Persistent Depressive Disorder

Create a new post for topic
Join the Conversation on
Persistent Depressive Disorder
7.9K people
0 stories
652 posts
About Persistent Depressive Disorder Show topic details
Explore Our Newsletters
What's New in Persistent Depressive Disorder
All
Stories
Posts
Videos
Latest
Trending
Post

Into a mindhole: Some advice? #Anxiety #PersistentDepressiveDisorder

Hi, I hope everyone is doing fine!

Before hand, sorry for my English 😅 it's not my first language so I hope I can make myself clear.

I've been around for a few months, I'm relatively new here and I haven't post a lot. Today, I want to share something that is happening with me and ask you if you have feel the same way. And, if you might have some tips that you can share with me to improve this situation.

For almost 2 years I've been dealing with depression and anxiety, and this has affected me in areas like work, house life, and friends. My major problem is regarding to do tasks (in general). I know that I have to do tasks that are essential for my work or my house, but my mind goes high speed everyday and it's always thinking about all the future and next tasks to do.

So, when I decide to do some specific tasks in a day, my mind thinks in all the steps that I need to do, the time, the effort, and basically every aspect of it. By the end of the day, I don't do half of what I've planned because of this mindhole spiral🥴 I'm working with my therapist this issue, and for 1 or 3 days I'm good and complete some tasks. But, the rest of the week I'm like trapped on my mind and it's hard to do all the pending activities.

Some strategies in therapy have been working, such as singing a part of a song that I like to stop the rush of thoughts and scenarios. Or, to put timers when doing an activity so I can feel some pressure to focus on. But, I'm wondering if you may have experienced this same issue, or if you can share some strategies or tips that have worked for you to help you in this situation.

I'll be really thankful to read you, and thanks for reading me🥹 I hope you have a good day ahead!

Most common user reactions 33 reactions 7 comments
Post
See full photo

Heal Song by Tom Odell

I have had this song on repeat this week. I hope you listen to it free on YouTube or however, but a video with the lyrics is even more helpful.
I hope these lyrics with his voice on this particular song helps wash away some of your pain too.
Try consciously breathing in an out while you listen to his resounding lyrics:

Take my mind
And take my pain
Like an empty bottle takes the rain
And heal, heal, heal, heal

And take my past
And take my sins
Like an empty sail takes the wind
And heal, heal, heal, heal

And tell me some things last
And tell me some things last

And take a heart
And take a hand
Like an ocean takes the dirty sand
And heal, heal, heal, heal

And take my mind
And take my pain
Like an empty bottle takes the rain
And heal, heal, heal, heal

And tell me some things last
And tell me some things last
And tell me some things last
And tell me some things last

#Pain #Trauma #heal #PTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #MajorDepressiveDisorder #MajorDepression #ClinicalDepression #Fatigue #ChronicIllness #Disability #TRD #TreatmentresistantDepression #ChronicFatigue #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #MoodDisorders #PersistentDepressiveDisorder #DepressiveDisorders #Grief #Songs #Lyrics #MentalHealth #MightyMusic #musictherapy #Music #BipolarDepression

Most common user reactions 8 reactions 4 comments
Post
See full photo

The iterations of loss, failures and prolonged grief ...a short biography of an chronic depressive elder

Grief, loss and the resulting loneliness can bore into one's soul deeply and painfully. The anguish and despair in its wake be very overwhelming. Anxiety and remorse also works its way often to dread. And as an elderly man in his mid fifties I have lived a life where to admit and acknowledge this sense of vulnerability could be shockingly juvenile for some. There's also the fact that given my seeming background of privilege and scholarship I should have had a life so ordinary if not disastrous.

Indeed so it is - an existence full of falls, knocks, failures and setbacks. Initially as a youth I gave myself fully into whatever I got into. Of course I was not perfect. Anything but perfect. Flawed at several levels but more optimistic, positive about prospects & futures. Then I was not deeply sombre, melancholic, sedate and aware of both my agential self and an understanding of how people and society play out as I'm today though by rights being a student of history and sociology should have given me an advantage. I was not bestowed with the best of cognitive abilities or acute intellect or seductive charisma to shine in relationships, academia or competitive career where I could be very favorably compared with my peers among family and friends. I think I was deeply ADHD as a kid, something I realised only few years back. But I was yet a romanticist even then. So there was this bravado and cockiness infused with hubris. Several of my actions emerging from such a context were naturally not the most edifying and many obnoxious. Bad karmas had to result probably.

