HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Holding the water back

Support Forums
>
Depression
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 7/27/2005 1:28 PM (GMT 0)
This may sound stupid, but I need to get it out. A lot of the time I go about life with a smile, but am really holding back tears. I am a male and was raised with the stigma of man crying = weakness so I often find it hard to express my true emotions to others. I have a few close friends and my girl friend to talk to, but I often hold back anyway because I don't want to overburden them with my negative feelings. I feel as though if anything they deal with my sadness too much through my b****ing and moaning. I have seen many friendships drift away in recent years and don't want to alienate the good friends that I have and trust. To me it often feels like when you get nausous and have to vomit something bad out but you don't want to feel the experience of getting sick so you hold it back anyway. I know thats a messed up analogy but it's the only way I can really put it that seems to make sense with how it feels. Everything just builds up until I am afraid to let it out, afraid to break down again, even afraid I might not come out of it this time. Man this is hard to write, but I need to express it to people who know what its like. I hope this makes sense to some degree.
Posted 7/27/2005 4:34 PM (GMT 0)
I can relate. I have lived behind so many different masks that I am often unsure if I know who the real me is. Are you seeing a professional therapist? I know that it has helped me alot over the past few years peel off the layers and get closer to who I really am.
Posted 7/27/2005 9:00 PM (GMT 0)
Wow Randy, You just gave me the chills. That was very well said.
A therapist will definetly help. Just somewhere to start,... and to get you in touch with your inner feelings. Also,... it will be a great release for you, if you are afraid of burdening your friends. This is really a nice place here,... you may read something that one writes,.. and you realize you feel the same. But it is always good to also have another outlet. Everbody has to start somewhere,... so I am glad you have found that somewhere "HERE" to start.
Best wishes to you !
Posted 7/27/2005 9:03 PM (GMT 0)
oh, by the way... I am not preaching the "Therapist thing".

Because I haven't been in a while either.  I was sick of hearing "oh poor you,.. and I dont blame you for how you feel". Instead of teaching me tools to help myself.  That was not what i needed !  I have done damge to myself for haing that pity party too long.  Ya know what I mean?

Posted 7/28/2005 3:57 AM (GMT 0)
Welcoe MindsEye,

I think you did a great job of expressing yourself. Randy gave you some good advice. The therapist IS a good idea. You really need someone to bounce things off of.

Mesh . . . if I had an experience like that with a therapist, I would find a different therapist.

blessings!
Posted 7/29/2005 12:24 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks all for the advice! I would like to start seeing a therapist though I would need to be sure it is a good one. I was seeing a psychologist before but got tired of it, in that I felt he was only telling me things I already knew and it didn't feel as though it was helping. At first it felt good to be candid with someone who had an objective opinion, but it didn't seem (to me at least) that it was going anywhere. Sure he gave some helpful advice on some things that I wrote down however in the end I felt I was only being strung along with the answers seemingly over the next dune but never coming. So I stopped seeming him, now it is a matter of money as I have recently moved into a new appartment but remain unemployed (looking but hard to find a job these days). But all in all I think it is a great suggestion something I need to do as soon as <i>possible</i>, that being whenever I get my life put in order.

Also Randy's comment about the different masks made me wonder about my experience taking meds. Lexapro worked the best, but if the meds "create" a personality than technically it isn't the real you. That all bothers me which is the reason I decided to go off the meds in the first place, originally I was tired of strange side effects of nortriptyline, but I wanted to go off antidepressants. I am a writer and an artist and on meds could hardly do either without forcing it out of myself. The intrinsic value was gone and so thats how I knew that the feeling had to be "wrong".
Posted 7/29/2005 4:01 PM (GMT 0)
Minds Eye,

Lexapro is an SSRI. SSRI work in a way that keeps the brain chemical, seratonin, from spilling too fast from the brain. So the REAL you can function. I can't tell you anything about the other types of anti-d's because I don't know much about them.

But if you were happy the way you are, then I don't understand why you would come here to post. I think deep down you know that you need something to change in order to function properly.

Don't forget about the county mental health agencies, they can likely help you if you can't afford to go to a private therapist.

I hope you get this worked out so you can feel good again.

Blessings!
Posted 7/29/2005 4:03 PM (GMT 0)
BTW: I think that the right anti-d's actually helps you "peel off" the masks.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply