The "I'm Depressed" thread

First of all, that is fucking awesome.

As for the rest, I still remember my first driving lessons, and feeling the same way behind the wheel. My mother was completely annoyed with me the whole time, because I couldn't bring myself to actually step on the gas (we spent a good half-hour just rolling around a parking lot). I imagine your first lesson(s) will be similar, where you won't be interfering with traffic or have to worry about speed. Just focus on familiarizing yourself with the car and the feeling of, well, driving.

And, if your instructor doesn't mind, feel free to scream the entire time you're in motion. It helps get the stress out :D

I feel your pain. So much. I've started my driving lessons over a year ago (it's notoriously hard to get a driver's license in The Netherlands, so yeah, over a year). If you're like me there's two things, one good, one bad. The good: it gets better. The first lesson I had it felt totally surreal, like I wasn't even really driving at all. Now I feel much more comfortable behind the wheel. The bad: my insecurities never completely went away, and probably never will. But maybe that's not a bad thing, it means I'm extra carefull and don't lose focus.

From all the people in Europe (who are idiots and drive stick): HAHAHAHAHA NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Yeah, I've always had a bit of that. I don't think it's entirely his fault, but my father has always been really judgemental about everything I do, and it doesn't help when it's something I'm already nervous about. It's probably coming to a head now because he's worried about me once I go off to university, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with.

Canada doesn't have manual transmissions, since shifting and working the clutch can cause people to be cross and even furrow their brows. They've been outlawed altogether. It's politer that way.

(I'm sorry for the levity!)

It suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks so bad. For a couple of months after I started to learn how to opperate the clutch my friends hated me because I kept bitching about how Europeans are dumbasses. Why, why, why would you make it even harder to drive. Every second of concentration I'm using for the stick and the clutch is a second I'm not paying close attention to the road.

Could you talk to your dad about this and explain that you are willing to learn to drive but that he could help you do so more easily if he'd tone it down a bit? I dunno if you have horrible parents or anything, but generally a dad just wants his kid to be safe and happy and able to succeed. In his mind, this is probably important for both your security and your independence, and his impatience may be coming in because he doesn't understand why something like driving a car should be a problem for someone who knows how to fly a plane. :)

But maybe if you explain to him that you both want the same thing, but that you need to get to that place in a different way than he would himself, he could understand a little better. If he grasps that he's just shooting himself in the foot by making you more nervous about driving, maybe he'll realize that he needs to ease up and give you space without judging or criticizing your performance

Thanks, everyone.

SuperJay, I will try to talk to him. You hit the nail on the head concerning his thought process, by the way :P My dad has never really been...open to criticism in any form whatsoever, but maybe with a little persuading he'll understand.

Is your dad going to be teaching you? If so, it sounds like you need to get someone else to do it. If you're going through a school, they'll ease you through it.

I always forget how young I was compared everyone else when I learned to drive. I was thirteen when my father taught me to drive a 2-ton flat-bed duallie in a foot of snow. He figured that if I could handle a manual transmission with shitloads of torque and nothing in the rear end in the snow, I could drive anything. Once I mastered that, he added a 20' trailer and made me park that anywhere and everywhere until it was second nature. Then I learned to drive a car! It seemed like it to foreeeeeeeeeever for my 15th birthday to arrive so that I could finally get my license.

I'm learning through a school. I had a tentative "let's try out handling a car" experience with my parents a while back and it did not go well (to say the least) before I even started actually going forward. So yeah, that really would not have worked, and we can all agree on that.

Yeah, that's why I'd frame it by affirming that you want the same thing he does (to learn to drive in the least stressful way possible, its okay to fib here) and by explaining to him how you can realize that goal most effectively (by learning at your own pace while free from criticism). That way it's more "here's how you can help me do this thing that we both want me to do, thanks dad!" and less "you are part of the problem and are doing this wrong, you judgmental asshole."

Its pretty common I think to be freaked out by driving. It gets better over time, as you gain more experience, and most importantly, keep on driving. I used to sweat terribly when I first encountered LA freeway driving =) Now I'm fine, but it took a bit. It's okay to be unsure, and hell even to make mistakes (I put a few extra dents on our already dented teen-driven car)

WHY DOES THIS SHIT STILL HURT.

Seriously, it has been five weeks after the surgery that was supposed to end this curled-up-on-the-couch-with-a-heating-pad-not-moving bullshit. And I am still here swearing at my insides and clutching my little electric torso blanket. I may be a lazy motherfucker when I have the choice, but being physically compelled to be a lazy motherfucker...really gets me down.

I am working out with the roommate this evening, and damn the consequences...at least until I wake up tomorrow and can't move. Ffffffffffffffffff.

I got up my nerve to log in here today! Stupid irrational paranoia. Quatoria talked me into it. she is awesome.

No, because my six-week followup isn't until next week. But trust me, I will.

Logically, I understand. Emotionally, though, I also realize that side effects to the IUD they put in include ridiculous menstrual cycles for the first month or four.

Honestly, this cycle with the Mirena has gotten up to 80% as painful as the endometriosis itself was. It's making me question the value of everything I've done over the past two months, including an expensive and possibly unnecessary surgery, a lot of family drama, and a LOT of wasted time on my part. For what? Some stupid cramps?

All of that's exactly right SuperJay, yet it's very hard to believe it emotionally into it. Putting a deadline on paper is accepting that I'll need to move on if things don't get where they need to be. However, accepting that deadline makes the remaining time into a countdown in my head which I fear will change how I interact and don't want to act differently and weakening the chance of helping the situation improve.

The advice I got from the consolers is to keep the end date private, which makes sense because I don't think adding a ticking clock to someone recovering from suicidal level depression is a good thing. However, it is something that has to be planned for at some point because I am weary about living together post that dead line since finding apartments is not easy here and our current place is out of our price range individually.

