worried there's something really wrong with me

Post Reply New Topic

I'm starting to really worry about my mental state.

Ugh. I don't really have the words for how I've been feeling. It's like being depressed. But energetically so, if you know what I mean. I've got all these awful thoughts that I can't get rid of. Fixating on some really bad s**t that this isn't really the place to talk about. And I've got this feeling like something terrible is about to happen.

I'm slipping back into my old, self-destructive, habits. I've been doing stuff I thought I was done with for good. Hiding. Not leaving the house. Not leaving my bed, if I can avoid it. I quit looking for work, and my savings are gonna run out within a few months. I've been getting drunk as s**t every night, just to pass out. My room is a disgusting mess, I literally can't see my floor for all the trash. And, the last couple of weeks, I've started cutting myself again, which I haven't done in almost five years.

My relationship is imploding. She's finally had enough of my s**t. Now, every time we see each other, it's like she's mad at me and she makes excuses to get away and go home as quick as she can. She barely talks to me anymore. I'm so f*****g scared that any day now she's gonna call to tell me she's finally done.

She's all I have. I don't have any friends. My family is even more tired of me than she is. I keep trying to reach out to them, and they keep pushing me away. I embarrass my parents now, and my sisters never really gave a s**t about me in the first place.

I don't have anyone to talk to. I don't wanna be alone again. I spent most of my life alone. I thought I finally didn't have to be anymore. I was wrong.

My grandfather committed suicide a few years ago. No one knew he was dead for almost three months. No one ever thought to call him, or go see him, or noticed that he wasn't around. When they finally did find out they went to his house. It was like an episode of hoarders in there. I've been so scared ever since that I was gonna turn out like him. The more time passes, the more convinced I am that that's exactly how I'm gonna turn out.

I don't know what's wrong with me that makes everyone go away.

All I want is to feel like someone loves me. But I don't deserve it. I look at myself and I'm disgusted. I'd stay away from me too, if I could. I loathe myself. You know when you find a bug in your house and you just step on it, not because you're afraid of it or anything, just because it's very existence offends you? That's how I feel about me.

And there's this other s**t. This bad stuff that happened. And I can't stop thinking about it. It was years and years ago, but I can't stop going over the details over and over and over again. And it makes me feel so f*****g small and pathetic and weak.

I'm not Catholic anymore. But sometimes the only thing that stops me killing myself is I'm afraid I'm gonna go to Hell if I do. I'm scared I'm gonna get to the point where that's not enough anymore.

Do you have a GP/doctor or therapist you can talk to? Sounds like depression or similar to me, you may need outside help to get through this.

I am kinda Catholic, so I am going to pray the Sorrowful Mysteries for you as soon as I post this.

I have been in a similar position in regards to the drinking just to pass out and the mess. I grew up in a home like that (not the drinking, but the mess--my mom had undiagnosed problems of some kind, but at least she wasn't abusive or a drunk) and I'm fighting to not repeat history myself like that. I'm failing at the moment because of problems with my son, who breaks, throws, or hits me with everything he gets his hands on.

I hope your GF can manage to stand by you while you work things out. Please look for some professional help, too. A lot of people here seem to have either too much aloneness or not enough.

I know a virtual hug isn't as warm as a real one, but here you go... (hug).

See a doctor right away. It could be just depression, or it could be something worse like schizophrenia. It's sounding more like the latter. This needs to be addressed NOW, because the longer it goes untreated, the worse it gets.

On antidepressants. Trying to find something that works. Won't go to a therapist again, have had nothing but bad experiences with them. Can't afford it anyway.

Don't really see the point in it anyway. What's wrong is what's missing in my life. Other people. No amount of therapy is gonna make me feel less alone. Therapy isn't gonna make the people I care about care back. Therapy won't make my girlfriend love me again. It won't make me less of an embarrassment to my family.

