having major depression lately. probably the worst I've ever had it. combined with sleeping 2-3 hours a night and working. iv'e never been this bad to the point I can't function and my heart is hammering. awful feeling.

I actually really enjoyed reading your posts and you’ve piqued my curiosity, thus I would like to ask you a question. I also agree with you that the greater majority of posters here are experiencing depression (or ‘dysthymia’, rather) as a result of the chittiness of their lives. That’s certainly the case for me, EOD, BigTimePlayer, etc.

Anyhoo, my question is: You allude to being happy with your life circumstances, yet you are majorly depressed, which for me begs the question of where have you found the energy to build a decent life for yourself? I ask because I have always considered depression (or low mood or whatever you wanna call it) to be a crippling/arresting condition, and makes any kind of action incredibly hard, thus it strikes me as somewhat paradoxical that someone can be depressed and yet energised? I’m not doubting this is the case, i’m just very curious as to how it works. The idea of a guy going around seeing his friends, seeing his family, seeing his girlfriend, going to work, pursuing his hobbies, etc, yet beneath it all feels like utter dog chit, is very paradoxical to me, and I wish to understand it. If you’re as depressed as you suggest you are, I just don’t know where you have found the energy to do all of that? I suppose one possible explanation is that anti-depressants have allowed you to achieve 90% of it?

I'm really sorry bro. For the pounding heart try propanolol. For sleep I take seroquel but if you want something OTC you could try dipenhydramine.I have been lucky with my career but there have been various times I have been off work because of mental health issues. I had to take a break from university for a couple of months. I have been off work several times because the depression was so severe (I was in psych hospitals 3x). Fortunately work have always been understanding. When I worked at big law firms I didn't tell them it was mental, I made up some physical illness.

My current employer is really flexible and understanding. They know about my issues and have been ok when I needed to take time off.

I have worked from home for years and don't think I could handle an office job. The only way I get through work is pregabalin. It acts like a stimulant for me and gives me enough energy to get through the days. It's strange because for some people it's sedating but for me it's like a benign ******** (no crash). I take it on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesdays I can barely work at all and try to do more work on Tuesday that I can then send out on Wednesday. Weekends without pregabalin are hell and I dread them. But with pregabalin if you take it every day you will become physically dependent and tolerant, which is why I have my current regimen.

Although I love my life setup (big house, great partner, lots of money) depression is severely affecting my life. I'm doing less and less. I'm not pursuing hobbies any longer (used to be running every day and writing). But for me cause and effect is important here. I'm doing less and less because I'm clinically depressed, I'm not depressed because I'm struggling with career, women, etc.

I very much sympathise with you guys with situational depression. My brother in law does not have any mental illness but he's working a chitty job, earning €600 a month, got dumped by his long term gf and, at 33 has zero career prospects. I see him getting more and more down and negative.

On the days I feel normal, I feel pretty happy about life and appreciate all the things I have. Those days are rare and on the days when the depression is bad I just want to die.

This is an example of a woman (I worked at the same law firm as her) who on paper had everything but just got overwhelmed by an episode of mental illness. She was a partner at the law firm (probably pulling in close to a mil a year) and I think her husband was a surgeon. She had kids.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/work...r-6808286.html

How about you bro? Sorry I haven't read through the thread. What's your situation? How are you feeling at the moment?

I get bad derealization in the office and can't even think straight. I go outside and walk around the town on my breaks but then it comes right back lol. I have no idea how to meet people here. So many depressed looking ppl here too man. What a joke

Everyone is just in their own little bubble or world post 2012

How can I not be depressed.All this trauma in my life.Every day I have this weird memories of bad experiences that hold me back.It's not just situational depression it's depression cause of all the trauma too

I think for my depression therapy is useless. But if it's depression because of trauma then seems like therapy may be very important. Have you had therapy for PTSD?

Hey bro, how many weeks are you & any side effects so far on nardil? I read some really REALLY good reviews on drugs.com. I'm thinking of giving this a shot if paxil doesn't work in 8 weeks.

