Depression, Anxiety, or other Mental Health Conditions

Rapidly-Greying wrote:I can talk about this on here as nobody knows me. The thing is, life is just too hard and I'm done with it. I'm not going to list the reasons and I'm not looking for sympathy or to be talked out of what I'm planning, I simply want to tell someone.

I'm planning to kill myself on Christmas day. I've tried before and failed but I - *mess it up this time. I've never taken heroin so I'm going to find a supplier and stockpile it for Christmas day. 1 injection of a massive amount and then I'll do the one thing that makes me happy, sleep.

I'm only at peace when I'm sleeping so the thought of everlasting sleep fills me with joy and serenity.

Good luck to all of you.

I don't know where you live but if it's in the south of England I'd be happy to go for a drink with you and have a chat.

Maybe that sounds a bit weird but I know for a fact when I've been feeling my worst someone offering that to me would have made the world of difference to me.

EDIT: just noticed you're from Scotland, I'd be happy to chat to you over the phone

I don't want to take attention away from RG's post but I really losing the energy to keep going and just need to vent., I apologise if it comes off as insensitive, but I just need to let it out somewhere.

Last week on my day off I really struggled, I posted some GIFs just saying 'help' on social media (twice) because I didn't know what else to do and I had 3 people message me: my sister, my boss and my friend who lives 2 hours away and can't do anything. My boss and my sister just don't understand how I feel, it's almost be funny how far off base they are with their responses

I've been like this two years and not once has someone called me, or met me in person to have a chat when I've needed it, I've literally asked for help and nobody is willing too, all my work know about my struggles: nothing

It just makes me feel so low, I feel like crying a lot of the time now, way more than I used to, I think part of that is that I've had the courage to open myself up to people and they've (at least from my point of view) rolled their eyes at me

Thought this was probably better here than the chat thread.

Just found out my Uncle in Canada has Pancreatic Cancer and has been given 2 months to live at the most. Honestly don't quite know how to feel or how to process it. I wouldn't say I was hugely close to him, but he was a great uncle and always fun to see.

Given how much of my anxiety last year was focused around a fear of death I honestly don't know how I'm going to handle it when the time does come.
Ontop of that my 90 year old Grandma was taken to hospital last night due to pains in her arm, but every test came back fine and it was put down to stress/exhaustion, but again my mind just raced to the worst.

Fade wrote:I don't want to take attention away from RG's post but I really losing the energy to keep going and just need to vent., I apologise if it comes off as insensitive, but I just need to let it out somewhere.

Last week on my day off I really struggled, I posted some GIFs just saying 'help' on social media (twice) because I didn't know what else to do and I had 3 people message me: my sister, my boss and my friend who lives 2 hours away and can't do anything. My boss and my sister just don't understand how I feel, it's almost be funny how far off base they are with their responses

I've been like this two years and not once has someone called me, or met me in person to have a chat when I've needed it, I've literally asked for help and nobody is willing too, all my work know about my struggles: nothing

It just makes me feel so low, I feel like crying a lot of the time now, way more than I used to, I think part of that is that I've had the courage to open myself up to people and they've (at least from my point of view) rolled their eyes at me

You've probably mentioned this before but have you been seeing a therapist? I'd imagine it could really help with these feelings.

It sounds like those 3 did at least reach out which is more than most would do. Mental health is still a very difficult topic, even for those of us who know what it's like to suffer. It can be offputting if you've not had experience yourself as you don't want to put your foot in it, or feel as though you've nothing to contribute that would help the person.

Yeah I've had therapy, CBT and counselling, I can handle my depression pretty well without meds when I've got a social outlet.

Buy also nobody at work really supports me, like I get it, everyone has their own gooseberry fool going on and they don't owe me anything, we're just colleagues but they literally just reduce my hours and that's it.

I've communicated how much it would mean to me if someone just called me to check up on me over the weekend like once in the 2 years I've been dealing with this recent spiral, but nothing comes of it.

I've tried initiating plans with a few people and nothing ever comes if it, I used to blame myself all the time for how I was, but I've really been trying in this past 6 months, and at some point when the people I work with can't find 15 minutes to check up on a person who they know is mentally ill and is frequently signed off of work, I think that's evidence enough that some of the people around me need to share part of the blame too.

Obviously everyone is responsible for their own mental health, but a lot of people with mental health issues suffer from them because of circumstances outside of their control.

I honestly need to find a new place to work I think. I found it really hard to open up but I thought when I did people would understand how much pain I was in and would help me get back on my feet, but now I just feel embarrassed and worthless.

