Feel like I've missed the chance for happiness

[boredofsad]

I'm in my mid-thirties, and for several years now I've oscillated between short periods of being happy, outgoing, gregarious, and longer periods of reclusiveness, social anxiety, self-hatred. A number of times it's been SSRIs that have helped me get out of the low periods, but they also lead me to put a lot of weight on, fast, which feeds into my dislike of myself. I'm in a pretty low period just now but I'm really reluctant to go back on SSRIs because I've only just managed to lose about half of the weight I put on last time I was on them.

To make matters worse I'm drinking a lot too, and when I drink a lot I get nasty emotional hangovers where I dwell on every stupid thing I've ever done in my life and just think "I hate you I hate you I hate you". Recently I've started saying this out loud, as a coping mechanism, because spoken aloud it sounds flat and banal, and it makes it easier for me to tell myself it's a ridiculous thought that I should ignore. But I've gotten so used to doing this that I've caught myself doing it a few times when I'm not alone - in a crowded street, for example - which worries me.

I feel like if I was going to have a happy life it would have shown some signs of happening by now. As it is the only prospect I see before me is spending a year or more working to get to the point of feeling sort of ok, then a few months later slipping back into anxiety and depression, over and over again.

I

[rios]

I know how you feel. I still do that every now and then. Remember our brains didn't wake up sick from one year to the next. Don't be so hard on yourself. "You are not were you want to be but thank God you are not were you use to be!" I tell myself that every day.

I suggest you Listen to Trish Blackwell she has an awesome podcast on self confidence that has helped me tremendously.