Intrepid_Explorer
18-08-12, 12:02
Hey
I'm really interested to find out, particularly from other people who suffer from dysthymia, if anyone's had the feeling that they've lost their sense of 'self'.
It's incredibly difficult to describe in any accurate way, but when i'm depressed i feel like i lose grip of who i am. I don't just mean that i feel like a vacuous shadow of my former self, i mean that when i look inside myself, i can't figure out who i am - what's my personality? It's like i'm running on auto-pilot and although i can do a very good impression of a normal human being, much of the time it feels like an act. There's no spontaneity, no charisma, no person - just a body with some pre-scripted stock responses to certain situations.
I feel like I'm going through the motions of life but not really engaging with it in any meaningful way and i know that this is a symptom common to depression but i feel that it affects me more than most. From the accounts, i've read of people who are depressed both on here and on various other sites, people still seem to have interests, passions, humour, charisma - there seems to be a 'person' underneath the depression. I feel like i've lost that. My depression seems to come from within myself - it's not caused by any external situations in my life, at least nothing of significant, i just have a fundamental unease with my 'self'.
And one of the ways this manifests itself (and this probably the biggest problem i have with depression) is that i constantly question my self. I'm wracked with self-doubt and i'm forever worrying about how i come across to other people and my interactions with them - what do they think of me? do they think i'm this or that? etc, etc - i'd say it's bordering on obsessive and really characterises my depression/anxiety.
I can't simply 'be' with my depression. I'm forever questioning how depression manifests itself within me, and how i in turn appear to the outside world - How do people see me? Ultimately, its a fear of being judged.
Sorry this is so incoherent - one of the problems i have with depression is that it seems to affect my ability to think straight.
Any thoughts?
Cheers
IE
I'm really interested to find out, particularly from other people who suffer from dysthymia, if anyone's had the feeling that they've lost their sense of 'self'.
It's incredibly difficult to describe in any accurate way, but when i'm depressed i feel like i lose grip of who i am. I don't just mean that i feel like a vacuous shadow of my former self, i mean that when i look inside myself, i can't figure out who i am - what's my personality? It's like i'm running on auto-pilot and although i can do a very good impression of a normal human being, much of the time it feels like an act. There's no spontaneity, no charisma, no person - just a body with some pre-scripted stock responses to certain situations.
I feel like I'm going through the motions of life but not really engaging with it in any meaningful way and i know that this is a symptom common to depression but i feel that it affects me more than most. From the accounts, i've read of people who are depressed both on here and on various other sites, people still seem to have interests, passions, humour, charisma - there seems to be a 'person' underneath the depression. I feel like i've lost that. My depression seems to come from within myself - it's not caused by any external situations in my life, at least nothing of significant, i just have a fundamental unease with my 'self'.
And one of the ways this manifests itself (and this probably the biggest problem i have with depression) is that i constantly question my self. I'm wracked with self-doubt and i'm forever worrying about how i come across to other people and my interactions with them - what do they think of me? do they think i'm this or that? etc, etc - i'd say it's bordering on obsessive and really characterises my depression/anxiety.
I can't simply 'be' with my depression. I'm forever questioning how depression manifests itself within me, and how i in turn appear to the outside world - How do people see me? Ultimately, its a fear of being judged.
Sorry this is so incoherent - one of the problems i have with depression is that it seems to affect my ability to think straight.
Any thoughts?
Cheers
IE