To share all of that personal trauma with someone and them not even be willing to have a friendly chat with you, makes you feel like dirt.

It's weird we live in a day and age where instead of try and help people we just tell them to get therapy, like we have no influence on a person's life ourselves and therapy just magically fixes everything.

A therapist can't comfort me, or make me feel like part of a group, or give me a helping hand socialising. Therapy is great for understanding why you feel the way you do, and what you should do about it, but at the end of the day I'm not a robot, it's not that easy, and even if you do those things it can still fail, especially when you have nobody to fall back on.

It's like trying to climb a cliff face without a safety rope.

Fade wrote:Yeah I've had therapy, CBT and counselling, I can handle my depression pretty well without meds when I've got a social outlet.

Buy also nobody at work really supports me, like I get it, everyone has their own gooseberry fool going on and they don't owe me anything, we're just colleagues but they literally just reduce my hours and that's it.

I've communicated how much it would mean to me if someone just called me to check up on me over the weekend like once in the 2 years I've been dealing with this recent spiral, but nothing comes of it.

I've tried initiating plans with a few people and nothing ever comes if it, I used to blame myself all the time for how I was, but I've really been trying in this past 6 months, and at some point when the people I work with can't find 15 minutes to check up on a person who they know is mentally ill and is frequently signed off of work, I think that's evidence enough that some of the people around me need to share part of the blame too.

Obviously everyone is responsible for their own mental health, but a lot of people with mental health issues suffer from them because of circumstances outside of their control.

I honestly need to find a new place to work I think. I found it really hard to open up but I thought when I did people would understand how much pain I was in and would help me get back on my feet, but now I just feel embarrassed and worthless.

To share all of that personal trauma with someone and them not even be willing to have a friendly chat with you, makes you feel like dirt.

It's weird we live in a day and age where instead of try and help people we just tell them to get therapy, like we have no influence on a person's life ourselves and therapy just magically fixes everything.

A therapist can't comfort me, or make me feel like part of a group, or give me a helping hand socialising. Therapy is great for understanding why you feel the way you do, and what you should do about it, but at the end of the day I'm not a robot, it's not that easy, and even if you do those things it can still fail, especially when you have nobody to fall back on.

It's like trying to climb a cliff face without a safety rope.

Dunno whether to take that as a dig

Your colleagues don't sound great but as you say they have no obligation to be better since they're not necessarily your mates. Maybe changing work would be better but i wouldn't do it only in the hope the new colleauges are more friendly.

Consistently going to meet ups, dates, events, etc., is all I can suggest that has worked for me in making new friends. Pushing through the dozens of gooseberry fool encounters where the people are dull or nothing clicks. And even when good it's tough keeping those friendships alive as adults. Not like it was as a kid. Sometimes I cba and just revert to my old school mates (I also like them better but I think that's partly because it's more natural and requires 0 effort to talk to them.)

Nah wasn't meant as a dig at you, you're a stranger on the internet.

I just think it's sad that you can work with someone for 4 years and not give a gooseberry fool about what happens to them in the slightest. Especially when you work in a small team of like 5 people, in a care industry job. I find it incredibly odd.

Sure that stuff works if you're relatively normal and already have some kind of confidence to draw from. But when you are starting from the bottom it is just way too hard to do on your own, I've tried.

And I don't have any school mates on account of them moving away and me having an anxious meltdown for like 3 years after I left school.

Fade wrote:I just think it's sad that you can work with someone for 4 years and not give a gooseberry fool about what happens to them in the slightest. Especially when you work in a small team of like 5 people, in a care industry job. I find it incredibly odd.

Happens all the time unfortunately. As most here know I work for the NHS and have done for almost a decade, however in my experience most NHS staff are more interested in who's strawberry floating who and other such moronic gossip than actually what anyone of their work colleges may or may not be going through at any given time. At worst, given my own experience, any emotional problems are seen as a burden to everyone else's working day and that you need to "man up". It's why I've pigeon-holed work over the last two years and generally keep myself to myself.

Gemini73 wrote:

Fade wrote:I just think it's sad that you can work with someone for 4 years and not give a gooseberry fool about what happens to them in the slightest. Especially when you work in a small team of like 5 people, in a care industry job. I find it incredibly odd.

Happens all the time unfortunately. As most here know I work for the NHS and have done for almost a decade, however in my experience most NHS staff are more interested in who's strawberry floating who and other such moronic gossip than actually what anyone of their work colleges may or may not be going through at any given time. At worst, given my own experience, any emotional problems are seen as a burden to everyone else's working day and that you need to "man up". It's why I've pigeon-holed work over the last two years and generally keep myself to myself.

