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Feel like I'm fading
I’m writing to you out of desperation after months in a sad, cloudy haze. I’m a 29-year-old woman who has struggled with depression since childhood, but my condition has seriously declined since a series of troubling events. I have lost interest in my friends, my old interests
and even in planning for my future. I know the signs of depression, but this feels different, somehow. My sadness is like a physical veil
that hangs over me. It makes me feel ugly and shrouded and hidden. I haven’t smiled in ages, and I think people are starting to like me less for it. Please help!
Last summer, I brought up marriage and kids with a man that I loved dearly and shared an apartment with. He did not react well, and I was forced to break off our wonderful relationship. I was devastated that he did not protest the breakup, and still has not changed his mind. In one horrible weekend, I threw away most of my belongings and packed up the rest and moved into a sad, lonely studio apartment.
A few weeks later, a long-time friend decided that he no longer wanted me in his life, since his new girlfriend preferred it that way. I
started to take anti-anxiety pills regularly throughout the day and drink heavily at night. Then, the final straw: I received a long-awaited promotion – one that had been meant to secure my future with a husband and kids – and was forced to part with lots of close co-workers. (I couldn't turn down this new job without jeopardizing my entire career.) I now work long hours in a stressful, high-profile job, and then go home to a dark and lonely apartment. I don’t have time to date or see old friends. The winter has made things worse, and I feel heavier and more isolated and more exhausted by the day.
I am now approaching 30, and I feel robbed of what should have been the best years of my life. I worked so hard throughout my 20s – both
professionally and socially – to overcome my depression, to land this difficult career, and to build a good life for myself. Now I feel like
it has been for nothing, and all because these people that I trusted decided to pull the rug out from under me. I am lonely, but dread dating in my 30s. I work all the time – and for what, if not kids and a happy family? I think obsessively that this was not how things were supposed to end up, and I just can’t seem to get over it.
Please help me. This blanket of depression is so severe that it scares me. I think more and more that it’s not worth living if I can’t find some shred of happiness. Talk therapy has just upset me and I end up “breaking up” with each therapist I see after only a few sessions. What are my other options?
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Hi, I'm old enough to be your father or even your grandfather and like you I have suffered from depression for a long time. I hope that the wisdom of my age and the fact I have suffered from some of the same feelings you are currently suffering I can be of some help to you.
First from what you have written I would say you are still suffering from depression. Yes the things you are felling may be different than before they are still symptomatic of depression.
You need to seek the help of a qualified psychiatrist. By qualified I mean one that is board certified. In many states any MD who has had a psychiatric residency can open a psychiatric practice. A board certified psychiatrist is one who has taken and past all the exams and had a fellowship in psychiatry an is certified to practice psychiatry. Once you have found the right doctor you need to be screened for depression so that the correct antidepressant medication can be prescribed and monitored. This will also help with your talk therapy.
It is not unusual to have problems with a talk therapist. I went through three therapist before finding my present therapist. You have to be comfortable with your therapist if therapy is going to work. There are two different kinds of psychological theories psychologist work with. The one you are working with may work under one theory and if it is not working for you say so. The therapist can help you find a therapist who uses the other theory which may work better for you.
One would also think being male I would be more comfortable with a male therapist. Turns out I am more comfortable with my female therapist. My psychiatrist is a male doctor. Which holds true to the rest of my doctors. My family doctor is female, my pains management doctor is male. My acupuncturist is female. It all depends on your comfort level with each of your doctors. The operative words are comfort levels and that is what you must find.
I have never been big on psychology mainly because I do not know how it works. All I do know is; when you have the write doctors in place and you are compliant, it works. Frankly since it is working for me that is all I need to know.
It will work for you too, if you give it half a chance. You will get out of therapy what you put into it. Meaning if you just go and sit there and expect the therapist to do all the work; then it will not work for you. This is why it is so important that you find someone you are comfortable with.
Like it or not at some point you are and will, if you work with your therapist, going to reveal the underlying cause of your depression. I did, I didn't want too. I had it all locked away in the dark recesses of my mind and then one day it all came tumbling out. Almost without my ever thinking about it. When it did I started feeling better.
Give therapy another chance. Find a psychiatrist to treat your depression. Trust me the world is a better place with you in it. When you see things more clearly you will also be able to find that loving relationship you are looking for.
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Keep trying to find a therapist you can connect with. You can't let yourself run away because something upsets you. You set up a pattern of running away, of avoiding, eventually your life is made up of nothing but things you avoid, you can find enough of them in this world to fill your entire life with time spent in pursuit of this one goal.
I don't know what to say about the career. Spend some time thinking about what you want to happen over the course of the rest of your life. Think about what you want, think about things you think you're supposed to want, think about things you need.
I think the response "If I got where I wanted to go and found out it wasn't where I wanted to be, I'd just keep walking" probably sounds glib, I can't say I have anything like your life accomplishments under me that I've ever had to balance in the choice to walk away from a situation I realize I can't stand.
What does your career mean to you? What does being a mother and having a family? Can they coexist, or not? Can you and this career coexist, or not?
You need to find your own answers. The best advice I've got in that regard is that a therapist can be very helpful in figuring out how to ask yourself the right questions.
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