When in my early 30s I had my first bout of depression. I cowered, lost hope and that I'm a loser hit me like a sledgehammer. However as the only son I always had my parents support particularly my father who never judged me and never thought less of me because I was not on a jet setting career and success trajectory. He saw to it I was given proper support and treatment. After counseling, medication and even forced internment in an institution I was back again and again pepped myself to work my way through in a domain of my choosing (pedagogy of sociology & history) though this domain was already rigged. Don't know whether things went my way or I just remained persistent, positive but I managed to pull along for another 10-12 years. But misery, failures, sheer bad luck caught up again. I often wonder if someone, indeed many are deeply orchestrating my doom by casting spells, magic or voodoo. Recently nightmares too have become repeated and common. Mornings are scary.

I lost a relationship which I still cherish. Not just that, I lost an entire ecosystem of living built from scratch (which included a pair of adorable dogs). Then I lost my parents. Kins were never too indulgent but even most friends disappeared. I had worked around to a view that life was much more than work, career and family and indeed lived such a life with my partner who too bought into this view. We had no kids either. Won't go into all details for now. But my relationship ended and I was uprooted in several sense of the word. Uprooted physically, socially that has left a deep emotional, painful, shameful scar. And top it all there's guilt. (again too complex to explain the many whys and hows of my guilt and shame was conspired by unforgiving circumstances and embarassing magnitude of misfortune. Have done so in earlier posts. I nevertheless can't and don't want to blame any person for my misery) And so for last 10 years and more I'm living a deeply impaired life stripped of solace, comfort leave alone joy or happiness.

At its extreme these result in acute shame ...you just want to kill yourself. Then less macabre is to shut yourself from the world. Bury yourself in your-self, your room, shutting out the world. You can bury in work or some pursuit too, numb yourself and cope. Not that it makes meaning and often work for someone persistently jinxed can exacerbate anxiety and hurt but that’s the mechanism to deal with your pain, anguish. Interalia you interact with people, indulge in conversations and coerce yourself into some engagement. Medications and counselling kind of helps in keeping you 'operational'. However these don't in any way negate your loss. Your destitution remains but to others you are comfortably 'normal'. You so wish to share your pain, open up about the suffering that you endure constantly but unless you invisibilise your grief and loss, the little socialization that you engineer too would end. As someone battling depression and grief over many years I continue to experience this. The loneliness of my suffering remains and indeed I feel so cheated and further humiliated that my victimhood is rendered so false and invalidated. As indicated in one of my previous posts, there's no power behind my claims of loss, shame and grief. The discourse on grief is barely mainstreamed to bestow legitimacy, validity to those proclaiming it. It is too dominated by homily serving 'getting over' 'moving on' 'remaining positive' 'others have it worse' 'self pity' 'contrived victimhood' and such insights and advice indicating complete ignorance of grief pedagogy.

My losses, setbacks, failures have been severe, debilitating, hollowing and constantly hovering above my head as Damocles sword striking me at periodic and regular intervals and each so severe, dismantling all my self respect and dignity. For last few years it’s just me and my tyke stewing in isolation bereft of any presence & support save some sporadic checking in by select friends. My kins are no worth and contempt is mutual. It’s a deeply miserable life where i’m left scrounging for indulgence. The kind of intimacy, reassuredness, comfort that I did once enjoy briefly has all but vaporised. For a romanticist such a loss is cataclysmic.

At many levels my issue - and those like me battling loss, loneliness and failure is also located in a world brutally impersonal and rendered so mechanistic. Mere survival is made to appear an achievement and seeking meaning, empathy and joy pointless. A contrived existential attribute is imputed and presence of anxiety and vulnerability is reduced to a delusion and incompetence. Modernity is by itself not a pathological state but all its possibilities are hollowed out by wanton callousness and misconstrued fabrication of meaninglessness. Don't know sometimes if being a Neitschzean superman braving it all and willing to live too is delusional. It hasn't been worth it. 😢
#ChronicDepression #Dysthymia #Grief #prolongedgrief #anguish #SuicidalIdeation #Loneliness #Anxiety #Loss #Depression

(edited)
Most common user reactions 8 reactions 2 comments
Post
See full photo

The iterations of loss, failures and prolonged grief ...a short biography of an chronic depressive elder

Grief, loss and the resulting loneliness can bore into one's soul deeply and painfully. The anguish and despair in its wake be very overwhelming. Anxiety and remorse also works its way often to dread. And as an elderly man in his mid fifties I have lived a life where to admit and acknowledge this sense of vulnerability could be shockingly juvenile for some. There's also the fact that given my seeming background of privilege and scholarship I should have had a life so ordinary if not disastrous.