Edit: nvm I called my doc she'll never prescribe MAOIs. Said they're too dangerous and interact with plenty of drugs. Oh well

can't get over how bad sub 8 male life is. Minimal attention from the opposite gender. Underwhelming social life post college. Forced to get a job you hate in order to beta provide and attract a mate who will probably end up leaving you. It just seems so inferior to our Chad and women counterparts. They just get to exist and have life as their playground. It's so unfair and makes me sooo sad.

You see that really pisses me off. The 'dangers' of MAOIs are massively overstated as are the dietary interactions. No GPs/family doctors prescribe for these reasons and it is widely misunderstood.

This guy is an expert in MAOIs:

https://psychotropical.com/

"Philosophy and motivation

The motivation to maintain this website is to help both doctors and patients, their families and friends, navigate the mass of mis-information they are confronted with: that necessitates experience and critical analysis. One prominent theme is the underuse of what are certainly the most effective of all anti-depressants, for those with severe depression, the old MAOIs, and the extensive mis-information and mis-understanding relating thereto."

I am really sorry that this isn't an option for you. Your doctor is simply wrong. Yes, there are certain drugs that you shouldn't combine MAOIs with but those drugs are easily avoided.

MAOIs are simply more 'powerful' than SSRIs like Paxil. I think it's fine to give Paxil a go first but if you have treatment resistant depression I strongly believe that ******** and/or MAOIs are the strongest options.

I have been on Nardil 4 weeks. I haven't changed my diet one bit. Have drunk wine (white) on it, have continued eating cheese. Am taking other meds like pregabalin and seroquel. The only side effect I have had is orthostatic hypotension which is common but isn't a big deal. You just need to be careful getting up after lying down for a while.

I hope that you can find a doctor that will consider prescribing. If not then I really hope the Paxil works for you bro, it may well do.

Theres nothing you can do after like 25 if you are even a remotely quiet guy. All it takes is being the quietest in the room.

I just dont get it. I go to work every day in a crowded city. Work with a lot of people. But everyone seems happy. Besides a few people here and there that are always alone like me. It just makes me wonder if they are fa introverts too. Like there are some guys and even some hot girls here who just never talk to anyone. But its just so rare to see these kinds of people. 1 out of 100 maybe.

There’s just never anything to do when alone. I was thinking even if I went out where am I even going to go by myself. Everything is so damn boring. I just feel like as everyday goes by I’m just wasting my life. Having people to hang out with is pretty much one of the most crucial parts to living. If you just wake up everyday with nothing to look forward to wtf are you supposed to do?

I don't know, I guess there are meetup groups you can go to? Maybe it's not so hard to find people as such, it's just difficult to find people that you get on with and enjoy hanging around with.

Although I said I am happy with my life, and I am generally, but I miss university days when I would just hang out with friends. No responsibilities, nobody was tied down. Now literally all my friends have young children and their 'social' lives revolve around them. I don't have kids and don't want them and I feel I have nothing in common with them anymore.

I’ve looked into meetup groups long ago there’s just nothing really around or that interests me. I just am tired of the low energy feeling in general or just having no direction in my life. I feel like outside of things where I need a lot of money to do or a social circle, I always get a been there done that feeling with everything. Nothing feels new & exciting anymore no matter what I do. I always just feel bored. I also don’t get how people enjoy working the same job year in & year out. I hate the daily work grind with a burning passion where I don’t know how people deal with it. I need a job where I can beat the system & not feel like I’m just on some grind for money & feel miserable. I’ve never been good at any particular thing so it leaves me in a rough position. It just leaves me with a depressing feeling where no matter what I do I won’t enjoy it. I just feel stuck in this position.

I can totally relate to the feeling bored and that nothing is new or exciting. It's anhedonia I guess. I think about motivation a lot and how people get absorbed in whatever task they are doing or whatever people they're hanging out with. My theory is that those things provoke some sort of dopamine release that you and I just don't get. It blows my mind that there are some people that just feel good all the time and so of course it's easy for them to enjoy pretty much anything they do and feel motivated.

