isolation

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Where do U find support most?

I was raised in a very dysfunctional household growing up. I started a family of my own very young as a result. Beyond my immediate family there’s no one for me to turn to. My mother was the only one understanding of my illnesses but sadly, she passed from metastatic breast cancer a few years back. I just wish I had a close female friend to confide in at the very least. I don’t like to burden my teenage daughters with stuff. They have their art & their studies. #Dysfunction #Trauma #Isolation #Anxiety

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How can I leave my family, or find a “purpose”?

I’m sorry in advance if this post is triggering, or otherwise not allowed.

Let me cut to the point: I believe that I no longer serve a role or a purpose in the daily life I am living. My husband and teenage children have no real use/need for me anymore. They just avoid me, until they want or need something that I can provide. I cannot manage to make/sustain connections with others (immediate or extended family, friends/acquaintances; old or new), and am exceedingly lonely. (I cry every day - which is probably good, since it proves to me that I can feel.) Even the cat, who used to favor my company, has completely gone off me. I am very unfulfilled in my life, and I really don’t see the point in living anymore.

I’ve finally weaned off my antidepressant (psychiatrist knows this and has prescribed a different SSRI which I have not yet started), which did absolutely nothing for me except to “blunt” me. I spent YEARS feeling nothing and watching life go on around me, as if watching a movie. Now I can feel- and it’s anger and resentment for lost and wasted time; for the rejection I feel, among many, many other things. I do have a therapist-good as far as therapists go - who tells me I need to do self-care. I reminded them that I can’t even bring myself to bathe, let alone go on a mini-vacation, spa, retreat etc. That’s a big issue for me as well - I see that I’m deserving of attention as long as I’m paying someone for it.

Intellectually, I know how to begin the “leaving” process…as I’ve told my husband, if I knew where to go, I’d already be long gone. (The dynamics of our relationship are a big part of the problem - though I refuse to blame him or anyone else for what I am going through.) Problem is, I don’t know how or where to go, or if I even want to start all over. I do know that I cannot continue life the way it is and has been for a long time. I almost wish to die in my sleep - that’s all I do anymore is sleep, as I have no energy for anything else- so that I don’t have to make decisions and live in pain anymore.

If you have insights/perspectives to share, I’d appreciate them. But really, I needed to drop this “bomb” somewhere…I have no outlet otherwise. Thank you for reading.

#DebilitatingDepression #si #Isolation #anhedonia

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I just don’t care anymore.

I isolate in our apartment. I care less about my pets but I still take care of them. I don’t care about being tidy anymore yet I force myself to either wash up or shower. I have lost touch with my family. I hate going to the dining room and prefer that my husband bring our bag supper to our room. I am basically waiting to die. #Depression #Isolation #Feelingnumb

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Every Despondent Day

Today is one of those days. You know the kind. The kind where no matter what people say, look, do cheering up is just not happening. Short of someone telling me, I won the lottery. My total take home amount after taxes is 1 billion dollars, yeah, cheering up is not in the cards. I am not sure how many others are out there who have these days. These days you feel trapped. Since my divorce, I have no car, and no official income. I live with my retired parents and unemployed brother.(I am not sure why he doesn't even try to get a job but I am sure something is wrong with his spirit. He has mental issues of his own too. So, I try to cut him some slack.) I've been applying for menial jobs just to have some stream of income, with absolutely no success. Sure, I am halfway through a data analytics course. I have been working on this for 3 months. However, that brings in no income. On days like this I feel like I have climbed halfway up the depression hole, only to discover I am still at the bottom. All of the climbing you did yesterday was around the hole, not upwards. Also, by the way, the hole gets deeper every day. On days like this, my 100 square foot room feels like a glorified prison. I know I need to cry. I know I feel like this because I am exhausted and weary of the daily wear and tear life puts on us but there is no way to activate the catharsis because I officially have no one who "gets it". I have no one who gets me. I just want someone to give me a call, tell me, "Let's go have some fun. Don't worry I will pay." I want to get you out of the house. I want to get you away from the oppressive life you live with older Christian puritanical judgmental parents and family on watch, an annoying brother who will not get off the couch and bleeding clipped wings that long to escape this mind and body. Yeah, it's one of those days you have to wait it out.

#Depression #depressed #lonely #hopeless #MentalHealth #exhausted #weary #stuck #prison #catharsis #Isolation #Judgement #Escape #Needabreak #Fun #betterdays #Divorced #single #unemployed #noincome #livingwithparents #careerchange #financialstress#waitingforbetterdays

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Voyage from the Isle of Shadows

On a remote isle, where the skies often wept and the sun hesitated to shine, lived a soul named Evan. This island was not of the world's vast oceans but of a more ethereal kind, nestled in the depths of Evan's own mind. It was a silent place, where the trees whispered of sorrow and the winds carried the echoes of loneliness.

Evan had not always lived here. Once, the mainland of life had been home, bustling with love, connections, and laughter. But over time, a mist of despair had settled in the mind's landscape, pulling Evan away, slowly, almost imperceptibly, to this secluded island.

The shoreline of this island was a peculiar one. For along its edges, just beyond the misty veil, were shapes and silhouettes of boats of all kinds — large and small, some sturdy, others less so. These were the vessels of rescue — friends who reached out, family who called in concern, therapists who waited with open doors, medications that promised a semblance of relief. Yet, despite their proximity, they seemed an ocean away to Evan.

Days melded into nights, and the island remained constant, a companion of solitude. Evan would walk the same shores, tracing footprints that were washed away by tides of endless thoughts. The island had an uncanny power, a gravity that pulled on the spirit, convincing Evan that the waters were too treacherous, the effort too great, the possibility of leaving a mere mirage.

