An Insight Into Chemically Induced Depression

I too suffer from deep clinical depression for the last 40 of my 51 years. It has all but crippled every aspect of my every waking moment. I had to leave my nursing career because of it's strangle hold on me.
I lost the ability to cope with life and had to go on SSDI. I'm a college educated woman living on Social Security Disability Benefits. I'm fortunate in the fact that my husband supports me fully, and thank god he has excellent medical and life insurance benefits otherwise I would be completely screwed.
This is an illness that knows no boundaries and shows no mercy. Someone made the comment that if you still have your depression then it's because you don't want to let it go...really? Is that supposed to be a joke?
I can assure the person who said that, that people with true depression would let it go today, this instant if it were that simple, if only it were that simple.

reply to post by Hefficide


I am also Bi-polar and like you my meds do not always work. I find myself depressed most of the time now but with my depression comes its own problems. I find it extremely difficult to motivate myself to do even the simpleist of tasks and I will feel completely tired like I have been awake already for 2 days, even if I have just woken up from a 12 hour sleep. My thoughts race but I cannot think of one thing.

On the opposite side on my up days I will have great ideas, promise people that I will do things, start new projects and be enthusiastic about the whole world only for all of this to be forgotten the next day when I wake back up into my depressed mode.

The doctors say I have the worst kind, rapid cycling Type 1 Bi-polar and they say 20% of people diagnosed with this end up killing themselves and 70% end up with a divorce. I guess the numbers are against me.

I too remember the days when my symptoms were not so bad, I think I developed my Bi-polar through the teenage years. I just wish I could be normal again or if not by the very least the people around me for them to understand how difficult it actually is to be me and that I do not mean to be what I am.

Until then I just have to get on with my life and hope for the best, I hope that one day they will find a cure.

Here's to a beautiful mind.

I really do appreciate all those who have replied to this thread, and feel a strong kinship and sense of community here.

To be blunt, revisiting this thread is somewhat painful for me because tonight is a "good night"... In my world that means that I'm not fighting off thoughts about electrical cords and carport support beams. Not trying to be melodramatic - but that is truly what a bad night is. Staving off those thoughts. I am not suicidal - but am prone to what I suppose my therapist would call ideations.

I prefer to think of them as invasive attacks from my subconscious. "ideation" implies cooperation or deliberate generation, by definition. And in my experience I neither generate nor cooperate with these thoughts. They appear and I beat them back down. It is unfortunate that, in my case, as I imagine is the case with many others, sometimes the tools I use to beat these thoughts back down with end up being as destructive as the thoughts would want them to be. Alcohol, medication, etc.

In my real life I have truly sequestered myself and live a very solitary life, for now. This is antithetical to how I spent the majority of my life. I'm not a great looking guy, but I'm OK. I do possess a quick wit and a personality that seems to attract people. I know it sounds conceited but for most of my life I was usually the center of attention in any group setting. Vanity would want to tell me that it was because I was special. I think the honest truth is that my mental illnesses ( PTSD, Bipolar, and OCP) simply create a behavioral "soup" that allows me to be a bit more extroverted and "eccentric" enough to be novel or appealing to others. The real life analog I can think of is Russel Brand - just minus the new age stuff. But he and I have similar traits... skinny guys with a sense of humor and a certain something that seems to make people want to pay attention. At any rate, that was who I "used to be". But for a few years now I've been more like a later in life Howard Hughes ( minus the money and jars of urine ). I've kept to myself. Much of this has to do with the fact that I live in a relatively large town - but my ex was and is a very prominent figure here. She knows just about everyone and just about everyone knows her or knows of her. I got sick of meeting new people and, after awhile, hearing the words. "Oh, you're THAT John... the one who used to date...." so I stay inside for the time being.

This sounds pathetic, or tragic - and maybe it is to a degree. But I don't see it that way. The truth is that a few years ago I was an arrogant jerk. I was conceited to a great degree. I was shallow. The end result was, oddly, that other people LOVED me but I HATED myself. Now that I've had a few years of deep, and serious self reflection, the opposite is proving true. ATS, lately, is my only real "sounding board" but, judging from it, people tend to dislike me, even as I learn to love myself more and more each day.

I'm sure someone with a deeper mind than mine could find some very profound philosophy in all that. If there is one to be had, I feel no desire to explore it. It's a good night here, and I'm happy enough to just "be" and to thank this community for the support it provides me.

There are some truly wonderful human beings hiding behind the pixels of the ATS screens.

Thank you all.

~Heff

Do you find with your Bi-polar that sometimes you sit in the middle ground of your moods and become incredibly self reflective? I think that best describes my own mood right now and was wondering if it was part of other peoples cycles who have Bi-polar.

reply to post by michael1983l


I spend most of my time in that state of mind. And with my PTSD, I have been forced to teach myself to be overly analytic of my own moods/thoughts/ideas/etc. I have to literally live my life trying as best I can to filter every single thought, reaction, and word through a sort of "logic filter" before I act or speak.

Being hyper-self critical, IMO, is part of Bipolar. As is a predisposition towards self-esteem problems.

~Heff