Rain in the desert, is that possible?

[just a guest]

I wonder if anyone here has ever felt their life was so paralyzed by depression at one time that they can't move on?

I feel like a lone traveler trudging in the desert, feeling so lost and disconnected from myself...my emotions, my spirit.  I've managed to emotional distance myself from everyone in my life, most of all, from myself.  Everything in my life is affected, esp. my work performance.  I just don't have the drive and energy anymore to live my life.  I'm just merely surviving, feeling so alone and hopeless.

From what I've read of what many people wrote about therapy,  I wonder how it has helped you get from point A to point B in your life?  I think the best thing to do for myself is quick my job and move across the country and start over again.  If that's ever possible.  Or quick what I'm doing and focus on finding ways to heal myself.  I wonder what has worked for people on this board.

Thank you for listening to my sob story....

Desert Rain

[longtire]

Boy Desert Rain, this sounds familiar.

I wonder if anyone here has ever felt their life was so paralyzed by depression at one time that they can't move on?

Yes, I could not sleep even though I was phsycially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually exhausted.  Literally exhausted with no resources left.  I couldn't eat, couldn't drive, couldn't work.  "Moderate" Major Depression.  Moderate my a$$!  I promised myself that I would never let myself go back there again.  Are you getting enough sleep?  Taking meds to sleep and for depression?  Seeing a good therapist?  All these help to put the chemicals back in your brain and the energy back into you.  This is what I wrote recently on another thread:

Guest, it sounds like you are depressed. I recognize it because I was too. Do you know what depression is? It is when you have been miserable and stressed for so long that your brain runs out of some important chemicals. That can be changed. If your brain does not have enough of these chemicals right now, it is physically impossible for you to feel happy or hopeful right now. You are avaluable and wonderful person, maybe you just can't "feel" like it right now.

I feel like a lone traveler trudging in the desert, feeling so lost and disconnected from myself...my emotions, my spirit.  I've managed to emotional distance myself from everyone in my life, most of all, from myself.  Everything in my life is affected, esp. my work performance.  I just don't have the drive and energy anymore to live my life.  I'm just merely surviving, feeling so alone and hopeless.

You took a very courageous step to reach out to us here!  As for distancing from yourself and others, I think this is a defining feature of depression, not of you.  Keep talking.

From what I've read of what many people wrote about therapy,  I wonder how it has helped you get from point A to point B in your life?  I think the best thing to do for myself is quick my job and move across the country and start over again.  If that's ever possible.  Or quick what I'm doing and focus on finding ways to heal myself.  I wonder what has worked for people on this board.

As I said above, I needed sleeping meds and anti-depressants to get my body and brain (somewhat) back in balance.  I needed therapy to change my behaviors where I was stressed and miserable so my brain would not run out of chemicals again.

Thank you for listening to my sob story....

Anytime.

[daylily]

I feel like a lone traveler trudging in the desert, feeling so lost and disconnected from myself...my emotions, my spirit.  I've managed to emotional distance myself from everyone in my life, most of all, from myself.  Everything in my life is affected, esp. my work performance.  I just don't have the drive and energy anymore to live my life.  I'm just merely surviving, feeling so alone and hopeless.

I can tell you from very recent (perhaps ongoing) experience that you are not alone.  The people here literally talked me down from the ledge.  So I can say with all sincerity that this is a good place for you to have found.

That feeling of disconnection is very real and almost impossible to describe to someone who hasn't felt it.  I know it well.  And I know how it creeps into every corner of your life, paralyzing all your muscles:  the work muscles, the relationship muscles, the joy muscles.

For now, just know that you are not alone.  I am very much where you are.  So are others here, I think.

My thoughts are, and will be, with you.

[Anonymous]

I don't think meds are not strong enough for me.  I need a brain transplant.  I wish that was an option.

Desert Rain

[Anonymous]

Hi just a guest,

What's going on at work that is paralyzing you? (if that's the origin of it)

The way therapy helped me was to give me reality checks, reframed very distorted thinking, led me to question long-held distorted beliefs, built up my ego, got me the right medication, gave me emotional grounding/stability, was like having a halfway decent parent who wasn't going to need *me* to contain *their* emotional spillage.

keep posting and let us know what happened to you.

bunny

[Anonymous]

Hi Desert Rain:

Welcome.

