Anxiety / Depression

My depression was bad bad for years. It's been going hood now. But wish the anxiety would go away also

 

Our dog has helped me a lot, she can sense mood swings and is very comfortingly. Bonus is she can listen and occupy my time, walks have helped me a lot. She also doesn’t care if I’m a little off.

 

Anxiety has increased over the years, technology has made it more difficult for me. Being 67 you get the feeling of being obsolete. My T4R doesn’t have a key, I stress out every time I use the thing.

 

I'm really glad this thread exists. I think society discourages people from talking about their mental health struggles, especially for men, and doubly so if you grew up in a church like mine (though I've heard a rare few churches are excellent about this, and I'm thankful if you're in one!). I know I felt super reluctant to even admit to myself that I was experiencing mental health symptoms for fear of being deemed inferior, "useless," or even demonically oppressed (yeah, that's the actual language and theory used by one of my old churches). Not only did I not have the language or ideas to explain what I was going through (I grew up country), but I felt like admitting it at all would threaten my literal safety or my standing in town, at work, in church, at school, in my family, with my friends, you name it. It was just shame and it kept me small and alone.

Up until I was about 30, I tried managing symptoms (dissociation, loss of executive function, extreme anxiety, lack of appetite, depression, and all that good stuff) by just distracting myself from them or intellectually minimizing them, but after witnessing my wife go through extensive trauma therapy for abuse from her childhood and talking with her through her therapy experiences, I was like, "Well shit, this all sounds like what I deal with too." I'd had no idea there was a real way out.

Long story short, I got diagnosed with C-PTSD in 2018. I've been in trauma therapy for the last 6 years (w/ a few breaks), and it's turned my whole life around. This is especially so since late 2022, when I started with a trauma specialist who uses flash EMDR and "parts work" therapy modalities (holy shit, it's weird but it works). It's still a long road ahead, and I still feel the PTSD symptoms when facing my old triggers, but 1.) I have begun healing from it and don't get triggered nearly as easily as I once did and 2.) I have a lot more tools at my disposal for when my symptoms do trigger.

I hope everyone here gets what they need. You deserve it.

 

It’s just my personal opinion, but I feel society in general is nuts. I would say more but I’ll get banned.

 

Ten-4 on that, Good Buddy.

Afterwards I was told that the ambulance was late in getting me to the hospital and I was "clinically dead" for about 15 minutes.

 

Hindsight tells me I probably had a depressive illness as far back as childhood, but it wasn't formally diagnosed until about 1994. Once diagnosed, and with the proper meds I've pretty much OK (except for one incident in 2015) ever since.

 

A therapist I had years ago told me a story that has helped me over the years. A parishioner talking to the Minister after the service tells him that he has been praying for his toothache to go away and it hasn’t and is affecting his faith. The Father says that prayer should be said in the car while driving to the dentist, that’s why God gave us the science of dentistry.

 

Feel free to reach out, glad you’re still with us

 

My incident also happened in 2015. Took me a solid 6yrs to get my shit together.

 

My anxiety comes and goes in spurts.

I briefly alluded to it, but my previous job and I got into a bad fight. I basically spoke aloud that I had had enough of the constant bullying/micromanaging/generally terrible environment, that no amount of diplomacy was fixing it, and that I was job hunting. As a response they spent the next four months trying to document/fabricate reasons to can me, even completely making up safety violations that were severe enough to warrant an insta-term as a way to get me out. Thing is, I saw it coming and started journaling everything. It went to HR and legal, and there were several threats of taking it to the courts. They knew they were attempting a wrongful termination, but they kept trying, only backing off when HR realized that they had really stuck their foot over the line legally. Trying to spend half my week drafting up a legal battle, the other half job hunting, and meanwhile I had to be perfect at work because they were playing the game of "write up every little mistake," AND doing that for four months, yeah, it redefined anxiety and put it into a new category.

