New to this support group

[one-love]

Feels like I have struggled with depression my whole life. I feel like I can never catch a break from it. I developed sever anxiety disorder when I was around 17 and I have learned to control it better then my depression most of the time. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one going through this in life, I don't really have any friends and my family is not super close I could go weeks or months without hearing from anyone.

[Vitruviusman]

Many of us share that Same feeling. You are not alone

[Hidden]

Hi

Depression is truly awful but you will know each day is different and will bring highs and lows. Use on line chat rooms, make new on line friends from various resources - it all helps. Discussing your feelings and demons with trusted people always helps my friend. Keep fighting.

[Hidden]

Hi everyone.

I'm new here too.

I'm going through the same thing myself.

With no one (like my girlfriend)to show me any type of support and no patience for me.

I've been struggling with this almost my entire life and I've never gotten any help. I've been able to control it only through trying to keep myself extremely occupied. But now that is impossible because I'm unemployed and running out of money and I'm feeling like there are no other life lines. I want to get better.

[MelbourneDavid]

Hi,

I think there are three intertwining issues here, which I've experienced too.

Depression: I've been repeatedly depressed over the last 30 years, and had related issues as a child and teenager. Maintenance antidepressants have helped me stay out of depression most of the last 20 years, although it's hard to find one that works well and has acceptable side effects. One that didn't work well for me meant that I didn't recover well from a depressive episode a few years ago and relapsed 18 months later.

Feeling like not having friends: Depression tends to make us withdraw and lose friends, it is also common to only rate exceptionally close relationships as friends. We need to learn to count people with whom you have repeated positive interactions as friends, even if they don't invite us out and share out lives. A person you see repeatedly who chooses to include you in a pleasant time is a friend. That can be someone at work, even though you only see them at work. Not noticing these friends leads to a sense of being unloved which is ill-founded.

Seeing hardly anyone: It can be very positive to get involved in a regular community group activity. It hardly matters what. Groups providing some sort of community service are especially good because you share with the others the satisfaction of doing something useful. It can be an environmental group cleaning up weeds, a group serving food to the poor or elderly, a sports group which has working bees, a local gardening group, a book discussion group. The regular contact with helps avoid depression and build friendships. Work at rejecting the inner thought that you are an outsider, isolated. It's probably not true, just a misinterpretation of the situation through a pessimistic frame of reference.

Schema therapy is an extension of cognitive behavioral therapy which recognises some of the underlying needs, thought patterns and behaviors which contribute to this sort of problem. I found its insights helpful, although overall the therapy was not a huge success - the therapist was better at analyzing the situation than helping me address it.