I need a brain transplant. I wish that was an option.

I often say something like this as a joke.  But I know what you mean when you're serious about it too.

Talking helps.  If you keep posting here, it will help.  It helps to get your thoughts out infront of you where you can actually look at them and put them in some order or change your mind about them or decide to keep them.  It helps to express your feelings instead of keeping them there alone, with only you and the desert dust to know them.

I like your name because it is so hopeful.  Like rain in the desert, it gives what is needed by those that live there.

It's hard to keep trudging along when you feel so tired and lost (and baked by the desert sun).  I like your idea of considering a new job or a move.  Maybe that would be something to think about seriously sometime?
A fresh new start?  Why not?  Is there some reason you must remain where you are?

Just want you to know that you are not alone there in the smoldering sand.  There is hope that life can be different for you.  You are surviving and that is good.  To be happy would be better, right?

What kinds of things make you feel happy or comfortable/ what do you enjoy?  What do you like?

GFN

[dogbit]

I wonder if anyone here has ever felt their life was so paralyzed by depression at one time that they can't move on?

Yes, yes, yes.  I just kept reaching out to people I felt maybe could understand.  And, I remembered times in my past when I was content or happy.  Intellectually, I said to myself that I was happy in the past and I will be happy in the future (maybe as soon as tomorrow!) and that today is just today.  Reaching out is really the most important thing I did.  And don't reach out just to one place...reach out to every place you can think of and the pieces will come together.  I think posting here is great.  You'll get a lot of affirmation for who you are and who you will beome...depression is the pits.  It robs you of energy and takes away your normal vision of a future.  Just keep talking...It will get better!  You just need some listeners and from my experience, people listen here.

[FlowerGirl]

Desert Rain,

I was there too. Recently. And I *hated* the idea of therapy. But there I was, on the edge. For some reason, I wasn't quite suicidal... but extremely depressed, anxious, stressed - I never slept through the night. I'd wake up, angry at something. Not even sure what... something. someone.

Anyways.. I went to a therapist. It was scary for me at first. She was incredible - it was really "crisis mode" for me then.. I just came and cried... and cried and cried. But you know what? a few things were amazing about the experience:

1) It was okay to talk about myself... all about myself.. not ask "how are you?" or worry if she was bored... many of us here aren't used to indulging in this way...

2) It really validated my feeling. I thought I was overreacting. nuts. wrong to feel the way I felt. She'd say things like "that clearly hurt you alot. I understand" and that would set my tears off .. just because she didn't argue with my emotions. Again, many of us were never allowed to "own" our feelings.

3) Ultimately, crisis mode ended and I slowly started building myself up. It gave me a small step to rise up above the depression. and from that vantage point, I could see the horizon.. and slowly started climbing.

I recently learned that ifyou could go up in an air balloon about 20 feet into the air, you can see 500 miles around. It inspired me - only a little height and you can see much farther.

Take care, DesertRain,
FlowerGirl

[daylily]

Are you around today?  How was the day?  Let us know...

[write]

so many of us feel the same.
And it's been a lonely journey until we realised that so mnay others have suffered the same.

This is a good safe place to let out your feelings!

[New Day]

Hello Desert Rain,

I am sorry to hear how you feel.  

One thing you need to understand is that clinical depression can be treated and that it is a *real* condition that is not of your making and that does require treatment such as meds and therapy.  Do you think you may be clinically depressed?  Many people (not sure if you are one) think depression is a sign of weakness or shame, and they try to hide it which makes it worse because it just keeps getting worse when it goes untreated.  So you may want to see a doctor and find out if you are clinically depressed.

Insofar as feeling stuck and lost, I have been there, too, so you are not alone.  Talking to someone helps to release the emotions.  There may be a multitude of reasons for your depression and talking to someone helps you get "outside your head" if you know what I mean.  

I had similar problems with my job, could not perform and did not care about anything.  I was suffering so badly.  In the past, I had always gone to work and used it as the "glue" of my life, but my experience with exN took me like a tidal wave.  

When you are ready to reach out, which you have already done by posting so that's really wonderful, you will begin, even in a small way, to feel better because you are seeking an answer for your pain and you are doing something constructive for yourself.   Keep posting.   You are certainly not alone here.  

