I have a really good team of Psychiatrist and a cognative therapist but I struggle so much with depression and hopelessness and suicidal impulses I hate to tell them because I am disappointed in myself never mind having to think about them being disappointed in me. They have never said they were disappointed in me but they are so good to me and so supportive I want to be better for me and them too.
It is hard to hear good things when I feel so awful, and useless.
You describe it all so well. I know much of my personal history is "missing" because I was depressed for so many years. Early childhood, teens, college, married years, post-marriage years with my parents, all of it seems obscured by a mist through which I can barely see and scarcely hear, if at all. And it seems now that I did not consciously choose to obscure all those years. It just happened. Like I had an auto-erase program running so that even significant events in life, like my marriage and graduation from college, are totally missing. And now they are encrypted somehow. Undecipherable. I doubt I will ever get them back. Most of the "memories" I do have of these years are simply from the photographs that were taken. No real "living" memories. Just static pictures.
P.S. Even though I can offer help now (which I was unable to do in the past) it is still much more difficult to receive it. I do have a kind of co-dependent friendship with a sister depression-sufferer. We are not really enablers of each other, but we each offer the other help and are each unable to receive it. Somewhat of an impasse to a true friendship. But I have committed myself to a weekly "appointment" to paint with her and I am hoping our conversations will become more open and less guarded as time passes.
Hi, Carolyn -
That's quite a memory loss. Depression often causes problems with memory, but for me it's more short term memory that has suffered. (And even that I associate more with medications taken over a 15 year period than with depression itself.) Mostly, I tend to obsess about the failures and mistakes of the past rather than blank them out. But these illnesses affect everyone differently - that's one reason no one has yet figured them out. Whatever might cause the problem, EMDR has proven very effective in helping restore lost memories.
John
depression has made me unable to reach out for friends. They say one should reach out to friends when one is depressed but not me. I find even that hard.
So many people with depression have exactly your experience. It really is hard - there are always risks, even if you want to reach out, since it's hard to know if the response would help or just cause more hurt. (I wrote about that here a few weeks ago.) I found it easier to talk to friends after many years of holding off, mostly because I became fully aware of what depression was all about - and also started to feel better. But it's never easy. I hope you won't give up hope about it though. I think social support is a big part of recovery. Real friends want to help and always know when you're not being open. That isn't good for the relationship, as it's often taken as a lack of trust.
John
Sometimes I can rely on the support of friends, but at other times I question whether or not they are being genuine. I have an easier time confiding in those who are or have experienced depression because they have a greater understanding of what I'm going through. I have a very hard time relying on the support of someone who may be interested in dating me though. I can always think of so many reasons why they shouldn't be with me instead of believing they are genuinely concerned about my feelings. One one hand, it has ruined some good possibilities. On the other hand, my depression is probably not going away so whomever I wind up with will have to be able to stand by me in the down times as well as the good.
I can certainly relate to isolating myself completely when I'm severely depressed: I don't see anyone; don't answer the phone and I'm not present if I'm with people. The suffering of this depressed state was so unbearable once that I felt suicide was the only way out. I swallowed a massive overdose of pills. It's only through the prayers of family and friends that I emerged from a vegetative state and am alive with my brain still intact.
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I have a really good team of Psychiatrist and a cognative therapist but I struggle so much with depression and hopelessness and suicidal impulses I hate to tell them because I am disappointed in myself never mind having to think about them being disappointed in me. They have never said they were disappointed in me but they are so good to me and so supportive I want to be better for me and them too.
It is hard to hear good things when I feel so awful, and useless.
hi,i can understand the situation abt friends ,actually if u have close friends and u knw they wont let u down ,then u knw u can tel them .for me it has been always difficult to talk abt depression to my friends coz they wont understand through wat im going ,at least uhave therapist who counsel u,open up to them,open ur heart to them ,dont b afraid and cry even if u must but they r here to help u,so allow urself to b helped
Hi -
Sorry for being AWOL here for the last couple of weeks. Your commen is important, and I know that many share this problem. The need to be thought of as a good patient (or good student, wife, parent, friend) can be so powerful that it takes over from the need to be helped. I've done that so often and still have the tendency, especially if I'm in any sort of group - I need to show the others that I get it and am a model group member. I can't stand to be open about feeling lost or asking for the help I so need.
When I stand back from that kind of thinking and behaving, I see it as so self-defeating. How can I ever get help or even learn anything from someone else if I keep hiding what I really need? In me, it's a deeply rooted feeling of inadequacy and dependence on being liked and approved by others in order to feel worthwhile. It seems to go beyond depression, and I've never learned how to change that except by gradually restoring the sense or myself as a sound and complete person in my own right - not as a conditional person who has to prove something to others to feel OK.
An important thing I've been able to do - and perhaps you're doing this too - is at least to recognize what I'm up to and how self-defeating it is. At least I know it's a problem I have to work on.
Maybe you could talk to your therapist in general terms about your need not to feel you're disappointing people and what you do to get that approval. Starting with some example unrelated to therapy and not yet getting to really sensitive issues. That's one thing I've done.
I hope you can find a way to trust your therapist as someone who is not trying to judge you but to help by working with you on the most difficult problems. The sort of thinking you describe reminds me of the tendency of depressed people to break off a relationship to spare a friend from the worst of the illness. Yet that form of sparing is deadly. What makes relationships possible is trust and that depends on honest communication of whatever you're feeling.
My best to you --
John
Thanks. I appreciate your feedback.You have me pegged pretty well and it is a catch 22. I don't want to be that needy person. I want to be whole and ok but I am not. I am building a trusting relationship with my new Psychiatrist/therapist( I abruptly lost my last one after twenty + years after he lost his license) but in a way it has been a good time to look at where I am at. As great of a loss as it has been, some things like this issue of being afraid to disappoint people/therapist is easier to examine with someone new I guess. It has given me kind of a shock that after so many years of therapy, I am still not in a good space. It is discouraging but will keep trying as long as I am able. Thanks for taking the time to write.It meant the world to me. pat