Hi everyone! I've joined this community hopefully to find some answers, or some guidance. I had a period of time, around 3-4 years ago where I was extremely sad, where I would cry everyday and would just go right to bed whenever I had the chance. I really contemplated suicide and my grades dropped and I forgot to eat sometimes. Somehow I managed to get out of that without any help, so I thought it was just stress or something... It reoccurs whenever I get stressed and don't know what to do with my life. Since then I've been feeling very, very tired all the time and apathetic about a lot of things. I try to be ambitious but in the end I just tell myself "Who cares? I don't." Sometimes my mood is good and I am happy and enthusiastic, but after this period of happiness I immediately start to feel terrible again. I feel like I want to cry and I'm very empty, and I'm confused as to what to do with my life in general and I feel selfish for being alive and being so bothersome to my family and friends. I don't even care about making friends other than needing the networking or connections. I feel isolated, and I can never talk about how I feel with my family or friends because I feel like I am taking up their time with my problems that will disappear in a few days but come back in a week. It's very strange, because I look up symptoms of depression and they don't seem to really be what I'm experiencing. I sleep like a rock, and I eat like I have been for the past few years. I'm productive since I get work done, but I'm never enthusiastic about it, nor do I use my best efforts on it, and I'm starting to lose interest in the things I like to do. It really irritates me, because I WANT to be enthusiastic and strive for something, but I just don't care...I CAN'T care...
I talked with my counselor a few weeks back and he told me that it was stress and homesickness, but I'm not sure. It's just that I feel lifeless and unenthusiastic ALL the time, just whenever I get stressed it becomes worse where I just want to sleep and never wake up. I'm 18 and I currently go to university. Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading
Welcome to the forum, I'm glad you've joined. I think the thing with depression is that people worry way too much about whether they've got the right symptoms to check the box. Two people can have a cold, but have quite different symptoms. One has a blocked nose and sore throat, the other has a headache. Yet they both have colds. I have depression but I don't walk around crying, while I know some people do.
The only thing that's important is recognising that things have changed for you, and making moves to put things right. Whatever your range of symptoms, you've identified that they're making you unhappy, and that's your starting point. You need to treat the symptoms and not the label.
No one here can, or should, attempt to diagnose you with depression, but what they can do is identify with your situation. Personally I think you might be depressed, and I'm basing that on the fact that I struggle with a lot of the things you've mentioned.
I think you did the right thing going to see your counsellor. Are you registered with a GP at uni? That might be worth a visit?
Hi moomins, . being 18 and at University is an intense time and you are still in the process of fathoming out where your life is going (so am I and I'm 55!) I do feel that there are very great pressures on people nowadays particularly young people which is why we seem to see so many young people in University education feeling stressed and suffering the effects of depression. I know there can be a lot of pressure for people to go to University in the first place when it may not be the right thing for them and then they feel bad that they cannot cope.
This may not apply to you but I am just stating it as an example.
What I have found over the years as someone who suffers from depression is that I am very susceptible to stress and just not as resilient as someone who does not suffer from depression. Each little bit of stress could set me off into a terrible spiral of despair. The way I have managed this is to realise I have to keep stress to a minimum in order to function.
For yourself I am unable to say if it is depression but it does seem that you need some more input to help you get out of how you are feeling. You say you are talking to the counsellor. This is a good thing and it may also be an idea to speak with the GP as sometimes medication can help. You are only 18 so please do not be too hard on yourself and feel you have to know everything about where you are going in life. We do all go through periods of up and down but it does sound like the low mood state may have become a little exxagerated in you and goes beyond those normal changeable feelings.
You will see there are other young students on this site probably far better able to advise you than me but I hope it has helped a little.
Yes, I think you might be suffering what is often called depression, too - your symptoms certainly sound like it, to me. There is some very good news, I think, regarding what you can do to maintain your sense of well-being when life's challenges start to feel overwhelming. The most important thing, I think, is to commit to yourself that you will do what you have already started doing here - give up self-isolating behaviors and reach out for support. There are some other more detailed things worth considering, which I'll go into below, but I say, "Well done!" on a fresh approach to life.
