I have to say it! It feels so darned cosy, reading this thread! I am not alone! Love you guys! <3 <3 <3
Anxiety struck me when I was fourteen years old. Without any way of learning to control it, depression soon followed and has been a part of my life ever since. I'm guessing the black days that followed the births of both my children were PND, but no one discussed it with me so I'll never know. I've taken meds for - hmmm - twenty years now. They keep a hat on the depression. Mostly. I mean, I'm not sad or distressed or anxious. What I am is - nothing. Numb. Empty. Blank page. Reading this thread has made me realise the meds have indeed turned me into a zombie! I'm going to have a big think about this and see if I might make some changes there.
The other thing is that I eventually agreed (after fifteen or so years) to see a therapist about my anxiety. My word. What a difference that made! It only took me three sessions to be able to manage a loathsome and debilitating anxiety that had stopped me from basically going out and living my life. FIFTEEN bloody years I wasted and within three weeks, I was able to control the anxiety and conquer it. It's not gone: I don't expect it ever will be. The difference is, I know I can manage it to a level where I'm not worried by it. FREEDOM!!!
The last comment I'll make is that my depression completely left me three times in my life. The first was the day I left home to go to Uni (four hundred miles away). I was too busy and engaged to even think of how I felt! The second was the day I got my job as a computer consultant for an Apple agency. Again, I was too busy and productive to even pause. The third time was when I married (at the advanced age of thirty-eight). Each of these periods were times of great change and thought and planning. Somehow, I think my brane was rewiring itself in a way. What always brought the depression back was things that destroyed hope. So, an unplanned teen pregnancy; the loss of a relationship and then the loss of my darling Dad to throat cancer.
I firmly believe there's an expectation in modern living that everything should be plain sailing every day: there is no sad; only happy. In older times, people expected life to be tough and they weren't surprised when it got darned nigh impossible. What did they do? They worked harder! These days, we don't expect to raise a sweat in our working day. We expect long periods of leisure. We expect the sun to shine all the time. So, in my mind at least, a lot of relief has been gained by accepting that life isn't always sunny, but the sun will surely rise again.
My heart goes out to all of you who suffer the Black Dog of depression: it's not something anyone would choose for themselves, but it can be managed or improved. You just have to be willing to try and try again.
PS. Just thought I'd add: for those of you who have never had depression, it's not sadness. It's a gradual lessening of certain pathways in the brain until a point is reached where energy levels are at a ground-breaking low and optimism is no longer possible. Oftentimes, sufferers sleep all the time. Others can't sleep at all. Focus and concentration are impossible, memory lapses occur, mistakes are made and, rather than being sad or angry or 'low', people report they feel nothing. Just... nothing... if it's combined with anxiety, other charming symptoms happen. Digestive upsets, skin rashes, loss of hair, loss of appetites, loss of motivation - all these are part and parcel of depression. So, if someone you know has depression, please don't ask them to 'snap out of it'. Don't you think they would if they could?
