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Still Depressed
I tend to get depressed, but I don't really know why. My therapist said it has to do with the fact that my dad was an alcoholic growing up. My childhood felt very unstable and there was a lot of arguing in my house. My dad finally got help a few years ago and he stopped drinking, so we have a better relationship now. I also moved out, so I thought having my own place would give me peace and calmness. However, I still feel this sadness hanging over me, especially when I'm in my apartment alone. I always longed for that happy family life where we did things together and had fun. However, my family and I are not very close and I never feel like I have their support, which makes me very sad. I also live in the same neighborhood where I grew up so I have a lot of bad memories from my childhood. I'm wondering if maybe I just need a change of scenery, like if I moved far away from here and started fresh would my depression go away? I'm trying to figure out what's going on
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Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
The therapist may be right but it's not the full story. I would approach your family doctor the soonest you can get in. Tell them exactly what you told us leaving nothing left unsaid. You may have depression and need treated for it. It's a medical issue and nothing of your making.
You should keep a chart of how often you go from happy to the absolute lowest you're feeling and write down in a ledger exactly what you feel in that instance. This helps them figure out how often you swing from one to the other. It rules out bipolar disorder and other mental health issues and establishes how rapid your moods shift and why. They will be able to figure out exactly what is going on whereas the therapist can't.
There are definetly issues even if depressed that you haven't been able to process or cope with surrounding your dad's addiction. When talking to a doctor or your therapist reach out to them for support groups and other resources and let them empower you as you need to let all of it out and have support of people who understand and have lived that too.
If you have depression a change of residence won't change what is going on with an illness but combined with treatment may make you happier. I think you also have to get empowered to the point that you can deal with your family situation and start to heal yourself and in turn them by leading by example.
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Moving away is not the magic solution. It might help a little but it will not cure you of what plagues you. I am not a Dr. but it just sounds like it can't be all depression. To me, being someone from the outside hearing this, my first thought is that you are in mourning, yes the same kind of mourning from losing someone or something. In your case, you lost the chance to have a happy loving childhood. You can't go back and try to reclaim what you lost. But you can make sure you read about how you might change and become more like the wonderful adult you wished your parents were. I know so many people whose childhood was bad and yet you'd never know because they are some of the best mothers and fathers I know. The difference is that some people with bad childhoods, continue to live their life as victims, forever the victim while others choose to become over comers. This means that whatever obstacles they find themselves up against due to their past, they find ways to learn and go around them and be better than their parents ever were. No one is going to walk up to you and start telling you how to do this. You have to start reading lots of books on the subject of how to be the things you wished the parents were, So you want to learn how to be close with other people including family, read up on that, wish they had been supportive? Find a book on how to be supportive. All the qualities you wish they had had but didn't, and still don't, you never got to learn simply by observing. But as an adult you can change that. My own husband (2nd husband) was the first child born to a couple both 18. They did not learn things very quickly so in no time, he found himself as an older child being way smarter than his parents and determined to do a better job than they ever did. And he did. I met his daughter. Yes, for you alcoholism could have contributed to what went wrong but it is not the only factor. In my family past is a parent who had to work as slave labor in a Nazi concentration camp. My sis saw a psychologist once who told her that all the problems in our family were caused by this parent having pretty much spent their entire childhood until 18, in a concentration camp until American troops rescued all. That is a horrific past, buy I never saw anything big and bad affecting my parent. They chose to be an over-comer and we were raised real good. Sure there were the memories that didn't go away but there were no nightmares, and the memories no longer held emotional sway, no bite of sadness, regrets, hate, despair or anything else. I know you can do it. Start now and also seek out friends, people who right now at your age and older, have those qualities you wish you had in your parents. I could give a good example of being in disfunctional marriage the first time around, with a hubby who was verbally abusive. I could have decided to act the victim forever as another female friend who went thru the same. She has grey hair now and has never tried to date another man, she was too terrified. I knew I had learned the warning signs and met several men before my 2nd husband. I knew I didn't want anyone even just a teeny tiny bit like my ex. On our 4th date, some guy stops pretending to be who he isn't and shows his true self which was like my ex. I never dated him again. I learned and my goal was to find a man as opposite to my ex as I could and I was successful on that. You can leave your past behind, but you have to stop looking back and look to your future.
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