First post! Any advice on improving self esteem/bouncing back from drowning in depressive thoughts?

[arieleira]

Hello everyone! I suffer from anxiety, depression, PMDD, and seasonal affective disorder. I am currently in an unsupportive, toxic, and mentally abusive relationship. My boyfriend tells me things such as “You are the biggest stress in my life!”, “Stop being anxious!”, “I cannot deal with you!”, and so on. I don’t ask much of him rather than a kind word, and all he says to me are negative remarks and comments , and later blames it on the stressors in his life claiming he did not mean those things. I tell him it deeply hurts to constantly hear those things but he continually talks to me in that manner. The mentally abusive things he said to me significantly worsened my self-esteem. When I get depressed I already have low motivation, low self esteem, and low confidence. On top of his emotional abuse, I drown in the negative thoughts believing that I am truly unworthy and a bothersome person. I really really want to build up the courage to leave and move on with my life but I feel that am stuck. College is overwhelming, my family doesn’t understand my mental illness, and I want to build my confidence back up and be myself again. I started antidepressants about 4 weeks ago, and I know it takes around 6-8 weeks for them to take full effect. My anxiety is significantly lowered but I can’t shake these feelings that I am unworthy. Any advice on how to pull myself out of this pool of negativity?

[Hidden]

While I’m not the best person to offer much helpful advice as I myself am in a bad place, I’m here to say that you’re not alone.

My heart goes out to you. I very much know what PMDD is - I suffered from PMDD for many years, i was diagnosed with it while still struggling with severe PPD (postpartum depression) after my now 17 year old was born. So for quite a while I had a double whammy thing going on with PMDD on top of PPD.

I’m so very sorry that you’re in a toxic relationship. Most importantly, are you safe?

I have been dealing with emotional abuse from my husband for the past almost 4 years, ever since after my Mom died. I can relate to a bit of what you say. My circumstances are different as far as the ‘type’ of emotional abuse going on, but please know that I can empathize. I’ve been struggling with complicated grief (lost a sister, then Dad, then Mom 16 months later - my parents were pretty much my sole support), emotional abuse, went through a few other traumatic experiences, and this all led to PTSD.

I’m so sorry you have a lack of support from your family. It makes it all the more difficult to cope when you’re essentially left to your own devices. I can empathize with you on that as well.

I can understand how college is overwhelming. How far into school are you? What are you studying? Is there a chance that you can take a short leave of absence and return in a new semester? Most college campuses should by now have a counseling center. Maybe you can take advantage of that.

Glad you’ve been taking antidepressants. You’re right about most taking 6-8 weeks to begin taking effect.

Huge hugs to you. Keep posting.

[zperry4]

Hey what's goin on. Yeah this shit sounds rough and you're definitely right to want to take charge of this situation and control of your health, which is great. In my experience with myself, therapy, and talking to people online for awhile is that people usually have at least a decent idea of some of the problems that are causing them immediate distress, so it's not that you always have to digging into your brain. In any case, start with the obvious stuff, make a list of like 5-10 specific and clear things that make you feel so badly and try to get a grip on whether they're just inherently things you don't want to do (e.g. bad friendships, things you waste your time on, etc.) or just something where you're not doing it in a fulfilling way (schoolwork/professional career path not satisfying, social life, etc.) Having clarity about the bigger things that cause depression/anxiety/etc. is a great first step because it gives you something tangible to go and fix.

Definitely get into therapy. The benefits are huge if you put in the effort and really apply what you learn. Also the emotional support and motivation that you get from physically having someone there is priceless, even if the underlying problems are difficult to solve.

Try to build up your social network and improve the relationships as much as possible, even if you can't get everybody to acknowledge what you're going through and support you. Having people to fall back on and regularly do stuff with is super vital and really everyone can benfit from reevaluating the quality of their social circle.

Maybe try different approaches with your family. Giving them simple, straightforward accounts of your symptoms and problems makes it harder for them to downplay or ignore it. My problem in this department is that I usually get super emotional and try to capture just how bad everything is, but they usually don't respond to that. So I think that you can experiment with different ways of getting that across. I'd like to think that there's very few parents who just actually don't give a shit if you actually get the message across, but either way I think that it's always worth trying to crack the shell.

Take care of your health, make sure you exercise regularly (and like doing fun stuff like biking, jogging outdoors, hiking), eating well (and enough), doing breathing exercises, sleeping enough. It's super easy to let all this stuff go, I definitely have at many point,s but the motivation and confidence that you get from taking care of your health is worth it.

If all else fails, just get real fuckin' angry about wanting your life back, and your peace of mind, and normal sleep, and self-esteem, and all this stuff that you really deserve to have. It sounds dumb, but I find this works occasionally to break through fear and everything. Just get really pissed off and channel that into making whatever changes you can. Good luck, hope this helps.

[Rachel2535]

I have been there. I used to spend most of my time in that pool believing the lies people have told me including the ones I told myself. But this allowed all the hurtful people to win and the lies to win in my life. I thank God He opened my eyes and I can now see myself through His. Please hear me you are not unworthy. You are worth more then what you are being told. You have value and are precious. There is a really awesome book I read that helped me with some of my toxic relationships, its called Love is a Choice by Robert Hemfelt. I am praying for you and if you get a chance read this book its very helpful. -Rachel