It's all chemical. If I'm doing work stuff when my mood is very low, I couldn't give a fukk about it. It's just a chore to get through. Same with everything really. But then if you take something like ********, suddenly everything you do is super interesting and enjoyable. So it's nothing to do with the task or activity itself which remains the same, it's just what's going on in your brain.

This is why I don't buy into the whole, 'Just find your passion in life' or 'Get hobbies'. That's great if your mood is ok but if you're anhedonic you're not going to enjoy those things. Will doing those things help lift you out of depression/anhedonia? I don't know, sometimes. Sometimes I have felt very low and forced myself to run and felt better afterwards but it's completely hit and miss and I can say definitively that, in my case at least, exercise does not cure depression.

I know what you mean about the job as well. The thing is I don't think it's an unrealistic view. It's just that those people that feel good all the time are happy enough doing it but looked at objectively, it sucks. I feel like depressives are almost more realistic about the world and activities but of course that's not a good thing for us.

I know I keep advocating chemicals on here. Well I want to be clear that I'm not advocating them. They can have massive downsides and of course if people can get better with exercise, meditation, diet, etc then I'm all for that. But have you tried a stimulant? It will make everything much more interesting and help a lot with the anhedonia and lack of interest in things. Worked very well for me but after a while my brain chemistry changed and although I have a Dexedrine prescription I just can't take the stuff anymore.

Spot on, and the most frustrating thing about the whole situation.

I want to k ow this out of curiosity. So many ppl online saying you feel numb, but the times SSRIs did not work for you, what was it like? I just got off wellbutrin yesterday (typical antidepressant). I cant remember what being on a failed SSRI was like lol.

im really shy and awkward. really wish girls didn't mind but they do

I’ve tried some SSRIs in the past but they didn’t really do anything for me. I think I do have a chemical imbalance though. I can be anxious or depressed for literally no reason. Like right now I just feel on edge with anxiety for no reason while watching TV. My brain chemistry I think is just ****ed up.

And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about a job I enjoy. Am I supposed to just accept working some job I don’t like for like 30 years straight? I feel even if my social life improved somehow I would still feel miserable due to going to a job I don’t want to be at. I wish I had an extroverted personality so I would have so many more options for work than as an introvert. For instance I could never be in a boss position giving speeches & being in charge of so many people. It’s just not in my personality to have a job like that nor do I want the responsibility of all of that.

First time I've posted in a while.... From the outside, you'd think my life was 'great'. I'm a pretty decently good looking guy, I have fiance, and our child is now 9 months old. We have a rather nice house in Florida for both being 30, and I smile anytime I'm out or every time I great someone. If I worked beside you, you'd think my life was 'perfect'.... Currently, I'm on 300mg XL Wellbutrin, and it still doesn't help. I suffer from low energy/low motivation. When I listen to music in my headphones, to where no one can hear (even my Fiance) it's artist like Juice Wrld, Machine Gun Kelly, Mac Miller etc... Artists that often make songs about depression. I don't remember the last time I woke up and felt 'energetic' or fresh. I on average consume 3 energy drinks a day, and it still doesn't help. I'm never the hardest worker in the gym, and I leave probably 20 minutes early from my workout twice a week. I'm very apathetic. I don't feel extreme happiness or extreme sadness. It's almost like monotone, like an artificial robot would be. You could tell me the funniest joke in the world, or tell me a sad story, and my facial expression would look the same, just blank. (I have to fake it for the sake of work and being out). I spend more money than I should on things, just to try to make myself feel happy with a quick dopamine boost for that 30 minutes, and then I'm back to feeling low.... Anyway, to your point, I bet some of those people you see in your city or work you are saying appear to be happy, I bet you some go home, and at the end of the day, feel alone. Likely more than you think.

Why did you get off? I'm on month 3 of 300 XL

I took xl 300 since March. I got off because it's doing nothing. For me it sucked.

