll continue to improve.

I hope everyone else here is doing OK. These are grim times and it's not easy to keep things together.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

The Legendary Shark

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