Loneliness and isolation caused by depression

[lostmyway]

Hi all

This is one thing when you have no job and have really bad depression, is the sense of loneliness and isolation you feel long-term. Out of the loop, I just feel so invisible that I could just disappear at anytime, and absolutely no-one would give a damn.

I am trying to get another job, but it is just one barrier after another all of the time; it isn't through the lack of trying.  Also, I really think I am having a really bad midlife crisis right now as it has dawned on me bigtime that I will probably never own my own house, get married and so on.  I'm now 48 and I think that ship has sailed a long time ago.  How do you psychologically get over something like this? try to just forget about the fact that you feel like a total social misfit that nobody actually wants?  I can feel the symptoms getting more severe and it's pretty scary to me.  Everyone else I see is getting on with their lives and actually doing something with it.  Me? I am in stasis, in limbo between reality.  It probably would have been much easier if I hadn't been born in the first place, because I am so tired of trying and getting absolutely nowhere.

Life is just too hard.

[Pip]

It is hard, life is hard and anybody who says it isn't hasn't gone through long periods of hardship and loneliness.

It is also a very true comment that you can be in a room full of people and still feel lonely.

I started understanding what loneliness is really like when I hit my early 20's, still living with my parents and had a job.  I also spent time with my sister and family as they lived close by.  It didn't stop the periods of loneliness as my friends were getting married and I was drifting away from those I had known from school.  I had friends at work but most were in relationships or married so going out with them other than going out at lunchtime started getting rare.

As for getting married I was determined never to get married due to a bad split from a boyfriend when I was 19, finding out I was pregnant then being a victim of forced adoption. This is illegal but parents generally don't know forced adoption is illegal or don't get the support to actually overturn the adoption.  It put me off having more children as I was so scared that the same would happen again.

At 19 years old I lost my trust in everybody as the people whom I should have trusted broke that trust so how could I trust anybody else?

I did get married when I was 32 years which was something short of a miracle because every time I got close to someone I would push them away.  It took time to break down the barriers I had up about having children but my husband knew about my son and I finally felt I had to stand up to the one person who was the main instigator of making sure my son was adopted.  It wasn't to be so I suffered the double trauma of losing one baby and never having another baby.  My son and I reconnected but the trauma of losing him as a baby will never go away as I found an adult who is my son.  It's shocking that it's only just becoming recognised as PTSD and I am a new text book case of it.

This doesn't help you but try not giving up on life, it is hard work yet you don't know when your life will change or you meet someone special.

[lostmyway]

I have tried hard for a long time, only it has has been far too long for my liking. I guess we all have scars, mentally or otherwise.  Also, social media I don't think helps at times because it is so negative and narcissistic at times, it makes me nauseated.  I am sorry about your child, Pip that must have been very emotional and hard to cope with. 

Trust is something that can be lost easily and is difficult to get back again.  The loneliness and isolation, despair and hopelessness is something that I have kept hidden for the most part as I try to put my happy face on in public, another sad aspect of depression. 

Also, my friends moved away once they got into relationships and later on got married... so it got worse;  I only had my job to go to and that was low-paid and hard work - now I don't even have that any more so where does that leave me?

I went through 4 years of hard study knowing I wasn't academically gifted, but still did it anyway. A year later, it hasn't made things better; I don't have the drive and motivation and the energy required any more, it has long gone. Tony Blair and the Labour party were full of s**t.