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LETS ALL LAUGH AT PEOPLE WITH DEPRESSION!!

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭neemish


    Have been to see counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers - I've been throught it all!

    And there is a huge difference between each of the professions. For the past three years, I've been seeing a psychotherapist and it's brilliant. I would argue against the point that "it's JUST talking". No, it's not. It's hard work tring to sort through the different problems and cope with day to day life, as well as seeing where my problems originate from. And it takes a skilled, trained person to guide me through that. If you're not getting anything from your current counsellor, ask them about it. A decent professional will be able to sort the issue with you, a quack will waffle on and not get to the nub of the problem.

    Anytime I've brought up issues with my current person, it has ended up being a point of growth for me.

    Whether you're paying or getting it reduced or for free, you're entitle to ask questions about the service you're getting


  • Registered Users Posts: 83 ✭✭Mucky.Bucky


    neemish wrote: »
    Have been to see counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers - I've been throught it all!

    And there is a huge difference between each of the professions. For the past three years, I've been seeing a psychotherapist and it's brilliant. I would argue against the point that "it's JUST talking". No, it's not. It's hard work tring to sort through the different problems and cope with day to day life, as well as seeing where my problems originate from. And it takes a skilled, trained person to guide me through that. If you're not getting anything from your current counsellor, ask them about it. A decent professional will be able to sort the issue with you, a quack will waffle on and not get to the nub of the problem.

    Anytime I've brought up issues with my current person, it has ended up being a point of growth for me.

    Whether you're paying or getting it reduced or for free, you're entitle to ask questions about the service you're getting


    Do you have to be defered from your gp to a psychotherapist?

    I don't want to go to a counsellor just to sit and yap. I want to get something in return - help, advice, answers, identify any problems/issues and work through them. I'm getting there slowing on my own but I need a little extra help. I need closure.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭neemish


    No, you don't need to be referred in general ( the exception is HSE services)

    Check out the "how to find a counsellor/psychotherapist" thread in Psychology. Gives some great tips.
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055169338


    I think if you/I are clear in what you are looking for,(like what you said in your post Mucky) it becomes a lot easier to find someone. Because you just say that the person and see what they say.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,810 ✭✭✭Seren_


    Do you have to be defered from your gp to a psychotherapist?

    I don't want to go to a counsellor just to sit and yap. I want to get something in return - help, advice, answers, identify any problems/issues and work through them. I'm getting there slowing on my own but I need a little extra help. I need closure.

    To be seen by a public psychotherapist, yes, but to see a private one you don't usually need a referral. If you're planning on going private, it might still be no harm to ask your GP if they have anyone they would recommend.

    I've been seeing my current therapist for the past nine months or so, and it has been amazing help. I really feel like I've changed so much as a person for the better since I began the sessions. Hope it works out for you :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,835 ✭✭✭✭cloud493


    I really reccomended writing a journal for everyone :) even if what you write is incomprehensible crap, it really helps :)


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  • Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 32,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    cloud493 wrote: »
    I really reccomended writing a journal for everyone :) even if what you write is incomprehensible crap, it really helps :)
    Yes, writing things out has helped me too.... its a very good idea if you need to vent or work something out.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭Lyaiera


    DeVore wrote: »
    Yes, writing things out has helped me too.... its a very good idea if you need to vent or work something out.

    Absolutely. And if it feels a little weird (it doesn't to me but still...) then write to a forum. I'm on a few forums where they know all about my problems and no-one has a problem with me putting down a few hundred (sometimes thousand) words and getting my feelings and thoughts out there. I always get a few helpful repsonses and e-hugs. Just getting it out there on paper and definied always makes me feel better. And looking at it a day later I think, "Hrrmm, that wasn't so bad. I feel much better now."


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,835 ✭✭✭✭cloud493


    I ran out of paper in the one I write in recently, only a 3 euro arts book from spar, and its mostly rubbish really :p but its great when your trying to figure stuff out or just say something.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Writing things down has helped me in various forms aswell. When I was a kid I wanted out of home bad and I wrote down what I would need to do to get out. It helped me a lot and it has followed me through life. I still write down my goals but I now also write down things that inspire me. poems I have wrote and anything that puts things into perspective for me.

    I find when I write things like that the real me comes out. Not the traumtised "poor me" eddy but the real me (If that makes sense). Im not my depression or the sh1t that happened to me. I am a happy person by nature and writing helps me remember that.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,293 ✭✭✭1ZRed


    Feeling really really bad so I'm having a drink.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,377 ✭✭✭zenno


    1ZRed wrote: »
    Feeling really really bad so I'm having a drink.

