kendo59
04-10-08, 16:31
A couple of threads lately have got me to thinking more about how we each suffer from our individual conditions, and how we each choose to deal with them, how much choice/responsibility we actually have over the way we lead our lives, etc.
Let me first stress that I am not denigrating anybody's suffering, and this is merely the way I sometimes try to make sense of my situation (I tend to analyse a lot of stuff).
A common view of these disorders (depression/stress/anxiety/etc) is that they are what is often called "invisible illnesses". Invisible to everyone else except ourselves, impossible for anyone else to understand, and often dismissed as "you're just feeling a bit fed up" or "you worry too much over nothing".
OK, my question is - how many people feel guilty about having depression/anxiety/stress/etc?
I think a big part of my depression/anxiety is because I have always had it drummed into me to be self-reliant, to cope, be the 'breadwinner', take care of family, etc. and since my breakdown I am having a huge problem coming to terms with this new situation of feeling so helpless/failure/etc. Maybe it's the sudden loss of control over my life, of having my life fall apart and not being able to put it back together again, etc. Humpty-Dumpty fell off the wall.
Anyway, I know these feelings are wrong, and it's what everyone says to NOT say/think, etc... but... the very methods that I'veused to encourage myself to overcome difficulties in the past, now seem to be the very thing that one is NOT supposed to say/think. "PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER" "SNAP OUT OF IT" "DON'T GIVE IN", etc.
Now, for the first time in my life, I cannot cope. I don't know how. I try to analyze the problem, to find a solution, the same as I've always done, the same as my job always was. Gather the facts, investigate, analyze, calculate, work out a way to fix the problem and get it working again. There's nothing *physically* wrong, so it's a mental disorder, right? I'm not Brain-Damaged, so it's a 'mood disorder', which means I have a choice of how to react to it, right?
But it doesn't work like that this time. None of it makes any sense. For the first time in my life, I cannot find the answer. "DOES NOT COMPUTE". Impossible, there HAS to be an answer.... doesn't there? Well, I can't find it. I feel like I'm sitting in the middle of a big tangled mess, trying to untangle it, and the more I try, the bigger a tangle it becomes.
Other people go through loss, without falling apart. Other people lose family, job, etc. and cope. So why, suddenly, can't I?
I can't cope with the pressure of a 5-minute conversation at the moment, never mind a job. Yet the longer I'm out of work, the more the bills are piling up, the more I get stressed & feel like a useless failure. The less I feel able to cope with life.
Catch-22.
I was mostly raised by my grandparents as a kid, and they were very 'old-school'. My grandmother was the youngest of 13 kids herself, never had the opportunity of an education of any sort, was always home doing the housework for her mum. When she was 15 she went into 'domestic service' as a maid for a wealthy family, and then met & married my grandfather (he was well educated & quite comfortably off). I think of the hardships my grandparents faced in their lifetime, the Depression of the 1930's, raising a family in London during WW2 through the Blitz & Rationing, etc. Being bombed out, losing his legs, and never once did I ever hear them complain. To them, any hardships were 'character-building'. There were no problems, only 'challenges'. Not being able to cope, was simply never an option. And I guess a lot of that mentality has rubbed off on me, I've never let anything really get me down before.
Until now.
What would my grandparents do/say? Well, people of that generation probably wouldn't understand this 'invisible illness'. And to tell the truth, neither do I, and I'm suffering from it!!!! WHY can't I 'cope'.. with life, with a job, with a conversation? WHY can't I walk 200 yards to the local shop and queue up to pay for a pint of milk?
What would be the reaction of my old Marine Drill-Sergeants? "GET UP ON YOUR FEET, YOU DEVIL-DOG, AND ATTACK THAT HILL!!! OOO-RAH!!!" Where has my Devil-Dog spirit gone? Why suddenly, this time, isn't any of this morale-building, psyche-myself-up "fight them on the beaches and never give up" stuff not working? It always used to.
Depression/Stress/Anxiety/Shell-shock/PTSD, call it whatever you like... unless the sufferer ended up in the funny-farm, sitting in the corner as a stuttering dribbling wreck, one would be expected to simply grit ones teeth & 'Get on with it' and cope, or be thought of as a self-pitying, self-obsessed, malingering, hypochondriac.
