I need help. I feel like I know I have problems yet are uncertain??? Can anybody help?? I need to vent.

[jay_dude]

Hi. I don't really know we're to start on this. I get the feeling I have problems and are losing my mind. I used to feel like this a lot during high school, feelings of happiness, then extended periods of 'feeling down', loneliness, anxiety, self loathing, dark thoughts of myself and wether I should end it or not, wether anybody would care and then I would be happy again like nothing ever happened. I also used to drift off and daydream a lot, I would find myself having conversations with myself, imagining arguments with people, ways I could end it, and thinking about then about the things I loved doing. It was like I was trying to live my life in another reality. I thought to myself maybe this was just teenage, hormonal, discovering yourself, growing up stuff and that I would just get over it which I thought I did for a while. I finished school and life seemed great for just under two years. That's not to say I didn't have my ups and downs but these negative feelings towards myself seemed to only appear once or twice a year. I didn't go on to study after school. Originally I had planned to and signed up and attended a tafe course for two days before dropping out because I realised it wasn't for me as I wanted no job in the fields the course could offer. Sorry im rambling, I seem to be good at that. Anyway I just continued working my dead-end, going nowhere, fast food job. I never liked the work but I loved a lot of the people I worked with and these friendships have turned out to be some of my most valued friendships. I planned on working and saving for a holiday and then quitting. Sorry I'm rambling again. After a what seemed to be and extended period of bad days at work I was standing around thinking to myself for quite a while as I still do about life. I was feeling down and was thinking about how I thought I had gotten over these high school feelings of drama and how I had wasted my life working here and how I was finding little joy in my life, and was it worth being alive still. I put it down to me being a whinging whining person and told myself to get over it as I still loved my leisure activities. There were two main activities that were and still very much are my escape activities, Bmx riding and skateboarding. I have had a fascination and passion for both these activities my whole life and the passion is still as bright as ever and I go out and do them as often as possible. My life seemed to not be improving. Months went past and everyday I asked myself was it worth waking up every morning, I didn't want to work and there was nobody who would listen to me. One day, after a particularly bad day of work, then missing the bus and already feeling down about some girl problems I was walking home and was in a very bad place. I walked to an overpass with the intention of throwing myself off it. I didn't want to live and I stood on top of this for at least two hours telling myself to jump. After a while I calmed down enough to tell myself if I still felt this way in a week then I would. This was a low point in my life and I realised that and told myself I would change it because the only way I could go was up. This thought has kept me going for a while but now I'm asking people on here for help. Fast forward about a year to the present date and I'm still here but my mental state has seemed to decline to the point were I don't see the point of being alive. I feel like I have nobody to talk to, and I don't want to burden people with my problems, I don't have the courage to bring it up, and I seem to not be able to hold a conversation for more then 5 minutes. the way i am constantly thinking to myself. I don't know if this is normal. I can't imagine myself living to 30 years old. I recently took a large doss age of pain killers in the hope I would not wake up in the morning but I was quite uneducated about the dosage I would have needed to die. I then was happy the next few weeks and thought to myself that I just always over dramatise my feelings and that I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself. But these feelings are always returning and more and more often and that I have come to realise that i hate myself and get overwhelmed by life. I know this is long and jumbled and that it is probably a very horrible thing to read, but if anybody can help me or offer some advice to point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. Please and thank you.

[LizzieM]

Hi Jay. Thank you for sharing your story. Firstly You should know that a whole lot of people do think like you too. Secondly. You CAN get help. Thirdly. You need to ASK for help in the right places. You have made a good start here. Have a look on liveitwell.org.uk. This is a website choc full of information about mental health. It gives good advice in how to keep our mental health 'healthy'. You have already identified that skateboarding and BMX riding make you feel happy and healthier. So when you feel those negative destructive thoughts creeping in tell em to get list and go do something that makes you happy. I hope that doesn't sound unsympathetic. If you hurt your foot or had a headache you would prob take pain relief and rest your foot?? So try to think of your mental health the same way - do something to make it better. You can also ring mental health matters 24 helpline and talk to them. (Google the number). Hope this helps. Let us know how you get on. Lizzie x

[gardengnome]

hi jay. The imagined arguments is a tendency i have had for the longest time. It is only recently that i have tried to leave it behind, as i know it just winds me up. I would imagine a row with someone i had been unable to stand up to in reality, and when i would have deal with that person the next day i would be too emotional to even relate to them in an ordinary way.

For a while i used some creative writing which was fun, and because it did not involve myself as a character i think it was a healthier outlet for my imagination

Some people use visualisation techniques in a positive way. Rehearsing and imagining realistic but positive achievements. musicians and sportsmen do this a lot to work through performances. I've not used this much, but i think that is one i need to add to my list of self-help tools.

I don't know how old you are now? The skateboarding and b.m.x.ing used to be your escape. If you are older there is no reason why you can't adapt you love of biking into exploring the country on mountain bikes. Don't know if you saw hypercats' reply to mitchells' recent posting, but she made a valuable point that finding several individual activities and not just relying on one or two methods of stress relief added up for her, to make a better life.

