Can anyone relate?

Posted by grasping @grasping, Aug 29 12:40am

First, I want to say that in my 67 years of life I have been to many Psychiatrists, therapists, doctors to try and get help for my lifelong depression, anxiety, very low self-esteem.
I have been on so many medications that have not worked because I have very severe IBS and cannot take them. I have read many self-help books. I have talked and talked, been honest and told everything. NOTHING has helped me and I get very frustrated with every website, chat, podcast that says get professional help with severe depression, this just does not work! I feel everyone is missing something or I am just too dense to understand what is told to me. I do not even think anyone I go to cares if they help me. I do not think I have been given the right diagnosis.
I will just say what I am going through daily and hope that someone out there can relate to me.
I look around and compare myself to everyone and come up short. I obsess all day, most every day, about how ugly I am, how stupid, boring. I feel like no one likes me. I am not fun, interesting or pretty, I think everything revolves around looks. I am very self-centered. I am shallow for thinking this way and hate that I cannot stop it. I have no talent and cannot do anything well.
I do not understand how people relate. I do not feel connected to anyone.
I am living with my ex-husband who drives me insane, although everyone else likes him. I am stressed because we do not like the same things, also, he wants sex and intimacy and I cannot give that to him, my body is too ugly, also I had to have a radical hysterectomy because of cancer and have no sex drive. This causes so much anxiety. I explained this all to him, but he does not understand. He tells me I am crazy. The reason I am living with him is because I cannot financially make it on my own and for some reason he wanted me back even after I left him.
I feel severe sadness when my 2 grown children do things without me. I cannot stop myself from pouring out my pain to my children because I have no one else to talk to. This makes me feel even worse. I am a horrible parent for doing this to my children.
The older I get the more bitter and angry I get because I have lived my life hating myself, wishing I could change everything about myself. I am angry that no one can help me. I am mad that others seem to like themselves, have friends, and have people that love them.
I try to tell myself to just live alone and not socialize with anyone. Do not look in the mirror so that I will not see myself. This is the only way I can live without losing my mind. Yet I want what others have so when I isolate myself, I end up crying all day.
I had alcoholic parents, I got married at 17 to get out of the house, I lost 2 children to crib death, I was born flat chested and all I ever wanted was to be pretty. I had implants that my body rejected several times so now, after having them removed, I look deformed. I have tried many surgeries to make myself look acceptable, be loveable.
I understand that many people have it worse than I. For some reason others deal with things, they grow up and do not put as much emphasis on looks. I cannot do that.
There are people who do not get help There are people that are just not nice. This is me.
Please, is there anyone out there who can relate?

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grasping | @grasping | 2 days ago

In reply to @shmerdloff "@parrot53 From shmerdloff Hi👋 grasping. Telk us your first name?" + (show)

@shmerdloff
why is my first name important?

shmerdloff | @shmerdloff | 2 days ago

In reply to @grasping "@shmerdloff why is my first name important?" + (show)

@grasping
... because you are a person and not a tag line. Grasping sounds rasping 😥

grasping | @grasping | 2 days ago

In reply to @mariannewmoon "@grasping Yes with major depression in can require much more than just thought. Yet isn't it..." + (show)

@mariannewmoon

@grasping Yes with major depression in can require much more than just thought. Yet isn't it your thoughts that are driving your depression? Or is your depression driving your thoughts? You indicated previously that you have bad thoughts about yourself, because of past things you have done. I always thought major depression, which I have had before, doesn't need any reason it is just something that is biological, or hormonal, or chemicals. You have made me think and remember what it was like. Of course, when I was depressed like that, I thought of all the bad things about myself, and that no one loved me or cared if I were to drop of the face of the earth. Actually, I still get those feelings sometimes. To tell the truth I can't think of anything that I did that helped. I didn't even have anyone to talk to. That was way before Facebook too. Somehow, it just seemed to go away by itself. At least that severely. Although I do seem depressed a lot still. It does sometimes seem to help when I am writing about it like I am now. I too have been to therapists who just seem to be reciting what they were taught from their textbooks and had no clue as to really understanding what you were going through. Anyway, I guess I just wanted to say that I don't believe telling someone who is clinically depressed to just start thinking positive thoughts, or trust in God, especially if they don't even believe in God. I guess if someone is taking a drug that actually helps, that is a good thing. Other than that, I can't think of anything else that would help except time. Of course, also not giving up. I gave up one time, this was another time, when I was in a very devastating situation that my mind just could not handle. Without any thought, or purpose in mind other than stopping the pain I was in, I almost killed myself. I will just say the drugs you get from the drs. don't go well with Mad Dog. That is, MD20/20. When I woke up in the hospital after having my stomach pumped, there was no one there. Not even a dr or nurse, let alone the person who brought me there...my husband. So, I just got my things and left, and started walking, and kept on walking until I got back to my home, where my husband was with his girlfriend. Well, I won't go on any further. I have never said any of that before to anyone. I just wanted you to know that I know what real depression is, and that I understand there often is no one around you can trust to help. But here I am now. I didn't give up, although not consciously, I never thought about it after that. I am not sure this helps anyone else. But it helped me to say it and remember it. So, again I say, don't give up and keep talking.

