I am writing this now because I’m at the point in which I’m in my parents’ house, in the countryside, on holiday, but I can’t get myself out of my room in order to enjoy some time with them before I go back to the city I work in and I feel really guilty about
this. I know it’s a vicious circle, the more I stay in, the more I won’t go out, and that I should do something, but I cannot get myself to feel comfortable around them and other people in general. Maybe I feel anxious around them because I constantly expect for them to argue about
something and I can’t take stand that tension anymore, I cannot watch my father drink anymore and my mother and brother become annoyed by it.
To make a parenthesis, I should mention that my father has got a drinking problem since I’ve known him, and that he has always fought my mother. He hasn’t abused me or my brother (except for the ordinary slap when we did smth wrong or did not behave), but he hit my mother several times, once she even had to be hospitalized because of it. Otherwise, he respects his duties to our family, he works and has provided for us and even sustained us during college. However, I can’t stand to speak to him much, especially when he is in the mood to talk ill about
my mother, telling me how stupid and incapable she is.
I am in a point in which I don’t know who I can talk to anymore. I feel so sorry for my mother, because she also has to take care of her father, who is ill and has Alzheimer and sometimes acts violent and treats her bad. She does so much with no appreciation. I wanted to help her these days, while on holiday, but I feel kind of paralysed. Some days I managed to do some chores and help, but other day I didn’t feel like going out of my room. I also feel bad because I didn’t manage to make myself try to light their spirit. They all think I am working now and that’s why I won’t go out.
I am 25 years old, working in an university and pursuing a PhD, living with my boyfriend and, apparently I should have no reason to be depressed.
My first episode of depression happened two years ago after a break-up cumulated with work stress and it was worse than how I feel lately. Then, I couldn’t sleep properly, waking up in the middle of the night after only one hour of sleep, or at five in the morning, I was crying constantly, from any reason, lost weight and felt like I had no reason to wake up in the morning.
For a while now, my mood has alternated, and recently I felt worse. I constantly feel that I don’t like anything anymore, I feel that I have no reason to be happy and I don’t find pleasure in any activity. I have estranged myself from friends and I feel awkward whenever I have to go out or meet someone. It might have contributed to all these the fact that, after a very intense period of work, in july, I had a free month – august. Me and my boyfriend haven’t gone nowhere because we don’t have enough money at the moment, and in the first week I stayed only in the house, watching tv series. That’s when I felt really bad. I didn’t want to go out even to the store and I didn’t answer the phone. I was feeling so low and nervous. I used to get nervous really bad at every fight. I’m not an aggressive person and I surprised myself with the feelings that I had. In fights, I would get really nervous, feeling like screaming, breaking, throwing and hitting things. I managed to contain myself, but I was surprised of the intensity of my feelings and of my bad temper. Sometimes, I felt anxious, restless, and agitated, not knowing how to calm myself. It passed. But the sentiment of fear remained. I constantly have a strange sentiment of fear. It is not clearly directed at something. It is fear in general. Fear of life, of what might come, of possible diseases that my family could start having, and of losing my composure, of not being able to go on with life, to continue working and going forward. Most of all, I am afraid of bad things that could happen and of not being able to go forward because of my state of mind. This fall, I will have to go to another country to study and I will also have to manage a project for which I won some funding, and I am afraid that I will let people down.
Two weeks ago I’ve been to a therapist and she gave me medication for anxiety and depression, saying that I am having a depressive episode. I did not buy the medicines, deciding to try first to get better by going out and exercising. I felt better for a while, but now I feel down again. On the 1st of September I will go back to work and I don’t want the others to see that I am not ok. They have a bad opinion about
this kind of things and I know this from the way they judged a lady co-worker who had recently a depression episode.
I think I will buy the medication the therapist prescribed to me.
I would have preferred to give me a recommendation for a psychologist maybe. I feel like I don’t have anyone to talk to about
this. I don’t want to burden my mother or worry her, because she already has to much on her mind, and she doesn’t need something more to make her sad. With my friends I can’t talk because I’m afraid they will see me as strange and my boyfriend doesn’t understand me. He says I don’t have depression or anxiety and that I have no reason to be depressed, because I haven’t had serious hardships during my life. He is also having a really bad period, because he doesn’t manage to find work and because his mother has cancer. His father has died when he was 14 and now he is having troubles with anxiety. He usually doesn’t want to go out and plays on the computer the entire day in order to get his mind off from problems. When I am in better moods I try to convince him to go out and to have different activities in order to feel better. I try as much as possible to be in a good mood for him, to be able to make him feel better, but I cannot always carry on. He sometimes has a bad temper, and is verbally aggressive, and lately I cannot stand it anymore.
Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to him about
these problems, given his state, but he is my closest and I don’t know who to talk to any longer. Anyway, he doesn’t even believe me. He says that I am a successful young women and I should not have any reason to feel this way. He says that depressive episodes aren’t like depression, that it passes.
However, I feel like I cannot carry on like this anymore. Going to work, doing things robotically, and afterwards going back home in order to watch tv series and eat sweets that could help me numb the feelings I have. Sometimes I feel like not waking up, I just want to hide someplace, stay in bed all day and not see anyone. After I get home I watch tv series just get my mind off my thoughts.
I have thought of *****, but I know it is not an option, because it would mean to destroy the lives of my parents and to hurt many people. But I still can’t escape from this paralysis, this feeling that I have no joy and that I don’t want to wake up in the morning.
I don’t know what to do to feel better. I have read different articles, and theoretically I should know what to do, but I feel that nothing from that would help me, and I can’t manage to make myself do anything. Sometimes, I wonder if this is even depression at all, or if it is only egoism.
Sorry for the long message, but it's the first time I get all this off my chest..
Post Edited By Moderator (getting by) : 8/29/2014 12:31:33 PM (GMT-6)