Have a leg amputated, become blind, and people will understand why you cannot do stuff. People will know that it isn't your fault that you can't do the things you used to. Yet given the choice, between this depression/stress or losing a leg/going blind.. which would we choose? Which would you choose?
People look at me and see a strapping healthy burly bloke, 18 months ago on top of the world. They don't see the change inside me - like a cancer that has eaten me away inside, leaving me empty, hollow, a shell. It feels like my brain has simply 'short-circuited'. Nothing makes any sense anymore. I feel like a robot, walking around in a circle, "does not compute - does not compute".
Even friends just don't understand what it is that's *actually* wrong with me. They know what I went through, and that I'm seeing the doctor for stress/depression, counselling, etc. but they just think I'm feeling a bit miserable/fed up. "Yeah, I understand your depressed and stressed - but what's *actually* wrong with you?".
Even my GP is losing patience. Last time I saw him and explained the counselling didn't help, his response was "You just have to imagine putting all your problems in a box, shut the box, lock the lid, and put the box away out of sight". Eh??? Yeah... did you see that film "Magic" with Antony Hopkins.. about the evil ventriloquist dummy... shut in the box... yet keeps calling out.
There are a lot of days where I can't cope with anything and do feel like just sitting in a dark corner, trying to get these thoughts to go away, trying to 'overcome' this disorder, trying to tell myself "your arms work, your legs work, your eyes work, so get off your backside and go for a walk, do the shopping, do the dusting/hoovering".. yeah... I spend hours sitting in the corner, telling myself that. But it doesn't work, why not? I don't know - after all, what is *actually* wrong with me? My arms work, my legs work, etc...
Maybe that's why I feel so guilty at having this 'invisible non-illness'. Guilty at suddenly not being able to cope with the simplest stuff. Guilty at letting people down. At not being able to just "put it in a box" and get on with it. Guilt at being such a helpless/useless failure, when there is nothing *actually/physically* wrong with me. I just don't understand why I am the way I have become, yet I can't find a way to fix it.
Let me first stress that I am not denigrating anybody's suffering, and this is merely the way I sometimes try to make sense of my situation (I tend to analyse a lot of stuff).
A common view of these disorders (depression/stress/anxiety/etc) is that they are what is often called "invisible illnesses". Invisible to everyone else except ourselves, impossible for anyone else to understand, and often dismissed as "you're just feeling a bit fed up" or "you worry too much over nothing".
OK, my question is - how many people feel guilty about having depression/anxiety/stress/etc?
I think a big part of my depression/anxiety is because I have always had it drummed into me to be self-reliant, to cope, be the 'breadwinner', take care of family, etc. and since my breakdown I am having a huge problem coming to terms with this new situation of feeling so helpless/failure/etc. Maybe it's the sudden loss of control over my life, of having my life fall apart and not being able to put it back together again, etc. Humpty-Dumpty fell off the wall.
Anyway, I know these feelings are wrong, and it's what everyone says to NOT say/think, etc... but... the very methods that I'veused to encourage myself to overcome difficulties in the past, now seem to be the very thing that one is NOT supposed to say/think. "PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER" "SNAP OUT OF IT" "DON'T GIVE IN", etc.
Now, for the first time in my life, I cannot cope. I don't know how. I try to analyze the problem, to find a solution, the same as I've always done, the same as my job always was. Gather the facts, investigate, analyze, calculate, work out a way to fix the problem and get it working again. There's nothing *physically* wrong, so it's a mental disorder, right? I'm not Brain-Damaged, so it's a 'mood disorder', which means I have a choice of how to react to it, right?
But it doesn't work like that this time. None of it makes any sense. For the first time in my life, I cannot find the answer. "DOES NOT COMPUTE". Impossible, there HAS to be an answer.... doesn't there? Well, I can't find it. I feel like I'm sitting in the middle of a big tangled mess, trying to untangle it, and the more I try, the bigger a tangle it becomes.