Indeed so it is - an existence full of falls, knocks, failures and setbacks. Initially as a youth I gave myself fully into whatever I got into. Of course I was not perfect. Anything but perfect. Flawed at several levels but more optimistic, positive about prospects & futures. Then I was not deeply sombre, melancholic, sedate and aware of both my agential self and an understanding of how people and society play out as I'm today though by rights being a student of history and sociology should have given me an advantage. I was not bestowed with the best of cognitive abilities or acute intellect or seductive charisma to shine in relationships, academia or competitive career where I could be very favorably compared with my peers among family and friends. I think I was deeply ADHD as a kid, something I realised only few years back. But I was yet a romanticist even then. So there was this bravado and cockiness infused with hubris. Several of my actions emerging from such a context were naturally not the most edifying and many obnoxious. Bad karmas had to result probably.

When in my early 30s I had my first bout of depression. I cowered, lost hope and that I'm a loser hit me like a sledgehammer. However as the only son I always had my parents support particularly my father who never judged me and never thought less of me because I was not on a jet setting career and success trajectory. He saw to it I was given proper support and treatment. After counseling, medication and even forced internment in an institution I was back again and again pepped myself to work my way through in a domain of my choosing (pedagogy of sociology & history) though this domain was already rigged. Don't know whether things went my way or I just remained persistent, positive but I managed to pull along for another 10-12 years. But misery, failures, sheer bad luck caught up again. I often wonder if someone, indeed many are deeply orchestrating my doom by casting spells, magic or voodoo. Recently nightmares too have become repeated and common. Mornings are scary.

I lost a relationship which I still cherish. Not just that, I lost an entire ecosystem of living built from scratch (which included a pair of adorable dogs). Then I lost my parents. Kins were never too indulgent but even most friends disappeared. I had worked around to a view that life was much more than work, career and family and indeed lived such a life with my partner who too bought into this view. We had no kids either. Won't go into all details for now. But my relationship ended and I was uprooted in several sense of the word. Uprooted physically, socially that has left a deep emotional, painful, shameful scar. And top it all there's guilt. (again too complex to explain the many whys and hows of my guilt and shame was conspired by unforgiving circumstances and embarassing magnitude of misfortune. Have done so in earlier posts. I nevertheless can't and don't want to blame any person for my misery) And so for last 10 years and more I'm living a deeply impaired life stripped of solace, comfort leave alone joy or happiness.

At its extreme these result in acute shame ...you just want to kill yourself. Then less macabre is to shut yourself from the world. Bury yourself in your-self, your room, shutting out the world. You can bury in work or some pursuit too, numb yourself and cope. Not that it makes meaning and often work for someone persistently jinxed can exacerbate anxiety and hurt but that’s the mechanism to deal with your pain, anguish. Interalia you interact with people, indulge in conversations and coerce yourself into some engagement. Medications and counselling kind of helps in keeping you 'operational'. However these don't in any way negate your loss. Your destitution remains but to others you are comfortably 'normal'. You so wish to share your pain, open up about the suffering that you endure constantly but unless you invisibilise your grief and loss, the little socialization that you engineer too would end. As someone battling depression and grief over many years I continue to experience this. The loneliness of my suffering remains and indeed I feel so cheated and further humiliated that my victimhood is rendered so false and invalidated. As indicated in one of my previous posts, there's no power behind my claims of loss, shame and grief. The discourse on grief is barely mainstreamed to bestow legitimacy, validity to those proclaiming it. It is too dominated by homily serving 'getting over' 'moving on' 'remaining positive' 'others have it worse' 'self pity' 'contrived victimhood' and such insights and advice indicating complete ignorance of grief pedagogy.

My losses, setbacks, failures have been severe, debilitating, hollowing and constantly hovering above my head as Damocles sword striking me at periodic and regular intervals and each so severe, dismantling all my self respect and dignity. For last few years it’s just me and my tyke stewing in isolation bereft of any presence & support save some sporadic checking in by select friends. My kins are no worth and contempt is mutual. It’s a deeply miserable life where i’m left scrounging for indulgence. The kind of intimacy, reassuredness, comfort that I did once enjoy briefly has all but vaporised. For a romanticist such a loss is cataclysmic.

