i moved to the bay area about 6 months ago. before that i lived in seattle and before that arizona. i cannot honestly recall when the depression began. i have fond memories of arizona and still a few really good friends there. while living in seattle i was depressed a lot. after living there for seven years i decided that it was time to stop hating where i lived and all of the grey weather that might have been causing most of my worries and move on while i was still young. so here i am and in the first six months i have lost the boyfriend that i moved here for ( due to his depression) , my "best friend" i moved here with (suffering her own depression) and i have become completely estranged ... she has found new friends and moved out of our apartment, my job does not afford me even the most modest social life let alone a lonely apartment in the most expensive city on the west coast not to mention many other things... common sense tells me to get a better job although i feel stuck until i can have the time and money to start the career i also came here for, and to go out... meet people ...somehow? i feel impatient as i have a job that may lead to something better soon and yet my needs are not being met currently. i feel alone and am afraid that i am stuck in a pattern that my parents began by moving us around every year if not twice. i am apartment hunting alone while all i want is a sense of stability. i want a relationship although i feel i currently have nothing to offer. where do i begin? -impatient or depressed?
Wow, you sound like you're doing amazingly well considering all the challenges you are dealing with. Almost anyone would be struggling if they were new in a city, had no friends or family there, had just lost two significant people, had a job that sucked all their time and energy out of them without much compensation, wanted to start working on a new career, and needed to find an apartment to live in! Maybe there's even more; this is just what you told me.
Please tell me how depressed you are; how do you experience your depression? Are you eating and sleeping normally? Do you criticize yourself? Do you feel hopeless? Is it hard to motivate yourself? Are you in danger of killing yourself? Please tell me more.
You may very well be repeating your parents' pattern, and they may have done it to try to stay a step ahead of their own depression/anxiety. Imitating our parents is what we are hard-wired to do, and to some extent, their method probably works. Yet, it sounds like you have experienced it's limitations too. It also sounds like you tend to be drawn to relationships with depressed people, and this could be a reflection of your own depression and/or an indication that you grew up with depressed or emotionally unavailable caretakers.
Is there any way to take a week off of work, or to quit your job--do you have savings or support from your parents or anything short term? I say this because it sounds like your job doesn't make room for you to figure out the rest of your life. If you had time to find an apartment, set yourself up moving toward your new career, and begin making friends, or at least keep close contact with friends you have in other places, you could begin to find that stability you're looking for.
If you have to keep working at that job, it sounds like you're doing everything you need to do, and it will just take time before you feel settled. In the mean time, do you have time to see a therapist? It would be great if you had someone to talk to about all this and help you sort out what to do. A therapist could also evaluate whether or not you are depressed, and what needs to be done about it, if you are. You can probably get a good therapist in training for as little as $25 a session, if money is the issue. Let me know what and how you are doing, and if you have any questions for me.
Warmly,
Cynthia
Last Edited by Guest on Jul 06, 2006 11:48 PM
guest
Guest
Jul 09, 2006
4:13 PM
hi. thank you for responding so quickly, i think this is a very kind thing that you do for the people here posting. it is much easier for most to find the initial response that they may need here before actually deciding which route to take in solving their individual problems. i am often struck off guard when someone actually acknowledges my life issues as being difficult. you are correct when you suggested that my parents were emotionally unavailable. They are wonderful individuals and were given extremely difficult situations to grow up in. Their method in parenting was to "power through it" , and not feel sorry for ourselves. This is probably why we moved every year and they continue to do so... still searching... Luckily my sisters and i have found solace in establishing roots. (all complete with desires to travel) I guess i am at a phase where i have not yet come of my own... by that i mean established my career or a family , both i know i want. So i am impatient and afraid at times that i will end up ...searching ... and not living. i am attempting to work this out finally. I am simply glad to know what i want, this is half the battle, right? If i were to ask a question of you i guess it would be ... how much sadness is normal? i feel as though life is trying and often with reason to spend an afternoon sulking... even if it is as simple as a long day at work, or the ever popular pms. i read your "depression tools" and had to smile because i most recently was running everyday. I know now this was in response to the boyfriend loss, and am glad to know that you recommend this as i was afraid i was using it as an escape from dealing with it. we all need some encouragement at times and it is great to have access to professional opinions like this. thank you.
oh yeah.. to answer your questions, i am eating well.. lots of protein, low sugar and balanced i hope. yes, i criticize myself. i often say " i should be doing something" ie. working on this career of mine. i have felt hopeless at times but not frequently and never will suicide be an option. my depression comes in the form of days where i wish i was spending more time on these great ideas i am having and less time worrying about not doing them. easier said than done eh? my job starts so early and on the way there i drink my coffee and write about these great ideas i am having and by the end of the day the desire to do them is gone and i wonder when i am supposed to just have a guilt free nap or movie. i wrote you at first because i woke up feeling that way that day immediately "what am i going to do today" "where do i begin" ... it was as if someone had turned the hourglass over. i knew this was not right. i am in the process of reading what you have written here in your website about productivity and the age of information. again, this is helpful. i feel as though i am very aware of when things with me are right and when they are not. what i do need help with is making the times where i am living my life in this healthy manner last longer. setbacks are sneaky.
I am assuming "Guest" and HK are two different people, and I want to respond to both of you. For the question about how much sadness is too much, I want to tell you that sadness in response to a loss can last a long time, depending on the loss. For example, if someone close to you dies, a year is often a short time for the sadness to last, though over time it usually comes and goes more, and may be a little less intense on a daily basis. If the sadness is really depression, and/or it's not changing over a long period of time, and/or it's keeping you from functioning and taking good care of yourself, then that is something to get help with.