Not that I'm trying to blame this on them. It's not their fault. It's mine. They're perfectly capable of being being kind, caring, wonderful people. I see them act that way with each other. So if they can't, or have given up on, being that for me, then it's something wrong with me.

I have also had bad experiences with so-called "therapy" (cough, cough). In fact, I'd say most psychologists and psychiatrists and the like are ideologues and prima donnas more concerned with themselves and their pet theories than they are with the welfare of their clients and patients.

Now, one open field is that a general practitioner can prescribe an antidepressant just as well as any other doctor. And since it's all trial and error in a respectful sense, nothing is really gained by going to a specialist. In fact, a generalist may have more a sense of patience and willingness to tinker, and that trumps genius, at least in this case.

My guess is that you're struggling with what's called agitated depression (or it used to be called this, which may now be an old-fashioned term). Something like Zoloft might work great or it might not do a thing. No doctor in the world can predict in advance. A lot depends on your individual biochem.

It's also sometimes important to step down from an antidepressant in phases even if it doesn't seem to be working. Again, someone like an internist might be a big help.

I respectfully disagree with you about the part at the end. Plenty of kind, caring, wonderful people do also engage in scapegoating. In my own family, prior to age 17 I was viewed as the hero of the family, and then it's like the coin flipped over and I was viewed as the scapegoat. And I think this is a relatively common pattern. Whereas looking back, damn, all I wanted to do was to be viewed as a regular person.

What you describe sounds like a chemical imbalance that's obviously not being sufficiently dealt with by the antidepressants, you are right therapy won't fix that, but nor will sitting on your backside complaining to a forum about it.

yeah, that's been pretty much exactly my experience with them.



my GPs been pretty great. Patient, ready to try new meds. Only thing is, they just keep not working. It takes time, I know. But I don't know how long I can tolerate this while I wait for something to work.

I realize that complaining online solves nothing. I just have no idea what the hell else to do.

It sounds like your anti-depressants aren't working anymore. All the things you describe are severe depression. Talk to the doc that prescribed them to you and explain the symptoms you have. This isn't going to get better on its own.

It's true what you say about therapists, there are so many bad ones. I had to go through two or three before I found one that was competent. The bottom line, though, is that if you don't find a competent therapist and start trying to untangle all the stuff you're going through, you will find yourself alone soon. You are pushing your gf away. There are a lot of people who will stay in a relationship when their partner is having problems, but usually that's only if their partner is working on a solution/seeking help. If all she sees is the situation getting worse and that you have no intention of seeking help, she might abandon ship.

Other people are missing from your life, but it sounds like that may be because you're shutting them out. That is a very common thing people do when they're depressed, and they don't even realize they're doing it. Think about it, though....if your place is trashed, you're drunk every night, etc....you aren't making it easy for your gf to spend time with you.

It's good that you see your own role in all of this, but I do think you are being too hard on yourself.

Depression takes all your problems and makes them hit you 10 times as hard. The loneliness you feel is very characteristic of severe depression and I hate to say it, but without help that feeling won't go away. I've had that feeling before when I was surrounded by people who loved me...but all I could feel was this deep emptiness and a feeling like I'd always be alone in the end. That feeling is amplified by your depression, and it can become suffocating. It can be there even when you are surrounded with people who love you.

Therapy CAN make your gf love you again. It can show you how to change so you can be close. It can show you how to stop pushing her away. It can show you how to mend the relationships with your family. You cannot control any of them, but you can learn to control yourself. I believe you when you say you've had bad experiences with therapists. But that doesn't mean they all suck at their jobs. Try to interview some until you find someone you click with. Once you find that person, they will enable you to change your life.

Talk to your gf before it's too late and you lose her. Explain everything that's going on and ask for her help. Let her explain if she's mad at you, and if so, apologize and work to make sure it doesn't happen again. You're at a turning point in your relationship. If you don't reach out to her now, you may lose her forever. Make sure this conversation is when you are sober.

