I am drowning

[Butterflybox]

I'm drowning and I have no one to talk to. It's been so long since I communicated with anyone. I mean, really opened up. I just want someone to know what's happening to me.

Something humiliating happened last night at work. My job is in a specialized field and I am the weakest team member. I've heard that people have questioned why I'm even there, sometimes I think that too. Last night a coworker asked me a question, something simple that I should know. The definition of a word. I had previously encountered this and resolved it. However, last night I couldn't remember and I had to admit it. It was very humiliating. A few years ago, I also made a similar mistake and since then I seriously panic when I'm put on the spot. Besides that, it's my second day of having bumped up my Wellbutrin dose. I was spacey and slow from that. It was a long day and I've been working a lot. My depression has been worsening for the last year and a half and I'm always distracted by that.

I'm trying to justify my mistake to myself, but I really should have known the answer. It's not that I'm incompetent, though. When I'm actually doing my job, I do fine.

This doesn't seem so important, right?

But after leaving work last night, I sat in my car and couldn't stop crying. Eventually I went to the grocery store and bought binge food and for the first time, alcohol. I can't stop thinking about dying. Hoping for a quick death in a car accident but it doesn't happen. So I start thinking about which combination of medications would definitely do it. Each time something else bad happens, these thoughts get more and more detailed and I become more obsessed with stories of how other people succeeded.

I already have a psychiatrist and I am fully aware that Wellbutrin can increase thoughts of suicide but I have been trying different medications with no success. Wellbutrin had worked really well for me in the past. Besides, I felt the same or worse before beginning the Wellbutrin. Also, I've been in counseling so long that I know what the counselor will say before she says it.

I have had severe depression before but I always managed to overcome it with medications and supplements and with changing things in my life. This time, it has been a year and a half and I am no better than I was when I started.

It's just gotten so bad that I believe my life is useless, I haven't accomplished anything, I haven't been successful at anything. My life is meaningless. I'm wasting air and I wonder why God hasn't ended my life.
I know people say this all the time and I used to sometimes dramatically throw ideas like this around when life got hard but this time, for the first time, I really understand what it means. I truly believe it this time. I can't find one thing in my life worth struggling for. Not one thing worth not giving up.

I can't turn to my faith because I have started having serious doubts. I have family I love but they are not consistent, dependable relationships.

I know people say you can find meaning in caring for others. I already do. My two jobs are all about that and I care for my elderly mother and two older dogs. I have very little time to volunteer on top of all that.

I'm sorry I started this post because I wanted to tell someone about my bad day but it's turned into a huge question.

What is worth fighting for? What is worth not giving up for?
I'm single and have no children. I love my family but they would be fine without me, even my mother.
I have things I like to do but that's not it. It's a huge struggle to fight a massive depression, so it has to be something I feel strongly about.

I think that many or most people with depression struggle with the same questions and I don't think anyone can give me answers. But at least someone will read this and I won't feel so alone.

[Alaska1958]

Hi there. I do understand how you feel. For many years I worked in the control room of a public tv station. I was good at what I did, even with the depression that has dogged me all my life. I felt useful, liked and valued and that meant a lot to me. Then things changed. I got a new supervisor. I had worked with her for a few years already and we got along fine, but she is about 20 years younger than I am, very bright, detail oriented and focused. Very good qualities to have in our line of work. I might charitably be considered smart, but not detail oriented or focused.

The technology in TV changed about then from analog broadcasting to digital and I did not handle the transition very well. I couldn't seem to keep up and I'm sure that the depression played a role in that. Over the next few years I was dropped down to halftime and given numerous verbal and writen warnings. Finally one day I walked into work and the general manager called me into his office. Fifteen minutes later I was shown the door. After having keys to the suite for twenty years, I found myself no longer wanted.

It sounds like you have taken a number of positive steps to help your long term mental health and for that I applaud you. You know you are loved and wanted and here you have found a whole community of people who can relate.

I have made many mistakes at every job I've ever had and they do tend to haunt me. I'm not stupid and most of the jobs I've had over the last 40 years, I've been welcomed at and felt useful. Keep trying, things will get better.

With love from the far north

[Frame]

I want to tell you something, Butterflybox, that will lift your spirits and make life all worth while. But I'm having to struggle with getting out of bed lately and if you stick around, keep posting, keep reading you'll find something; I'll do my best put it in my post.

The only thing right now I know for certain is that your not alone, not even in your corner of the world. People all over are struggling. I'll struggle with you if you like.

Your right about caring for others (and gratitude) but we can exhaust ourselves caring for others or wracking our brains looking for the bright side. Sometimes we need to give ourselves a break, to give ourselves the right to be wrong, to be a bit more gentle with us.

Whatever; I'm going to end before I get dark.
Go ahead and rant, or cry, or scream; we're listening.

[Butterflybox]

Alaska1958, thank you. It helps to put things into perspective, to remember that everyone makes mistakes. Especially when under the stress of depression. Now that a few days have passed since that happened, I've been able to start getting over it and forgetting it.

[Butterflybox]

Frame, yes, I always feel like I'm doing something wrong when I can't think positive. I guess I've read too much Norman Vincent Peale.
Maybe I can come to accept that there will be times in our lives when there isn't any meaning, there is only getting through the next day. And sometimes those periods almost last longer than you can bare.
I know everyone says, it gets better, hang on. And mostly it feels like it won't but then I have these moments every once in a while, where the depression lifts and I'm at peace, me again for a little while. And I remember what hope feels like.
Thank you for listening.

[Frame]

Wow Butterflybox;

You said something there, I think profound. In everyone's life, are times when, there seems to be no meaning. When I look around other peoples lives (I no it's dangerous to judge but), people I love and respect or some not so much. It seems that, in comparison, I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for meaning.

It's not that my life is devoid of meaning, but that it at least feels like my life as been so consistently full of chaos that I'm always trying to orient and set my mind straight in it. Well, maybe it's my mind, or maybe it's my path. Perhaps my destiny is to work on great insoluble gobs of meaning. Maybe the world has become so chaotic, that many more minds are needed to create meaning.

So maybe there are so many depressed people out there because we're all so screwed up (so we can internalize this); or maybe we're depressed because the universe has a need to be filled, that of finding meaning in an increasingly chaotic world (or we can externalize it) and that we're all chewing on this gigantic problem of finding the meaning to let humanity move ahead and not get turned into oil slicks like the dinosaurs. I recently got the feeling that I've been struggling, all my life, to find meaning in a meaningless world.

Sh...y work but somebodies got to do it. I guess.