That's rather sad.

I think it's fair to say that the average person has terrible listening skills and won't have the skills of a trained therapist experienced with talking to hundreds of people about their problems (which are quite often similar to the extent of being codified as something like depression or anxiety or PTSD, although obviously the exact triggers vary).

Once I understood that I started to to just put out every month for a therapist I no longer felt I needed to rely on other people for that which was draining itself or even had a negative impact on my relationships with others because I myself was quite exhausting and tbh I wanted to talk to those people about other things, I was generally fed up of talking about my problems all the time to others and catching myself out doing that, which can be off-putting. An active social life is important yes but professional help isn't the same, ideally you need a bit of both. And it does take work to maintain relationships of any kind and forge them, I totally understand on a personal level the apathy towards that when feeling low and worthless but it will never get any better writing people off. Unfortunately I also recognise the degree to which friendships take a bit and give a bit, I do make myself available to others and help by just providing interesting conversation or colour or whatever it is that is appealing about me, I'm knowledgable about a load of stuff so I often have people seeking advice about gooseberry fool I know about (including family). Can feel very one-sided indeed and sometimes I never get that same effort back but, compassion in general won't work if it's not selfless, it takes time for others to picture you as a resource as much as a friend and essentially people look for things they are without. It's hard to strike that balance and find that person who's interesting to you and easy to speak to and share stuff in life with but those friends can't and won't happen without offering oneself up to some degree - and sometimes people really do value being open and honest about all the struggles and gooseberry fool that life throws at you, only perhaps not literally talking about that all the time. Basically people are selfish first and besides that one in 100 individual who gives a lot more than they take and is genuinely open and compassionate and has the energy to seemingly be that all the time (which is seldom true, it just appears to be that way and there is a human cost to living like that) it takes time to earn another's trust to truly connect to you.

Myself I have a pretty limited number of people I'd consider close friends, most of all is of course my long term partner but there are a few others. Then again, it was only about 2 months ago in this thread I was talking about 2 of my oldest "friends" being massive bellends to me about my sexuality and so either they had changed or were like that all along and I didn't realise it. If it can take 15+ years to realise someone isn't a good friend, what's the risk of trying to make other friends who turn out to be much better friends after a couple of weeks talking to them.

tl;dr people are unreliable narrators and who the strawberry float knows who's a good person to be friends with or not, but we can only manage our own preconceptions and give people the benefit of the doubt while drawing boundaries personal to us to avoid unneeded conflict and ultimately resenting others and avoiding other people altogether, which I know does not work (unless you're basically best mates with your therapist).

Your expectations on your colleagues are a little high Fade. They are likely just that, colleagues. They are under no obligation to do what you want them to.

It's not realistic to expect them to check in on weekends unless you are consistently hanging around with them outside of work. It sucks. But that's what it is.

I don't think they are high at all. I'm not asking them to be my best friend, or my therapist.

I actually stopped seeing my therapist a while back because I ran out of stuff to talk about, not to mention it cost like 1/6 of my wages with my time off work.

I would just appreciate it if they tried to help me even a little bit. Example: I've been signed off work this past week and not one person has messaged or called me to see how I am, even when they know that my depression is triggered by isolation. Just a friendly little chat like you'd have with your neighbor would do wonders to help me.

Maybe it's just me but whenever someone has Covid isolated from my team I've checked up on them. But then again, one of the people I messaged said I was the only person to check up on her, so I guess people are just shitty.

In my experience people always leave it until it's too late, when I was younger I ended up posting a suicidal message on social media before my friend called me in a panic. I expressed how I felt before hand but nobody took it seriously, just like now. I guess humans are just like that, unless a bad outcome is staring them straight in the face they just act like it'll fix itself.

Everyone's got their own perspective from lived experience. If you didn't experience this feeling from isolation, or if you had lots of other friends who also require attention at times, would you have reached out to the covid isolating colleagues?

If a colleague was isolating due to covid I wouldn't even think about giving them a shout at weekends. If it was a close friend I would but I'd probably assume the colleagues have their own friends/family who would get in touch with them. Plus I don't have a ton in common with colleagues; they're nice, but they ain't mates. I don't think that makes a bad person.

Rocsteady wrote:Everyone's got their own perspective from lived experience. If you didn't experience this feeling from isolation, or if you had lots of other friends who also require attention at times, would you have reached out to the covid isolating colleagues?