Jump to this post

@mariannewmoon
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am the same in thinking nothing has worked for me but, like you, writing about how I feel seems to release a little pressure.

grasping | @grasping | 2 days ago

In reply to @shmerdloff "@grasping ... because you are a person and not a tag line. Grasping sounds rasping 😥" + (show)

@shmerdloff
It does not sound like rasping to me. Grasping to me means tightly holding on to the hope of getting help when I highly doubt there is any. Exactly how I feel.

shmerdloff | @shmerdloff | 2 days ago

In reply to @grasping "@shmerdloff It does not sound like rasping to me. Grasping to me means tightly holding on..." + (show)

@grasping
I was trying to say grasping has a negative tone to it, hoping your actual name would be more comfortable. I am not prying. Just trying.

asknot136 | @asknot136 | 2 days ago

Grasping, the weight of depression is crushing. My mother, my daughter, and me. Many years of talk therapy was useful for the insight. The real answer is finding a good MD psychiatrist who understands the science of medication, a psycho-pharmacologist who can find the right medication. There are very few of these specialists, because non-md’s can now prescribe. Do not dial-a-therapist. Find someone who understands and knows how to monitor and adjust dosages.
During a very difficult time, the book The Noonday Demon - an Atlas of Depression was recommended to me. It was the best book I’ve ever read about the agony of depression and moving thru it. There is help for you.

judyandchloe | @judyandchloe | 2 days ago

In reply to @parrot53 "Just checking in to see how you are doing. I have been thinking about your self..." + (show)

@parrot53 I can relate-major depressive disorder, PTSD from being mugged, severe anxiety disorder and OCD. Been on a million medications-five times this year I have discovered I was over or under medicated for years. Talk about furious. Horrible heartburn. Ruined teeth from dry mouth. Stupified thanks to taking two medicines that duplicated their uses, etc etc…all very expensive in every way. I’m 70, fighting this BPI plus the above thing since a kid. Undiagnosed until 26 years ago. I’m beyond angry but get through each day as positive as I can be because I’m no quitter…I can’t be or I’ll have another breakdown. That’s no fun.

Please feel free to connect with me. It’s nearly impossible to find someone who will let you know you are in the same place in life. And, try to find a psycopharmacologist…a psychiatrist who ho also specializes in medications. One saved me!.

grasping | @grasping | 2 days ago

In reply to @asknot136 "Grasping, the weight of depression is crushing. My mother, my daughter, and me. Many years of..." + (show)

@asknot136
I have been trying to find a good doctor. I am going to get the book. Thank you

shmerdloff | @shmerdloff | 2 days ago

In reply to @grasping "This reminds me of people saying to me just stop being depressed which makes me hate..." + (show)

@grasping
Thank you "grasping." Our past is stored in our unconscious, and in our bodies. It is part of us.
Jung says, and I agree paraphrasing, if you don't recognize and honor your unconscious and the stuff stored in there, it builds and will explode into symptoms. His therapy process was to gently bring the UNconscious to consciousness, acknowledge the past. Make the best peace you can with it. THEN you can move on having shrunk, to a puppy, the dragon guarding the pearl in the cave.
In Zen Buddhism you can become empty and marvellous. Free.
A person may have had great worldly success, but sooner or later the unresolved complexes can spring up and destroy everything.
Some call it "A midlife crisis," or "A breakdown," unless there may be some organic biological cause.
"Just snap out of it," expresses the other's frustration, not helpfulness. It's hurtful.
Everything swept under the rug makes a big mound in the carpet.

sisyphus | @sisyphus | 13 hours ago

Unless one is a speed reader with excellent skills to grasp the meaning, the Noonday Demon spanning nearly 700 pages, I think it's good to know what the Kirkus Review -- a recognized viewer -- of what the book has to say:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/andrew-solomon/the-noonday-demon/
The review also alerts that it's a depressive book with many tales of misery.

Yes it does seem to say about the "salutary effect of diet and exercise on depression" what is a common wisdom in mental health area. Or, as I'd say, No mental health without physical health. After all, we are Not parts of a complex machine, we are a work far superior to what human would even Imagine creating

Indeed Plato might have said the same when he alludes that the 'part cannot be well unless the whole is well.'