Get yourself up and out of the house in the morning. Yeah, I know that is the last thing you feel like doing. Holing up in your house and cutting yourself off from the world might be what you feel like doing, but it is the worst possible thing you can do. You need social contact. Seek it out. It is proven to improve outcomes in depression by a wide margin (even muttering "hi" to the grocery store clerk). You need sunlight to produce vitamin D to keep you out of depression. You need exercise for the endorphins that will ease the pain you are in. Roll it all into one if you can. If you can't, at least try to do one- maybe stand outside your door in the sunlight for 15 minutes one day.

I also struggle with episodes of depression, and I fully realize yours might be worse. And so far I have only read up on antidepressants. I haven't yet tried them, I want to be clear about that. But they are kind of my Ace in the hole. My personal plan is five months, five antidepressants, and that's merely my Vegas 50-50 over/under. Just like betting total points on a game, it merely has a 50% chance of working. Now, what I've read, five different antidepressants has somewhat better than 50 percent of one of them hitting with you. But if they don't, I might try another five, if things get bad and I hope I don't wait too long.

Some written sources say 4 - 8 weeks, or even 8 - 12, to tell if a given antidepressant is going to work or not. But with my plan, I'm not trying to be "nice" to the antidepressant. I'm trying to do something which helps me. So I'm all in favor of faster turnover, with the help of a doctor of course.

And with the proviso that sometimes it's important to phase back from a medication in steps even if the damn thing doesn't seem to be working.

I agree that it's important to talk with your girlfriend, but you don't need to overexplain. Just tell her you're going through a rough patch, which is obvious, which is just acknowledging and putting on the table what she's seen with her own two eyes. And maybe go do something earlier before you start drinking.

And one thing not mentioned here is how brutally stressful pre-Christmas can be for those of us, like myself and it sounds like you, with difficult family situations. The weeks anticipating Christmas more stressful than the event itself. In a similar vein, they did a study of people under threat of military occupation, I think for WWII. They found people under threat of imminent military occupation experienced more stress than people already under occupation!

So, one thing, if they are free positives you can add to your life, that's a good thing. Maybe a sports league? Or on the job front, maybe H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt or similar. It doesn't pay well, but it's actually very good work with and for a client. It has an anti-corporate edge which I like, in that Block is not a fully ethical company since they didn't disclose substantial negatives of their loan and bank products. It would be a close time line, since you'd have to gear up to learn the stuff, fail the test first time (realistic) and then pass it, and then start work last week of December. Then try and build up colleagues in realistic manner. I'll tell you more if you're interested. I was fired one time out of four largely for disclosing, but that means three times out of four, I wasn't fired. Job ends early February and that's it.

Word on this.

I'll ignore all the psychologist jabs and wont take them personally.
(I know all too well how useless most of them are at dealing with us)

But it does seem that your anti depressants aren't working. It sounds like they never really were working, sounds like all they were doing was "keeping it in check". That's no way to live. Have you at least started putting in some serious reearch into other options and finding out what is out there as well as alternatives?

I'm pretty sure this isn't just about depression - it's about a whole bunch of crap that you're either dealing with or replaying, and you don't feel capable of dealing with it all.

Seems like there are mutliple things at play here: physical pain, memories events and things that you haven't dealt with, your current situation both work, relationship and family wise, and depression to top all of it off. I think most people in your position wouldn't be dealing with it well, so don't be too hard on yourself.

I see it like there are two things that can do something for you. One is professional medical assistance, and two is you helping yourself. I do know that the whole thing in total looks overwhelming, a monster that can't be grappled with all at once. But it generally doesn't all suddenly appear, but instead piles up one thing at a time. In other words it is not in fact one huge big problem, but a pile of problems. And as they have been added one at a time they can be removed, or dealt with one at a time. Motivation is hard to come by, so channel whatever energy you get from any source into a positive direction. I would start by cleaning your room so as to clear the space you will live in. It kind of symbolizes the gaining positive control of your life from the inside out.