The Mental Illness Thread

[robvalue]

I'm very sorry to hear about what everyone has gone through. Anyone is welcome to PM me if they want a sympathetic ear.

I went through a bout of suicidal depression (constantly thinking about it but managing not to act) when I was younger, due to how my parents were treating me. After some cognitive behaviour therapy, anti-depressants and finally moving away from my parents, I recovered. Then about 8 years ago I got ME (chronic fatigue syndrome) and it brought my life to a grinding halt. I've been unable to work since then, and it has destroyed my life. The depression came back shortly after I got ME, and has been there ever since. I've been suicidal (but again managing not to act on it) pretty much all that time, including now. If no one would be much affected by my disappearance, I would be planning my suicide right now. But I've promised I won't do that to my wife, and that promise has made me hang on. I went through the very worst of it about 5 years ago, I felt like I was at hell's gate. I literally could not stop myself thinking about suicide 24 hours a day, and could barely think about anything else. I can only describe that level of depression as a kind of continuous mental torture where time slows down to prolong the agony. How I got through that I will never know, and without my wife sticking by me I certainly wouldn't have. Things are much more manageable compared to how I was then. I still have what I consider to be a negative standard of life, but that was like approaching minus infinity.

I'm on an extremely high dose of anti-depressants, and I'm under the care of a mental health team. I should be getting a new series of therapy sessions soon, new version of CBT I am told. I drag myself through life for the benefit of those around me, and I try my hardest to enjoy myself a bit and do what little I can to improve the world. I push myself to keep positive, so much so that I've had numerous comments that I "don't look depressed". Without that push I would curl up in a ball and never get up, or throw myself off a cliff.