That same old feeling..

LegacyUser

Ok, here goes..
I posted on here before during a very bad time in my life while I was living and working in South America. Basically, I had been taking anti-depressants for a few years previous and went off them before I left Ireland. Bad move, as it turned out. Anyway, I fought my way through the hard times there, didn't go home early and had a pretty good time in retrospect.
I moved on to another country to work and things were going well; I was in a lovely quiet area, the work wasn't too stressful and I had good friends who I could rely on and confide in. But then I got an email from the girl I was going out with back in South America to tell me, via email, that she was pregnant. This was 3 months after the last time I had been with her. Plus, to make it even more of a bombshell, she told me that during a party she had slept with her ex (with whom she already has a child) a week after I had left. So, she still didn't know who the father was, essentially.
When I had left, we hadn't really broken up and she had been saving up money to visit me in Europe that summer, but obviously that was shelved. She told me that she didn't want to be with her ex anymore and that she loved me, that she wanted me to move over if it was my kid. I had no way of doing that- no money, no visa, nothing. I was in an absolute state, away from my family in a place with no internet access, no way of speaking with her and nobody who spoke English. After agonizing over it for days, I told her I didn't want to hear from her again; the fact that she hadn't told me she was pregnant when she found out (in January!) and also the fact that she lied to me when I asked her whether she had started seeing her ex again made me feel like she was playing a cruel joke on me. I told her that her only option was to go back to her ex.
That whole episode ate me up inside and it still troubles me alot. I'm back home from working abroad for 3 weeks now and I'm feeling really bad. I know I'm getting stuck in a rut again. I have booked an appointment with a psychotherapist but I won't get to see her for another 2 weeks.
It's getting harder and harder, this black feeling that always surrounds me. There are things that in theory I'd like to do, to get out of the house, but when it comes down to it, I make excuses not to do it. I want to start learning to drive, move out of my parents' place, take up new classes and run some marathons. I've been looking for jobs but it's so soul destroying when your self-worth is so low and you just know that you won't hear anything back. I feel so useless, so worthless, so crap. I had a dream last night that I had had a breakdown, that I couldn't stop crying and I told my mother that I was going away to kill myself. She didn't care.
I'm scared at the moment; can anyone give me some helpful advice?

beks101

Hang in there OP. It's only two weeks before you can start to combat this. You'll get there.

You're only back in the country three weeks and obviously your circumstances have changed dramatically in that time. Bear in mind that this could have provoked your depression. Three weeks is simply not enough time to have found a job and learned how to drive and move out of home and settled back into Irish life. Stop being so hard on yourself. You need to be treating yourself with compassion now; not beating yourself up.

In the mean time, baby steps. Don't expect yourself to spring out of bed in the morning, run a marathon and have found fabulous apartment and great job by the end of the week. Simply get up and go for a short walk around the block just to get out of the house. Take the dog out for 20 minutes and come back and have a healthy breakfast. Start small, vow to do one thing a day to improve your health. Our physical and mental health is fundamentally interwoven.

And about your ex. Do you have any good friend back in Ireland who you could talk to about this? It may have been damaging to you to have received such life changing news when you were so isolated, so far from home and without anyone to talk to about it. It's important that you deal with it by talking about it. Definitely bring it up with your psychotherapist.

I think I remember your thread from before and you've been through the mill. Please slow down on the self loathing and treat yourself as you would your own brother, or your best friend. You're going through a tough time; you don't need to make things tougher by telling yourself you're worthless and useless and a waste of space. You are not. Try to keep those thoughts at bay in whatever way you can. Write them down if you have to and get them out of your system. Write your dreams down, these may be useful in your therapy. Keep posting here.

These two weeks will pass in no time. You'll be ok x

Big Bag of Chips

triocha, I have deleted your post.