    All that will do is give you a headache in the morning and make it worse.

    Express yourself here and people can guide you. Ah, I see, I missed that. #2228. Stay off the booze if you can.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    I would guide you 1ZRed but I have an appointment in Strabane tomorrow at 11am and I need to get some sleep.

    Feck that I'm not feeling tired. Chat away.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,186 ✭✭✭BUBBLE WRAP


    First time posting here. The op was a great post might I add. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I might need help. I'm unemployed and I feel that played a big part with my mental health. I'm going to take a week of boards and to go out and try to enjoy myself and see how that goes. I find it a big help to know that you not alone in this. Best of luck to everyone.

    Right, the past two days I went for a 5mile cycle in the morning and a 2mile walk in the evening of each day. I feel that exercise works wonders. Feeling a bit better. An other member adviced me on buying a book called, A new earth by Eckharth Tolle. He said its a great read for someone with depression. Has anyone here read it?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,293 ✭✭✭1ZRed


    I'd keep drinking but I've run out.

    I dunno what happened I just had a fight and I started to go over whats happening in my life and I got really unhappy. I just feel completely lost with no goal and I'm just living for the sake of it without anything to keep me guided and grounded.
    It didn't help that I thought about doing some stupid things either.

    @ThomasFlynn Honestly don't stay up because I'm probably going off line anyway:)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,186 ✭✭✭BUBBLE WRAP


    1ZRed wrote: »
    I'd keep drinking but I've run out.

    I dunno what happened I just had a fight and I started to go over whats happening in my life and I got really unhappy. I just feel completely lost with no goal and I'm just living for the sake of it without anything to keep me guided and grounded.
    It didn't help that I thought about doing some stupid things either.

    @ThomasFlynn Honestly don't stay up because I'm probably going off line anyway:)

    I know exactly what you mean, I've attempted them stupid things twice. Failed both times. I think its a good thing though that you ran out of drink, for your own sake.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭Lyaiera


    1ZRed wrote: »
    I'd keep drinking but I've run out.

    I dunno what happened I just had a fight and I started to go over whats happening in my life and I got really unhappy. I just feel completely lost with no goal and I'm just living for the sake of it without anything to keep me guided and grounded.
    It didn't help that I thought about doing some stupid things either.

    @ThomasFlynn Honestly don't stay up because I'm probably going off line anyway:)

    I hope you feel better in the morning mate. :)

    Don't do the same thing tomorrow that made you feel bad today. <3 and ~hugs~


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,293 ✭✭✭1ZRed


    Thanks for the support, yeah I think I'll head off the bed or something to put things in perspective. The drinking only made things better before it hit me and got worse.

    Was talking to my kind of boyfriend who's abroad just now so I'm feeling a bit better after that:)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,835 ✭✭✭✭cloud493


    I didn't get any sleep last night at all, so I just stayed up and wrote in my silly new book till 5am :o all good stuff.


  • Registered Users Posts: 100 ✭✭Jimmyhologram


    I woke up feeling alright, but then within two minutes of consciousness all of the problems, guilt, regrets, worries and fear has paralyzed me. I have a knot in my stomach, can't concentrate, can't motivate myself, and feel lethargic, heavy, old and useless. It's takes a lot of hard mental work to get back to normal, but it's a very fragile normality, and suddenly I'm lying on the floor, crying, and back at the beginning again.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 978 ✭✭✭Roger Sterling


    I feel good today (and indeed the last few days). I feel its important to note when you feel good as well as when you feel bad (indeed for me its something worth celebrating!).

    I got myself out of Dublin for a few days over the weekend to make a long overdue visit to some good friends who have recently had a baby. I have to say it was something of an eye opening experience. Despite having a new born baby they seem to be coping remarkably well, taking everything in their stride and seem to be loving the experince. I have seen other friends at a similar stage absolutely exhausted and tearing their hair out from a lack of sleep. Yet here they are managing well, coping with life in a way that I have always found incredibly tough. Whenever I am faced with a tough challenge ( eg college course, learning to drive, counselling) I tend to let it dominate the entire horizon of my life. I agitate over it, I lose sleep worring about it, everything else in my life is forgotten as this task, which I build up in my head to be insurmountable, takes over my life completely. I constantly tell myself "you'll never be able to do that," I doubt myself, I find ways to run away from the challenge facing me and ultimately completely sabotage myself simply through the way I think about life. Things like looking after the house, taking exercise, eating healthily being there for an interacting properly with my girlfriedn all get cast aside as I fall into a spiral of negativity. Its amazing how many times I have repeated this process in my life, never once stopping to see the absolute madness in it all.

