Wayfarer
02-19-2009, 03:54 AM
I'm a 25yo male from Melbourne Australia.
I'm here because I've realised that I need help. Over the past decade I've come to accept that I have some form of depression, and some sort of anxiety disorder, which I believe to be quite severe. I've suffered some very extreme lows as a result of depression, the debilitating kind which sap my energy and hope and interest in life and keep me bed ridden for days. Yet when I make it through these periods I convince myself that it is something I can cope with and manage on my own. Because I've never seriously contemplated suicide I judge my depression/anxiety to be not serious enough to seek professional help. To be perfectly honest I'm a bit annoyed that I don't have bipolar disorder because I figure at least then I'd have the fun of the manic highs. In other words, I've always felt like my own problems were a bit too average, a bit too middle-of-the-bell-curve to warrant serious attention.
Yet after repeating the same patterns over and over again, of self-medicating with alcohol and marijuana, of losing interest in all social activity and displaying almost an agoraphobic distaste for leaving the house; of damaging relationships and missing opportunities, I have decided I can no longer fight this battle all alone, and that the toll is much greater than I initially thought.
Basically my life is secretly ruled by fear and anxiety. I am compulsive, obsessive, paranoid and self-critical. I feel like I have severely ruined my health through insomnia and compulsive habits of eating, alcohol and drug use, prompted by the need to dull the edge of anxiety. This morning I called in sick to work because I simply couldn't handle the thought of going in.
Rather than coping with my disability I now see I have been merely treading water, merely staying afloat, failing to make any real progress.
The breakthrough for me came when I was watching the documentary 'Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive', which I'm sure some or many of you here have seen. It deals exclusively with bipolar, but I gained quite a bit of insight into my own condition. It deals with the question of whether or not mental health diseases like bipolar should be treated with drugs, which Stephen Fry himself has thus far resisted. I too have always been of the opinion that drugs are too readily prescribed and should be reserved only for the most severe cases. Yet it was his interview with the American actor Richard Dreyfuss that most profoundly affected me. Dreyfuss has long been on lithium to treat his bipolar, a drug with a reputation for killing the patient's emotions and turning them into zombies. In other words, robbing them of their essential humanity. Yet Dreyfuss insists that lithium has made him into a person that he admires. He told his doctor this, that since taking the drug he feels like he has accomplished all of his goals because the drug has given him so much more courage. His doctor countered that in fact he had accomplished his goals because the drug had taken away his anxiety.
Each night I dread going to bed because I know the chances that I will fall asleep easily and feel good the next day are very slim. Eventually this wears you down and hopelessness sets in. I am starting to realise that talking to a professional, and perhaps trying drugs, is the only thing that will give me a fighting chance to crawl out of the pit of despair and achieve the goals I have set for myself. It is time I admitted that I need help.
I'm here because I've realised that I need help. Over the past decade I've come to accept that I have some form of depression, and some sort of anxiety disorder, which I believe to be quite severe. I've suffered some very extreme lows as a result of depression, the debilitating kind which sap my energy and hope and interest in life and keep me bed ridden for days. Yet when I make it through these periods I convince myself that it is something I can cope with and manage on my own. Because I've never seriously contemplated suicide I judge my depression/anxiety to be not serious enough to seek professional help. To be perfectly honest I'm a bit annoyed that I don't have bipolar disorder because I figure at least then I'd have the fun of the manic highs. In other words, I've always felt like my own problems were a bit too average, a bit too middle-of-the-bell-curve to warrant serious attention.
Yet after repeating the same patterns over and over again, of self-medicating with alcohol and marijuana, of losing interest in all social activity and displaying almost an agoraphobic distaste for leaving the house; of damaging relationships and missing opportunities, I have decided I can no longer fight this battle all alone, and that the toll is much greater than I initially thought.
Basically my life is secretly ruled by fear and anxiety. I am compulsive, obsessive, paranoid and self-critical. I feel like I have severely ruined my health through insomnia and compulsive habits of eating, alcohol and drug use, prompted by the need to dull the edge of anxiety. This morning I called in sick to work because I simply couldn't handle the thought of going in.
Rather than coping with my disability I now see I have been merely treading water, merely staying afloat, failing to make any real progress.
The breakthrough for me came when I was watching the documentary 'Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive', which I'm sure some or many of you here have seen. It deals exclusively with bipolar, but I gained quite a bit of insight into my own condition. It deals with the question of whether or not mental health diseases like bipolar should be treated with drugs, which Stephen Fry himself has thus far resisted. I too have always been of the opinion that drugs are too readily prescribed and should be reserved only for the most severe cases. Yet it was his interview with the American actor Richard Dreyfuss that most profoundly affected me. Dreyfuss has long been on lithium to treat his bipolar, a drug with a reputation for killing the patient's emotions and turning them into zombies. In other words, robbing them of their essential humanity. Yet Dreyfuss insists that lithium has made him into a person that he admires. He told his doctor this, that since taking the drug he feels like he has accomplished all of his goals because the drug has given him so much more courage. His doctor countered that in fact he had accomplished his goals because the drug had taken away his anxiety.
Each night I dread going to bed because I know the chances that I will fall asleep easily and feel good the next day are very slim. Eventually this wears you down and hopelessness sets in. I am starting to realise that talking to a professional, and perhaps trying drugs, is the only thing that will give me a fighting chance to crawl out of the pit of despair and achieve the goals I have set for myself. It is time I admitted that I need help.