By the time I got a job offer elsewhere, it was at the level where chest pains were the norm and not the exception. Not joking, I very nearly failed my pre-employment physical because my blood pressure was at emergency-room levels. I had to go on meds to pass, and with a little bit of convincing that it was just a severe run of white-coat syndrome (fear of the doctor), they let me squeak through. But, the good news is that I did get a new job, things are fresh and interesting, I like the people, and they check in regularly to make sure I'm happy with the role. And the anxiety and BP are under control... mostly. There are still flair-ups of general paranoia now and again, but they are getting less frequent, and all of the what-ifs are getting easier to reason down with "Ive survived bad times before, I can survive them again."

Mainly though, its the job. I have a lot more control of what I do now. I have better interpersonal interactions. I have a career plan. And that really does have a larger influence of my health than I realized.

 

I've got about 95% of my shit together these days so I'm calling that a victory.

 

Sounds like a win win to me. Right now I'm just trying to land a new job. Finally got a call back from tesla now we are in the how much are they gonna give me phase. I'm a glass tech by trade with mechanical experience. But not good with electrical so that's my down fall. But sounds like they are willing to work with me. Hopefully the 2nd interview goes good and I land the job.

 

Good luck to ya! Electrical isn't so bad, can be tricky but there are great resources these days for continued education and on the job learning.

 

Like some of the others here, I most likely had anxiety well before I was aware of it.
Alcohol covered it up until 13yrs ago I had to quit.
Been through the same realm of prescriptions and chasing solutions since.
A few things that help are realizing you're not alone. Seems like so many today suffer from anxiety and depression.
You show me someone that's happy all the time and I'll show you a damn liar. lol

Keeping busy helps. Time sitting around to ponder the inner thoughts leads to trouble.

Letting things go.
The smallest of things use to irritate me. (Still will if I let it.)
I tell myself. If there's something I can do to change what's bothering me, change it.
If it's beyond my control then fuggedaboutit. No sense in stressing.
Just a few points I've noticed.
Certainly not answers.

 

Appreciate you folks coming together and sharing your experiences. It helps some of us who still aren't able to talk about things tools to cope.

 

Good luck.

A lot of my issues went away when I retired in early 2020; just before Covid hit. I live outside of Washington DC and for 30 years I commuted an hour and 15 minutes each way on a commuter train. I was getting up at 3:30am to head into the city for when my shift started at 7:00am. During the winter months it was dark outside when I left for work and dark when I got home from work. I never saw sunshine except on the weekends. So when I left for good it was a big relief.

The thing is though, sometimes you trade one bad situation for another. I'm not working now and don't have that long commute but now I'm living on a fixed retirement income. Now it's not like I'm going hungry or can't pay my bills or anything but we are living on a tighter budget now and don't have a lot of recreational money.

But we're doing OK.

 

The "enemy" in your mind can be the "could have, would have, should have"
that play over & over in an endless loop.

Let's think of our mind as a processor, our thoughts as applications.

The more applications you have running the more processor time & power is being used - perhaps consumed is a better word.

Those loop applications can really be resource hogs - consuming (wasting) the processor power you want (need) to use to actually do things as opposed to flogging yourself over the past.

My "tool" - boxes.

Everything we do or don't do is part of us - more importantly part of our past.
Just like great aunt Emma's tea set we are stuck with it - forever...

However, we can box it up, put it on a shelf and vow to not open it today.

Whatever it is that is your personal "failure" you are well aware of it, hopefully you learned a lesson from it.

It sits up there on that shelf and you can never get rid of it.
It is waiting for you to open it and use your resources to flog yourself again.

But you don't have to open that box and go through it today. You learned the lesson - paid full retail for it and hopefully you are a better person because of it.

You own it for sure & you are stuck with it - but you don't have to open that box and let it take any more of your time - remember, time only flows forward.

 

Anyone on here know how to go about getting a referral to the right type of doctor for anxiety/depression? I have decent health ins, but never really used it.

 

If you have a good GP that you’re comfortable with, ask them for a referral.