this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Mental Health

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I've been crying almost daily for a year now, while trying my ass off to keep a stiff upper lip. I've been desperately hanging on to the standard justifications (maybe tomorrow it'll be better, can't let them win, this will pass, won't rain forever, etc., etc.) out of sheer inertia, but I honestly can't say that I believe any of them.

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out which way to take it in life, what to do with myself, but all I feel is the walls closing in. And they're suffocating me. The world is a fucking mess, my life is a fucking mess, I'm completely alone save for a couple of acquaintances with whom I have no true relationship, my close family is entirely dead (which, if I'm being perfectly honest, isn't all that different than when they were alive, except I've been grieving the death of my mother for five years now and it doesn't seem to end), and I'm getting old.

There is nothing which makes me want to wake up in the morning anymore. There is nothing to get me excited anymore. There is nothing to look forward to. And I don't think I'm depressed, because depression felt like letting myself sink in lukewarm tar. This feels like a desperate, rabid sadness, like my soul wants to shred my skin off and just howl itself apart. I can feel my innards wanting to live, truly live, to experience at least some satisfaction, some sort of enjoyment, but I don't know what I could do to get there.

I used to love being creative, but now it's as though that pipeline got clogged up with rotten socks. I used to love interacting with animals, but all I conclude when thinking about getting a dog is that it would be unfair to that poor creature to have it bunk up with my despondent ass. I used to love hanging out with friends, but all of my friends turned out to be people who were only looking out for themselves. I used to love my country, but there's nothing left to love around here anymore. I used to be fascinated by nature, now all I see is how little sense it makes and how worse it's getting due to climate change. I even used to love loving someone, but now I just think about having to go through the process of dating and I'd rather just throw my soul away than have to do that again. I loved smoking weed, now it's just a waste of money, because I'm just as miserable when stoned. I haven't felt joy in... I don't even remember how long, but most definitely not in the past decade...

And I'm so... so fucking tired. I feel more tired than I've ever felt in my entire life. And not "I need more sleep" tired, it's as though I'm one of those old cars abandoned in parking lots, with busted wheels and corroded bodywork, with weeds growing through the upholstery. I don't feel sick, I feel spent. Utterly spent.

And I don't think I can do this anymore.

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[โ€“] wazoobi@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I reached the point in my chronic depression that I finally needed to do something about it almost a year ago. From what you've written it sounds similar to how I was feeling. I don't know if you've tried therapy or antidepressants or anything, but I can tell you that I felt incredibly stupid for not trying them sooner and just living in misery for years.

I was lucky and Zoloft worked for me. I just stopped constantly hating myself and feeling like I was just waiting to die. I'm starting to end using it now, but I found it incredibly helpful to get a sort of "break" from the way I was feeling. It was like I was able to get my head above water and breathe again; I had been drowning in my depression for so long.

Just using my experience to say I hope you try some things and are able to find success with them. I thought I wouldn't get anything out of therapy and was skeptical about trying medications, but it happened to help me and I felt silly for waiting as long as I did to try something.

[โ€“] latenightnoir@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Therapy has helped me immensely, especially to get out of and manage my depression (this is not the worst I've ever been, to be honest)! As for medication, both my therapists and I agreed that I am still in a place where, with enough work and mindfulness, I can keep things under control without the need for medication. And I still agree, as I've not fallen as badly as I did about a decade ago.

This is why I strongly suspect that this is not depression, and my therapists agreed that, at least, it is not a severe form of it if nothing else. I am simply reacting to the conditions around me, and life has not been necessarily kind during the past decade. I do have some form of hypersensitivity in terms of emotional intensity, as sometimes any emotion can be overwhelming (I also have some form of Stendhal Syndrome), so management takes a bit more work.