No job prospects. The work I do to support myself is come and go, and im probably gonna miss rent again. The older I get, the less friends it seems I have. None of my hobbies/passions excite me right now and just feel like a pain in the dick when I think about doing them. Every day is the same goddamn routine unless I go stay at my partners place.
It's cold and I hate going out in the cold, so that just compounds stuff further. Everything is dead outside. I'm tired, im always so tired. I can never get enough sleep no matter how much I actually get.
Feels like I'm just existing and I hate it.
i've felt profoundly alienated and unable to connect on basic things lately.
I am having a very hard time finding work, and i'm realizing the world is both worse than i thought, and i'm starting to doubt my willingness to do what it takes to fight it.
I really just want to hide, and spend all day learning and reading what i can, trying to forget people want to destroy me for my identity. I can barely stand going outside lately. I don't find as much joy in anything, i'm often emotionally blunted. I just lost a family member that was dear to me, and maybe that's part of it.. but honestly this has been going on longer than that. it's just getting worse.
i've been forcing myself to go outside and make new connections when I can, and it seems to be helping at least.
Yeah I'm gonna take this opportunity to trauma dump a bit. Put it behind a CW, I get pretty dark but I really felt like typing this out, especially after I had a really awful day at work today.
spoiler
I've always had issues with depression but this is the first time in my life I've felt really materially hopeless. Like I straight up don't really see my life getting better at all, at best it will remain about as good as it is now which I'm not enjoying, if it gets worse I don't know how I'll handle it.
I'm in my mid-30s and still working retail and it's getting more and more stressful each year. I'm a stupid fuck up but finally got my shit together and decided to go back to school for something actually valuable, but now the job market is fucked and it's only going to get worse so I've just accepted this master's I'm getting is going to be worthless. I'm just stuck in this and need to accept it. Also I've given up on relationships. I don't like saying this because I feel like it comes off as kinda incel-ish, but I'm a cis, mostly hetero man and I feel like there just not much romantic opportunity for me anymore, at least as a 30 year old. Women are, totally justifiably, fed up with men, I'm frankly fed up with men. I think it's totally right that many of them want nothing to do with us, but it does leave me single.
Ironically I'm actually less doomer about the world at large, I have some hope for humanity, but I think it's over for the corner I occupy. I just see things getting worse. I really wish I could just get enough money to buy a cabin in the woods and be alone, away from all the noise and stress, but I don't have the resources even for that.
I quit drinking recently, but I think I'm going to start again. I enjoy it, it's fun, and I don't see the point in not. It was hurting my health but I don't care that much about my health anymore and just want to enjoy what I can. I don't intent on actually harming myself, that would hurt my family, but I'm not really going to take care of myself beyond that anymore.
you're lucky you have a partner.
I'll never have one, or even be able to hook up or have a fling or FWB or anything, because I'm a NEET on disability.
if it wasn't for my partner eventually i would have just stopped giving a shit and done something stupid with drugs on purpose
i know im in a differnet spot then you this is so fucked but the only good thing about climate change is my SADD comes later now and is shorter. but then hits again in the summer?
i love hiking and can't stand the world all dead and sterile like when you come out of the vault in fallout. so i just started embracing that and finding abandoned stuff to hike around
love ya im sleepy hope that made sense just sharing stuff
I highly recommend a gigantic pot of chili. It might just be that I am highly food motivated, but during the winter I get enormous comfort out of having a warm bowl of beanis and rice waiting for me when the day is over.
And it freezes great!
Chili sounds great! But I need some corn chips with it.
Moods like this always tell me I need escape
Not like escape from my problems (though that would of course be nice), but escape from me. That stagnant routine becomes a welcome backbone to my day-to-day when I'm really ensconced in something, be it a piece of media or a creative project of my own. Even just a couple hours of being so mentally involved in something that my awareness of myself melts away is deeply restorative. Maybe your depression doesn't stem from boredom like mine did (I think) but if it does, a little time in the flow state usually does the trick
Edit: this is very therapist-tone and I don't like it, so I want to also say something chummy and shitposty like "keep existing to enjoy the days Kissinger can't"
I'm sorry corgi :( Yeah, our world is really good at making us feel worthless. Depression is a really rough feeling, especially when the seasons start coming into play. I've felt like I've been in auto pilot for a while and that's definitely a hard feeling to deal with. We keep putting up with the auto-pilot for those great moments like getting to stay at your partner's place, or getting a tutu for your pupper.
It would be too much to explain how, so I'm just coming in here to log a 'yes'.
spoiler
I can never get enough sleep no matter how much I actually get.
this was 2021-2023 for me. it turned out i had moderate obstructive sleep apnea. i just thought i was getting old and the world was falling apart, which are true statements. but the apnea thing had been silently building and its effects are cumulative over the years of never getting any real rest for the mind or body, as it would have to stir itself roughly every 2-3 minutes because i had stopped breathing. all of this unnoticed by me, just tired in the morning and tired all day and tired in the evening. sneaking naps when i could. i only did the sleep study because my PCP had been voicing her suspicions for nearly a year and pushing me to get it done. i was blase about all of it, but figured i would check the box to get her off my case about it.
my first real good night's sleep in several years, if not a decade, was january 2024. the materials said the effects of treatment were also cumulative and it would take months to disentangle my mind and body from what had happened to them, but after that first night i knew i was on the right track. i didn't wake up irritable. i didn't feel like i wanted another hour of sleep. i just calmly opened my eyes like an android, took note of the time, oriented myself, and started my day. i'm nearly a year later, and there's no question in my mind it saved my life in more ways than one. as my senses grew sharper, i noticed opportunities to improve my situation and had the energy and will to pursue them. i made conscious choices to replace good habits with bad habits. it all snowballed. "drink plenty of fluids and get plenty of rest" seems to be the perennially good advice for life.