If a colleague was isolating due to covid I wouldn't even think about giving them a shout at weekends. If it was a close friend I would but I'd probably assume the colleagues have their own friends/family who would get in touch with them. Plus I don't have a ton in common with colleagues; they're nice, but they ain't mates. I don't think that makes a bad person.

Yes because it literally takes like 10 seconds to send someone a message it's the easiest thing in the world.

I don't think it makes them bad people, not in the slightest, I didn't say that. Everyone's got their own gooseberry fool going on.

Regardless I feel this is straying away from the point I was trying to make. I was just using that as an example of how little people look out for people around them.

When you know someone is depressed and spending 10 seconds to write a message would help them and you choose not to do it, I can't say I really understand. Especially when the result is them spiraling and being signed off of work, which just ultimately means a harder time at work

It is emotionally expensive though. Would you reply to them? Probably. If they're not really your friend then they're going to be placing the onus on themselves to potentially counsel you or strike up a conversation they just don't want to have ongoing for months.

If it takes 10 seconds to send a message and you feel that is a low effort thing... Would it make you feel as better as you think it would? What if you felt, basically the same?

I have to agree that people don't tend to think much about others, perhaps it's a society issue, but it's also typical behaviour. It takes an extraordinary person to voluntarily check in with everyone's health, someone who is most probably an associate if not a stranger. It's emotionally expensive. I think what's going to be hard is if you draw a causation with people not checking in on you with spiralling depression, you have no control over that and thus no control or pathway to recovery from depression. It's a self fulfilling prophecy that can't empower you

In my experience, only meds and therapy work. I'll see my friends when I see them and I'm lucky if anyone messages me who isn't a customer or GRcade.

I've mentioned this before but I've never really made friends at work, I've always not only felt the relationship is different but even if there was a friendship it would be more complicated talking about work etc all the time which I don't want anyway.

There might be some group therapy sessions or meet ups or clubs you can join to try and get to know people outside of work. Outside of school/college/uni etc, honestly I know no other way besides meeting friends of friends at parties or nights out etc.

There are people here you refer to as a stranger on the Internet but is that who they are? It's a discussion happening virtually in real time and I'm engaging with it. Perhaps consider what different kinds of relationships look like.

I don't have a single friend who checks in on my weekly or asks me about my mental wellbeing. Not one, my family don't do that either. Most of my interactions are either myself spewing out into the ether, or some kind of demand or request for help or an opinion or whatever. If I'm lucky I might get some compliments but if I'm honest it's rare. Hence I have few friends and I depend heavily on a different category of relationship which is basically putting all my effort into one person.

I get what you're saying, and I know I ultimately have to climb out of this hole myself, but it just feels like trying to roll a 6 on every turn and if I don't I have to start at the beginning again.

Also being Non-binary and having no way of meeting other Non-binary people in person makes things much harder. I live in massively white, traditional, pretty rural area so the act of me just trying to be myself makes me feel like a massive weirdo.

To the point where it's stopped me from expressing myself.

Every person I've mentioned my pronouns to has ignored them apart from my ex.

I'm bringing my SAD lamp out this week. Started using it last year and really don't know whether it had any impact or not, but am open minded. Has anyone else used one?

Clarkman wrote:I'm bringing my SAD lamp out this week. Started using it last year and really don't know whether it had any impact or not, but am open minded. Has anyone else used one?

I've not, but the logic behind them is pretty solid even if the results are inconclusive. I think they have the most effect if you don't get much natural light in your day to day activities.

Clarkman wrote:I'm bringing my SAD lamp out this week. Started using it last year and really don't know whether it had any impact or not, but am open minded. Has anyone else used one?

Yep! I think it really helps me. I found it most effective to meditate in front of it (and close to it) for 10+ minutes in the morning. Makes me feel very energised when I'm done (more so than just normal meditation), then I'll leave it on in the corner for the day to get that "sunny day" vibe while I'm working.

Sticking with that and taking vitamin D and 5htp supplements really helps get me through our gooseberry fool winters.

By brother nicked mine to grow weed but the lights I had on for lizards are basically the same spectrum, I think they helped but they have all passed on. Maybe I should power them on anyway lol. I open the blinds every day.

Does anyone here have experience trying for a private prescription for cannabis? I looked into it in the past for anxiety and depression and decided it wasn't worth the hassle, but mental health services said they wouldn't offer me therapy (or anything else, lmao) because I self medicate for my physical health issues and it's made me think it might be time to jump through the hoops.

I'm pretty confident I'd be eligible for my physical health issues if not the mental health ones, it's just the process sounds like a pain in the arse and I wondered if anyone here might have insight into it.