Pierogies99
02-05-2014, 10:26 PM
Hi there. If you are reading this then you have obviously came to find out about the new guy.
Well, I'm 25, male, and life kind of sucks at the moment. My depression took off the first semester of my senior year in college, but looking back since I started therapy/meds about a year ago, I've been messed up long before that.:P Needless to say, I stopped going to class, my grades plummeted, and I stopped going out with friends (I was pretty sociable before this, if a little shy at first). I invested myself heavily into World of Warcraft, which was my main source of socialization, which was silly because I would have friends nagging me to go out all the time. I guess it felt good to be needed and relied on by my online friends, something which I didn't really have in real life. All my life I've had a lot of acquaintances, some I'd hang out with regularly and call friends, but those relationships didn't last.
This whole time I wasn't really aware of the fact that I could have depression. My roommate was actually the first to notice, but when he brought it up, I just laughed it off because I thought that was something that happened to unhappy people. I didn't even realize how unhappy I was; I just blamed others, or convinced myself otherwise and made excuses. After my second senior year, where I failed three out of the four classes I was taking second semester, I moved back home.
I lied to everyone and told them I graduated, apart from my mom, with who I live. After like a year, she told my dad (don't live together), and we finally got me to admit I have a problem. He is bipolar, and his manic symptoms are quite severe, so he actually understands what I'm going through, which helped. I saw a psychiatrist first, and got prescribed various meds steadily. Right now I'm on Wellbutrin, Lamotrigine, some thyroid medication, and Adderall, as well as some vitamin supplements. Good news is that the meds helped me lose 71 pounds in 7 months (well it was the Adderall), so my self-esteem has improved quite a bit. Adderall is extremely helpful since I could barely go six hours without being fatigued, even if I got a good amount of sleep. Not so sure about the rest, but I guess I do have less mood swings when I take them. Maybe? I also see a psychologist who has helped me re-evaluate a lot of my bad "life skills," so that is starting to help a bit more with my self esteem. Basically, I think I suck, but I'm working on that.
Along with depression came social anxiety. The more I pulled away from people, the worse I got as socializing, the worse my self-esteem got, vicious cycle, etc. I also gained a lot of weight during the first two years of my depression, mostly because I lived in a college apartment and couldn't be bothered to go shopping, so fast food it was! My ADD went into overdrive at this point as well. I had a blast reading and re-reading the same sentence half a dozen times before I could process it, and by then I'd realize I'd forgotten what the rest of the paragraph was about. Eventually I just didn't bother anymore and took exams without going to a single class or even buying a book, let alone studying. All three just kept exacerbating each other, and I sunk pretty low. I wouldn't shower for days or leave the apartment (apart from the occasional BK run if I didn't want to order Chinese yet again). Got even worse during the summers since I didn't go back home, and my roommates went home. I just sat in my apartment almost 24/7 for the ~3 months. So yeah, pretty shitty.
On a better note, I managed to hold a job for over a year once I was back home, but mostly because the boss and his son didn't like confrontation, so they didn't say anything when I missed work. Towards the end I'd miss three days a week, but at least I always texted them some lame ass excuse! Only reason I had the job though is because a high school friend of mine (who is the only real friend I've been able to keep since I've known him) got it for me. Funny enough, I have a part time job now with him that he got me as well. I couldn't be bothered to look for one myself.
Overall, I'd say I'm doing a lot better. I still have very little motivation to do anything, and it's still hard to find fun things to do. I'll usually get really into something for a week or two, then it completely fizzles out. Repeat cycle. One caveat is that I picked up playing the piano again after not having played for like nine years, and I've managed to keep it up for about three months now, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. I haven't dropped it yet though, and I played yesterday and really enjoyed it, so it's a first step! It's really all about my mood swings. They aren't drastic, and I can hide them to a certain extent, but when I get down I can sit in front of my computer refreshing the same handful of websites and playing with the mouse cursor for hours. Sometimes it passes; sometimes I just go to bed hoping when I wake up it will pass.
There's a lot more that I can think of if I tried, but this is already long enough as it is.
tl;dr: I'm depressed. Was pretty bad. Slowly getting better.
