life gone pear shaped

[fubar2006]

im sorry for such a long post but i have a lot to tell.
i have had'depression'& anxiety since 16 i am now 36[V]i am at my last i would say...
i have had social phobia and chronic anxiety with severe depressions virtually every day since.i have had only a handful of friends since that time and only 1 best friend who went to live in another country last year..which left me devastated i knew him for 8 years but due to my illness i guess i drove him away.I have never had a relationship due to my phobias,even mixing with other males has been tough.i spent many years from 16 living in squats,smoking cannabis and drinking too much whilst also being on various medications 'seroxat' being one(please if a doctor ever offers you this do not touch it!)i came of this last year,i can only describe it as a living hell although no meds is a living hell also.

i had cbt about 9 years ago but things have not improved much, being in a permanent depression with daily panic attaks,sweating,trembling etc..unable to talk,think function normally for so long..it's a wonder i am still here...but now i think i have really come to the end of the road.have recently been put on more mind bending drugs with more time wasting cbt to come and i barely feel as if im still really here at times,i am stuck in a crap job,i have no friends and im tired of existing,i dont want out but my situation seems hopless[xx(]i cry when i get home(to look at me you would not believe it, im a big bloke!);my life has gone so very badly wrong(a lot more wrong than i have written:((, i think id need about 10 pages for that)i am so alone

[ceecee]

hi welcome to the forum!now you are here you are not alone.we all know what you are going through,and we are here to help each other.i,m sorry that you are having a tough time at the mo,but hopefully now you have joined NMP you will see that there are lots of people who have felt how you do now and have made lots of progress in their roads to recovery!!!
take care rachel x

[yorkylover]

Hi your are not alone in how your feeling.I have the same problems as you,social phobia,anxiety and depression.I have no friends at all,but I do have a fiance.Things will get better.You will make friends here.
Having a good cry helps release all those things you have bottled up inside.you will get good advice here,your not alone.
Take care


Ellen XX

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Funny, my story is almost exactly the same as yours, although I was on Prozac rather than Seroxat- otherwise almost exactly the same!!

People say I overanalyse everything, but if you watch tv programmes such as fear of flying and see people who practically turn into jelly when asked to go in a crane up to about 15 ft, who then have treatment and are able to go to 240 ft comfortably (and I do believe that those techniques work), then it's clear to see that a small shift in the way that you think is enough to liberate you from your mental blocks. I want some of that and i read and I think so much, because I'm trying to find information/techniques/ways of thinking that can help me to enjoy life.

I know that I was severely depressed at 18, but i really didn't enjoy my childhood and I'm sure that I was depressed for much of that too.

Through being 'over-analytical' I've managed to boil down my faulty thinking and the reasons why I struggle with depression so much:

1) I manage stress badly. Up until recently I hadn't really played sports for about 14 years, I hadn't proactively relaxed and my skeletal muscles have been tense and permenantly braced for the worst happening. Because my body is so tense, my mind naturally follows "an anxious mind cannot exist in a relaxed body".

2) I think in lose-lose situations. "I'm not happy with my girlfriend, but I can't leave her because I'll be alone". Instead, this should be "If I stay with my girlfriend she has many positive points or if I leave her then I'm free to meet someone who I'm more suited to"

3) I'm too passive/ a people pleaser. My first girlfriend got off with someone infront of me and I still went to bed with her that night. i do need to learn how to get what I want and not to always put other people's 'wants' before my own.

4) I'm not confident. If confidence is defined as 'the expectation of a positive outcome', then I'm not confident because I always expect a negative outcome. I used to have a panic attack before driving home from work because I expected to crash and die. I'm now quite a bit better because I actually expect to make it home safely.

5) My expectations of myself are far too high. I'm genuinely disappointed that I'm not a millionare businessman, a rock star, a pro footballer or a celebrated artist. Again, back to confidence. How can I expect a positive outcome when my goals are unreachable?

6) Feeling overwhelmed, fearful and daunted. I guess that this has a lot to do with relaxation and confidence.

7) Feeling like I should be somewhere else, that I don't belong here, that I'm dragged down by mundanity. That's partly me feeling excluded, partly because I'm too passive and tolerate places and situations that I don't like for far too long and partly relaxation.

8) being over-competitive and comparing myself to everybody else.

I'm sure that there are more, but these are the ones that are most obvious to me.

I don't want to give up, even though this is the hardest thing that I've ever had to do. I know that it's a trick of the mind. I know that metaphorically and literally I'm capable of going all the way up in that crane.

have you faced any of your fears? I went up to the top of the Great Orme in Llandudno and I felt so ecstatic that I'd done it, i felt 'real' for the first time in years. I also went to a job interview and, even though I had to take kalms, rescue remedy and beta blockers to get through it, I felt amazing afterwards.

I'm slowly learning how to get past these mental blocks. You have to know yourself and to use psychological tricks to get the results that you want. To try and help me to stop being late all the time i put all my clocks 5 minutes fast, to encourage me to go to the gym I put my shaving stuff in my gym bag.

I know it's horrible, I'm still up to my neck in it at the moment. But, I also know that they way to beat it is very simple.... I know that I'm overcomplicating it.

I would say that cannabis has a lot to do with panic attacks too. My first really big one was while I was smoking dope

[Cookie]

Hi Fubar,
Oh chicken! You are going through the mill a bit! Let me start by reassuring you that you're not on your own. I know you're probably thinking 'yeah, right', but trust me. There are so many of us on this forum who feel like you do.
I think it was about 2 years ago when I joined this forum. I was beyond despair. I was having the most horrendous time with panic attacks, anxiety and depression. But the more time I spent on here, reading all the posts, the more I realised that so many other people were going through similar experiences to me.
I know it sounds dramatic, but this forum has been my lifeline. If it wasn't for finding these fine people, well, I don't know, but thankfully I did. And I think it will be a lifeline for you too. Don't be afraid to post on here and ask people for help or advice, everybodies so friendly and willing to share their own experiences.
Keep us updated on how you're doing anyway. Take care chick.

Shell.x

[fubar2006]

thanks all who have responded,i find it difficult to put into words to even say thank you!
trying to think of things to say..i feel sort of embarrassed in a way that i got some replies...does that make any sense?im feeling a bit wierd at the moment sort of numb...does anybody else feel so different at different times of the day?like you're living in an altered reality? blunted emotions one minute,tearful the next..may a brief window of alertness 10 minutes later,racing thoughts about nothing you can make sense of,like your just here any nothing really means anything..vacant(also why does it take so ffing long to think of anything to say!)[Duh!][Sigh...][Duh!][Ugh]
maybe tomorrow

c