having a bad day

[OJNR]

hi to anybody that might read this. i'm having a bit of a bad day today, and just want to write something to get it off my chest.

i woke up this morning and thought "screw it, i'm going to get out of this rutt." i forgot to take my medication at the usual time, and went to the gym for the first time in a long time. at the end of the session i felt sick and very emotional, as though i would burst into tears at any minute. i cut the session short and took the meds when i went home.

i've been feeling low all afternoon, and i've been constantly frowning. my mind has not stopped going over crappy thoughts about the girl who dropped me a few weeks ago. i keep replaying situations and even fantasising about things that might still happen, when what i really want to do is just forget about it. i just got an anonymous email telling me that she was cheating on me when we were seeing each other, and obviously this isn't what i want to hear. i stupidly sent her a message asking if it was true. no reply as yet, but that's beside the point.

this behaviour is so self-destructive. i thought that getting up and exercising would be a mood boost this morning. it didn't seem to help today. can anybody offer any advice on how to forget about damaging thoughts? this girl is a waste of my time, and i want rid of her from my mind, which is hard because i cared for her. i've been up and down with depression for years, and this situation has sent me right down after a good few months of being on top. i just can't seem to let go.

[Lol]

Hi OJNR. Today was so disappointing for you. I think you might have done too much too soon. Waking up this morning with such a positive attitude must have felt so liberating and to have gone to the gym was a very powerful and positive thing to do. But I think your will might have over-estimated your body's actual capacity, and caused it to emergency shut down and send you into a short depression to stop you.

Just like an athlete been training hard and flat out for months nearing the big race busts his cruciate, has surgery, is on pain relief and is able to walk and thinks - sod this I'm going back to training in the morning and bang - cruciate goes again - pain kicks in again - pain is a very complex process to STOP you from doing something whether you want to or not for your own protection. The body does a simelar thing with depression: It is disabling you for your own protection. It is protecting itself from too much information going in by shutting you down. You may have overwhelmed yourself.

I think the feelings and memories you are experiencing over this girl are remnants of other problems left unanswered. You describe this girl as a waste of your time, yet you cared for her. She must have done something you did not see coming and that is very stressful. Stressful because what one can not understand can not be put to rest and your brain gets stuck in a cycle of trying to make sense of it. Another way depression effects us. We are constantly trying to make sense of events, feelings and emotions but we can't - hence peoples bad dreams, bad moods, lethargy, lack of concentration. Too much to make sense of. Unfortunately, because we are intelligent beings, we are excruciatingly conscious when this is going on. I hope in the future - sci fi future - anaesthesia will be the gold standard for treating depression. Just say night night for a month, go deep and unaware, and wake up with a fresh perspective and the capacity to carry on as 'normal'.

[OJNR]

Hi Lol. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Doesn't it seem like such a waste of life to be wishing time away?! But I know exactly what you mean about hibernation. Unfortunately, even sleeping is an uneasy prospect at the moment.

Can you recommend anything that I can do? I know I shouldn't rush back to mormality, and take things slowly. But the issue with the girl is at the forefront of my mind at the moment. I simply can't focus on anything else.

How are you feeling at the moment?!

[Lol]

Do you understand what happened with this girl? are there questions unanswered? Can you rationalise the situation? Do you need to clarify something with her? Do you want to just get your feelings out? I think some degree of closure is necessary for you to move on. How do you think you could achieve that?

As far as the gym is concerned - this is obviously something you enjoy and associate with flipping depression the bird? I know this sounds absurd and unecessary, but consider doing this - go to the gym, with a book, a book on coping with depression if you like! or just a book. Get a drink in the coffee shop of your gym and sit and read your book for 30 minutes and come home again.

You will have achieved going to the gym. Your brain will be going 'yes I went to the gym check that out!...soaked in the atmosphere,....smelled it's smells, saw it's sights, didn't get overwhelmed with it. I have a handle now on the environment of the gym. check.

Then next time, go to the gym, get changed in the changing room (slightly stressful?) get your butt in the jacuzzi. Relax.............take in all it's stimuli and come home.

Then next time, go to the gym, get changed in the changing room (not so stressful now, delt with that), get on the tread mill and walk for 15 minutes. Get off and come home.