The island had no mirrors, but if it did, Evan might not have recognized the reflection. The eyes that once held dreams now glimpsed through the veils of apathy, and a smile that once could light up a room now flickered in the dimness of isolation.

Yet, the island was not as impenetrable as it appeared. There were moments, fleeting and fragile, where the mist thinned, and the boats seemed a little closer, a little more real. A message in a bottle from a friend that washed ashore, the memory of a family gathering that brought a ghost of a smile, an article about someone who had been on a similar island and had found their way back to the mainland.

One such day, a different kind of storm brewed on the horizon. It was not one that brought the usual gloom, but rather a storm of defiance against the island's hold. Evan stood on the beach, feeling the first drops of a different kind of rain, a rain that seemed to cleanse rather than to dampen. With a deep breath, drawn from the remnants of a will long buried, Evan took a step toward the water, then another.

It wasn't a smooth voyage. The waters were indeed rough, and doubts were the waves that threatened to capsize the spirit. But the boats were there, and this time, they were not just mirages. Hands reached out, voices called encouragement, and slowly, with many a backward glance, Evan moved toward them.

The journey off the island of depression and isolation is not a tale of grand heroism. It is made of small, everyday acts of courage — the courage to reach out, to answer a call, to take a prescribed pill, to talk to a stranger about what's going on inside. It's a voyage that requires a map drawn in patience and inked with the understanding of those who have sailed these waters before.

Evan's story is not an uncommon one, nor is it finished. The island remains, sometimes just a speck on the horizon, other times looming large. But now there is knowledge, a realization that the boats are there, the waters can be navigated, and the isolation is not a sentence but a moment in a larger journey.

And for anyone who finds themselves on a similar island, know this — your boats are waiting, closer than you think, manned by those who care, ready to embark on the journey with you.

#Depression #Isolation #Loneliness

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True or False: I feel heard by others when I explain how chronic pain affects my mental health.

Living with a chronic illness of any kind can be — how shall we say this? — isolating as all get out. And when you add emotions into the mixing bowl of physical symptoms, that isolation only compounds.

When we asked our migraine community if they feel heard by others when they try to explain how migraine affects their mental health, only 10% said they feel heard and that the people around them genuinely try to understand what they’re going through. On the other end of the spectrum, 34% of Mighties who responded said they don’t feel heard and that no one really gets it.

In episode six of the Health and (un)Wellness podcast, Mighty staffers Kat and Skye explore why it’s so hard to explain the toll chronic pain can take on one’s mental health to folks who don’t live with it. Listen to the episode on Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4m1l6upAHlaNoEa5TeLxXK

#Migraine #ChronicPain #ChronicIllness #MentalHealth #Isolation #Depression #Disability #CheckInWithMe #Fibromyalgia #EhlersDanlosSyndrome

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The difficulty with anxiety and grief… #Grief #Anxiety #validation #Loneliness #Isolation

Don’t know many of you dealing with grief and anxiety feel similarly - you muster up energy, ability and motivation to socialise, seem normal, functional…but at the end of it, you are relieved. It feels enervating and drudging and there’s very rarely any meaning or comfort these interactions provide. So to the extent possible you avoid meeting people, remain reclusive for there’s more certainty there and less anxiety, indeed a comfort solitude provides. Then solitude and accompanying loneliness too intensifies your grief. You make efforts to reach out and fraternize. You try to decentre yourself and merely be in the moment & flow. Two things pan out - even those who know your grief don’t validate and worse sermonise to pull up, divert, engage etc. Second you rarely meet anyone interesting or worthy enough to make meaning or reassuring where given the hope, energy and efforts you rustle up for such encounters, disappointment hits big. Ultimately being in one’s shell seems to be the safest place to be. 😔

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When depression and anxiety make me feel liking giving up.

Hi everyone! I often read posts on The Mighty and appreciate them all, but I don't often actively interact or post my own stories. Today I'm, for the first time feeling so hopeless and helpless that I'm thinking that not existing at all is a serious option. While I've denied having passive suicidal ideations, I'm pretty sure that is what I'm experiencing. I've dealt pretty effectively with all the things that get me down, but today...as I contemplate my extreme financial strains, lack of an in-person support network, facing my rent going up, and wondering how in the world I'm going to take care of needed car repairs, having enough food (since my benefits were cut from $280 to $71 per month), and dealing with extreme feelings of isolation...I'm for the first time thinking ceasing to exist is an option. And I'm scared. I'm sixty-eight years old, barely living on SS income, and feeling completely isolated and alone...and I just don't know how to handle it.

I've been prescribed an antidepressant, which I will begin taking today...but that isn't helping my feelings of desperation and anger that our systems are so broken, or that there is little help for so many of us. Trying to deal with the red tape and confusing process to apply for subsidized housing...and then seeing just how long it may take to get anywhere with that...with extensive waitlist times and how overwhelmed the system is, is just adding to my current state of not knowing what to do, or how much longer I can keep up any semblance of a happy face or keep my anger and frustration from spilling over into every aspect of my life.

I've even been considering admitting myself into a hospital for help to get me through this...but that is a bit horrifying all by itself. What does one do when help seems so out of reach and so complicated to acquire? I'm seeing a psychiatrist...which is helpful, and my medication doctor (who I have to go through for medication help) seems coldly distant and often unhelpful...which doesn't deal with or help my daily feelings of hopelessness and helplessness when I'm by myself and alone with my thoughts and frustrations. Any advice from the community will be much appreciated.#Depression #Anxiety #hopelessness #helplessness #Sleep #Loss #Isolation #Pain

Thank you!

Mary

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