It's a rough night

[Cotillion]

This is my first thread here, I mostly lurk so I'm sure it'll end up being a long one as I tend to ramble. Anyway I am a 29 y/o male from Las Vegas. My depression started in 2008 when I was 25 and it came out of the blue. At that point in my life I had no cause for complaint. I was young, good job, good with woman and a great social life. In November in 2008 I started taking chantix to quit smoking, and with all the major lawsuits and cases against them I'd like to think that was the cause of my mental downfall but it's impossible to pinpoint it. My dad has mental health issues which started in his mid 30's which I could be experiencing also. Social anxiety, joylessness and the rest of the usual depression issues. In December of 2008 about a month after the depression started I woke up and dropped my work truck off in front of my bosses house and hopped on a plane down to Las Vegas where a couple of my good friends had recently moved. I got a job right away, had some fun and everything seemed good.

That lasted about a month. Everything hit me once again. I had started dating a good friend of mine, I had a good job and was surrounded by friends, yet nothing seemed exciting. I didn't want to go out and it all started getting progressively worse. I started using opiates regularly after being drug free for the last 10 years. That lasted until mid 2010 when I decided I couldn't keep doing that to my family. Several failed attempts later I got on methadone treatment. Once I was no longer thinking about drugs I remembered why I started. My mind never stops, it's always going on and on and on about something. Day after day after day of just wanting it all to end, trying to figure out what happened to me. I had every curveball possible thrown at me in my teens/early 20's but nothing could bring me down. I never call anyone to go out, I never have fun doing anything except sleep. The only thing I've learned to do is try to obssess over something like buying a new TV or a gun or something, just so I have something to window shop and google about for a short period of time. I'll buy some coke every once in a while. Obviously I know it doesn't help my depression, but anything to numb my mind for a short time and allow me to have positive thoughts might just be the reason I'm still here.

So here I am, 5 years later with a wife ( the same woman I started dating in 2008 ), 2 awesome stepkids, a house and a job, and even though I try and remind myself of this every damn day and constantly try and pump positive thoughts in my head they are quickly over ran by the usual pecimistic garbage. I've tried several anti depressants, testosterone, therapy, working out and just about everything else I can think of but here I am, still driving home in the morning after a graveyard shift with nothing but my thoughts. A big burly man crying my eyes out for no real reason. Everything is still dull and boring, unexciting and pointless. Sometimes I'm positive the only reason I haven't gone off the deep end into a complete binder and eventual death is not wanting to cause the feel people who care for me any pain or depression. The guilt I feel for my wife weighs me down a lot too. I feel so bad for being just a huge waste of space. She deserves so much more. I couldn't even blame her if she left me, how could I? Sometimes I think I would want her to meet someone else. As much as I love her we are going on YEARS of me moping around and avoiding anything entertaining.

I don't even know why I posted this. A self serving rant I guess. I stopped talking to my wife about it as part of my guilt. I put on a smile and just ignore it. It's not her fault she married a nut! I guess I just needed to scribble something out ;/

 

[RobotRipping]

you're hardly a nut; don't blame yourself. And your wife is free to be with who she wants, so if she is still there then it's because she truly wants to be. I'm sure she'd rather see things through and see you become happy again rather than meet someone else, i assume anyway.

What would make you happy? Are there any deeply rooted thoughts or experiences that may drive depression for you? Sometimes it's not obvious but a rough life, trouble growing up and a lack of coping skills can add up and cause something even if there is no obvious connection, that's how it happened to me. I can only recommend therapy as you didn't seem to list it. It's really worth a shot. I think you could gain some insight as to why you feel the way you do. It usually starts out that you can't figure out why you feel a certain way, i used to blame it only on genetics and on growing up but i also figured out that i lead a fucked up life on my own which contributed to it.

good luck with everything and thanks for sharing.