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LegacyUser

Ok OP I don't want to be harsh have suffered quite badly from depression in the past but sorry I had to reply to the below:

I was in an absolute state, away from my family in a place with no internet access, no way of speaking with her and nobody who spoke English. After agonizing over it for days, I told her I didn't want to hear from her again; the fact that she hadn't told me she was pregnant when she found out (in January!) and also the fact that she lied to me when I asked her whether she had started seeing her ex again made me feel like she was playing a cruel joke on me. I told her that her only option was to go back to her ex.
That whole episode ate me up inside and it still troubles me alot. I'm back home from working abroad for 3 weeks now and I'm feeling really bad. I know I'm getting stuck in a rut again. I have booked an appointment with a psychotherapist but I won't get to see her for another 2 weeks

OP while I absolutely sympathise with how you're feeling, you have treated this woman quite badly, yes she's a liar and a cheat, but the fact remains that she could be carrying your child, you may have a son/daughter out there, whatever about how you feel about her, if you do have a child can you really so easily just pretend he/she doesn't exist?

I'm sorry OP but it kinda seems like your using your depression as an excuse to run away from your possible responsibilities. You say it still troubles you a lot - OP I'm sorry but -one of the ways of learning to live with depression is learn to deal with situations life throws at you, not run away from them. Surely the only way you can ever really find peace is to get back in contact with this woman and sort things out, find out if the child is yours or not, then you can decide on how best to go forward but sweeping it under the carpet and pretending it never happened is not going to make the situation go away. It could be the child isn't yours, but living under the shadow of never knowing either way is not going to do you any favours in the long run OP.

I'm sorry OP, I know it's not what you want to hear right now I'm sure, and I completely understand that you are in no emotional state to deal with this now, take care of yourself OP, be kind to yourself, we all make mistakes in life, hang in there till you see the psychotherapist, these feelings won't last forever, but as harsh as it sounds I think this situation is something you will have to face when you're strong enough again, running away and ignoring it won't change it or solve it. For the time being however OP please please look after yourself, all the best OP.

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies.

I don't think I'm using my depression to hide from my responsibilities; it's more the fact that I have absolutely no way of supporting not only this child, but two. I have no money to travel to the other side of the world, get a visa, a job and a place to stay. If I were to go, I'd never see my family again, and she won't talk to her family again either. This is why the guilt is eating me up, but if she had have told me in January, when I was still with her, I could have done something. That's one thing that I don't understand about her actions.

If she was on her own then of course it would be different, but she isn't. Her 'ex' has offered to raise the child but she just doesn't want to be with him. That's her decision, but it was also her decision to have unprotected sex with him.

Beks, when I found out the news about this whole thing, I was in an internet cafe with a friend and I was so lucky to have him there. He was brilliant the whole way through, always giving me advice and I met up with him as much as possible just to take my mind off things. I also told my dad via phone and after talking and thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I made my decision.

tony81

Op, I don't trust you ex, do you?

I think you need to look after number 1 right now. It sounds like your ex is playing games and from your description it sounds like the baby probably isn't yours. You can worry about all that down the line. If it is your child you'll no soon enough, and if it's not you probably won't hear much more about it.

Are you still on your anti-depressants? Is it something your GP can arrange or do you need to wait to speak to your psychotherapist?

I know it's hard to budge when you're feeling down, but a nice long walk might be just what you need. Staying in a house, especially when you don't really want to be there, can feel claustrophobic but another way of looking at it.. wouldn't it be worse if you didn't have somewhere to stay?

Take each day as it comes. There's nothing worse for depression than worrying about how depressed you feel.

LegacyUser

Thanks man. I don't trust her either; my dad and my friend told me that she could even have made it all up to get me to come back to her. There's no way of knowing. And even if she did say it was mine, where could I see the proof?

Maybe if she knew it was mine, she would have told me when she found out she was pregnant. Also, to mess even more with my head, she said she wanted to break up with me, that she knew we were never going to see each other again, a week before she told me this news!

I'm still on the anti-depressants but I can't really go to my GP due to the whole financial burden. I'm doing my best to get out of the house; I go to the gym most days and play football twice a week, but the job situation on top of everything else, is making it so hard.

tony81

hardtimes wrote: »

I'm still on the anti-depressants but I can't really go to my GP due to the whole financial burden. I'm doing my best to get out of the house; I go to the gym most days and play football twice a week, but the job situation on top of everything else, is making it so hard.

Ah hang in there! You seem pretty active so just don't dwell on things you can't change at the moment.

Once you get a job you'll find everything else will fall into place. It might be an idea to ask around some of your friends to leave you CV into where they work as emailing cvs and online job applications doesn't get people very far these days.