SSRIs and SNRIs are really a mind**** as they take so long to take effect, that it is hard to monitor the subjective change in your mood. There was nothing drastic enough at any point to make anything obviously better or worse. I don't like being in that position. I prefer my drugs to take effect quickly and then have a definitive end to the effects so you can tell what it is doing.

The one obvious effect of the drugs: substantial decrease in sex drive and reduction in erection quality.

I feel that. it's not helping as much as I feel like it should TBH.

Taking a failed SSRI for me was literally like taking a sugar pill. No side effects but no beneficial effects either. Did you get any effects from Wellbutrin? The first few days for me I was pretty much hypomanic, was like being on an amphetamine. Unfortunately that wore off after a few days then it did nothing.I totally get it. Today is my day off pregabalin and even though I'm working from home and am having a fairly easy day, I have zero interest or motivation to do it. Even if I had perfect mental health, going into a job I didn't like every day would be horrible. I think it's a position a lot of people are in and even those with perfect mental health are miserable about it. I guess they just plough through somehow and then live for the weekend. Or girls who have the option to not work, take it. It's pretty easy for them, just get married and then never work again, while claiming that motherhood is the hardest job in the world.

just not happy anymore. getting ghosted by women too many times. im over it now. i just wasnt cut out for this world. im done with this life.

Yeah I listen to music all the time. Mostly emotional metalcore or melodic death metal about sorrow and depression some of it is uplifting as well. Listen to Eminem because he talks about this stuff too. Music makes me feel alive srs.



Same i dont laugh or show any emotion anymore. Just go through the motions. The work grind plus lifting is just so exhausting. Im so bored in the office i want to cry...I just dont relate to anyone anymore. I feel like everyone went far right or left. Not just that but socializing with people is just weird now days. I have to walk on egg shells at the office. Dont want to get caught in the drama. Can't meet anyone I like. Even in my hardcore fa days in my late teens I could still meet people. Now I can't. I'm just a cog in the machine at this point. Nothing ever happens and I don't understand how even in my most fa loser days I met people but can't anymore. I'm cursed.

I can relate to this so so much. Almost perfectly describes how I feel. I listen to a lot of Lil Peep by the way, for the same reasons as you.

It sounds like anhedonia to me. It's still hard to draw the line between depression and anhedonia but at least for me when I feel truly depressed it is like an utterly crushing, psychic pain. when I feel anhedonic (like today) I don't feel the pain but everything is just utterly empty and joyless.

When the depression is so bad I just want to die as it hurts so much. I don't think I would ever off myself because of anhedonia, it's more like I feel like why am I even here and what the hell is the point of living?

Okay that’s a more nuanced answer and makes sense. I think people underestimate the role that luck plays in their life and some folk more or less stumble into a half-decent life without ever really trying, or rather, without trying any harder than someone else who is in a worse situation, like your brother-in-law for example.Regardless of the cause (e.g. clinical or situational), the results seem to be the same, i.e. low energy or suppressed energy. Like you, I tend to do less and less.

I used to think about depression in terms of feelings like sadness, misery, etc, which is a part of depression, but nowadays I tend to view it moreso through the lens of a lack of energy.Yea I can’t really comment on that lady’s case without knowing more information. What blows my mind though is that she still killed herself despite having kids; it reminds me of why a lot of people perceive suicide as a ‘selfish’ action. I’m going to venture a guess that despite having all these wonderful external achievements (i.e. good career, husband, children, nice house, wealth, etc), she was hopelessly self-involved.

A lot of hyper-successful types seem to be driven by a type of self-loathing. My father is this breed of person. He’s been quite successful but it’s painfully obvious he doesn’t like himself very much and has survived as a functional alcoholic.I’m more or less like your brother-in-law. If we talk about the main pillars of life, e.g. work, relationships, friends, health, finances, etc, i’m deficient or completely absent in all of them except for health. I’m okay for friends too I suppose, but it could be better as none of my best friends are in close proximity.

So yea, life kinda just feels a bit balls, empty and meaningless. I get where EOD and BigTimePlayer are coming from but they piss me off with their surety about this, that and the other.