Until......you're training hard and breaking a sweat and the sky is your limit.

I know I sound like a bit of a numpty but the key to surviving this is not what you want but what you can cope with. The two must never be confused, but you can train yourself to break each thing down into managable sections of exposure and you kind of trick yourself. Depresion is a tiny Chimpanzee in a nappy, but not as cute, treat it like one, coax it, talk gently to it, give it the simplest tasks and make a fuss of it when it gets them right.

And yes, it is a sh*g W*n*ing disaster that we have to do such rediculous things, but hey! better to do them in a ridiculous way, than not do them at all.

Some food for thought anyway. Get some thoughts down mate and we'll help you if we can.

Lol

[Lol]

And thank you for asking, I'm ok today. I would say good, but in a period of strength I've made a bit of a show of myself to my beloved and although it feels positive and right, I've a feeling I'll look in the mirror to find there is egg all over my face. How I then take that is another matter. So I'm ok, on the sofa, with a beer, and my (our) cat, and avoiding all mirrors.

Thanks for asking. Lol

[OJNR]

Well that's not such a bad thing. Enjoy those beers.

You're right about everything you just said. With regards to this girl, I do feel that she didn't give me a fair chance, and ended things prematurely. But I'm gettin over that. It's just the thoughts of things we did etc. that are plaguing me. I've left her alone for the most part. Only replying if she gets in touch. Apart from today. I really just want to forget about her, despite how much I like her. She's gone now, but I'm in that phase where she's the only one and I'll never meet a girl like her ever ever again. I know it's irrational.

As for the gym, I thought it might have been a shock to the system. I guess I just loathe the idea that I'm wastin my life here. I want to get bcd on reck and look for work ASAP. I think you're right about slowing down and taking it in stages. Thank you.

[Lol]

I understand that it is very difficult. If all the joys of this girl have been the majority of your life recently, there will be the biggest, emptyest, disasterous space where she used to be. Oh my god do I feel your pain.

Try, without overwhelming the system, to introduce other things into your life like a diary. So you are not just pining for those lovely things you used to do together. Consciously fill your days with anything you can and get the feeling that you've got a lot to do. So, you know you need to buy more beers, get bleech, drop something off at a friends house, apply for some jobs and empty the bins, BUT......surprise of surprises what you're actually going to do is..... plan a trip to a shop you've never been to before, have a look around it and treat yourself to something you wouldn't normally think of, buy beer and bleech whilst you're there, arrange to meet your friend at a pub on the way back instead of a quick one stop, chew his ear off about girls and jobs and general stuff etc etc, drink beer, get a kebab on the way home and lo and behold there's no time to empty the bin but you are gradually replacing memories of you and girl with memories of YOU. Take back some of the power. Give yourself some control. You were ok before her, you will be ok after. Just replace your default with something else, but make that you. Look after you.

[Befuddled]

When it comes to broken relationships time heals, stick in there and it will eventually ease.

[Munchroom]

You have some very good advice there  :)

I think we can all appreciate how frustrating it is to feel like we are 'wasting our lives'. All I have done today is an online food shop, make dinner, make a birthday card for a friends daughter and do some washing - but that is all I have felt able to do. I felt guilty mid-afternoon that the house was a mess, that I hadnt done two loads of washing, that I hadnt made a complicated dinner, that I hadn't unloaded the dishwasher, brought the recycling bins in, walked the dog, done some cleaning etc etc... BUT tommorow, I'll probably feel up to doing a bit more because I havent forced myself into doing anything too demanding today.

Learning how to combat depression is almost like learning how to live again!!! It sounds so dramatic, but we have spent probably our entire adult lives running around, making sure everything gets done 'on time', keeping the house tidy, making ourselves seem irreplaceable.... but for what?! Those that love us, be it friends, family or our very patient other halves love us because of US - and anyone else, well, they can just take us as we are 

Don't beat yourself up about taking things slowly and only doing what you feel able to do. This is an illness and we need to recover from it, which means focusing on you! 

[Befuddled]

A lot of coping with depression is about turning things around - making negatives into positives and believing it.

I've been through many relationships and am currently single, I can pluck a positive from each of them and look back with fondness at certain things and times we had together.

"Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all"