Feeling isolated and depressed

Feeling isolated and depressed

Dear Mookychick,

Please help me! I have been feeling depressed for nearly 4 years now. In year 10 I saw my teacher for help and she referred me to several doctors and I got on with none of them. I generaly have an aversion to people who help because it feels like I’m in their way and that they could be helping someone better than myself.

I don’t know how to feel any more and my life feels like a lie to be honest. I moved out of home in october to live with my dad but my friend’s family kind of took me in. It seems to be a constant struggle just to get out of bed in the mornings now but I’m trying as hard as I can to keep up appearances so that no-one knows how low I’m really feeling. I’ve tried stopping the pain so many times before but it never worked and I just feel hollow inside. It’s not just difficult getting through a day in the week, it’s a struggle to get through an hour in the day. I finished school last year and so now I have no social life which is my fault (I did move out and away after all) But I don’t think I can stand meeting new people just to lie to them. I have a group of people I meet sometimes but they are nearly all older than me; I dont mind faking it for them because it feels like they are all that I’m clinging onto for now. I don’t exactly fit in with them but they are people and not just memories.

Since seeing doctors and therapists didn’t help and I don’t want to include family and friends for fear of making them depressed (I let my old friend know and she went off the rails so to speak and my current friend seems to fare no better even if I tell her I’m just sad), do you know of anything that might help? I’ve tried everything I can think of to no avail.

I’m sorry if I’m wasting your time, but I’ve run out of options.

Help!

Love, Anonymous Me xxx

The Mookychick answer to your problem

Debs says…

Hello,

OK, I’ve had depression for, oh, years. Most of the time it’s ok, life is good, I get on, I’m happy and confident. Sometimes though, it is absolute hell and I just want everything to stop, and I just want everything to end. But those days are less and less now.

The thing is, it was a long journey to get to where I am now. And a good therapist did help. (I think I was doing a form of cognitive therapy…)

Why am I starting with this? Well, it’s to try and reassure you that things do work and the big, horrible pit you feel you’re in right now isn’t where you’ll stay forever.

I’m no psychologist, so I can’t offer absolute solutions to your pain. But I can tell from what you’ve written that you’ve incredibly low self esteem. And that probably, not definitely, stems from the fact that you just don’t like yourself much, so you think other people are worth more than you, they deserve things that you don’t.

But, guess what? That’s not how it is. Those other people are not better than you, they’re the same as you. And you’re the same as them. You’re as important and valuable and worthwhile as all of them. And you do deserve the help that’s been offered. You do deserve to have a life that isn’t a constant struggle. You do deserve to be happy. More important;y, you can be happy.

Why do you feel you have to lie to people? Why do you think they wouldn’t see the good inside you? Because you don’t see the good inside, you only focus on the bad things, the mistakes you make, the way your hair looks all wrong, the way you always say the wrong thing. But other people won’t see that, other people will see the way you make them laugh, or always want to help, or on those rare occasions when you smile, it lights up the room. (And then they’ll also be worried that you’ll see the bad in them, because they are anxious about all of that too.)

Some people liken depression to a big black dog, and I like that analogy. One of the things I found out about depression is that it starts as a perfectly healthy and rational way for the brain to protect itself from a certain situation. Like a guard dog. But like a dog, it’s incredibly loyal and sticks around, even after you’ve found other ways to cope with situations, and so it keeps you going through odd behaviour patterns, which becomes depression. So you just need to train the dog to be useful in other ways.

I honestly think you will benefit from talking to a trained therapist. Get your doctor (and, in all honesty, they can seem a bit hopeless sometimes) to refer you to a therapist and have a chat with them.

And remember that you’re not wasting their time. They are there to help and they want to help you. Because you deserve it. You honestly do.



Let Mookychick's newsletter Moth flutter to your side...