I highly recommend that you AVOID the allopathic treatments so often recommended by the medical establishment. The pharmaceutical "solutions" are simply not well-founded in their approach, and can only POSSIBLY help over a very short period of time, if they help at all before their terrible toll begins to be taken from your life. There are much more holistically desirable means of enhancing your wellness, and I do hope you'll take advantage of them. Only you can say what is right for you, so take what I and others say as just a little guidance towards something workable, not the final answer from authority!
The first one of those natural means I want to refer you to is Chiropractic. It has been portrayed variously in the culture, but the truth is far from what it is often considered as: "pain relief for musculo-skeletal conditions." The bottom line, as they say, is that your body has an amazing ability to self-regulate and heal, and the Chiropractor is trained and practiced at enhancing that natural process. Let me know if you want to have some help finding one near you.
There is much else I might share, but time is limited. I will reproduce below what I have posted on this forum previously regarding a nutritional approach that is working amazingly well for me and some friends, dealing with MANY things from the cellular level up and is quite demonstrably effective and VERY safe. I hope you'll consider it, as I truly believe it can help regardless of what underlying condition your body is dealing with.
Best regards,
Krishna
Do U C me? (a slightly edited version of a previous post)
To a depressed person, whose story of using Vitamins B-12 and D came to my attention:
I may have some real light for your tunnel, re: depression, and many other symptoms. As to myself, I have studied nutrition for over 30 years, due to my own health issues, and have now been trained in it fairly extensively in the course of pursuing a degree in Chiropractic - not to brag, just background information as you may well question my input (which is only fair, I'm a stranger after all, and there are some others with a VERY different agenda than I, “out there.”)
My personal experience is that, unless One is (you might well be) severely affected by GMO foods (not terribly uncommon, but I don't assume that), your intestinal flora should be producing just LOADS of B-12 on their own in your gut. So the issue of why supplementing that is so helpful is: 1) where is it going, or 2) why is it breaking down, or 3) (most likely) failing to be absorbed? It's quite possible that the balance of flora types in your gut is unnatural, and you would benefit from supplementing with a 100-billion CFU/day regimen using 10- to 30- or-more-strain probiotics, not neglecting the necessity of pre-biotics (FOS, oligosaccarides, inulin) as well. This is relatively inexpensive and very likely to succeed to some extent at least, compared to the many drugs and allopathic therapies you have been using, e.g. Vitamins B-12 and D (not that you don't need those at this point, you very likely may for a time.)
But there are larger issues, I believe. One of the most effective, yet relatively inexpensive, regimens that almost ALWAYS produces an amazing shift toward “emotional competence” is Vitamin C (in a non-traditional form, though - more to come on that.) People often wonder why I am so vigorously in favor of Vitamin C (I can't stay quiet about it for long. ) It makes sense, if they have never experienced the kind of depression you report, which I believe I also suffered for years. I recently found a “study of studies” (meta-study) published in the scientific literature, analyzing all the many studies out there where “they” checked what someone had reported about the effect of Vitamin C on ___ (fill in the blank with whatever condition you like, the anecdotal reports are rife in the literature.) All of those studies that were analyzed reported that "we tried it, and it didn't work" and the author reported that in EVERY SINGLE CASE, the reason found for the failure to reproduce the previously reported results was that the amount given was too minimal to produce the effect desired.
This brings me back to the form of Vitamin C I'm writing about - liposomally coated Vitamin C. What that means is that instead of normal, water-soluble Vitamin C, your body would perceive a fat-coated-cluster nutrient, which passes into the bloodstream in LARGE volumes via the intestinal lumen at 98% efficiency, and then is transported very quickly out to the capillaries that nourish virtually EVERY SINGLE CELL in your body, including neurons in the brain and gut. Once again, it is transported at 98% efficiency through the cell membrane to nourish the cell directly. The cell “sees the fat coating” (phosphatidylcholine, usually) as food (it IS good food for the cell) and begins to immediately disassemble and use it to directly power the Krebs Cycle energy production machinery (which is a remarkably good thing in and of itself, and incidentally helps to eliminate “bad” fat stored in your tissues at the same time.) In the process, the cell “discovers” (literally) that there is now Vitamin C in the cellular fluid, which was needed and lacking in so many instances in nearly every body that was not previously nourished this way - and if that cell DOESN'T need it, it will be sent elsewhere through the bloodstream SAFELY, for use or disposal.