At many levels my issue - and those like me battling loss, loneliness and failure is also located in a world brutally impersonal and rendered so mechanistic. Mere survival is made to appear an achievement and seeking meaning, empathy and joy pointless. A contrived existential attribute is imputed and presence of anxiety and vulnerability is reduced to a delusion and incompetence. Modernity is by itself not a pathological state but all its possibilities are hollowed out by wanton callousness and misconstrued fabrication of meaninglessness. Don't know sometimes if being a Neitschzean superman braving it all and willing to live too is delusional. It hasn't been worth it. 😢
#ChronicDepression #Dysthymia #Grief #prolongedgrief #anguish #SuicidalIdeation #Loneliness #Anxiety #Loss #Depression

(edited)
Most common user reactions 8 reactions 2 comments
Post
See full photo

😔The Biggest Smile Can Hide The Greatest Sorrow😔

There is so much stigma around mental health issues, especially amongst men. That is why, this Men’s Mental Health Awareness Week, it’s important to remember that sometimes the biggest smile can hide the greatest sorrow. Similarly to the old saying “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, you can’t judge someone’s mental health based on how they appear - just because someone appears happy on the surface it doesn’t mean that is how they truly feel.

#MentalHealth #Depression #BipolarDepression #MajorDepressiveDisorder #MoodDisorders #PersistentDepressiveDisorder #PostpartumDepression #Selfharm #Suicide #DepressiveDisorders #Grief #Anxiety #MightyTogether #ItsOKMan #Loneliness #OtherMentalHealth

Most common user reactionsMost common user reactions 16 reactions 1 comment
Post
See full photo

Really, really struggling

I am having a really tough time finding the motivation to keep doing anything. I feel like it is so hopeless, what's the point. I have been fighting this illness for 40 years (since I was about 10)

I have been on disability for 4 years. Health benefits ran out last year. My psychologist gives me one session for free every month, but that is definitely not enough, I can't pay for more and I can't make any progress.
This is my 3rd major episode with my MDD in 8 years (each time is worse than the last and I am so tired. I have tried everything, and I mean everything. Meds galore, ECT (which really helped but I won't do it again due to short term memory issues as a result of it), ketamine in conjunction with TMS (unsuccessful) and I am a crap magnet for side effects, like really bad. I had tendonitis in my calf once that wouldn't go away, I went to my doctor and her student came in first and just told me to lose weight( struggled all my life).
I told her I had been at my job for a over a decade, working on my feet, that my weight was stable, and I had not had an injury, no changes at all. She just shrugged so I went researching on all my meds....after hours and days, I found an article that stated that tendonitis was a possible side effect of hormone infused iud. IUD came out and the tendonitis disappeared in a few days.

I can't take sustained release because those make me have the very dark, twisty thoughts. Regular meds are just as tough with other unwanted side effects. I have the 2 meds I am on without side effects. 1 is at the daily max, and I can't tolerate increases of the other. I had to stop taking Xanax for my anxiety because it was causing nocturnal hypoxia, sometimes dangerously low 02. And all the other benzos are ruled out because, like Xanax, they have a very long half life is and that is the problem.

Everybody comes to me to solve things, and yet I can't fix myself, and have an elderly mum to look after. My beloved kitty Willow is 18 and has showed signs that the inevitable is one the way. I don't deal with loss well and she has been my rock for almost 20 years.

I am so tired, just want to give up, and just turn into a blank person who doesn't have to deal, and just stares out the window while slowly waiting for nature to take it's toll when I am 80 something. I feel like I am only existing and not truly living. Picture is of my darling girl Willow.
#MDD #BPD #Anxiety #Insomnia #CPTSD #ChronicPain #treatmentresistant #Dysthymia #losinghope

Most common user reactionsMost common user reactionsMost common user reactions 40 reactions 9 comments
Post
See full photo

Really, really struggling

I am having a really tough time finding the motivation to keep doing anything. I feel like it is so hopeless, what's the point. I have been fighting this illness for 40 years (since I was about 10)

I have been on disability for 4 years. Health benefits ran out last year. My psychologist gives me one session for free every month, but that is definitely not enough, I can't pay for more and I can't make any progress.
This is my 3rd major episode with my MDD in 8 years (each time is worse than the last and I am so tired. I have tried everything, and I mean everything. Meds galore, ECT (which really helped but I won't do it again due to short term memory issues as a result of it), ketamine in conjunction with TMS (unsuccessful) and I am a crap magnet for side effects, like really bad. I had tendonitis in my calf once that wouldn't go away, I went to my doctor and her student came in first and just told me to lose weight( struggled all my life).
I told her I had been at my job for a over a decade, working on my feet, that my weight was stable, and I had not had an injury, no changes at all. She just shrugged so I went researching on all my meds....after hours and days, I found an article that stated that tendonitis was a possible side effect of hormone infused iud. IUD came out and the tendonitis disappeared in a few days.

