Just joined up on this site and not quite sure what to say - I've always been a bit cynical about exposing myself (!) on internet forums in general but things have built up to the point where I need to unburden somewhere.
I've just turned 32 and looking back I suppose I've always suffered with a degree of depression - although it's only been iin the last month or so that I've admitted to myself that depression is what it is. Hard to say when it first started, I suppose I was technically bullied at school, but as I tended to give as good as I got I didn't see it like that at the time and it didn't really affect me much - although it has given me extremely low self-esteem, something I've never been able to build up. After school I went onto uni and was going into my final year when my parents split up and since then I've found myself stuck in the middle, something which became much worse when I met my ex. We were very much in love and for a while things were good - then events outwith our control took over, which neither of us dealt with very well. In the midst of this turmoil we found out she was pregnant, so found myself a father at 23. The boy is the best thing that ever happened to me - unfortunately his mother decided she didn't want to stay with me and left me three months later alone with a mortgage to pay, writing me a letter to finish our relationship. I think it was a nice letter, but it's all a bit hazy in the memory.
I can honestly say I don't remember much about 2004-2009, just a feeling of complete numbness and emptiness. I went through a bit of a wild phase which was fun at the time, but didn't help fill the void. The wild times ended when I started getting my son over the whole weekend, which made the weekends bearable but just made Monday-Friday even more empty than before. If it wasn't for having to work 50-60 hours through the week to pay the mortgage and the child support I'd probably have admitted I had depression problems before, working so many hours stopped me thinking about having to go back to my empty flat.
At the start of 2010 I decided I needed to better myself and enrolled back at university to study something I was genuinely interested in. The downside was I had to pay my own fees but I felt it was a price worth paying. I also found love again - something which I didn't think would ever happen. For a while things were good.
Since the turn of this year things have gone downhill. I was made redundant from my previous job which I'd had for 10 years,and despite lengthy experience in my field it took me 6 months to find another job - something I put down to my abject interviewing performances. The lack of money coming in meant that while I had enough saved to meet my financial obligations, I couldn't afford to pay my uni fees and was forced to drop out. This set me into a bit of a tailspin which only got worse as the months went on. I later found out that my girlfriend was seeing someone else and I can't say I blame her, being with me can't have been fun. Our relationship has been complicated this year and when I found out she'd fallen in love with one of her old school friends - something I found out on Facebook - I was devastated.
I found this out about three weeks ago, and being alone for an upcoming birthday I was already dreading - and on that same day my best friend told me he was leaving town for a new job and the sense of isolation and desperation returned big style. Most of my close friends have left my home city or are too busy with their own lives and problems to be bothered by me and it feels like I have no-one to turn to now. It has been about three weeks now since I've had a decent night's sleep, most of it is spent looking at the ceiling and dwelling on every single mistake I've ever made, usually ending up with a bit of a cry. The only thing that has saved me from doing something drastic has been the thought of my son - I hope he never knows that he's saved my life on a few dark moments.
Anyway, last night I was really really down and ended up calling The Samaritans, not something I've ever done or even thought about doing, I'm a stoic, stiff upper lip chap mostly. But the guy suggested, among other things, finding an internet forum to talk to people with similar experiences.
I booked a GP's appointment today for next week and I'm hoping that this is the start of a way forward for me. Even writing a fraction of what I've experienced (and this is just a fraction, but my fingers hurt a bit now!) over the past 15-20 years has made me feel a bit better. So even though it feels and probably reads like a bit of a rambling mess, I think it's exactly what I needed to do to ret and move through this a bit.
So anyway, yeah. Hi everyone.