New Day

[dogbit]

I recently learned that ifyou could go up in an air balloon about 20 feet into the air, you can see 500 miles around. It inspired me - only a little height and you can see much farther

Thanks, Flower Girl.  I think I'm going to put that on my frig.  What a great thought!

Dogbittles

[vunil as guest]

Hi, desert--

Add my voice to the list of those who (1) want you to feel better! and (2) have been where you are.

You mentioned wanting a brain transplant.  Believe it or not, therapy and meds can provide that.... it is amazing.

One of the most insidious things about depression is that it makes everything look terrible.  So therapy looks terrible, meds look terrible, going for a walk looks terrible, everything that might help looks terrible.  The other insidious thing about it, at least for me, is that it makes it hard to move, kind of like walking through sludge.  With a friend's help, I got myself through the sludge, sat in my doctor's office (just my regular general pratitioner) and told him I felt like my brain was made of dark clouds.  He wrote me a prescription, I went to the pharmacist, and by THAT AFTERNOON the clouds had started to clear up.  I have told this before here, but it just seems worthy of repeating  By a couple of days later, for the first time in my life, there were no clouds.  I had fantasies about putting the meds in the water supply (don't worry, I didn't)-- just the thought that people could be helped as I was and not know it filled me with empathy.

All of which is to say: the clouds are not you.  You did not make them and  are not less of a person because you have them.  And you can be without them.  The hopelessness you feel has nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with those dumb clouds.  They are dishonest and confusing and they do not tell you anything true.  Blow them away with a big giant fan.


As for therapy, I agree with everyone here that it is just a lifesaver.  It is difficult to explain why.  It has something to do with a combination of finally admitting that you are going to focus on yourself, and finding someone really helpful to provide support (when many of us never had that in our childhoods and secretly crave it).   Just the hopefulness that therapy infuses me with is worth every minute of it-- this sense of "we are going to make this better!  And maybe even totally fix it!"  Wow.  That is powerful.

And, for me (and maybe for you?) therapy was great because secretly I thought I was quite seriously flawed.  When my therapists laughed at that statement, it was really helpful to see.  My only flaw was thinking I was flawed, to paraphrase brother Longtire's quote.

Please keep posting.  This is a very intelligent and articulate group that happens to consist of folks who have been where you are.

{{{{desert rain}}}}

[Desert Rain]

Oh, how I wish I can just blow them away with a big giant fan!  My life would just be so much breezier.  

I can't thank enough to everyone who have posted here.  Very much needed and very much appreciated!  My feelings have been suppressed for so many years, that it is a difficult task to dig them one by one and bring them to the surface.  They will not be easy for me to articulate.  But I know i have to start somewhere.  My spirit has been mute for so long, that I don't know if it can find its voice to articulate clearly w/o confusion and w/o being understood and misexpressed by me.  A wounded spirit who doesn't know how to mend herself just yet.   I'm afraid this is going to be a long process, plz be patient with me.

From what I know of myself, I don't think i have clinical depression.  I just feel so lost and disconnected within myself.  I don't really know who I am anymore.  Does anyone ever feel this way?  I feel like a wandering lost soul.  Happy...what does that mean??  I haven't been happy for so long, that I've forgotten what that word really means.  

Desert Rain

[Brigid]

Desert Rain,
Like all the others, I have felt what you are feeling and wanted desperately for the pain to go away.  I really wanted someone to put a needle in my arm and put me to sleep until all the painful stuff was over.  Fortunately, I found a wonderful therapist and then got on meds to clear the fog, allow me to sleep, allow me to eat and be able to put one foot in front of the other (very difficult prior to the meds).  Depression and anxiety is VERY disabling and when it hits you for the first time as it did to me when my H left me, you don't have a clue what is going on.

Feeling lost and empty is very common as well.  When you have dealt with a difficult situation for awhile, you don't even realize how much of your spirit has been sucked out and eventually there is just a shell left.  You must find a way to rebuild your spirit and you cannot do that alone.  Coming here is very helpful, but one on one therapy will take you miles further.  At least you need a professional to help diagnose your situation.

I pray you find what you need to stop sinking in the sand and come out of the fog.  It is a truly horrible place to be.

God bless,

Brigid