The Depressing Thread

[Anget Colslaw]

Being comfortable with the idea of being alone is sad to some people I've known apparently.

I'm an 18 year old still fresh from high school being intimidated as hell (at best) about the future. Honestly have no idea or strong feelings about where the hell I want to go. Not even sure how I'll get anywhere or if I even can.

The adoption and "Feminism and Fedoras" thread made me remember how many Escapist members I dislike.

Capcha: Shine a Light on Autism

Thanks for reminding what my grandma was worried I might've been suffering from. (I still love her, especially since she was only worried for me, but damn that came as a shock and hurt a little when my father told me.)

 

[awesomeClaw]

I've been fighting with a friend over a girl lately. The guy's one of my best friends, yet still decided it was a good idea to hit on the girl he knew I liked. Not terrible in and of itself, but it turned out the girl responded well and started to crush on him. That was pretty hurtful, I must admit.

After talking the whole thing through with him, he said he was sorry and we agreed to leave it in the past. But in order to do that, we had to cut all ties with the girl in question. Neither her or her friends(many of whom are my friends) are taking it very well, and to be honest, I don't feel very good about it either. It wasn´t her fault, after all. But goddamn it, what was I supposed to do?!

Sigh. Life is complicated sometimes. I can has cyberhug?

 

[Lynx]

Bad breakup in November, still don't feel entirely okay about that. I'm happy most of the time, but occasionally I'll be sleep deprived or intoxicated or just plain low, and my defenses drop to the floor. Suddenly I feel the loss all over again. I feel very empty without my best friend.
Those weak moments happen less and less with time, thankfully.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Had you asked me this on Friday then you would've been bombarded by a ton of depressing shit.

All I'm gonna say was that liquor and sad thoughts were involved. That was no bueno.

Anyways, it's just the usual at this point. Alone at 28, and doing a shit load of life changing things, and it's really scary. I feel like things are just going so fast and I don't have time to really do anything. Not really a lot of time to process things, and I've really managed to stress myself out like crazy. I've told a few people here on the site of the reasons, so I'm not gonna rehash them again.

Still, I'm not gonna lie and say those thoughts haven't been in the background of my mind and just stewing.

 

[Belaam]

A year ago, my one year old daughter was given an initial diagnosis of mitochondrial myopathy; uncurable, but varied symptoms from infant Alzheimer's and death to almost nothing. A month ago, additional testing cleared that it wasn't that. Massive joy. A week ago, new tentative diagnosis of either glycogen or lysosomal storage disease. Guess what? Also incurable with symptoms that range from death within the year to almost nothing. results from most recent rounds of tests will take 90 days and still may not be conclusive. Oh, and it's genetic on the female side, so my wife and other daughters could start developing symptoms too.

 

[deserteagleeye]

I've recently failed 2 college courses that I need to take over again now and my parents could only afford to give me 1 condensed class for the spring. I'm more than likely going to be spending my entire summer playing catch-up while my parents berate me for wasting so much of their money. Though this is paltry compared to what I've heard from you guys so far.

I can has cyberhug?

(>'')> C'mere you.

 

[talker]

Been failing all my tests recently because of social problems, find solace in videogames. Decided to stop this year and try again the next, but I'm scared of losing friends/screwing up my tests again. Hardly mentioning compared to what you guys have got going tho :/

 

[flying_whimsy]

snip

You're not alone there: I didn't get my license until I was around 25 or 26. I grew up in Michigan, and considering they lowered the age for a permit to 14 plus a few months when I was around that age, I definitely broke the mold on that one. I have a friend that waited until he was about your age, and he still gets panic attacks on freeways even though he turns 30 this week. His fear also makes him a terrible driver, which just exacerbates the difficulty he has driving anywhere.

I wrote a really long, surprisingly intimate post for this thread before I realized that I wasn't going to post it. So instead I'll mention something else that makes me sound way more into tv shows than I actually am.

When I was 4 there was a scifi show on that I loved (and has actually still held up well even to adult me and other's I've shown it to that didn't have the benefit of nostalgia goggles). Anyway, the network that had it pushed it to 5 am on thursdays and despite that it still had good ratings and merchandise sales. Cancelled after the first season (right when the writers were really hitting their stride) with no explanation as to why. Every once in a while Scifi channel or someone looks at rebooting it, but nothing ever comes of it. I've spent 26 years thinking about that show (not obsessively, but given my age when I saw it there was quite the formative effect).

