Depression (No need to read. Just venting.)

I'm almost tempted to make a "it's like an onion" joke, but I can't really find a way to make that work.

To me my depression is like an infected tooth.

It's infuriating, it'll fade in and out from time to time and it seems to keep a death grip on my thoughts every waking minute of my life.

I think the root of the problem has always been my grim sense of mortality coupled with my failure to look to the future and set a plan of my own in a meaningful way. This issue has only been exacerbated by my depression.

What haunts me when I sleep is the way I shut down and coast through parts that don't interest me, which is almost everything at this point in my life. Work is 8 hours spent day dreaming and college is another 3 or 4 hours spent dreading my upcoming shift. My hope for the future is bleak. I have no dirve to pick out a career and follow through, I can't bring myself to care about work and the constant cycle of dread it heaps on my shoulders.

The mundane cycle that is my life is really taking its toll and I'm not quite sure how to escape it.

I'm on the right path, aren't I? I'm in college and I've passed most of my classes with ease. I'm pulling my weight the best I can, when I can. I'm in fairly decent shape and I have a few conversations every now and then. So why doesn't it bring me any joy? Why can't lively banter be lively banter to me and not cheap small talk?

The lives that most of people in town want to live, I'm living it. Big TV, cozy bed, free time to type this up and so on, but why does it feel so dreadfully empty when I'm laying in bed at night. This train of thought that seems to keep me in a stupor always seem to bring the grimmest sense of mortality out of me.

The clock is ticking and I can't seem to find a meaningful way to spend my time. Whether it's my failure to plan ahead or drive myself forward, I can't seem to find myself a future that doesn't seem so bleak. So mundane.

If I can't see myself living a happy life that way, than what other path is there? Dying on the road? Signing myself up for the army? If I can't find a passion in something in an existence that pretty much tells us to find our own meaning in life, than what's the point in carrying on this way?

I ask myself why god made me this way, often. Someone who yearns for excitement, yet can't push himself to pursue that kind of lifestyle, someone who is so worried about wasted time that almost any plan that's made is tossed aside at the slightest hint of doubt, someone who just isn't brave enough to follow through with something, no matter how badly or pointless it might turn out. Even sadder is that my atheism runs hand in hand with my depression.

I wish that I could believe in a god. I really do. I wish I could turn to someone who could give me a little guidance. I'm getting older and my little boat is sailing further and further away from shore, but No ones telling me how to steer this thing. I wish someone would tell ME what I should instead of telling me what I need to hear instead of the typical get a job speech. I wish that I could believe that there is someone out there that made me this way for a reason. Maybe it's a test? Maybe I'll become a better man for going through this? Maybe I'll run right into what I need on my way to work? Maybe this is the hardest possible path that god could set me on and I'm just failing.

I don't know anymore.

I think that uncertainty is my greatest weakness. Bravery is probably what I lack the most. I'm not a risk taker, yet the lifestyle I'm choosing is almost self destructive to me and I just don't know how to get out of it. If I leave could I live with not seeing my parents for however long? Would they be happy with the choices I make? Am I the kind of person who can make their parents unhappy and stand my ground in that decision? And what if I end up letting myself down? Is the grass greener on the other side of the fence?

The worst product this depression has created by far is my desperate need to escape. A real life way to find that "path to Equestria". Salvia didn't work . Hydros left me in a sleepy haze but I'd have to wake up eventually. People don't seem to cheer me up the way they used to anymore. I've wasted my money on a ton of crap and none of it helped (of course). I've had to cut out cartoons entirely. Watching them reminds me of how dull I've let myself become. I've even taken up lucid dreaming just to help me get away from it all.

All this self loathing is bothersome and I know that the problems I have are mine alone to come to terms with, but I can't find a reason to change. Not to sound morbid but I have no purpose. Whether I'm me as I am or a brand new upbeat me, I imagine I'd still make it as far. I'd be happier but it wouldn't make me smarter, it wouldn't make me more capable or stronger either. So why put so much effort into things that'll pull me back down into the rut, anyway? I have no goal to push towards, yet that's probably what I need more than anything else. Maybe.