Ug, I need to compartmentalize this better, as soon as I accept a dead line as a reality all the logistics of what it entails starts to become overwhelming.

I'm guessing there isn't much else I can do for someone recovering from depression other than 'Be supportive and patient' ? (Note: I've already made cookies a few times)

Speak With Bread, call the motherfucking doctor already. You're being ridiculous.

(Today's tough love brought to you by Lady Peanut Frapenstein.)

Switch, Ely, I'll call them in the morning. Nobody's around to answer tonight anyway. :P

Salarn, I've been suicidally depressed on and off for years. The only times Quat has ever seriously considered leaving me (to my knowledge) is when I refused to keep trying to get better. If I go to therapy, try to find the right medications, she can handle it because I'm making an effort. And whenever she's gotten to the point where she had to say, "I can't handle this anymore because you've given up," I realized I was fucking up the best thing in my whole life and it made me start trying to help myself again.

I am NOT giving advice here. I imagine some people wouldn't react the way I did. Just thought I'd give you some input from the other side of the equation. Think about what you can handle -- if your partner refuses to help themselves, it's not your job to do it for them. If they ARE trying to help themselves, be supportive of that. I guess that's all I'm really saying here.

I started antidepressants last week. It's been a while. I guess they're working? I'm just all I don't know what my feels are doing right now as I adjust and it's kind of uncomfortable.

Personally, when I found an antidepressant that helped, it took several weeks before I realised they were actually working. It's such a gradual and subtle thing, it's often hard to tell if it's the medication or you're just having a good period. For me, it wasn't so much about a noticeable lift in the general feeling of malaise as a rounding off of the edges, a kind of flattening of the more extreme ends of the low points, but I tend more towards general dysthymia rather than the more intense major depression, so I may not really be a good example.

Based on the last few times I tried going on an antidepressant, and this one, the first feeling I get is sort of a blockage, like my body is trying to feel sad but can't. Like a sneeze that won't let out. (Also I have more energy, noticeable because my usual cheap OTC depression treatment is caffeine pills.) The first thing I was on never moved past that stage, but the last one progressed into a more general rounding off of the edges, like you say. But I do need to give this one a couple more weeks, yeah.

Sometimes, I feel like...
I feel like on the inside, I'm made of puppies. I'm made up of cute puppies and stumbling foals and yawning kittens. And it's just this big field full of adorable animals being adorable. And every once in a while, someone comes to visit. They don't have a name, they don't have a sex, it's just this being that comes to the field. And all of the animals are excited to see the person and they go running up to the person and yip and lick and paw and love.

And the person just starts beating them. They beat all of the animals until they're all on the ground whimpering and then they leave.

And time passes and the animals heal and you'd think that after a while, the animals would learn to avoid the person. And in reality, that's what would happen. The animals would learn to either flee from or attack the person. But these animals inside don't learn that lesson. They keep hoping that the person will be nice the next time they visit. "Maybe they'll bring a treat!" they think.

This is how it feels on the inside and it hurts.

Yes, weekly right now. That plus the medication balancing has made a lot of things better, after three months of home it's great to see them able to leave the house and go back to work, even part time. So it's not all doom and gloom there is improvement, just all the improvement energy is going to other things besides our relationship.

It really is the text book case of 'hope for the best, plan for the worst'

Thanks for sharing that, SwitchKnitter.

We've had a moment like that a few months back after the third time I literally ran the mile home from work during the day after getting messages about suicidal thoughts. After the first two times and talking with a consoler myself, I was loving but firm and said

'I cannot be the only support, I need to bring in help from your mom or another third party. You choose who it is, but I cannot run home worried sick about finding you ...hurt... it's bigger than the two of us' (more or less how I remember it)

Since then, we've gotten more support from third parties like their mom, but I'm still the heavy majority source of support. Some of the problem with the situation is that there is a hidden ?pressure? or ?shame? they feel about our relationship. Having me around makes every decision harder, even if I'm in my own world playing a game in a different roomt. I was told that most of the time that they make a decision to spend the evening doing something private they feel guilty for leaving me out of their life, or pick a TV show I might not like that it'll bother me, or get a snack they'll feel like I'm judging them. This is while I'm at least a door away and can't have any perception of what's going on.

Being physically out of the apartment is freeing for them, so I am spending 2~3 nights a week now with hobbies and actives to provide that space. I just have the worries that it's not a sustainable for the relationship in the long run.

*hugs forever and ever*

I want to say something to help, and want to share what has happened with me to point to similarities and thus share at least the frustration/pain whatever. I can't make sense today. Nerves aren't behaving and I am on heavy meds. I know I am going to fall over soon.

So I am thinking about most of you, all of you can have the virtual hugs. Someone feed Mulmizu's inner love with a nice treat.

My COBRA coverage expires on the 15th, and I just discovered that bipolar II is an automatic denial of coverage for all insurance companies in NC. I'm uninsurable! And need weekly therapy sessions at the moment! Also medications! Which I'll soon be figuring out how to pay for without a job! And no idea if I'm getting unemployment benefits!

Not until 2014. THANKS, OBAMA

I don't understand. Quat got Obamacare last year because she's uninsurable. Confused Switch is confused.

Is there a low-income health clinic near you? That's where I just got my pills and I wish I'd looked for it when I first lost my insurance. Won't help with the therapy, but it could at least be something.

Is it a state-to-state thing? Like maybe Florida went OKAY FINE and enacted the shit as soon as possible but NC is all FUCK YOU OBAMACARE and being a big procrastinating baby?

Florida is the state that tried to sue the federal government in order to block Obamacare. Note:it failed. :D