New Member - Hello
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 8:42 am
I'm a 29 year old musician and artist from New England, USA. My depression began when I was very young. I've struggled with it all of my self-conscious life. As a child I absolutely hated going to school, it made me so angry and sad inside and I couldn't understand why I was being forced to do something I hated so much. It didn't help that my schools were all under-staffed and poorly funded. Because the issue of my depression was never properly addressed or confronted, it got a lot worse in my adolescence.
Throughout my teens I used drugs to numb all of the negative emotions that I felt. By my 18th birthday I was addicted to heroin and living day-to-day. During the summer after I graduated high school while my friends were out having fun, I was bouncing between rehab facilities and staying in drug dens (usually decrepit tenement / boarding houses in Boston). I'll never forget how I felt the first time I ever had nowhere to go home to, and slept right on the street with some other addicts. During that time I experienced some truly awful things in the underworld of heroin addicts & dealers. Because of a couple of particular incidents involving guns and knives that happened during that time, I suffer from PTSD as well as depression.
In January 2007 I finally got myself together and got on a drug treatment program and got clean of all drugs. Here I am ten years later, and I don't do drugs anymore (!), and I feel I should be happy--or at least content--about that accomplishment, but I'm not. All I can do is look back at what I lost during those years, or I think about what I could've done better. I lost so many things and the friendship of many people, and it was so important to me. Since only 10% of heroin addicts successfully recover, I should feel lucky, but I don't.
Also in 2007, I moved to a new town hoping to start afresh. My problems only followed me here; as the saying goes, "wherever you go there you are." Since then I haven't done anything noteworthy. Looking back, moving away from my hometown actually made my depression worse! Once I got settled in here I realized I had no friends here, most back home had either died of drug overdose or had written me off as a junkie (regardless of my sobriety). Indeed, it was quite a shock to my system going from having lots of friends and people to talk to, to having absolutely no one. Worse still, I've developed social anxiety during the ten years I've been living here, and it's making it even harder to make friends or meet a girl. I'm a musician and an artist, and I've tried to use that as a way to meet people and help my depression, but so far it's only gotten me into trouble. Unfortunately a lot of musicians love to party, and nearly every group I've tried joining has been rife with drug & alcohol abuse. On the other hand, my old friends who never did drugs have all written me off as a junkie. There's so much stigma surrounding drug addiction that I've resorted to keeping it secret from as many people as possible.
For a few years, I worked my program to help repair the damage I'd done to my brain while on drugs, and for a while I felt like I was making progress. However over the past two years, my depression has consumed me. I don't leave the house unless I have to, I hardly talk to anyone, I don't work because I can't, and I barely play music anymore--something that used to be my life. Never in my life have I ever felt so alone and hopeless, like I'm on the outside looking in. I'll talk to people now & then in public--just in passing--and I hear people talk about their family, friends, children, husbands, wives, etc., and I envy them. I find myself in envy of even the most mundane of lives. After a lot of soul-searching and writing in my journal, I realized that I've always wanted to be somebody else than myself. I've always tried to reinvent myself in hopes that it would somehow change me into the kind of person I want to be; someone who isn't so depressed and tired all the time.
Anyway, that's about the size of it. Of course there's more--a LOT more--but that's the gist. I'm 29, I'm depressed, I have no friends (no exaggeration), and I haven't had a romantic relationship in five years. I live alone in my parents' basement. I can't keep a job because of my depression. I stay inside so much that I'm now developing some agoraphobic tendencies as well. I'm pretty much at the end of my rope; I feel like an old dishcloth that's been rung-out too many times. I realize this isn't exactly a very happy introduction, but after all, that's why I'm here. Forums have helped me in the past with my drug and medication-related issues, so I'm hoping that maybe this forum can help my depression. Every bit counts! *One final note: for those of you concerned, I am currently seeing a counselor and going to groups weekly, and I'm also currently in the process of getting to see a psychiatrist for the first time in 8 years.
I wish the best for all of you.
Throughout my teens I used drugs to numb all of the negative emotions that I felt. By my 18th birthday I was addicted to heroin and living day-to-day. During the summer after I graduated high school while my friends were out having fun, I was bouncing between rehab facilities and staying in drug dens (usually decrepit tenement / boarding houses in Boston). I'll never forget how I felt the first time I ever had nowhere to go home to, and slept right on the street with some other addicts. During that time I experienced some truly awful things in the underworld of heroin addicts & dealers. Because of a couple of particular incidents involving guns and knives that happened during that time, I suffer from PTSD as well as depression.
In January 2007 I finally got myself together and got on a drug treatment program and got clean of all drugs. Here I am ten years later, and I don't do drugs anymore (!), and I feel I should be happy--or at least content--about that accomplishment, but I'm not. All I can do is look back at what I lost during those years, or I think about what I could've done better. I lost so many things and the friendship of many people, and it was so important to me. Since only 10% of heroin addicts successfully recover, I should feel lucky, but I don't.
Also in 2007, I moved to a new town hoping to start afresh. My problems only followed me here; as the saying goes, "wherever you go there you are." Since then I haven't done anything noteworthy. Looking back, moving away from my hometown actually made my depression worse! Once I got settled in here I realized I had no friends here, most back home had either died of drug overdose or had written me off as a junkie (regardless of my sobriety). Indeed, it was quite a shock to my system going from having lots of friends and people to talk to, to having absolutely no one. Worse still, I've developed social anxiety during the ten years I've been living here, and it's making it even harder to make friends or meet a girl. I'm a musician and an artist, and I've tried to use that as a way to meet people and help my depression, but so far it's only gotten me into trouble. Unfortunately a lot of musicians love to party, and nearly every group I've tried joining has been rife with drug & alcohol abuse. On the other hand, my old friends who never did drugs have all written me off as a junkie. There's so much stigma surrounding drug addiction that I've resorted to keeping it secret from as many people as possible.
For a few years, I worked my program to help repair the damage I'd done to my brain while on drugs, and for a while I felt like I was making progress. However over the past two years, my depression has consumed me. I don't leave the house unless I have to, I hardly talk to anyone, I don't work because I can't, and I barely play music anymore--something that used to be my life. Never in my life have I ever felt so alone and hopeless, like I'm on the outside looking in. I'll talk to people now & then in public--just in passing--and I hear people talk about their family, friends, children, husbands, wives, etc., and I envy them. I find myself in envy of even the most mundane of lives. After a lot of soul-searching and writing in my journal, I realized that I've always wanted to be somebody else than myself. I've always tried to reinvent myself in hopes that it would somehow change me into the kind of person I want to be; someone who isn't so depressed and tired all the time.
Anyway, that's about the size of it. Of course there's more--a LOT more--but that's the gist. I'm 29, I'm depressed, I have no friends (no exaggeration), and I haven't had a romantic relationship in five years. I live alone in my parents' basement. I can't keep a job because of my depression. I stay inside so much that I'm now developing some agoraphobic tendencies as well. I'm pretty much at the end of my rope; I feel like an old dishcloth that's been rung-out too many times. I realize this isn't exactly a very happy introduction, but after all, that's why I'm here. Forums have helped me in the past with my drug and medication-related issues, so I'm hoping that maybe this forum can help my depression. Every bit counts! *One final note: for those of you concerned, I am currently seeing a counselor and going to groups weekly, and I'm also currently in the process of getting to see a psychiatrist for the first time in 8 years.
I wish the best for all of you.