Thanks for reading!
Well, I'm 25, male, and life kind of sucks at the moment. My depression took off the first semester of my senior year in college, but looking back since I started therapy/meds about a year ago, I've been messed up long before that.:P Needless to say, I stopped going to class, my grades plummeted, and I stopped going out with friends (I was pretty sociable before this, if a little shy at first). I invested myself heavily into World of Warcraft, which was my main source of socialization, which was silly because I would have friends nagging me to go out all the time. I guess it felt good to be needed and relied on by my online friends, something which I didn't really have in real life. All my life I've had a lot of acquaintances, some I'd hang out with regularly and call friends, but those relationships didn't last.
This whole time I wasn't really aware of the fact that I could have depression. My roommate was actually the first to notice, but when he brought it up, I just laughed it off because I thought that was something that happened to unhappy people. I didn't even realize how unhappy I was; I just blamed others, or convinced myself otherwise and made excuses. After my second senior year, where I failed three out of the four classes I was taking second semester, I moved back home.
I lied to everyone and told them I graduated, apart from my mom, with who I live. After like a year, she told my dad (don't live together), and we finally got me to admit I have a problem. He is bipolar, and his manic symptoms are quite severe, so he actually understands what I'm going through, which helped. I saw a psychiatrist first, and got prescribed various meds steadily. Right now I'm on Wellbutrin, Lamotrigine, some thyroid medication, and Adderall, as well as some vitamin supplements. Good news is that the meds helped me lose 71 pounds in 7 months (well it was the Adderall), so my self-esteem has improved quite a bit. Adderall is extremely helpful since I could barely go six hours without being fatigued, even if I got a good amount of sleep. Not so sure about the rest, but I guess I do have less mood swings when I take them. Maybe? I also see a psychologist who has helped me re-evaluate a lot of my bad "life skills," so that is starting to help a bit more with my self esteem. Basically, I think I suck, but I'm working on that.
Along with depression came social anxiety. The more I pulled away from people, the worse I got as socializing, the worse my self-esteem got, vicious cycle, etc. I also gained a lot of weight during the first two years of my depression, mostly because I lived in a college apartment and couldn't be bothered to go shopping, so fast food it was! My ADD went into overdrive at this point as well. I had a blast reading and re-reading the same sentence half a dozen times before I could process it, and by then I'd realize I'd forgotten what the rest of the paragraph was about. Eventually I just didn't bother anymore and took exams without going to a single class or even buying a book, let alone studying. All three just kept exacerbating each other, and I sunk pretty low. I wouldn't shower for days or leave the apartment (apart from the occasional BK run if I didn't want to order Chinese yet again). Got even worse during the summers since I didn't go back home, and my roommates went home. I just sat in my apartment almost 24/7 for the ~3 months. So yeah, pretty shitty.
On a better note, I managed to hold a job for over a year once I was back home, but mostly because the boss and his son didn't like confrontation, so they didn't say anything when I missed work. Towards the end I'd miss three days a week, but at least I always texted them some lame ass excuse! Only reason I had the job though is because a high school friend of mine (who is the only real friend I've been able to keep since I've known him) got it for me. Funny enough, I have a part time job now with him that he got me as well. I couldn't be bothered to look for one myself.
Overall, I'd say I'm doing a lot better. I still have very little motivation to do anything, and it's still hard to find fun things to do. I'll usually get really into something for a week or two, then it completely fizzles out. Repeat cycle. One caveat is that I picked up playing the piano again after not having played for like nine years, and I've managed to keep it up for about three months now, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. I haven't dropped it yet though, and I played yesterday and really enjoyed it, so it's a first step! It's really all about my mood swings. They aren't drastic, and I can hide them to a certain extent, but when I get down I can sit in front of my computer refreshing the same handful of websites and playing with the mouse cursor for hours. Sometimes it passes; sometimes I just go to bed hoping when I wake up it will pass.
There's a lot more that I can think of if I tried, but this is already long enough as it is.
tl;dr: I'm depressed. Was pretty bad. Slowly getting better.
Thanks for reading!