You don't mention if you have asked for help from the g.p.? If the bad periods have gone from happening every few months to being every few weeks or days then it really is time to ask for professional help. If you are nervous of meds there are talking therapies. Not sure if you have taken time to look at some of the ideas behind c.b.t.. well worth a look.

It is encouraging that you have friends in work. But you ask yourself if you could do something better with your life? If you do decide to make a career move , you might have to make a point of creating time to see these guys at evenings/weekends. You don't have to give them up, esp as it sounds like you need as much support around you at the moment as you can get.

the folks on here are very supportive, there might not be so much activity on the website over the holiday period, but post an update in the new year so that it shows up in the latest posting and more of the guys will see it and respond. Eveyone has had different experiences and will be able to add a piece to the ladder that may help you climb out of the well.

[Gambit62]

Tried replying earlier but think I must have hit cancel rather than submit so here we go again.

I read a book a few years ago called 'How Sadness Survived' by Paul Keedwell. He was looking at depression from an evolutionary perspective ie if it is still around it must have some use ... in the same way as sickle cell anaemia is around because it has advantages in dealing with infections like malaria ... the conclusion he came to was that it was a way of transitioning from one road in life that didn't really suit us to finding a new one. He looked at tribal groups and there attitudes towards depression are quite different from what we see in modern society - where we do tend to go for 'pull yourself together man' - it tends to be much more supportive because if you are living in a small group and dependent on everyone in the group people's mental health - which is probably there happiness - is as important as their physical health in being able to survive.

Second, negative thoughts about death and suicide are common reactions to stress - though they are indicators that the stress levels are unhealthily high. I've had people who are not depressed describe to me situations where they have found themselves thinking about death - in one case thinking about jumping off a bridge and in another identifying which plants in their garden they could use - when they were really stressed. For the first it was a wake up call that enabled him to go walk away from what was stressing him ... and in the second it was the escape plan that meant they could stop worrying about a what if. However, for some of us the the thought itself is stressful so we get another dark thought, more stress and more dark thoughts in a vicious circle. I had bouts of this for many years. At its worst I'd be fighting off one thought every few minutes which made it impossible to concentrate on anything ... but I did manage to figure a way out and now when the thoughts come I don't react by getting stressed I react by acknowledging that I am stressed and go away and chill out.

Some parts of the brain are still operating in the same way that they did when we lived in caves when it was a question of run from danger or get eaten by it. Nowadays one of the biggest dangers we face is stress - and that includes the stress from doing something that we really aren't enjoying ... so the old bit of the brain does it's broad internet search and comes back with more stressing images in the hope of making us run and it works for some people - as above - but for others of us it just ends up as the sort of vicious spiral you describe ... I think.

Have you tried talking to a life coach or a counsellor who can help you figure out some other way of doing - not sure whether the sight Lizzie mentions includes that sort of thing.

As Gardengnome says, changing jobs doesn't meant that you have to give up old friends - I'm still in touch with friends/colleagues from jobs I had years ago.

Keep going with the activities that you enjoy

Please go and see your Doctor and talk to him as well - sometimes a dip in mood or energy can be an indicator of another problem - last year I spent a lot of time feeling I was slipping into depression because I was really tired all the time and then discovered it was more likely to be because I'd developed an inability to absorb B12 and now have regular injections.

[jay_dude]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I very much appreciate the fact that you took the time to write out such detailed responses to try help me, a complete stranger. I have set a deadline to quit my job and infact told my boss this morning that I will be leaving at the end of March. I also have not been to a gp. I don't have healthcare. Also I forgot to mention my current age is 21. Thank you all.

[gardengnome in reply to jay_dude]

I'm not sure what the healthcare system is like where you live. Sounds like the states?

Do you have the option of walking into the local emergency room of the hospital? Or even the police station?

Do you have relatives who would lend you enough to to a doc, or bank loan? You don't have to tell them it's for depression just yet.....but I would try to tell the family, i'm sure they have seen the changes in you anyway, and just have not dared to mention it

Have you talked to anyone around you? Have you accessed free telephone crisis lines?

Would you look at another person who had your life, and tell them that they should not bother to be alive?

Talk to someone, even if it is anonymously, to get them to give an unbiased neutral view of your future. Just don't die out of embarrassment because you would be ashamed of people finding out that you are not Mr average.... not that Mr average ever had the perfect life seen in the movies..

I mentioned you try looking at the ideas in c.b.t. therapy, check out this link, there are many more like it. I choose this one because it put it quite simply and practically not because of the cancer link. There will be more sites aimed at young people for you to find. If you have given yourself a deadline of april, use that time to decide WHETHER to to the deed rather than HOW. Be like the condemned man's lawyer and put in your appeal to the metaphorical judge.

cancer.med.umich.edu/cancer...

I know this is very general advice, but it applies to anyone and sometimes when we try to give advice it is sometimes a case of telling other people what we need to tell ourselves. Become your own neutral observer...Ask what would you say to a friend in your situation....