I can't take sustained release because those make me have the very dark, twisty thoughts. Regular meds are just as tough with other unwanted side effects. I have the 2 meds I am on without side effects. 1 is at the daily max, and I can't tolerate increases of the other. I had to stop taking Xanax for my anxiety because it was causing nocturnal hypoxia, sometimes dangerously low 02. And all the other benzos are ruled out because, like Xanax, they have a very long half life is and that is the problem.

Everybody comes to me to solve things, and yet I can't fix myself, and have an elderly mum to look after. My beloved kitty Willow is 18 and has showed signs that the inevitable is one the way. I don't deal with loss well and she has been my rock for almost 20 years.

I am so tired, just want to give up, and just turn into a blank person who doesn't have to deal, and just stares out the window while slowly waiting for nature to take it's toll when I am 80 something. I feel like I am only existing and not truly living. Picture is of my darling girl Willow.
#MDD #BPD #Anxiety #Insomnia #CPTSD #ChronicPain #treatmentresistant #Dysthymia #losinghope

Most common user reactionsMost common user reactionsMost common user reactions 40 reactions 9 comments
Post

My mood seems to be fluctuating a lot. #MajorDepressiveDisorder #PersistentDepressiveDisorder #TreatmentresistantDepression

My depression has gotten really bad over the last 2 years. The last month I have been in depths of the abyss of suicidal ideation, and then making plans for my future. I’m up, down, left and right. I have both major depressive disorder and persistent depressive disorder both are considered treatment resistant.

21 years of therapy, 19 antidepressants and ketamine have all failed to treat my depression. I don’t know what to do. I will not go back to the psych hospital. It was a waste of time and money. I got about 15 minutes of treatment. I need help. I don’t know who to ask. My psychiatrist doesn’t know. Therapist seem to have no idea. So who else is there?

Most common user reactionsMost common user reactions 6 reactions
Post

So much guilt, shame and remorse

I feel guilt, remorse, and shame for having sadistic delusions about my former bullies and I feel bad for wanting to be a mass shooter or a serial killer to murder or slaugter my former bullies, it was a delusional thing I made excuses about.

I have been to the ER and then psych hospital for only a day and I was diagnosed with mental health issue with no useful info, then I was diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder with other symptoms and I was assessed for Autism and got diagnosed with Autism Spectrum. My diagnosis of PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) changed to Autism Spectrum.

I asked my nurse why I was being released so early as I still was mentally unstable and he explained to me that I behaved too well and that the outpatient treatment program is more appropriate for people like me.

I am sorry if I sounded a bit antisocial. I don't have empathy for people who made fun of me in the past, but I don't want to go to prison, so I learned to control my anger issues.

I feel so embarrassed

I was so angry that I had a delusional belief that murdering my former bullies was the answer. I also had a command hallucination telling me to murder my former bullies and I turned myself into a psychiatric facility.

I don't want the SWAT team coming to my house, I am trying my best to behave.

I have a Delusional Disorder, but I am legally sane and intelligent.

I feel so R-word, stupid, and delusional for what I thought. Due to the Autism Spectrum Disorder, I don't understand what porn is at all. There are some videos and pictures that I downloaded from ages 13-22 that are allowed on YouTube and in reality erotic and not porn. I feel bad and there is no excuse for the delusional belief I had. I hope that everything is okay on your side. I even thought that tango dance was porn...

I still feel very embarrassed about my anger issues in the past and talking about my dark and twisted fantasies about doing something terrible to people who made fun of me in the past. I also feel embarrassed about what I talked about in the past online, because there was police involvement as someone reported me to the police due to my past behavior online. I once had voices in my head telling me to do those things to people who made fun of me in the past and was in a psychiatric hospital to treat the voices in my head, but still, I feel ashamed of myself.

I know that this was two years ago, but every time I remember what I said online and even the voices that I had, I feel so embarrassed and ashamed of myself, I am sorry!

Although I had symptoms of Unspecified Personality Disorder symptoms with paranoid fantasies before Bipolar 1 Disorder, and although I have Autism Spectrum and it's a neurodevelopmental disorder, I would still get the death penalty if I acted on my paranoid fantasies as it's plans of class A felonies, and also because I am not intellectually disabled.

Although your brain is not that developed until age 25-26, it's a good idea to diagnose mental disorders at age 12-15 as soon it develops to improve the symptoms rather than just waiting for it to become worse until it turns into delusions and hallucinations. If Premorbid Personality Disorder is emerging in young adulthood before Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders, it's best to diagnose it at age 18 if it is severe or age 23 if it is mild, so you can no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for mental disorder and get it treated as soon as possible.

Most common user reactions 3 reactions 2 comments