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This message board is for the friends and families of people who suffer from a mood disorder.
It is associated with Anne Sheffield and her web site
www.depressionfallout.com
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Want to know what depression is like? - Part I
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Re: Want to know what depression is like? - Part I
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DAML
a little more insight...healing
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Oct 14 05 3:42 PM
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Here is a little more insight of the beginning steps of healing. I posted this yesterday. You may have already seen it....
A difficult journey indeed. Im a 38 year old male and first knew something was not right starting in my teens. At the age I was too young to know what I really should be feeling and too young to verbalize it. Alcohol certainly masked it, although I am fortunate too not be addicted to it. Denial and wanting to do it on my own strength was certainly at the forefront.
The signs of depression for me were bleakness in hopes, dreams and what I experienced in reality. Two of the most telling signs of my depression were sudden outbursts of rage and the inability to enjoy any thing, including sex. Therapy was the first step. Many previous starts allowed me the knowledge it was a hit or miss if I could connect with a therapist. If the first therapist was not going to work then it would be months or years before I would find the courage to try another one.
This therapist was a female. I identify with females better. The therapist-patient relationship is all too one-sided but with in our first few discussions I felt that this therapist had the intellect, shared world views and shared values that I was seeking. I fought revealing myself to a woman and any attachment that occurs with making one vulnerable to another being. We discussed our relationship. We discussed that therapist-patient relationship is a special relationship like no other. The therapist created a safe place for me.
Only since have I started to let go. Show my true self and my true feelings to my therapist (in order to help me) but more importantly to myself. I would have to say this took about 13 or so sessions to get to this point.
I explored self-injury. It was minor self-injury (wounds that would heal in 2-3 weeks time) but enough to get an understanding that this is a mood regulator technique, a home grown remedy. The self-injury relieved tension because my arms would heat up wanting to be cut. The self-injury distracts from the depression. If you head hurts stomp on your toe and you forget about your head kind-of-thing.
Thoughts of not wanting to live turned to vague ways of dieing turning to detailed plans of suicide. When bouts of depression occurred now these detailed plans came to the mind much more quickly than just wallowing around in despair.
The week I performed self-injury I called my therapist informing her I broke our contract. I was afraid for the self-injury to get out of hand. The phone call relieved tension. I was told to get on a medication and to bring it in hand to the next therapy session. I was told if I must injury to keep it light.
The week of my detailed suicide plans I placed another call to my therapist. My therapist listened to my plans and explained to me the protocol of what would happen if she receives a suicide call from me. She got the phone numbers for my wife as part of that protocol. I was informed that would be the only time she would contact my wife without my consent. I was told the calling police would also be part of that protocol. I was also told that if this were to happen this would become much bigger than out-patient therapy and that other mental health professional would start needing to get involved. I could not risk being exposed more than I already have been. I renewed our contract against self-injury and suicide. I gave in to work with in the limits.
Each of those crisis phone calls instilled my confidentiality with my therapist. Each of those times increased my connections with the therapist. Each of those times I was never judged or scolded. Each of those times was followed by a payment for the therapists time (my idea).
Not wanting to be on meds is a denial of the disease itself. Ive resisted over the years. A five week period on Zoloft, feeling the effects of it and the effects coming off of it, made me realize this is a disease. So after the self-injury incident it seems to be meds for me. I compare it similar to the diabetic whom needs insulin.
It is hard. There are many things I need to sort out in my life. Some of it is fun as it is self discovery. Some of it is very difficult as I fuse it into reality. My wife was not happy to find that I have become emotionally disassociated with her. The depression has done much damage. We both operated around it for so long. So now here I sit starting the next step that I never saw coming, involving my wife whom has shared the last seventeen years with me.
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