Other people go through loss, without falling apart. Other people lose family, job, etc. and cope. So why, suddenly, can't I?
I can't cope with the pressure of a 5-minute conversation at the moment, never mind a job. Yet the longer I'm out of work, the more the bills are piling up, the more I get stressed & feel like a useless failure. The less I feel able to cope with life.
Catch-22.
I was mostly raised by my grandparents as a kid, and they were very 'old-school'. My grandmother was the youngest of 13 kids herself, never had the opportunity of an education of any sort, was always home doing the housework for her mum. When she was 15 she went into 'domestic service' as a maid for a wealthy family, and then met & married my grandfather (he was well educated & quite comfortably off). I think of the hardships my grandparents faced in their lifetime, the Depression of the 1930's, raising a family in London during WW2 through the Blitz & Rationing, etc. Being bombed out, losing his legs, and never once did I ever hear them complain. To them, any hardships were 'character-building'. There were no problems, only 'challenges'. Not being able to cope, was simply never an option. And I guess a lot of that mentality has rubbed off on me, I've never let anything really get me down before.
Until now.
What would my grandparents do/say? Well, people of that generation probably wouldn't understand this 'invisible illness'. And to tell the truth, neither do I, and I'm suffering from it!!!! WHY can't I 'cope'.. with life, with a job, with a conversation? WHY can't I walk 200 yards to the local shop and queue up to pay for a pint of milk?
What would be the reaction of my old Marine Drill-Sergeants? "GET UP ON YOUR FEET, YOU DEVIL-DOG, AND ATTACK THAT HILL!!! OOO-RAH!!!" Where has my Devil-Dog spirit gone? Why suddenly, this time, isn't any of this morale-building, psyche-myself-up "fight them on the beaches and never give up" stuff not working? It always used to.
Depression/Stress/Anxiety/Shell-shock/PTSD, call it whatever you like... unless the sufferer ended up in the funny-farm, sitting in the corner as a stuttering dribbling wreck, one would be expected to simply grit ones teeth & 'Get on with it' and cope, or be thought of as a self-pitying, self-obsessed, malingering, hypochondriac.
Have a leg amputated, become blind, and people will understand why you cannot do stuff. People will know that it isn't your fault that you can't do the things you used to. Yet given the choice, between this depression/stress or losing a leg/going blind.. which would we choose? Which would you choose?
People look at me and see a strapping healthy burly bloke, 18 months ago on top of the world. They don't see the change inside me - like a cancer that has eaten me away inside, leaving me empty, hollow, a shell. It feels like my brain has simply 'short-circuited'. Nothing makes any sense anymore. I feel like a robot, walking around in a circle, "does not compute - does not compute".
Even friends just don't understand what it is that's *actually* wrong with me. They know what I went through, and that I'm seeing the doctor for stress/depression, counselling, etc. but they just think I'm feeling a bit miserable/fed up. "Yeah, I understand your depressed and stressed - but what's *actually* wrong with you?".
Even my GP is losing patience. Last time I saw him and explained the counselling didn't help, his response was "You just have to imagine putting all your problems in a box, shut the box, lock the lid, and put the box away out of sight". Eh??? Yeah... did you see that film "Magic" with Antony Hopkins.. about the evil ventriloquist dummy... shut in the box... yet keeps calling out.
There are a lot of days where I can't cope with anything and do feel like just sitting in a dark corner, trying to get these thoughts to go away, trying to 'overcome' this disorder, trying to tell myself "your arms work, your legs work, your eyes work, so get off your backside and go for a walk, do the shopping, do the dusting/hoovering".. yeah... I spend hours sitting in the corner, telling myself that. But it doesn't work, why not? I don't know - after all, what is *actually* wrong with me? My arms work, my legs work, etc...
Maybe that's why I feel so guilty at having this 'invisible non-illness'. Guilty at suddenly not being able to cope with the simplest stuff. Guilty at letting people down. At not being able to just "put it in a box" and get on with it. Guilt at being such a helpless/useless failure, when there is nothing *actually/physically* wrong with me. I just don't understand why I am the way I have become, yet I can't find a way to fix it.