Depression Understood Forums

Hi guys, this is my first post, so go easy on me I just want to start by rambling my thoughts out and see what happens from there. Feel free to ask me anything.

I am in my early 30's, I have a successful career, and on the surface everyone thinks I am happy/successful/etc. But I am not, and have not for a long time. Hell I don't know if I ever really have been, at least since I was a little kid. But recently, in the last year or so, things have been much worse.

For a long time I have been denying my depression, but my recent feelings have made it hard to ignore any longer. Looking back I think this goes back to when I was in middle school or there about, but its getting progressively worse since then. I made my parents transfer me to another school during 7th grade because of bullying, but the truth is, I wasn't bullied, I was just depressed and thought changing everything I knew would help (this is a repetitive trend I am finding in my life). My mom I think knew this but never confronted me on it, but during this time did take me to many, many shrinks. The best of which were no help, the worst of which put me on some f-ed up drugs that basically completely took control of my mind away from me. Resulting in my mom not taking me to any more shrinks and me having serious distrust of doctors and medication ever since then to this day.

Anyways, during college I had a few serious depression related breakdowns, but I masked them as something else. 9/11 was one such convenient excuse for feeling down, and a year later switching schools was another symptom of me getting extremely down and just wanting to run away and start over without my family knowing what happened (they thought I just wanted to change majors).

The second college I went to I setup a schedule where I took no breaks, and had several classes every day. By this point I found that occupying myself with loads of work kept my mind from wandering into darker places. This resulted in me doing extremely well in school, but as graduation neared I didn't have enough course work to keep my occupied and I fell into another dark place where I just say around all day waiting to graduate.

But before this could manifest into anything obvious to those around me I got a job and moved away a month before graduation, once again drowning myself in work to mask what was going on.

Since then I have worked very hard, avoided taking vacations (and when I did I would travel to some far away land and usually with some sort of objective/work attached), and have had a series of trainwreck relationships (whole other post waiting there!). I have managed to avoid any sort of breakdown in the last 12 years thanks to work, but what I feel now is things have been building up and the way its manifesting now is something I am finding really hard to express or deal with.

I wouldn't say I am sad exactly, but I certainly don't feel good, and if anything I worry I just don't feel anything at all. My motivation is allowing me to work still, but really because its the only thing I can do, and its not extending to any other parts of my life. But what I am missing now is any sort of desire or goal, or even material wants. I literally want nothing. And so now, every weekend I come home and fall into a downward spiral of doing nothing and waiting for Monday so I don't have to decide what to spend my own time on. Sometimes literally staring at the wall for hours at a time.

At first I thought "maybe if I move to a nicer house I will be happy"... moved... that didn't work. Then "maybe if I buy this new car"... ditto. But eventually after doing a bunch of stuff like that, I just stopped wanting new things. Briefly I thought "what if I just move to some new place and start over", but the thing is, I already did that. California was my escape from the east coast. And if I did run, I actually don't know what I would be running from. Wherever I do I will still find myself in the mirror after all.

And you have to understand, even though I probably was always mildly depressed, up until fairly recently I had a really clear roadmap for my future. The company I wanted to start, the house I wanted to build, the type of relationship I wanted to finally find. But I am now in this bizarre place where, yeah I know objectively I probably should want those things, but right now, I just don't in my heart. And so the motivation towards those things is also gone and the steps to get there, just doesn't exist. My work life is still functional, but at this point its only because I know keeping busy is probably a good thing but now I am having thoughts of "why make all this money if you don't want anything?". So I am not sure how much longer that will last.

Physically, over the last year I have gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of muscle mass, and generally feel at least 10 years older than I did a year ago.

Anyways, I would love to talk with folks here, and maybe work through some things. I know a lot of the feedback will be to talk to friends and family about this, but I am just not ready to do that, and I have always been really closed off emotionally from those close to me. Not sure if thats something I picked up from my dad or just a self-taught defense mechanism for a long time depressed person. But I hope venting here first will at least be a first step. A have a friend coming to stay with me for a few months so I hope that helps though.

Welcome Ranch,
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I can relate to so much of what you've shared. I've lost all interest in my life, and finding it harder and harder to get through each day. I do a pretty good job of covering up my depression to others, and I think they'd be surprised to know what I'm really thinking. I am on meds, and see a therapist, but it just doesn't help enough. I hope you have a better day.

hello, I'm not really sure what to say in response to your life story (not to be critical but you should try to avoid thinking errors like all or nothing thoughts or mind reading) ((googled them if you don't know)) but in some ways we certainly have a lot in common.e I'm very new too this and very unsure about lots of things but I'm here if you're looking for someone to talk to because I'm looking for the same in coming to this website in the first place

Talking it out really does help no matter with a stranger or a close friend but with someone you don't know you end up feeling more free, yet with a friend there's genuine comfort given. Keeping things bottled up hurts you, not only mentally but physically with the stress. You're doing the right thing putting your feelings out there. There is always someone to talk to, someone who knows what your going through. Reading back I see its all the norm to say but most times it true.