This is not easy for me to do

[RedAlex76]

Hi I am a 37 yr old male for whom depression has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember…….

Let me give you some background about myself. I currently live with my wife and daughter and work full time. I have very few opportunities to get time on my own outside of the home and when I do it usually ends up being more destructive than good for me. Even then it can be an incredible battle at times to get any such time in the first place. I won’t say I have a great number of friends cause to be honest I don’t and never really have had a large group of people around me. I do have one or two that I value their friendship to the highest level possible but getting to see them can at times be difficult and is usually separated with large periods of time passing. If I am being completely honest the subject line for this post is as big an understatement that could ever be made. This really is NOT easy for me to write or even contemplate the actions taken to do this one seemingly simple thing to do!

My life has been dominated by depression in one form or another for as long as I can remember. I have grown up with my mother suffering from depression for most if not all of my life. This time has seen spells within Mental health facilities at different times in our lives and is a battle that to this day she still deals with on a daily basis. But for the last 20 or so years my mother has been active in supporting and working for a number of Mental Health charities both where I grew up and now in the North-East of England. She has been on medication and had regular visits to a psychiatrist all of this time and from her point of view things on the whole have gotten better at times over the years (except for this year but more on that later). As you can tell for all the troubles she has had with depression over the years she has chosen to be able to help herself and others who suffer from this curse.

I on the other hand am the complete opposite……

I have been suffering from depression in various levels since easily my teen years. School was not the easiest of places for me to be and I would often find myself isolated from everyone else whether it be due to bullying or a simple fact of not being able to get on with people or approach the subject of making friends. Senior school to be honest ended up being a living nightmare for me as it must have been for many others reading this. By the time I reached my last year at school I had confined myself to spending lunch breaks alone in the classroom, ignoring every form of contact from other pupils around me. The school seemed not to notice anything was wrong and never raised the issue with myself or my parents so I was left to fend for myself in this manner. Since that time the pattern has seemed to repeat itself over and over with only a handful of times where it was broken in any real way.

As for personal relationships I have always had them but I would say my first serious one or real one if you will was not until I had reached the age of 20 and was at Uni. I will never say that I am the most forward person when it comes to finding such relationships and nerves have always been an initial stumbling block. But once I found myself in such a relationship there were the usual issues and problems everyone faces and most worked out for a while or dissipated quickly depending how things naturally developed. Even though through all of them my depression has been in the background I don’t honestly think any of them were adversely affected by it.

Over the years I have known that my depression has gotten worse and worse but unlike my mother I have never taken any steps to deal or manage it. Some of you reading this may be asking yourself the question WHY NOT? Well I have an answer to that and it is not going to be I feel a popular opinion in such a forum, but it is something that I strong believe and stick to so I apologise if what I am about to say offends anyone.

I truly do NOT have any faith or belief in the current system and how depression is handled by the medical services or by any other party!

See I told you it wasn’t going to be a popular opinion. But please let me make this very clear, I know from personal experiences with friends and people I have met through my life who have suffered and still suffer with depression who have been helped by medication and other services provided for them by the NHS etc etc . I am not here to devalue them or the issues that they have battled with and in some cases won the battle. I know people are helped on a daily basis by the current system and I am truly grateful for those wins against a curse that even to this day is really not 100% understood.

It may seem a strange sentiment to come from someone who has grown up with a parent suffering from depression and watched the assistance and medication provided to her throughout my life. But I truly believe the one thing that has really helped her is not the medication and not the visits from Mental Health Nurses etc etc, what has really helped is her decision to devote her time and assistance to those other who suffer with depression.

Anyway enough of the controversial view for now!

Back to the more central point! My depression has seemed to grow in leaps and bounds over the last 18 or so years and has really culminated this year. I will hands down state that 2013 is and has been the hardest of my life. It started with my father going into hospital, finding out he had cancer that he’d had for a year before it was found, then his passing in March, culminating in a slow decline in my sleep patterns, and the depression taking more and more of a grasp on me.

There are other factors that have not helped in any way, shape or form but I won’t go into those here and now. But I will sign off for now with one simple statement.

For me to have reached the point where I would be willing to post such a thing as thing on a public forum is haunting me. I have always been able to put a brave face on for everyone around me many not knowing the struggle I face on a daily basis. To do this now is a huge step for me personally, a step that I am taking with a large amount of trepidation and not a lot of comfort about it! I am hoping that I find this is a step forward for me in regards to breaking my habit of shielding things but I guess only time will tell on that front…….

[Pip]

 :welcome:  I understand what it's like to suffer with depression for many years and know how hard it can be at times living with it.

[craig84]

I have to completely disagree im afraid....  Your unpopular opinion,  rings true with me in my experiences.  There have been a couple of therapists who have enlightened me...  But im really in self recovery,  taking what i can from these "proffesionals"  and using and manipulating what im told to help me as best i can. 

I read alot...  All self help and psychological kind of material....  Ive taught myself a hell of alot and continue to learn on a daily basis.  Right now im reading into bitterness and resentment,  which i hope will give me more understanding of why im bitter and how not to hold onto it as its clearly not healthy.

N my last session with my therapist she said  half way through i seem to be angry she thinks we should end the session now,  i told her bollox,  if i have to sit here and talk about the weather then you can sit there and listen ive waited long enough for this help for you to get rid of me early...  Im so fed up of these self righteous "proffesionals"  believing there helping when some make things worse... 

Sometimes i dont feel like depression is an illness,  it feels more a state of mind that comes and goes the same as any other feeling... We just have to manage everything from environments,  relationships,  selfesteem,  understanding,  careers,  medication,  support to name but a few...  Its overwhwlming most of the time. 

Ive drifted off course... 

Welcome to the forums!  Thank you for sharing!  Ur not alone with your opinions!

[stewart]

Hi Alex, welcome to the forums,
You are not alone in your belief that under the current system depression is not handled sufficiently by the medical services, so you are not in the minority that belief, many people find their own gp to be more helpful than those who are supposedly specialists in the area of depression.

The fact that your mother is able to combat her depression by helping those in a similar situation is good, I often wonder how many of these so called specialists really understand depression, your mother on the other hand has gone through depression and can speak from real life experience.

Having gone through the loss of a family member is understandably something that can make one who suffers from depression feel even worse, also putting on a brave face can take a lot of effort.

Are you on any medication? Sometimes the body becomes resilient to the meds, and your gp can alter the doseage or try you on a different sort.

[RedAlex76]

Hi Pip, Craig84 & Stewart.

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply to my rather lengthy introduction even though in reality it is just the tip of an iceberg that I have never really tried to put down into words.

Stewart, No I am not on any sort of medication for the depression and to be honest I have never actually mentioned it my local GP about suffering from it so have never really had any sort of discussion in regards to what the options out there are but  alot of that comes from a large part of stubborness from myself and the huge lack of faith in the way the current system handles and still to this day holds depression in a way that the stigma never seems to disappear.

You are certainly correct when you say that putting on a brave face takes a lot of effort I think that all the years that I have done so and the culminations of all the events of this year are really starting to take a toll on me now and to be hoenst it is really affecting my sleep patterns.

To be honest the fact that I have even signed up to a forum such as this is a really huge step for me and it is something that inside I am still coming to terms with. I just hope that I will make the concious decision to use the forum as a genuine source of help and guidance for how things are going for me. and that this is not just a 'false dawn' of me reaching out for help!!

Thankfully there is a 'Need A Rant' section to this forum and if I can find the time and the space there will hopefully be a couple of posts coming up from me in the near future.........

but for now I will once again say thank you for taking the time and will hope to be able to help in my own way with other members of this forum and take on board the advice given to me.