feeling down again

LegacyUser

things got really bad during christmas this year and i stopped going to school in january. then i began making major lifestyle changes. i began eating properly, i stopped having sex, i started babysitting my sister's children while she went to work and i was pretty busy most of the time. i became less depressed as time went by and decided to sit the leaving cert exams. i did ok and got my first CAO choice. i'm supposed to be heading off to college next week

the problem is that over the last week or so i've been getting really sad again. and i don't know what to do. i fixed everything, and i was thinking positively and looking great and everything was fine and now i'm down again and it's like nothing had changed at all. and you see while i was up i got to thinking about depression and realised that getting better was all about choice and hard work and now that i'm down again i feel so stupid and lazy and like i could be happy if i really tried. i don't know who i can ask for help. i can't talk to my parents no matter what because they were so happy that i was better and i felt so guilty watching them watch me go through therapy and all the medication and ****. i just want to be ok because college was supposed to be a fresh start and i want to feel normal so bad for it. i mean ffs i was like this for 3 years and i had gotten better and was ok and then everything just gets bad for no reason all over again.

i'm starting to buy into the idea that something is just chemically wrong with my brain but is thinking this way counter-productive? i stopped going to the psychiatrist in the first place because i didn't want to be 40 and still getting a fresh prescription every month and trying something new when it's clear the current medication isn't working. i mean if i entertain the idea of medication being the only solution, am i ever going to be happy? maybe my recovery is going great and an occasional down period is just part of the process? maybe i should just keep doing what i'm doing and hope i'll feel better soon enough. but at the same time i feel like i should act, because i'm feeling desperate here and like i've got a week to become happy or i'll **** up my chances for happiness in the long run. i see college as a real clean slate and that if i'm depressed at the start of the year i'll have ruined the opportunity.

Victor

College is a change and change can cause anxiety.

low111 wrote: »

maybe my recovery is going great and an occasional down period is just part of the process?

I think with any situation you can have ups and downs. Sometimes, depending on the situation, average can seem down.

I think talk to those around you, explain how you feel. You won't be letting down or disappointing your parents if you explain you aren't feeling well - if you had a cold, you wouldn't hide it from them, would you?

Marksie

Life is seldom one straight line of happiness. It is totally natural for variations in emotional state to occur throughout ones life. This can be in response to a whole variety of factors but is a natural response.
It may of course be something more, that cannot be excluded, so if you are worried you can revist your clinician.

It is perfectly OK to share this with people you care about and who care about you, they would be happy if you did rather than having something suddenly appear at a later stage.
Even the act of sharing and talking through can in itself be catharitic.

SnowMonkey

hey Op I know what you mean

actully I can say I've beenin the exact same position as you ...

depresion is like if you standing in a room and four walls closing in, ive been working on my own recently go talk to a counciller best way to deal with it...its also to do with self expression and not having any way of doing that, and not getting your emotion's out like i write all what im thinkin then read it and burn it....
when your busy you dont notice it so much....

but when your not it comes back had the exact same problem.. its hard work but worth it in the long run......:)

also you got your first choice is that not something to be proud of you've done well maybe you just need to draw or something when you feel low i dunno

I find that if i have nothing to do i get low if i find im busy at work I havent got time to but more often then not i find in work im more depressed...
do you go to the gym or anything. apprently I look like death most of th etime because Im not active enough so im fixing that....

Miss Fluff

low111 wrote: »

the problem is that over the last week or so i've been getting really sad again. and i don't know what to do. i fixed everything, and i was thinking positively and looking great and everything was fine and now i'm down again and it's like nothing had changed at all. and you see while i was up i got to thinking about depression and realised that getting better was all about choice and hard work and now that i'm down again i feel so stupid and lazy and like i could be happy if i really tried. i don't know who i can ask for help.

Whoaaaaa now there for a minute OP, the subtext is very blatant self-diagnosed depression. Is this what you think the problem is OP?

brianthebard

Hey Op, even though I was excited about going back to uni this month, I was also stressed to an unreal level, more than I was willing to acknowledge. Its natural that you will feel a bit weird atm, change can be good but its also frightening. But think about all the change you went through after Christmas and how that influenced your life positively. The same can happen here.

dan_d

I don't like that sentence "I've got a week to become happy".College is a fresh start for you completely and totally, and how you feel doesn't change that. Stop setting deadlines and saying things like "becoming happy". Happiness is not a quantity, or an object that you do or don't have.This is probably your minds way of dealing with the stress of a whole new thing.It's a bit outside your comfort zone, it's something new and completely different and most importantly, it's probably a pretty unknown quantity right now aswell.You can't expect to be "happy" 24/7.I've learned that the really hard way too, you've got to just roll with it, and most importantly, stop worrying all the time about how you feel. You're entitled to be a bit down. See how you were okay while you were busy?That was probably a lot to do with the fact that you weren't analysing your feelings or thinking about how you felt, good or bad, all day long. I know depression is desperately hard, but you have overcome it before by the sound of things, and can do it again.Possibly what you need to work on is being alone with yourself and your mind and being okay with that, without analysing it. The happiness will follow that. But to be honest, you will find the first few weeks a bit tough..stick it out, you can definitely, definitely do it, and it'll be fantastic. You'll make some of the best friends ever, and your whole life is in front of you. Let yourself be down sometimes, just don't wallow in it!Medication is not the way, especially if you're not on it anymore.It numbs you and makes you not feel anything.It's not a realistic state of mind to be in;the whole point of being human is that we feel stuff, the good, the bad and the really crap!Best of luck!