Fast forward to 2004 when my folks tell me to try and catch an episode of Wonderfalls while I was at college. I catch one episode (the fourth one they aired), and gather some friends to watch it the next week. They never showed another one and it was months before I learned that it was cancelled (months spent trying to catch it on tv in the dorm lounge, by the way). A friend gave me the show on dvd when it came out (they made a whole season and only aired a third of it), but that only made it worse as I loved the show even more.

Some friends introduced me to Firefly, but when it got canned I could only think back to that show from when I was 4. I've been down that road enough times that it doesn't phase me like it used to. Also, I don't think anything can irk me quite as much as that damn cliffhanger ending reboot got in season 4.

In other words, I was a browncoat in spirit before there even was such a thing.

 

[scorptatious]

While my attitude has changed and I am trying to improve myself and become more independent, what he said back there made me realize that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to improve myself, to conform to society's standards, I'll always be different from most everyone else and there's nothing I can do about it.

To be honest, it scares me.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but you really don't need to conform to "society's standards". Society's standards suck anyway. It might sound cheesy and silly and stupid and obvious, but all you have to do is be the best "you" you can be.

And honestly, it will be scary. And it'll probably remain scary for a long time. It's only been the last year where I've finally had the self-confidence to feel like I could move out on my own, and I'm 22 and been graduated from high school for four years as well. Except I haven't even overcome my fears of driving, and here I am planning on moving to another country for school. You know how insane that is? XD

Er... I'm not usually like this, spouting pointless platitudes on the internet, I swear. It's 1 AM and I just watched Blade Runner for the first time and it was a damn good movie and this is why I don't generally stay up late any more.

Thanks shrekfan.

Best of luck to you by the way. I can't imagine even moving out the state I'm in. Much less an entire country.

 

[Snotnarok]

You asked for it...

My mom is mentally disabled due to a progressive terminal illness, I stick home to help out and it's been rough lately with seizures and what not. Progressive asphasia, so I got to watch her go from loving mother and artist to someone who can't talk, understand and who can't do anything herself. Now she wanders around the house, walking nearly 24 hours a day if we can't convince her to go to bed, wanders and mumbles while most of her brothers stay as far as they can from this house.

Then my grandma was diagnosed with cancer at the end of January and had surgery to remove a bulk of it (as I understand it), and in the span of 3 or weeks I got to watch her painfully die at the house. Lived with her my entire life, 28 years, she was super close to me and I loved her dearly. She was in the hospital twice her entire life and it was for the 2 children she birthed. She got check ups regularly and cancer snuck in and she didn't even have a chance to fight. My brother and I trying to keep an eye on our mother and then have to run upstairs to help gram who's in a lot of pain, basically was on 4 hours sleep on 3 or 4 days sometimes, not that's holding much of a candle to, you know, cancer and dying.

So now there's an empty apartment upstairs and I can barely stand to look up, never the less go up there for something we may need. Talking about it is impossibly hard and brings me to tears nearly every time and I don't really do that whole crying thing.

Every day I get to get sharp reminders when I think "oh I should turn the volume down so I don't wake up gra- ...." or "hey look it's Grams car ....."

The family is trying to move quickly to repurpose the apartment, at least to clean it up so when the time comes to move it's presentable but I can't even think about it. There's a lot of positive things to say, long great life, her family came to help her (my cousins and aunt), she was awesome... but in the end there feels like there's a knife in my heart and it feels like there was more we could have done and that shitty cliche movie line, I feel like I didn't get to say goodbye.

I hate talking about it because I hate, hate putting this kind of thing on people.

So I apologize for this, I know people got it worse, and that's really why I don't want to add extra weight on people's shoulders.

 

[Pebkio]

I'm a 29-year-old directionless college camper who's been 9 years out of any intimate relationships and have only managed to hold onto one real friendship. And that's not the depressing part...

The depressing part: I'm fine with that.