    Yet this weekend something clicked. I saw from the way my friends coped and are coping that life is not impossible, that it is possible to handle whetever it throws at you. i soincerely doubt that their lives are perfect or anything like that and I'm sure there are days when they struggle with the challenges a newborn throw at you, but they are living proof that with the right approach, life doesn't need to be an ordeal.

    Another insight that I had was the way my friend (the husband of the couple we were visiting) approaches life. Not only is he dealing with having a baby, working a 5-day a week 9 to 5 job that is incredibly challenging and skilled but he also fonds the time to train for a triathlon every night! Indeed on Saturday we cheered him on while he completed an Aquathon in a seriously good time. Whe I reflected on t later I realised that his ability to manage life so well is as much to do with how he looks at himself as anything else. Despite having a tough job and a newborn and wife at home, he thinks enough of himself and his own happiness to make sure he has the time to fit in his training regime into his busy schedule. The way I think and act I would have almost certainly dropped the training etc once the baby came along because I'd have built it all up into being "too much" and more pertinently I wouldn't have valued myself enough to see the benefit of continuing the exercise. It is his assertiveness and desire to prioritise what HE wants from life as well as caring for those around him that I now realise I need to work hard upon trying to replicate in my life. I had gotten into a nasty little rut the past couple of months of doing very little in the evenings once I got home from wotk, burying my head in the internet and stopped reaching out to friends and others for company. That has to stop. its the typical pattern that leads me to entering a spiral of unhappiness, lethergy and depression.

    I NEED TO LEARN TO VALUE MYSELF AS MUCH AS I VALUE OTHERS.

    I NEED TO REMEMBER TO SEEK THE COMPANY OF OTHERS AND NOT ISOLATE MYSELF.

    I NEED TO CARE ENOUGH ABOUT MYSELF TO EAT WELL, EXERCISE AND MINGLE REGULARLY WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.

    LIFE IS NOT AN IMPOSSIBLE ORDEAL FROM WHICH I NEED TO CONSTANTLY HIDE. I CAN COPE WITH WHATEVER IT THROWS AT ME. IF I CONTINUE TO WALLOW IN DEPRESSION IT WILL PASS ME BY IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE AND I'LL END UP ON MY DEATH BED WONDERING DID I EVER LOOK LIFE IN THE FACE AND ENJOY WHAT IT THROWS AT ME RATHER THAN SIMPLY ENDURE IT.

    WHEN I CAN I WILL SURROUND MYSELF WITH POSITIVE PROACTIVE PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE ME TO BE THE PERSON I WANT TO BE.

    FROM NOW ON I AM GOING TO F*CKING LIVE RATHER THAN EXIST.

    I know that these things aren't the solution to a lot of my deeper issues and problems, but they give me a far better and heaktier platform from which to begin to address them.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 978 ✭✭✭Roger Sterling


    DeVore wrote: »
    Yes, writing things out has helped me too.... its a very good idea if you need to vent or work something out.

    I've posted maybe 3 or 4 times in this thread and everytime I have done so it has helped clarify something I knew was nestled somewhere in my head but couldn't make sense of. Its a brilliant way of actually putting a shape and structure on the stuff that gets tossed around your head on a constant basis.


  • Registered Users Posts: 387 ✭✭boardie100


    I feel good today (and indeed the last few days). I feel its important to note when you feel good as well as when you feel bad (indeed for me its something worth celebrating!).

    I got myself out of Dublin for a few days over the weekend to make a long overdue visit to some good friends who have recently had a baby. I have to say it was something of an eye opening experience. Despite having a new born baby they seem to be coping remarkably well, taking everything in their stride and seem to be loving the experince. I have seen other friends at a similar stage absolutely exhausted and tearing their hair out from a lack of sleep. Yet here they are managing well, coping with life in a way that I have always found incredibly tough. Whenever I am faced with a tough challenge ( eg college course, learning to drive, counselling) I tend to let it dominate the entire horizon of my life. I agitate over it, I lose sleep worring about it, everything else in my life is forgotten as this task, which I build up in my head to be insurmountable, takes over my life completely. I constantly tell myself "you'll never be able to do that," I doubt myself, I find ways to run away from the challenge facing me and ultimately completely sabotage myself simply through the way I think about life. Things like looking after the house, taking exercise, eating healthily being there for an interacting properly with my girlfriedn all get cast aside as I fall into a spiral of negativity. Its amazing how many times I have repeated this process in my life, never once stopping to see the absolute madness in it all.