I thought a section from the book I'm writing with many more depression tools might be helpful, so I'm including it here:
What’s the Difference Between Sadness and Depression?
One important point that often confuses people is that depression and sadness are not the same thing. Sadness is one of the four basic feelings (sadness, anger, fear, and joy) from a rich variety of feelings we normally experience as human beings. Sadness is what we feel when we lose something. When we cry to express the sadness, and wail to express the anger about the loss, expressing those feelings allows us to heal from the pain of the loss. So sadness is a good, helpful, and necessary part of being human. When it is expressed freely, sadness doesn’t have to lead to depression.
Depression is very different from sadness. Two of the clearest differences are self-attack, and pessimism. Sadness, alone, doesn’t cause us to hate ourselves or blame ourselves. Nor does it cause us to interpret our past, present and future as terrible and hopeless. Depression, however, comes with a classic pattern that basically gets down to: “I’m bad; I’ve always been bad; I’ll always be bad; and my life is bad; it’s always been bad; it’ll always be bad.” Obviously people don’t usually think about it in these words, but it is experienced as a pervasive sense of being unforgivable, and of failure, defectiveness, lack of lovability, hopelessness, and powerlessness.
In depression, perspective is lost. The pain of the moment seems linked to other painful experiences a person has had. Depressed thinking convinces people to conclude that their lives have been a series of painful experiences (failures, losses, etc) and therefore probably will always be. The positive experiences of life are forgotten, or fade into the background, so aren’t included in the conclusions. It’s like the famous drawing that looks like a young woman, or an old woman depending on which parts of the drawing your brain puts together into a pattern. When one sees one or the other of the women, it is impossible to see the other, yet each is just as clear an image as the other within the same picture.
One of the amazing experiences of my life was after years of therapy in which I sorted through all the hurtful aspects of my childhood, and thought I knew everything there was to know about all the bad things that happened, I spontaneously began to remember good times between the bad times. I had completely lost any memory of the good stuff when I was caught up in my depressed thinking. In fact, I remembered much more good than bad, but the good had become invisible to me for years.
Another important distinction between depression and sadness is their level of fluidity. While sadness can be very, very painful, but it comes and goes, and it is relieved somewhat each time we cry and/or talk about it. Whereas, depression is often pretty continuous, and not relieved by crying, because the tears are a response to replaying the same depressed thoughts over and over, so no resolution is possible.
Similarly, people feeling sadness, can feel a full range of feelings, whereas people in depression often feel numb, or a powerful dull ache, but no differentiation of feelings. For a depressed person, fun activities just feel like a dull ache, love feels that way, disappointment, loneliness, etc all feel like a lump of undifferentiated pain. People who are sad and not depressed can also feel love, joy, fear, anger--a range of distinct feelings, and they don’t feel numb.
People who are sad, but not depressed also can feel powerful, hopeful, and motivated. People who are depressed have trouble even forcing themselves to do things—have lost their ambition, and usually feel little energy. In addition, due to the hopelessness and helplessness, and the unrelenting pain, depressed people often want to die, because it seems like the only way to get relief. Sadness doesn’t usually make people want to die.
Finally, people who feel sad, but not depressed don’t feel particularly anxious (unless they also have an anxiety disorder). Depression often brings with it intense anxiety.
I hope this helps!
Cynthia
Last Edited by Cynthia on Jul 14, 2006 11:29 PM
I'm not sure from what you said what is causing those extremes of being excited and energized about a project, and then losing all your steam, but if we explored it, we could probably figure it out. It could just be exhaustion from long, hard days of work. Many people have trouble finding energy for other projects after getting up early, commuting, working hard, commuting, and having only enough time to eat and sleep before having to get up early the next morning.
It's possible, though, is that there may be some regular self-care that you could do to maintain your excitement and energy. If after you get an idea in the morning, you spend the day telling yourself it's a stupid idea and you couldn't do it anyway, it's not surprising you feel drained, perhaps defeated and unmotivated by the end of the day. A day like that would knock the wind out of most people's sails. Or maybe coffee, especially if you don't eat protein with it, for breakfast causes you to feel high on the chemicals (caffeine, and endorphins are released if you don't eat), feeling creative, energtic and powerful, and by the evening your brain chemistry is tapped out of chemicals that cause you to feel those things, and your mood has crashed and burned along with it.
These are just examples of how daily self-care can work for or against you; there are other ways this could be happening. This is what the book I'm writing is all about. A recent study tells us that what we inherit from our parents is about half responsible for our depression issues, what our circumstances are is a small piece (people who win the lottery aren't any happier than people who are poor, is one of the examples they found of this).
So, a large part of our happiness and depression is due to the choices we make about how to take care of ourselves. That means that even with depressed parents, and abuse histories, we have a fair amount of power over our moods, if we know how to use that power. That's why after those initial 6 tools, I wrote some 75 or so more. Everything I've learned in 25 yrs of professional experience and study, and 45 yrs of personal journey about the powers we have in preventing and relieving our own depression. I guess you can tell, I'm excited about finally being close to finished writing it! Perhaps some of the other tools would help you even out your mood and ambition. Now that I've said all this, do you have any ideas about what might be the cause or the solution to what you struggle with?
Warmly,
Cynthia
Last Edited by Cynthia on Jul 14, 2006 11:29 PM
