I have lived with depression since I was pretty young, likely brought on by the onset of chronic renal failure from 6, dialysis for a year at 10 and then transplantation at 11. I didn't see it as being anything other than who I was as I lived with it from such an early age and, being in my 40s, mental health wasn't much of a consideration within the NHS at that time. It was after I was involved in a serious car accident in my late 20s which involved the loss of a life that I experienced anxiety and panic attacks and spoke to my GP. I began the long journey that many on here will have experienced, through many forms of drugs focusing around SSRIs. I've been through councillors and psychotherapists, hours of CBT training, exercising and generally trying to live a life. But the anxiety won't stop. Not matter how calm I try to remain and bring a clear prespective to moments of stress I continue to live in the grip of anxiety. I make plans and consistently fail to fulfil them, I consistently let people down and loathe myself for it. I'm a habitual cannabis smoker in small doses which acts as sometime blessing and curse - it allows me moments of happiness and relaxation but contributes to an overall lethargy, apathy and distancing from the social.
I'm writing for the first time this evening as I let more people down this weekend and it could have been prevented had I made the right choices. But I didn't. From there I have spiralled, my heart hammers in my ears, breaking into cold sweats, extreme emotional swings from anger, to grief and frustration. I have supportive people around me but feel like a burden.
I'm looking all over the web for some solution: supplements, therapies, groups and it occurs to me that none of it will work. Why would it work now after so long? There is no new miracle cure that will stop this, it's somewhere in the wiring. I've recently started working. By that I mean last week. I've always struggled with working and, like the therapies, I've tried allsorts. I even found myself taking a degree at Cambridge Uni over the last few years, all of it a drive to try and be 'OK'. I felt I had underachieved and so I went for it. It was hell. I was anxious 24 hours a day for 3 years; it was a continuum from unease to breakdown that I ranged across numerous times a day. I kept it from most people as I remained in my rooms with the books. Ultimately, the upshot was that it didn't make a scrap of difference to who I was or how I felt. I just failed at better paid jobs is all. So now I am a week into a new part time job and am already terrified at having to get to sleep tomorrow nightto enable me to be clear-minded enough to do a legally senstive job. Logically, I shouldn't feel any of this. I have beautiful children and step-children who are all but grown; I am not in a relationship but I have a close platonic friendship with their Mum and with a lady I was in a long-term relationship with; my anxiety and disposition make it impossible for me to be a partner that can provide requisite emotional support despite my best intentions. I'm just too much to live with in that sense. I also have a loving Mom, brother and sister and friends, without all of whom I would be somewhere very different. I am in many, many contexts very lucky and fortunate. You will likely know that having these emoitonal riches and opportunities without effect tends to increase levels of anxiety and collapse low self-esteem inducing an overriding sense of guilt at not being able to be 'better' and make everyone happy. That's where I am now. Terrified, guilty, and defeatist.
I'm writing this for no other reason than if you are reading this you are likely to know how I feel. And I just need someone who knows, to know.
xxx
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