    Yet this weekend something clicked. I saw from the way my friends coped and are coping that life is not impossible, that it is possible to handle whetever it throws at you. i soincerely doubt that their lives are perfect or anything like that and I'm sure there are days when they struggle with the challenges a newborn throw at you, but they are living proof that with the right approach, life doesn't need to be an ordeal.

    Another insight that I had was the way my friend (the husband of the couple we were visiting) approaches life. Not only is he dealing with having a baby, working a 5-day a week 9 to 5 job that is incredibly challenging and skilled but he also fonds the time to train for a triathlon every night! Indeed on Saturday we cheered him on while he completed an Aquathon in a seriously good time. Whe I reflected on t later I realised that his ability to manage life so well is as much to do with how he looks at himself as anything else. Despite having a tough job and a newborn and wife at home, he thinks enough of himself and his own happiness to make sure he has the time to fit in his training regime into his busy schedule. The way I think and act I would have almost certainly dropped the training etc once the baby came along because I'd have built it all up into being "too much" and more pertinently I wouldn't have valued myself enough to see the benefit of continuing the exercise. It is his assertiveness and desire to prioritise what HE wants from life as well as caring for those around him that I now realise I need to work hard upon trying to replicate in my life. I had gotten into a nasty little rut the past couple of months of doing very little in the evenings once I got home from wotk, burying my head in the internet and stopped reaching out to friends and others for company. That has to stop. its the typical pattern that leads me to entering a spiral of unhappiness, lethergy and depression.

    I NEED TO LEARN TO VALUE MYSELF AS MUCH AS I VALUE OTHERS.

    I NEED TO REMEMBER TO SEEK THE COMPANY OF OTHERS AND NOT ISOLATE MYSELF.

    I NEED TO CARE ENOUGH ABOUT MYSELF TO EAT WELL, EXERCISE AND MINGLE REGULARLY WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS.

    LIFE IS NOT AN IMPOSSIBLE ORDEAL FROM WHICH I NEED TO CONSTANTLY HIDE. I CAN COPE WITH WHATEVER IT THROWS AT ME. IF I CONTINUE TO WALLOW IN DEPRESSION IT WILL PASS ME BY IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE AND I'LL END UP ON MY DEATH BED WONDERING DID I EVER LOOK LIFE IN THE FACE AND ENJOY WHAT IT THROWS AT ME RATHER THAN SIMPLY ENDURE IT.

    WHEN I CAN I WILL SURROUND MYSELF WITH POSITIVE PROACTIVE PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE ME TO BE THE PERSON I WANT TO BE.

    FROM NOW ON I AM GOING TO F*CKING LIVE RATHER THAN EXIST.

    I know that these things aren't the solution to a lot of my deeper issues and problems, but they give me a far better and heaktier platform from which to begin to address them.

    can i just say what an excellent post that was... really hit home for me (especially the CAPS bit).
    I like you can get totally overwhelmed by the smallest of things which literally consume me and have led to bad bad periods recently. You literally typed out what i've been told / been telling myself i need to do more of. The hard part is doing it regularly and not getting back into that rut..... that's something i think we all need to master


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    Had my appointment with my mental healthy practioner again in Strabane today.

    It was pretty good, we had some bad news recently in that I will having to be waiting 5/6 months too see a psycologist, that in my opinion is too long, but we will have to make do.

    I told him in effect that a lot of problems seem to be steming from the fact that I am socially phobic. In that I avoid all situations to make sure I don't ever see rejection, and that I am burden to them because I don't think I am cool enough and don't think people wanted me. This is hindered my development as a person and at near 26 its been pretty damaging but now I've got to turn it around.

    Regarding never having a girlfriend issue, do you know, I've never actually asked a girl out before ever?? :eek: I've never actually joined a club at my 6 years at Queens?? I thought people didn't want me so they were better off without my digusting genes/personality etc.

