Depression and Anxiety

Churchill's black dog. He's hovering in the background at the moment.
I hate Winter as well. I'm a sun worshipper and if I can't sit in the sun I get depressed. I can't do any physical activity but just sitting in the sunshine cheers me up. ( my excuse for cruising)

I don't suffer from clinical depression but I get heartily sick of myself for constantly worrying, always looking at things in a negative way and being a terrible hypochondriac. Sad news items wear me down so much that I do, now, try to avoid them. When I was away the other week, no phone, no internet and very busy decorating and painting furniture I felt like a different person, as if all the things I worried about where hundreds of miles away and couldn't affect me. Soon as I got home all the worries came back [thinking about that character with the black cloud that used to be in a cartoon strip]. I had a friend who suffered from post surgery depression after a heart operation; it totally took him by surprise but is thankfully on the mend in both ways now.

Post surgery depression is very common. They pump you full of powerful drugs that can take many days/weeks to clear your system.

I'm seventy-five and I've had recurrent periods of depression since the menopause in my fifties, so about twenty years. It's been every year for the past three years and at the moment it has lasted since January, with a brief respite in April.

I'm beginning to feel desperate and thrashing around for solutions. The NHS offers a short course of CBT and at the moment I'm paying for private counselling, though at £45 a session I won't be able to continue with it for too long. Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that, although there may be triggers, it is endogenous problem.

I try so hard to keep up with my normal activities but the effort is draining. I feel better at night, but that is clouded by the fact that I know I'll wake up feeling dreadful again.

My main symptom is a feeling of 'butterflies' on the pit of my stomach which never goes away and which seems to lead to an inability to make decisions and cope with the ordinary everyday tasks, though I do try to achieve something every day.

I've got wonderful support from my poor husband and hate burdening him with such a drag of a wife. I don't tell many people, It's not that I'm ashamed, it's just that there really isn't anything that anyone can do much as they would like to, and if people don't know it means that I have to 'act', which stops me from giving in to the desire to give in totally.

I think depression affects everything, and because my symptoms are 'physical, I can't get away from it even when to an outsider, I'm acting normally.

MIND offer some courses which have been helpful, but everything they offer is time limited as they are a charity.

As anyone with depression knows, no-one in their right minds would want to feel like this. Just trying to get through to a time when I'll feel like myself again.

Depression is an insidious illness which turns me into my own worst enemy. I feel worthless and undeserving. I blame myself for being weak. And, worst of all, at the very time I need help I isolate myself.

I have levels of depression which I measure by how able I am to socialise. I never socialise in the real world, (that's my normal), but generally manage online. When I'm really bad I don't even do that.

VQ, I would totally agree with your first paragraph, it is me to a tee. But under normal circumstances I can and do socialise in RL but retreat into a shell when I am low.
The dementors in Harry Potter disturb me, as this is how I feel depression overcomes me, suck the happiness out.
As I have got older, I am better able to understand the triggers and return to normal in a few days or occasionally weeks.

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How strange to read posts by oneself from 10 years ago.
My feeling depressed has come and gone for all of that time.
My H lost his battle with Alzheimer’s, my arthritis has resulted in both knee and hip replacements and life has gone on in spite of it all.
I hope others who wrote about their feelings have survived as I have done but some names missing for whatever reason.
Perhaps I am wrong for reviving a very old thread but it was so surprising to recall my mood of ten years ago.

i have had bouts of clinical depression, and have had cancer twice. When I had ovarian cancer , a friend, meaning to be kind, said she admired how well I had coped with operation, chemo etc etc. She was a little shocked when I said that I would rather cope with cancer than depression. With cancer you have some knowledge of the likely things to happen, you can try your best with diet and so forth to help yourself, and you will also have kind support from family and friends, who can grasp some of the things that you are coping with.

With clinical depression, you have to try constantly and so hard to even do the simplest thing, and it feels as though you are climbing Everest every day. It has taken me years to try and stop adding to it by blaming myself for being unable to do things. As a child I was quite intelligent, but my parents , if they were annoyed with me would often say "someone of your intelligence should know better" that rather stuck, and I was not only trying to struggle through the depression, but felt that I should know or have learnt ways to avoid it.

When I am struggling, I find it so hard to make any decisions, big or small, and when things are bad, just doing the absolute minimum, to keep myself clean, and basic cooking, as have no inspiration for anything. This is made harder, as I am a widow now and live alone, so there is no one else to suggest something or have some inspired ideas. Then I know when things are improving , when I actually notice jobs that need doing, and wonder why I havent done something about it.

I think the worst thing is that you cannot know when it might start. Sometimes there is a situation that starts it going downhill, such as a bereavement, but it can start for no reason at all. That also drives me mad, as one of the few things I treasure is my ability to choose how to run my own life. I hate the fact that I can lose weeks of my life to this insidious illness, and the lack of understanding by many people doesnt help. Now I have a lot of physical mobility problems too , so my attitude is basically apart from the basic jobs, if I am up to it, to get out while I can. I usually watch the news in the morning and definitely dont watch later than 6pm, as when my back wont let me sleep I dont need to be constantly thinking of all the awful things happening.

Hooray for GN, where, if I cant sleep ,I can get up and read and rabbit on . When I lived in my house, I could play the piano or radio quietly, but living in a flat now would not want to disturb other people so my quiet lap top gives me something to do to get my mind off things. I sometimes dont see people for days and so I can at least get on GN, and the goodmorning post is something I value, enjoying reading about other peoples lives, and there are lots of interesting things, and you hear about areas that you used to live in, or visited often. I am sure that many people may skip my long sagas but there have been some lovely messages from others who say that they enjoy my posts. So hurrah for GN and may we all have a cooler and better day today

Living alone and without DH who alleviated my down spells without really trying I sympathise. I have to look for a reason to be still here, and some days it is harder than others. Knowing I am not alone in such feelings helps me not to wallow but to find something practical to do. The immaculate state of the oven is a sign that all is not well with me.

Isn't it "funny" GrannySomerset that we have these little markers, perhaps only to ourselves.

GrannySomerset