I'm not talking about the 'This girl doesn't like me back' or 'I don't like my job' depression, I'm talking about the sort of depression where it's really difficult to get out of bed. Have been through every med under the sun as well as ECT, rTMS and ********. Also tried all the therapy, exercise, meditation, hobbies stuff.

I don't want to focus on that though.

The thing is I've had this so long I have completely lost perspective on how life is for mentally well people and I want to knonw. My life is a living hell even though circumstantially things are great (money, relationship, career are all on point).

For those of you that have never suffereed depression is life still a massive struggle at times? Do you have periods where you feel completely joyless and empty? Do you ever think that life isn't worth living? Do you wake up some days and bemoan the fact that you have to face another day.

Having severe clinical depression I envy people who don't have it so much and I think I have this misguided idea that mentally well people find life easy and sail through life feeling pretty happy. But intuitively I know that's stupid.

I do have the very occasional day when the depression disappears and it feels like life on easy mode in comparison.

i have hypothyrodism
and i think its a culprit
of my procrastination
de-motivation and anhedonia
it intensifies when i have low sleep
and it do curb my appetite.

try integrating some eastern philosophy in your thought process

it can actually be fun and enjoyable

Anhedonia is awful. I have it as well.Yes, after trying all the things I listed I finally got put on an MAOI. 100% cured my depression for a few months then stopped working (or at least stopped working so perfectly).Sorry, no offence but it's not my thought process that's the problem. When the MAOI kicked in life was great and my thinking was positive and healthy. I'm a believer that depression of a chemical nature causes negative thinking, not the other way round.Sadly I agree. If my depression were rooted in existential angst or tied to a relationship with modern society, maybe this would be helpful. But my depresion is absolutely chemical in nature and is no less real than diabetes or schizophrenia. I see it almost as a physical illness.

take a look into
gut bacteriaPROBIOTICS , long route
but works efficientely

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74934-9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7510518/

Probably Happier = More motivated = achieve goals = even happier = earn more money = Confident = Healthier = Good Looking = CHAD

Basically its like Being Chad

It's awesome brah you're missing out

Still sucks my whole day revolves around when my next meal is

It's hard to tell. I think generally things are better than before I started taking it, even now. I just can't forget the first few months when depression was zero. Was like having a brand new life.Thanks, will do.Yeah that was my suspicion!Sorry brah. I guess you don't have to be clinically depressed to be bored or unhappy.

There’s a lot of strength in embracing it tbh , I tell my mates “yeah I kinda wanna rope today” and we laugh but the understand and don’t expect too much of me that day

That's very rare and glad you have friends you are comfortable saying that to them. I feel like I have to keep up an appearance with friends and that if they knew that suicide was a frequent thought, they would back off and go NC eventually. People want to be around happy, positive people I thought.

It's pretty **** a lot of the time, but we don't make a lifestyle and personality out of it.

Opie, this

Opie and syrk,

We will all make it! On days it feels bad, think alot what you just wrote. That it’s almost like a physical illness like fever for example and it’ll pass.

Yes, this.

My chick has said similar stuff to me. Used to piss me off real bad as if she was trying to threaten me, or manipulate me. But fuk u misc. y’all have made me realize her point of view and made me understand her more.

Maybe even make me feel that she confides in me, instead of trying to puss me off!
Wanna help her but some days are just bad. I just heard her it, suggest going to doc and hale a day to a day later, she’s totally fine happy person. It’s specially bad for her couple days before her time off the month

Y’all will make it bros. You got this. It’s just a crappy chemical phase and it’ll pass.

MrDevereaux, also, if your friends or SO understand you and care for you, they’d never NC. Be good bro!

Like a box of chocolates

my life is at the point i can send emails out regarding work and not get a reply

how can i start a business if its like this?

there is definitely something,some entity, controlling these people not to reply

i know this because i'm very experienced & offer to work for free to bonified job advertisements

there are other situations that i can prove something is controlling the environment/people's intial reactions encompassing my life possibly everyone's life tbh scarytimes were living in srs

It sort of feels like bags of sand.

