Depression Understood Forums

Hello,

I'm currently in a situation with my best friend's which is getting me down quite badly, and I could really use some advice on what to do.

Basically for as long as I remember I've always suffered from depression of some form, I think mostly due to a combination of being alone/having no friends/relationships, and partially due to low self confidence and low self esteem (though I don't know if that later came about as a result of depression or vice versa).

Anyway the last 4 years or so have been a lot better as I ended up with two fantastic friends who seemed to always be there and helped me a great deal, we always seemed to do things together and have a lot of fun. There were still times when I felt down about things but overall I rarely seemed to get depressed.

The thing is though over the last 6 months It feels like they've drifted away from me and that I'm being replaced by someone from where we work. They seemed to talk to me a lot less about things, for example one of them runs her own business and she used to tell me a lot about what was happening, but now I only find out third hand from other people. Or talk about games/films etc that we played/watched, would no longer involve me in the conversations. It seems that this other person always suddenly knew everything before I did.

After a while I then started to be left out of activities, we used to make plans to play football on a sunday, but I gradually got replaced at that, as my friend would invite this other person and no longer even mention it to me. Where I used to be told a week ahead what was happening, I now only found out because other people text me on the morning it was happening to see if I was driving there!

And other things like where we all used to hang out or go out places together weekly has stopped.

Tomorrow their holding a games night round theirs which used to be a monthly thing, but now it seems I've been replaced there as well. My replacement was invited 2 weeks ago, where I found out third hand again a couple of days ago and was only asked yesterday (which feels like its just more to make the numbers up). I can't even decide weather to go or not.

If I do then I just end up stuck in a room with the person who has replaced me, which I'm fairly certain I won't enjoy. But then If I don't go I know I'll just end up staying up home with a mixture of whisky and sleeping pills till I pass out. On the other hand if I'm going to be replaced for these nights as well, then do I just go tomorrow as a sort of last memory of these nights?

I don't want to loose my friends here as they mean a lot to me, but it looks like its a battle I've already lost.

Just to be clear as well, I know I have depression, I know I cope badly, normally I'll drink to try and shut up my inner chatterbox, other times I'll take sleeping pills to try and knock myself out quicker, I occasionally self harm (not to seriously though), other times I'll simply get home and fall to the floor with a migrain crying until I fall asleep. But I've tried self help, online help, phone help, doctors and perscriptions and nothing has worked, being with these friends has been about the only time I've felt 'normal' or happy for that matter. So I need advice on what to try or where to go, more on what to do about this particular situation.

Any answers before I have to decide what to do tomorrow would be very much appreciated.

Please help me
Matt

M4347 wrote:Hello,

I'm currently in a situation with my best friend's which is getting me down quite badly, and I could really use some advice on what to do.

Basically for as long as I remember I've always suffered from depression of some form, I think mostly due to a combination of being alone/having no friends/relationships, and partially due to low self confidence and low self esteem (though I don't know if that later came about as a result of depression or vice versa).

From St8arrow

That is a good description of your situation. Just for brevity's sake, I am going to edit some of your excellent comments from your first submission in this site.

From M4347

--- After a while I then started to be left out of activities, we used to make plans to play football on a sunday, but I gradually got replaced at that, as my friend would invite this other person and no longer even mention it to me. Where I used to be told a week ahead what was happening, I now only found out because other people text me on the morning it was happening to see if I was driving there!

Tomorrow they're holding a games night round theirs which used to be a monthly thing, but now it seems I've been replaced there as well. My replacement was invited 2 weeks ago, where I found out third hand again a couple of days ago and was only asked yesterday (which feels like its just more to make the numbers up). I can't even decide weather to go or not.

If I do then I just end up stuck in a room with the person who has replaced me, which I'm fairly certain I won't enjoy. But then If I don't go I know I'll just end up staying up home with a mixture of whisky and sleeping pills till I pass out. On the other hand if I'm going to be replaced for these nights as well, then do I just go tomorrow as a sort of last memory of these nights?

I don't want to loose my friends here as they mean a lot to me, but it looks like its a battle I've already lost.

Just to be clear as well, I know I have depression, I know I cope badly, normally I'll drink to try and shut up my inner chatterbox, other times I'll take sleeping pills to try and knock myself out quicker, I occasionally self harm (not to seriously though), other times I'll simply get home and fall to the floor with a migrain crying until I fall asleep. But I've tried self help, online help, phone help, doctors and perscriptions and nothing has worked, being with these friends has been about the only time I've felt 'normal' or happy for that matter. So I need advice on what to try or where to go, more on what to do about this particular situation.

Any answers before I have to decide what to do tomorrow would be very much appreciated.

Please help me
Matt

I just read this message on Saturday morning, it is 9.45 am. our time here in the Golden Horseshoe area of Ontario. If this message is in time for you, --- my answer to your last question is simply this: GO to the event in question.

Your alternative coping skills are negative to say the least. When you get there tell anyone who will listen how happy you are to be there. Tell them how much you miss them and wish that you could see them more often.

I am guessing here but it seems to me that in the past you might have got on their nerves by an endless stream of negative thoughts that are part and parcel of your depression. As I have said to others on this site, there is an expression that says that if you act happy or positive, that eventually you will become happy and/or positive. Why not give it a try. I know one thing for sure; that approach would certainly be better than the coping skills that you clearly and courageously listed in your above submission.

I hope some of the ideas expressed herein will resonate positively with you in your current uncertainty. Good luck and good skill in your quest to overcome these feelings of depression that have haunted you for so long. Remember that there are plenty of people on this site who have experienced your kind of loneliness and others like me, I am 74 years old, who think that life itself has taught them some lessons that just might be valuable to those younger than themselves.

Cheers to you and by all means, don't be a stranger. You are more than welcome on this depression-understood.org/forum site.

Hello Matt, I second the above advice. We humans are such curious animals, trying to silence our inner chatterboxes as best we can, pouring ourselves into our work, into others, or in the case of we depressed especially, pouring all our internal energy back into ourselves, in an endless and circular pursuit of "what went wrong."

It's important to have friends, to have people you can talk to, but it's also important to realize that they have needs to. We extremely depressed people are typically wrapped up in ourselves all the time--but this is not a very fair way to be when interacting with others. It's actually quite selfish.

But precisely because we suffer so keenly, internally, I think we are in a very unique position to feel for others, to recognize and worry about the emotional needs of those we interact with. The key balance to be struck is between being attentive to the cues of others and an attentive listener, and lessening our dependency on the sympathy and regard of those we listen to.

So, perhaps when you're hanging out with your friends, you should make a strong effort to just listen to what they have to say, without thinking about yourself, without thinking about how you relate, how you feel about being there or about what they say, or about how you feel aggrieved or abandoned by your friends.

All human beings are needy--that's part and parcel to being a social species, and goes without saying. But being overtly needy, quick to attach to one or two individuals, doesn't make people feel very valued, only used. There must be reciprocity. The deep compassion for the pain of others we depressed have equips us very well to foresee and meet the needs of others, making us wonderful friends, if only we can control our own needs.