 

[Elfgore]

my parents split at the age 11, got back when I was 16 but... oh my god when they were separated for those 5 years was terrible. Bickering, threats, flat out insults thrown along with the point my mom almost lost her house over who owned what. THANKFULLY they realized they loved each other and got back. I never will forget those years though, pity.

Got the saying "I feel you bro" couldn't possibly be more accurate. My parents split up a total of three times before they finally got divorced. The first I was 12, the second 14, the last 16. I didn't even cry when they told me it was over. I was just glad it was over. Be glad your parents got back together. I'm stuck with that mud slinging for the rest of my life. The mere mention of my mother, makes my dad's face go dark. It's like I can't have a conversation about my life with him since I live with my mother and am forced to bring her up. For a while it looked like he would be a mature adult and be able to have adult conversations with her about my sister and I. For some reason it changed a while ago, I think maybe when the divorce became final. My mother frequently has to stop herself from bad mouthing my dad. It completely sucks.

The "best" thing about this to, is the only reason my Mom got back with my Dad the second time was because of my sister and I. She was miserable with him, but with my grades failing and my sister becoming a problem child she saw it as the only way to fix us. I still feel guilt for that.

 

[Caiphus]

Then my grandma was diagnosed with cancer at the end of January and had surgery to remove a bulk of it (as I understand it), and in the span of 3 or weeks I got to watch her painfully die at the house. Lived with her my entire life, 28 years, she was super close to me and I loved her dearly. She was in the hospital twice her entire life and it was for the 2 children she birthed. She got check ups regularly and cancer snuck in and she didn't even have a chance to fight. My brother and I trying to keep an eye on our mother and then have to run upstairs to help gram who's in a lot of pain, basically was on 4 hours sleep on 3 or 4 days sometimes, not that's holding much of a candle to, you know, cancer and dying.

Hey man, I don't think you need to apologise. I, myself, feel like I need to apologise because I don't have much to add to this thread. I feel awkward posting in these things because I don't want to sound like a tosser.

Just wanted to say that I had roughly the same experience with my grandmother a couple of years ago. She was the healthiest person you could hope for at her age; she used to feed us spinach whenever we stayed over at her place (to our dismay as kids), and one day she started acting funny. Couldn't talk properly, one eye wouldn't open. We thought she'd had a stroke. Turns out, brain tumour. They managed to remove most of it, but then it came back suddenly a few months later. And then it killed her really quickly. She wished me luck for an exam, hugged me, and that was the last time I spoke to her. I flew down to see her a couple of weeks later after exams finished, at which point she was in a palliative care unit, unconscious. And then she passed away a few days after that.

But yeah, it sucks watching someone healthy just fade away like that. Same for your mother, sounds like that really fucken sucks.

So hugs.

Have some bunny photos.

Spoiler: Nature's anti-depressants

 

[Padwolf]

Where to begin. This week I have to go to a "How to look for a job course" that I'm being forced to go to. I tried getting out of it but it was no good. I have to walk for 2 mile on a serious foot injury because I don't have any money for the bus because job seekers allowance is being sent "In short bursts". So I have to walk for 4 hours in total today and for the rest of the week and it's going to be awful. What makes it worse is that I have no money for food either, so I have to go all day today without any food until dinner. Yay. I haven't seen my family since before christmas, it's been very painful as I miss them, my cats and my dogs so very much and I'm living in a fragile hope that my job seekers will come through and I'll get to see them on the 13th. I'm also trying to deal with this huge sense of loneliness as I don't have any friends in this area. My boyfriend does all he can, and thankfully at the moment we have been playing final fantasy online with friends and that's been really fun. But my sub is going to run out soon and I don't have any money to pay for it. Though I've been dealing with this great sense of loneliness for almost 5 years now, I don't know what to do about it anymore.

I also get these weird unexplainable "dark days" as I call them now.It's been happening for years. Times where I could be perfectly normal, happy as anything, then suddenly out of nowhere I'll start feeling down. I'll just slow down and come to a halt because I'm feeling down and I can't explain why. But it can go on for days, or even a few weeks. It gets to a point where I just stop and lay in bed not wanting to do anything because I'm feeling far too down for it. I never know when the dark days will strike next or how long for. I just don't know why it keeps happening. I can have a really fantastic day, one I wouldn't forget, and yet at the end of it I will end up laying in bed near on in tears for reasons I just do not know. I feel so sorry for my boyfriend during this time because he doesn't quite understand why it happens either and he really tries his best.