The cells of ALL mammals use Vitamin C as a co-enzyme to facilitate HUNDREDS of crucial cellular processes, all of which come to a grinding halt when there is not enough of it present, as measured locally in that one cell, not somewhere else in the body. The body begins hoarding that crucial nutrient, robbing it from one cell to use in another that is more critically deficient, thus permitting many important processes to be stalled, sometimes for years, with a chronic, survivable, deficiency. "Scurvy," the traditionally acknowledged disease of Vitamin C deficiency, only occurs once that deficiency becomes so chronically critical that it actually is no longer survivable for any great length of time.
This is getting long, but there are two other things truly worth noting about the human condition here:
1) All mammals (and nearly all eukaryotic cells, AFAIK) NEED Vitamin C to survive, humans included, but most of the animals make their own in the liver - the human being is one of only a very few species typically missing a crucial enzyme needed to produce it internally, and must get it from the diet (which is what makes it a HUMAN vitamin in the first place.) If a rat were to weigh as much as a human, its liver would produce upwards of 20 grams per day of ascorbate-form C to empower its cells to properly function, and automatically prevent these kinds of disease. Humans can absorb just a LITTLE Vitamin C orally (350 mg is typical, without a reaction in the gut.) Even when administered intravenously, the efficiency of absorption through the cell wall of the water-soluble form is ~10-15% at most, as compared to ~98% for the best liposomal formulations. Plus, the intestinal complications of oral mega-dose levels of water-soluble Vitamin C are not trivial, though survivable and "worth it" if that's all you can do. Note that this might explain WHY those studies that were investigating the use of Vitamin C for all those various conditions were using too little - they didn't have the right KIND of Vitamin C, and were limited by those transport issues I mentioned causing unwarranted effects when given at high-enough levels to achieve the result.
2) If One's (your) cells are not getting enough Vitamin C to prevent these complications, then ALL KINDS of things are being neglected, not least of which may be a proper balance of production of neurotransmitters in various locales in the brain and CNS. So the wonder of it all isn't that we get SO MUCH benefit from this nutrient - it's that we don't see FAR MORE complications that ensue firstly from the drug treatments used as band-aids (plasters) to broken cellular processes in people afflicted this way, e.g mass shootings, pneumonia, cancer, suicide, etc. ad infinitum.
I'll close with my own anecdotal experience, briefly; I just went through an almost HELL-ish period, with dear friends being suddenly (without warning) sent off to hospice with terminal diagnoses, the letting go of nearly every possession my entire family ever had for the last 100 years, multiple sleep-deprived nights nearly EVERY week for months, due to stress and working so much I was literally completely exhausted, the loss of all... -- well, you see where this is going. I had a number of people in my life, who were close enough to me to see what I was going through, pass repeated, independent remarks to the effect of “I don't know how you can possibly be handling this so well - it would KILL ME if I was to attempt 1/10 of the workload you are handling, seemingly without issues.” The truth is, there WERE issues, but I WAS able to handle them, and I sincerely believe it was because I had: 1) good chiropractic care, 2) caring people in my life, and 3) good nutrition, ESPECIALLY liposomally-encapsulated, non-GMO Vitamin C, 1 mg/day on an empty stomach in the morning, minimum, plus other important foods as well (mineral-rich veggies, liposomal Vitamin D and glutathione, probiotics, etc.) Previously, I had been depressed to one degree or another for literally decades, with some few little breaks occasionally when the rest of my nutrition and spiritual support, etc. was good enough for some light to come into my castle of doom and gloom (though I was quite successful at fooling people, and sometimes even myself, into thinking I was functioning okay, as that seemed necessary to avoid the "mood police" who wanted to insist that I needed to be drugged to change my outlook on life when they found out what it was really like for me.)
