J
JamesTKirk
New member
This is my life living with depression and anxiety.
I’m 43, male and married. I have a nice house, good job and nice car and every day I wake up slightly disappointed that I didn’t die in my sleep. A peaceful way to go with no blame or anger, just one of those things. I can move on to whatever is next, be it nothingness or something else and others can move on with their lives.
I didn’t realise that I had depression and anxiety until I was in my mid 30’s. There was always something there from a young age, parents divorced when I was 10 but it was amicable and I lived with my dad, seeing my mum at the weekends. I didn’t feel like I was not loved, but when I look back I realised that I felt like they didn’t care. There was no one there when I got up for school and no one there when I came home (dad and step mum worked), no one asked about my homework, what I wanted to do with my life or even what was going on in my life. My parents were busy getting on with their new lives, so I withdrew into myself and became very independent.
I was the usual painfully shy teenager and when I left school (with not very good grades) I started working on a building site with my dad. Fast forward a few years and I’m working somewhere else, worked my way up to a Supervisor and somehow I have a mortgage (this was the 90s), nice little flat, money and a car. I was even starting to date. I wasn’t happy, I had so many moments where I wanted to kill myself, but something always stopped me. Still I didn’t know it was depression, it wasn’t talked about then.
Life moved on and I got better jobs, but as I did so my anxieties got worse. I started having panic attacks, found myself physically unable to walk into a room of new people. I was changing jobs every few years, changing partners because I lost interest very quickly. Things I used to get enjoyment from no longer gave me anything. I had got so used to not feeling (I realise this was me protecting myself) I found I forgot how to feel anything positive, it was only negatives.
I used coping mechanisms; drinking, going out, sex, gambling, and food anything which gave me one moment where I could lose myself and not thinking about anything other than that moment. But as all coping mechanisms they are never enough so you up the ante each time until you just become numb and go through the motions.
I’m at a stage in my life where I could of have had so much more, been so much better. I get good jobs but suffer from imposter syndrome. I have so many ups and downs from one second to the next. I have no concentration or passions. It’s like everything I know is being held in a glass jar. I can see it, I know it’s there and every now and then the lid opens a little and I know the answers to everything, but then just as quick the lid closes and I have forgotten it all again.
I have tried pills and talking to a trained professional (including group). But one of my problems is I know what the problem is, I know what to do; exercise, better diet, socialising more and part of me still thinks I can defeat this on my own. It’s like every day is Groundhog Day in my head.
An interesting side effect (if it’s even that), is my need to save people. I help everyone, talk to people about their problems, and be a great listener and offer advice and support. I realised later in life why I was doing that. It’s because I wanted someone to save me, someone to just ask ‘how are you, let’s talk, tell me about your day’.
For me depression isn’t feeling sad, it’s feeling nothing and I would give anything to feel something.
I’m 43, male and married. I have a nice house, good job and nice car and every day I wake up slightly disappointed that I didn’t die in my sleep. A peaceful way to go with no blame or anger, just one of those things. I can move on to whatever is next, be it nothingness or something else and others can move on with their lives.
I didn’t realise that I had depression and anxiety until I was in my mid 30’s. There was always something there from a young age, parents divorced when I was 10 but it was amicable and I lived with my dad, seeing my mum at the weekends. I didn’t feel like I was not loved, but when I look back I realised that I felt like they didn’t care. There was no one there when I got up for school and no one there when I came home (dad and step mum worked), no one asked about my homework, what I wanted to do with my life or even what was going on in my life. My parents were busy getting on with their new lives, so I withdrew into myself and became very independent.
I was the usual painfully shy teenager and when I left school (with not very good grades) I started working on a building site with my dad. Fast forward a few years and I’m working somewhere else, worked my way up to a Supervisor and somehow I have a mortgage (this was the 90s), nice little flat, money and a car. I was even starting to date. I wasn’t happy, I had so many moments where I wanted to kill myself, but something always stopped me. Still I didn’t know it was depression, it wasn’t talked about then.
Life moved on and I got better jobs, but as I did so my anxieties got worse. I started having panic attacks, found myself physically unable to walk into a room of new people. I was changing jobs every few years, changing partners because I lost interest very quickly. Things I used to get enjoyment from no longer gave me anything. I had got so used to not feeling (I realise this was me protecting myself) I found I forgot how to feel anything positive, it was only negatives.
I used coping mechanisms; drinking, going out, sex, gambling, and food anything which gave me one moment where I could lose myself and not thinking about anything other than that moment. But as all coping mechanisms they are never enough so you up the ante each time until you just become numb and go through the motions.
I’m at a stage in my life where I could of have had so much more, been so much better. I get good jobs but suffer from imposter syndrome. I have so many ups and downs from one second to the next. I have no concentration or passions. It’s like everything I know is being held in a glass jar. I can see it, I know it’s there and every now and then the lid opens a little and I know the answers to everything, but then just as quick the lid closes and I have forgotten it all again.
I have tried pills and talking to a trained professional (including group). But one of my problems is I know what the problem is, I know what to do; exercise, better diet, socialising more and part of me still thinks I can defeat this on my own. It’s like every day is Groundhog Day in my head.
An interesting side effect (if it’s even that), is my need to save people. I help everyone, talk to people about their problems, and be a great listener and offer advice and support. I realised later in life why I was doing that. It’s because I wanted someone to save me, someone to just ask ‘how are you, let’s talk, tell me about your day’.
For me depression isn’t feeling sad, it’s feeling nothing and I would give anything to feel something.