I miss my dogs and my cats. I never thought it would affect me this much. But I find life incredibly hard without them. I need to be surrounded by animals, it's just who I am. At the moment I have a hamster and I adore him and he means the world to me. But I need my cats and dogs.
Eh, I know it isn't much compared to what others are going through or have been through. But damn I needed to vent it all out.

 

[Elfgore]

snip

Thanks, Browaski. Sometimes even the most joyful of us have to vent it out.

And before I go back to my usual happy self, one more dark irony thing. My Mom actually decided to divorce my Dad because she looked at when they first meet. She actually told me this about a month ago for a fun fact. She looked back at the man she had fallen in love with and he was no longer there. He was replaced by a cynical, greedy, selfish bastard.

Back to happy me now. And Caramel, you can take me to a night out anytime *wink. Or you could always just *cough add *cough metal horns *cough to your avatar *cough. (I'm a master at subliminal messaging I tell you.)

 

[Zakarath]

I just watched Madoka Magica for the first time

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'll say it out loud, but this is NOT self-pity. It's just facts. I feel more dishonor than actual depression.
I've taken too long to get my master's. I should've wrapped up college last year, but I got scared of That One Exam, plus I got sidetracked with work and as a result I still have a couple of semesters to go before I get my final degree - quotas I'm paying out of my own pocket. This means I won't graduate before I'm 25, which seems to be pushing it. And even once I'm done with college, I really should get a 2nd job to make ends properly meet.

Been failing all my tests recently because of social problems, find solace in videogames. Decided to stop this year and try again the next, but I'm scared of losing friends/screwing up my tests again. Hardly mentioning compared to what you guys have got going tho :/

I don't recommend taking a year off. See above.

 

[Trude]

Going back into a five day chemo session in the morning, knowing full well I'm going to be sick as a dog by Wednesday, continue to feel like shit until Friday, pissing myself every half hour when on hydration IV and trying to keep down pills for nausea but ultimately do almost nothing. Fun stuff.

 

[Doclector]

I feel really rather crap this morning. I'm not the happiest of people at the best of times, but today really is not my day. Some days I just know when I wake up that by the end of the day, I will be crying into a bag of beef jerky watching something awful on netflix.

Heh. Laugh all you want at first world problems. Personally, I think that phrase is just an excuse by people who don't know any better and don't wish to so that they can shit on people who have serious problems without even the slightest bit of guilt. But that's the picture of first world depression, isn't it? There's a reason capitalism got this far, and it ain't because we're happy with it, it's because we're fucking miserable, and mindless consumerism is the only escape. Not that I shit on that technique, hell, one of my dreams is to become a director, in which case I'd be part of that very system.

Anyways, for some reason, maybe it's the shitty rainy weather outside (and this is coming from someone who hates it being too hot) maybe it's the possibility that work is going to be hell today, but I got myself thinking about just how awful the whole world is. World hunger, war, racism, christ, we can't even get men and women living in the same culture to agree. It's not the problems that depress me so much as the lack of solutions. Oh, we can solve a problem, but two more appear. There's never going to be any end to it. I don't believe, really, that we'll ever have world peace, that nobody will go hungry, I really don't believe we'll ever all be equal, especially as someone's always going to want revenge. We're all as bad as each other in one way or another. You might hate women, another person might hate men, another person might earn three million a year and be voting for the complete withdrawal of the benefits system, me, meanwhile, I regularly have to calm myself down so it doesn't seem so likely that I'll bash the brains out of a complete stranger for looking at me funny. Sure, I know that's crazy right now, but in the heat of the moment, it always seems so logical. They hate me, thus they pose a threat, thus they must be eliminated. Honestly, if they rob me of any prospect of having a decent life of my own, of ever having a decent social life that doesn't rely upon alcohol to help my anxiety, of having a job that actually pays a living wage, of feeling like I have the same rights as everyone else, then I wouldn't have any reason not to do it.