Two major cautions worth mentioning quickly, if you decide to pursue this:
1) Make SURE you DON'T USE a GMO-contaminated soy-based liposomal product (which really is out there, unfortunately, masquerading as advanced nutrition), as it is going straight into ALL the cells in the body, including the intestinal flora, which can then become toxic to you in their own right with GMO genes transferred into them this way. In America, I used the product from MaxHealth Labs via GoldenTigerLipids.com, but that's not the only good one - Dr. Mercola's liquid form seems quite nice, for instance, and both are very pure. In New Zealand now, I get a great formulation through Pacific Health made by Allergy Research Group; I've also made it myself using several different recipes found on the Internet. Essentially, the Vitamin C is "greased up" and slipped in past all the usual barriers to the place where it is most needed, the cellular fluid. In point of fact, it's probably VERY wise to pursue a fairly rigid, organic, mostly vegan diet, IMHO. I mean, this is your BODY, and you'll need it for the rest of your life, in the best condition possible for you to enjoy that life!
2) Start with taking 1 gram/day or less of the liposomal Vitamin C you chose in the morning, and see how you do with it. You can definitely have (probably will have, initially at least) some cleansing and flushing due to the action of the Vitamin C in cells that are “stuffed up” with toxins from years of “doing without” a proper level of Vitamin C, like we would have if our livers worked as well as a rat's liver. Once you're past any initial reactions, and start feeling well again instead of sicker, you can CAUTIOUSLY begin to increase the dose above that 1 gram/day level, paying careful attention to what your body is experiencing at every stage and moderating your use when necessary (especially in the evening, when it can easily interfere with sleep patterns due to increased energy levels.) I have been EXTREMELY energized and remarkably ebullient a few times, when I was taking more than my system handled well, didn't sleep at all a few times, and then later was very tired when I wanted to be alert. 'Nuff said on that. If you live with a partner, make sure they know what you're doing and can help you stay balanced in all things; it really helps to know you're not facing all these things completely on your own!
Vitamin C is NOT toxic, at all, and cannot directly hurt you (unless you take a truly insane amount, but really, so can water or anything else.) However, it's VERY powerful in a body like mine, that went for so many years without a proper level of this crucial nutrient. After reading your story, I feel this is your case as well. I very much wish you, and any who read my tale, all the best in healing your (their) body, mind, and spirit. May the Blessings unfold for ALL!
p.s. It has been remarked that this reads like a tale of adventure, and I suppose I am on such a journey, and I guess it makes sense to share a bit more about me. Right now, I am a student of Chiropractic in New Zealand, and I remain mostly optimistic and energized. I feel quite well-loved and appreciated by my social group, and have every reason to believe that I will succeed in my endeavors. I hope you, all of you, find yourselves similarly blessed!
It sounds like depression to me. I too sleep and eat well but find myself crying and not feeling I can express myself to people I care about, I feel I don't want to waste their time with my thoughts, maybe low self esteem too. Anyway can't remember where I was going with this, just wanted to say it sounds like depression and I'm experiencing it too. Sorry if this is a bit muddled but I have a small baby in background! X
Anxiety and depression can be quite closely linked and the same drugs are commonly used to treat both.
Its okay not to like being at University - was a long time ago - but they were some of the most miserable days of my life.
Good that you are seeing a counsellor. I presume that you are also seeing your GP - would be good to make an appointment if you can. Have you tried talking with your counsellor about coping strategies for the anxiety? One thing I have found extremely useful has been meditation - not the sitting around with crossed legs going om sort but the sort that makes me aware of my thoughts and thought patterns and that I don't have to be carried away by the thoughts and panics that can hit us all in daily life. Is there a meditation group you could join - think Buddhist mindfulness is the most useful - or at least it has been for me -
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I think I have more wrong with me than just depression :/
Music I liked makes me depressed and...
Depression on the Weekends
am I maybe depressed? what do I do 
Feeling so depressed 