 

[Cotillion]

Thank you for the reply. I tried therapy for about 6 months. I didn't really get much out of it. It's like even if I come to terms with certain things I've been through it doesn't change the blandness that I feel. I don't know why but I tend to look at everything way to deeply. Government, religion, American culture and so on. My dream day would be an actual zombie apocalypse, or maybe just the collapse of this silly civilization. I wish so badly I could just get up and go to work, fuck my wife and drink beer with some friends on the weekends! I just woke up one day and decided that living a silly meaningless life just doesn't do it for me. Any other mental cases feel like this? My dad used to talk like this and I always thought he was a nut

 

[DooMMooD]

Fake it till you make it

I feel the same way but at least you have all those things I don't (girl job house etc) so clearly you're doing something right.

You honestly though probably have some past traumas haunting you. And when you talk about them you will cry and once you do cry and yell and scream, well, you're at least feeling emotions. you say apathy, but I contest that if you cry daily you are feeling more emotions than you know what to do with.

Honestly the real answer is go back to a psych man.

But I know how you feel. As I Said though fake it till you make it. You've got all the shit most depressed people such as myself pray for, so count your blessings.

I use to let all that shit get to me too: Horrible condition of the planet, what horrible things human beings do. But honestly....you've gotta shrink your field of vision. You can't worry about everything. When you do, you expend all your pity/empathy/energy on things that you cannot change or impact. I learned that a longgggg time ago: the more energy/time I spend worrying about shit outside my sphere of influence, the less energy I have for myself an to make myself happy.

Start with your family. Your life isn't meaningless, you've got a wife and 2 step kids. Make THEM your meaning.

Fuck religion, fuck government. Who gives a shit? You're talking like because of that shit your life sucks. It doesn't. that shit is like....not even real to us. Don't obsess over it...what is real to you is your family and what is right in front of you. That shots just like discussion and ideas to us. I mean do you work in Washington? Nah you don't. So who cares how bad our govt sucks?

I used to: a lot. I used to lay awake nights thinking how awful the world was. But I realized, a selfish as this sounds, it really is 99% irrelevant to me. Be a bit selfish.

Not saying To treat people bad. As human beings we all deserve respect a love. But simply focus on what you CAN CHANGE, not on the abstracts.

 

[sconnie420]

Ur definitely not alone w/ ur feelings..I also suffer from serve depression, sure makes getting up everyday very hard, but I think doomd said it well..

Maybe u were on the wrong medication? I'm going to be attempting to get some soon here, which hopefully work.. Good luck op, keep us posted how ur doing.. Pm if u need some1 2 rant 2.. Tds is full of good people.

 

[BrokedownPalace]

Maybe I missed it but are you still on methadone? Or no.? Personally when I was on methadone it dulled my feelings to the point where my bi-polar/depression got ridiculously out of hand, and now even being off of methadone I still am very depressed. Opiate abuse has fucked me up bad, I hope to recover.

 

[Cotillion]

Doom-you're 100% right. I even feel guilty sometimes because I have all those things and I love my family so much, it should be enough. You're right on about the emotions too. I'll let it build up at work then let it flow on the way home. I should start looking for a shrink too, my insurance should be kicking in soon. It seems like no matter how many times I go over it and try to find things to help it always just derails and goes off track. Obviously the work, sleep and die routine doesn't excite me so I'll try and plan trips and adventures but the next thing I know it's been a year and I haven't gone even 10 miles to the lake! I really appreciated your post, thank you

-Broke, yes I'm still on the methadone. I've been realizing that it definitely has a numbing effect to it also so ive been slowly tapering the past couple months. Unfortunately I started MMT while I was briefly living in southern Oregon ( small town areas ) where only 1 clinic was available to me and they preached high doses so my max was 135 but I'm down to 70 at the moment. I really don't want to rush it though and end up worse than when I started. I'll be saving as much as possible too so when I get down to 1mg I can continue to taper myself down to .5 and .25 and then a day skipping process