i'm not saying you have sleep apnea and that this is your way forward or that diagnosis/treatment of everything isn't plagued by capitalist BS. however, i have noticed that a lot of people do have the apnea and are ashamed or embarrassed about having it, so they don't mention it until i'm like evangelizing to them one-on-one out of nowhere about how treatment changed my whole ass life. so its like this hidden epidemic. and i had no clue what was going on, despite being pretty invested/involved in my body and meta-cognition.
anyway, hang in there. i saw a corgi on a walk yesterday in the cold and it had on little yellow rubber boots that matched the poncho, which it seemed quite proud of as it eagerly pulled the bipedal parent along. everybody on the street was sort of transfixed by the scene.
Awww, dogs in boots are always adorable.
As for sleep apnea, I am most certain that I probably have one. What was it like to get a proper diagnosis, and was there anything cheaper than a machine that helped you out?
It was... not great, even living here in Sфviёт Cдпдdд. So much for universal health care—lungs and brains are luxury organs, just like our teeth are luxury bones.
The referral to the sleep study was pretty straightforward, and didn't cost me anything. They sent me home with a portable machine to wear attached to my face, and it recorded my breathing overnight. Then I went back to the clinic, they told me, "Yep, you definitely have obstructive sleep apnea." And then they asked me to pay $2500 for the machine and mask (which is about triple what it's actually worth at retail prices—and that's certainly marked up substantially).
Mercifully, my partner and I were both working at the time, and we had pretty okay health insurance, so split between our plans, our "health and wellness spending accounts", and putting the whole thing on a line of credit until they reimbursed us a month later, I was able to get my CPAP machine.
It's failing now, since that was over a decade ago. I'm dreading my next doctor's visit.
I wish Canada were 10% as cool as American liberals make us out to be.
yes, I want to live in the world that right-wingers believe we live in
I want to be very clear that YES, this is the depression talking. Everything you described is real and frustrating but not insurmountable and it sounds like you are starting out in a down place before looking at each.
If you are not in therapy I would seriously suggest looking into it to try to learn coping skills to pull out of negative moods. If books are your thing I really really rely on the methods in David Burns's Feeling Good. At very least I think it is helpful to be vocal with someone you trust and who loves you about the kinds of moods you can fall into. Don't inflict it on them but just try to describe neutrally, and maybe tell them they don't need to solve it but just listen at first.
Also Seasonal Affective Disorder is real.
Sorry if any/all of this is already very obvious to you, maybe it will help someone else in the future also.
Source: constantly battling crippling depression but trying to make the best of it lol
Rooting for u comrade
therapy can't fix systems of oppression. therapy can't make everyone else tale covid seriously. therapy can't create third places in my car dependent suburb.
therapy is a bandaid and all these problems are gushing mortal wounds.
Would you rather I had just killed myself? Sorry for not consulting you in my treatment program, the prescription is obviously to overthrow global capitalism myself in my lifetime.
All-or-nothing thinking is counterproductive. When you have a wound, do you just let it get infected, or do you apply first aid?
Maybe leave it alone when my response was clearly trying to help a comrade who is suffering? Inappropriate
i'm glad it worked for you, if it has. i'm not sure how thats related to the very real limitations of therapy in our garbage-ass society
I just don't think "our society is garbage and our tools are useless" is a helpful thing to contribute to the conversation, and it sounds defeatist and pessimistic.
Yes, talk therapy ALONE is insufficient to end world capitalism. Yes, many of the problems people discuss in therapy are directly caused by the exploitative and rapacious nature of our economic system. Yes, talk therapy itself is captured in the privatized health care system if you are in
. No one of us can resolve that, and the leftist utopia we dream of is unlikely to be rendered in our lifetimes.HOWEVER, if a person is suffering from persistent depression that reduces their capacity to experience joy in life and to contribute to the projects they want to contribute to, ESPECIALLY if thoughts of self harm are present, they should absolutely explore all available treatment options.
Nobody is saying "don't put a cast on your broken leg bc our society sucks", mental healthcare is no different.
I don't want to say anything else on this topic bc this conversation is very upsetting to me, feel free to have the last word or whatever.
HOWEVER, if a person is suffering from persistent depression that reduces their capacity to experience joy in life and to contribute to the projects they want to contribute to, ESPECIALLY if thoughts of self harm are present, they should absolutely explore all available treatment options.
I don't want to say anything else on this topic bc this conversation is very upsetting to me, feel free to have the last word or whatever.
it's rough on me as well to talk about it. over 20 years like this and over a dozen interventions have done nothing or made things worse because the tools aren't appropriate and the goal of the capitalist healer is to recuperate a worker, not a person.
Going back into therapy and doing medication might have saved my life. I don't 100% know if I would be here rn otherwise. I get that some people have bad experiences with therapy, and people have very real problems that can't be solved by therapy, but what else are you supposed to do? Just curl up and die?
but what else are you supposed to do? Just curl up and die?
eventually trying becomes too painful. i did what you're supposed to do over a dozen times and it never helped because the causes are never addressed.
Oh, definitely SAD playing a role here. I am in weekly therapy thanks to my partner, but my guy is out this week, so no session tomorrow. I'll be recording instead during that time, so I have a reason to get up and out of bed tomorrow.
Thanks for sharing. Sending love!