Thanks bro, repped. Unfortunately this has been going on for a looooong time and it's someting I'm just going to have to live with until the end of my days so no choice but to make the best of it.

It’s not you or them. It’s these times bro. I rely on about 20 plus people and it’s fuking impossible some days to get an answer. It’s not like they’re not getting paid either but it sure as hell feels like they’re doing a favor just them doing their jobs. Fuk these times.

You keep pushing. It’ll happen.

the thing is when i finally do get a reply it'll fall on a certain date or time or their colleague with a ridiculous name that coinsides correlates with the information it contains or very purposely written grammar/spelling mistakes

these are personally sent emails that have already been introduced / intiated to direct contacts

this also happens in real world daily occurrences most of the time its comically timed yet everytime its fukin annoying

The world doesn't want you to be happy or successful

This blows my mind, because I tend to think of depression as debilitating and circumstantial. How exactly does one struggle to get of bed, yet at the same time have a great career, relationship, finances, etc? I can’t quite wrap my head around that one.

Like... shouldn’t all that negative thinking and low-energy have sabotaged most of your efforts?

What’s your secret? You’ve managed to be quite “successful”, despite having what most would consider a major roadblock to success.

I believe this is the key to a foundation of happiness as a man:https://www.reddit.com/r/Semenretention/

In response to AllTrapBrah - for some reason it won't let me quote you and post.

Yeah absolutely fair question. I have been off work and uni for weeks in the past. I kept going until I basically just broke. I graduated medical school and when I took my exams I was in one of the worst places I have ever been. I somehow passed but I swear that I was incredibly lucky, I don't know how I did.

At first the depression was sporadic and during many of the episodes wasn't completely debilitating, although it was bad. I was able to do just enough to scrape by whatever I was doing. This was in my 20s. As I say during the worst episodes I took time out and was lucky that uni/work were understanding (i was off for months actually) although I didn't give the true reason for my absence, I blamed it on a medical condition I have.

The depression is much worse these days. I started working from home years before Covid because I couldn't handle the office anymore. I work from home now and am doing well enough (i changed careers from medicine to law) but of course I could be earning 3x what i'm on. I don't care about that though, I just want a job I can cope with.

Working from home makes things much easier. But the reason i'm able to function at all is meds. Nardil helped a lot although as I said it is much less effective now. But Pregabalin is the drug that allows me to function. Weirdly it wipes my depression 70% and acts almost like a stimulant for me. Without it i wouldn't be able to work.

I have tolerance breaks from Pregabalin on weekends and then I feel the full force of the depression and can't get out of bed.

As for relationships I met my wife at law school when the depression wasn't bad and I've been extremely lucky in that she has been very understanding and supportive.

I'm suffering every day (except when the pregab is working) and think about suicide all the time but there are people worse off, I know that. You can see true depression on people's faces and I have met some people suffering from catastrophic depression who you didn't need to even talk to to know they were in a terrible way.

I don't think I even suffer from negative thinking. When meds have worked well my thinking is very positive. But when you're in constant psychic pain it's impossible to 'think positively' just like if you were in acute physical pain, it would be the only think you could focus on.

I have a huge problem with the word 'depression'. Styron talks about this in his excellent memoir, 'Darkness Visible'. The word doesn't do justice to the illness and it's broad enough to capture people that just aren't happy. You go onto depression forums and it's fully of people miserable because they're unhappy with their life circumstances, can't get a girl they like, are frustrated with their job or relationship. Clinical depression isn't like that - it's very akin to pain. When feeling bad somebody could hand me a billion dollars and it wouldn't improve things one iota.

Slide is still full of ups and downs, moments where you feel in the zone and ready to take on the world and moments where you kind of feel like things don’t matter that much. I’ve had circumstantial depression before and get the winter blues sometimes, but couldn’t imagine dealing with full blown depression for any extended period of time.


Have you had a full hormone panel done to see what your levels look like?



Edit to add- reason I ask is that there are some people who have treatment resistant depression and benefit from TRT






Not saying that’s your answer, but worth looking into if you haven’t tested that aspect of your health