    My CPN realises this is a problem and said to me (once I told him all that) "right we going to have to tackle this pretty hard and hit ground running fast". He told me me acting like this (being socially phobic avoiding the fear of rejection) is not giving me the quality of life I deserve and being like this he could see how its causing to be depressed long term, causing me to feel a huge sense of hoplessness (never having any real friends/social life since 13/14, never ever having a girlfriend, thinking I am failure, I need to die etc). So his given me some tasks from an NHS book about how to deal with social phobia, anxiety etc and will be seeing me on the 27th again doing that.

    He's says he's not worried about my academic life he said "you're a bright enough lad Thomas, I'm more interested in your personal life and relationships as thats the crux of the problem". Its nice that somebody is recognising that as a huge problem, because to me it is, my interpersonal relationship skills are absolutely crap, and thus basically I have no quality of life day to day. Whats the point of working 9-5 for the rest of my life, if I am just going to be lonely for the rest of it? :(

    But he realises thats a problem, and their seems to be a sense of urgency about it now which I very much like.

    I'm applying for jobs now, applying for mcdonalds, he said "thats good!" :pac:

    Can I just say thank you to Princess Peach and Scanlas the 2nd for helping me over the last couple days and I'm taking all that advice, you've been a real help thank you. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭neemish


    Finding therapy very difficult at the moment. Never want to go, feel upset afterwards etc. I've talked to my therapist about it but wondering does it happen to others?
    There are no problems with my therapist, she's great and knows what she's at. We've always got on fine, and can deal with any stuff that comes up.
    I'm not thinking of giving up as I do think that it's working and tbh I don't know how I would cope without the support. But sometimes its such bloody hard work.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    neemish wrote: »
    But sometimes its such bloody hard work.

    It is and you have to stick at it Neemish. Its works for me to and don't know if I will ever get there either but I know I have to try.

    I have finally gotten a CBT therapist I'm seeing in Derry right now. She's seems a nice enough lady but she said to me "this wont be a cosy chat Thomas, not offering you cups of tea etc" so I suppose it sounds like we're getting down to the nittygritty which I like. I had her on tuesday and will have her again on monday before I fly off to Spain. They're offering me schemotherapy or something.

    In the meanwhile I only have one appointment left in Belfast at Queens University, since they were temporary in the first place "crisis management" they called it. I've really appreciated that and thought was great for me at that time of being constantly suicidal as was this thread. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,080 ✭✭✭sheesh


    neemish wrote: »
    Finding therapy very difficult at the moment. Never want to go, feel upset afterwards etc. I've talked to my therapist about it but wondering does it happen to others?
    There are no problems with my therapist, she's great and knows what she's at. We've always got on fine, and can deal with any stuff that comes up.
    I'm not thinking of giving up as I do think that it's working and tbh I don't know how I would cope without the support. But sometimes its such bloody hard work.

    remember therapy is the hard yards of getting back to being less depressed. you might be facing stuff that you have avoided for a long time. Unfortunately the fact that it is tough might be a good sign that you are getting through alot of emotional problems. I used to go home after it and lie down on the couch, feel completely spent. but you probably knew that already.

    I gave it up after one particularly rough one. I wish I had not now. ah well. Keep it up!


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,054 ✭✭✭HalloweenJack


    neemish wrote:
    Finding therapy very difficult at the moment. Never want to go, feel upset afterwards etc. I've talked to my therapist about it but wondering does it happen to others?
    There are no problems with my therapist, she's great and knows what she's at. We've always got on fine, and can deal with any stuff that comes up.
    I'm not thinking of giving up as I do think that it's working and tbh I don't know how I would cope without the support. But sometimes its such bloody hard work.
    Therapy is incredibly painful.

    When I started, I felt like I was getting worse for the first month or so. It's mainly because I was exploring problems I didn't even know I had or ones which were a million times deeper than I thought.

    It is very hard at first but it gets a lot better once you have all your problems out there, then you can start rebuilding.

    I remember having this exact conversation with my therapist. He asked did I want to just paper over the cracks or really dig deep and extract all the problems.

    I went with the latter and it was tough but absolutely worth it in the end. Stick with it, I'm sure it will get better.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,017 ✭✭✭SharpshooterTom


    Do any of use cry during your therapy sessions?

    I feel I'm on verge of breaking down sometimes during them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,401 ✭✭✭Seanchai


    Do any of use cry during your therapy sessions?

    I feel I'm on verge of breaking down sometimes during them.

    That sounds good. Seriously. Many people would like to reach that stage of catharsis.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,805 ✭✭✭jammstarr


    Do any of use cry during your therapy sessions?

    I feel I'm on verge of breaking down sometimes during them.

    No shame in letting it all out man


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