Maybe I just need a little more time to think things through.

I'm sorry if this was a whiny blog and I'm really sorry if you decided to read this garbage, but I did this more for myself than anything else. I have no other place to go to vent, so I figure why not use the one thing that no one ever uses on this site.

It's almost like my little diary :3 and I feel alot better.

Comments

[Scootareader]

No need to read. Just venting.

Best time to read.

I have a thousand things to say, but I'm pretty sure all of them would feel like garbage to you. You don't want help or advice for a reason, thus, I will not provide any unless you ask for it.

We must want to help ourselves before we can want others to help us; if we are not willing to be helped, why would we want to be spoon-fed such things?

[Westphalian_Musketeer]

If your current medications aren't working, have you considered trying Fluoxetine (Prozac/Sarafem/Ladose/Fontex)? I suffered from depression for years, and Prozac helped me through very dark times.

I wish someone would tell ME what I should instead of telling me what I need to hear instead of the typical get a job speech.

I wish that I could believe in a god. I really do. I wish I could turn to someone who could give me a little guidance.

I ask myself why god made me this way, often.

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live

- Deuteronomy 30:19

13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

- Matthew 16:13-24

54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. 56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly.

- Luke 22:54-62

15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

- John 21:15-19

And lastly, a little bit of apocryphal beliefs that wrap it up.

[CosmicAfro]

This is most of my life in summary as well, Snuggly.

I too suffer from many of the same afflictions and anti-dep meds didn't seem to cut it, much to the staff's confusion. Outside, I'd seem remarkably cheery and upbeat, but I'm not. Brave faces are the easiest masks to wear.

It's twisted, but I've mostly given up on the higher life. I stopped focusing on my own happiness and goals for a while, accepted I didn't have the answer or the means to find it, and instead push my friends to do what I couldn't and currently can't. There's some solace in watching others succeed. I don't want people to fall into my rut, so I stay inside and push people out and away.

I don't know what I'm trying to say, honestly. You're not the only one out there, there's no magic advice I can give, but the best I can do is offer my company.

[Snuggly]

2469055 I can never turn to medication for help.

Not to say I haven't lazed about in a drug induced haze, but if I have to take something to feel happy again, than I can never really look myself in the mirror and say that I'm happy. To me, taking a drug for it would be more numbing than it would be helpful.

And the cause of my depression would still be there.

It would be like taking morphine with a knife in my leg.

2469481 I think the thing that offers me the most solace is how little that we know as a species. That if we've been wrong about so much, than maybe there is a sliver of a chance that I might actually die one day and wake up in a place where I want to be.

Where trading my life for money isn't seen as my proper place. Where I'm not called selfish for worrying about my own well being by people who want me to worry about theirs.

Fingers crossed :)

[Westphalian_Musketeer]

2470311 Best part of my faith? You get to learn about what a place like that is like, and how to start making this world match that piece by piece.

Consider attending service at a local church. Take a seat in the back, don't even worry about sitting or standing or kneeling when others do. That will all come with time. For your first service, just listen and observe. I personally recommend looking for Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, or Presbyterian churches, I've found those groups to be the most amiable and accurate adherents to the faith. Much as I hate to speak ill of others, Calvinists and Baptists are likely not what you're looking for.

We all seek to find a purpose to our lives, something greater. When we turn to something within ourselves, it can satisfy for a time until we realize that as it is our own creation, what we strive for, it is less than all that we are, for it being a creation of our own, it can only ever be a part of ourselves. With faith there is something larger and outside of ourselves to strive for.

That's just Christianity though, you may find some other faith more suitable; still as man errs, still he must strive.

[Snuggly]

2470357 But what is it that faith offers that is larger than ourselves?

[Westphalian_Musketeer]

2470669 For myself, I would call it a grounded sense of self and morality. Something consistent to look towards.