Depression?

[Bad_Bad_LB]

Before the divorce my ex-wife had me go to her psychatrist because she believed that I was depressed. I'm not happy and haven't been for a long time, but I don't believe I'm depressed. I believe I have a realistic grasp of my situation, and although there are some positives, or at least situations that aren't extreme, I'm not at all happy with my situation. He didn't think I was depressed, he thought I had a realistic grasp of my situation.

So it's a rant, I'm hurting, I'm not happy, and I don't have much hope.

Am I depressed?

I don't think a "Happy Pill" from a psychatrist will help my situation, nor do I believe sitting around in a "pitty party" in group therapy will be beneficial either.

I had a good paying job, but it kept me from my family, my ex-wife who was my wife at the time spent the money faster than I could earn it, and to try to keep her happy I kept my nose to the grindstone. It didn't work, it made me miserable because for all the hard work I felt my wife didn't even like me. I tried so hard to please her, yet it seemed that everything I did only made her dislike me more.

I lost that job after 9/11 and was out of work for awhile, when I got what I felt was a job I had wanted for years, they were even going to pay for college. I got contacted by the IBEW for a Union Job, but I would take a pay cut and have to drive about an hour to Detroit everyday. She told me if I didn't quit my dream job and take the IBEW job she would divorce me.

Finances still in disarray, she bought a new-used car that we couldn't afford, when I didn't have the money to pay a debt she created, she told me she wanted a divorce (over the years she had told me she planned to divorce me about eight time.) I had no hope for our relationship as she seemed to care not a wit about any stress she put on me.

Now I have a low paying job (it's not miserably low paying) but with child support I can't afford my own place to live, can't even afford car repairs if my car dies. I'm 41 and forced to live with my parents, I only see my kids on Wednsday evenings and every other weekend.

I don't have money to go out, I'm not happy, I'm lonely.

I still don't think I'm depressed.

But I could be.

I hope ranting about it some helps me feel better.
I still have a job, I still have a place to live, I love my children, I still get to eat, my house wasn't destroyed in a natural disater, I have an internet connection.

I know you can't make someone happy, but I thought that I would do things that my ex-wife would appreciate, she would smile and know that I was doing for her everything I could. Apparently she was so selfish that she didn't care about me at all. I finally realized that there was no point in doing so much for her that I was suffering and taking an improportional amount of the burden that she kept heaping on my shoulders.

I think relationships require work to work, but both sides have to work for it, I feel very much she didn't care one iota about me. Now I'm so snakebit that I'm afraid that I'll react negatively to a woman, even if she's the least bit needy.

I don't want to wait till I'm 50 for the burdern from my relationship with my ex-wife to be lifted, I think I've paid to high a price for trying to be a honest, caring, loving, responsible person.

I'm not happy, but I don't think I'm depressed.
I feel like the only thing I have to look forward to is a terminal desease.
I don't think I'm depressed, I think I have a realistic grasp of my situation.

 

[Guest]

hi

Hi,

Love your Avatar... go bloom county!

well... as you've said... you aren't happy right now... looking forward to terminal diseases doesn't sound like fun to me...

What, if anything, do you feel like doing to change your situation?
Or don't you feel like you have the energy to do that?

I have no answers for you... only more questions, I guess!

Sending well-wishes your way...

1girl

 

[Bad_Bad_LB]

Hi,

Love your Avatar... go bloom county!

well... as you've said... you aren't happy right now... looking forward to terminal diseases doesn't sound like fun to me...

What, if anything, do you feel like doing to change your situation?
Or don't you feel like you have the energy to do that?

I have no answers for you... only more questions, I guess!

Sending well-wishes your way...

1girl

I don't have a lot of energy to try to improve my situation, in the back of my mind, should I get more money, then my ex is entitled to more child support. Which IMHO wouldn't be bad if I thought it would benefit the children.

I feel like I can't do anything until I can get my own place, and I can't afford my own place without more money, and if I get more money they'll just take more money.

I've bought lottery tickets.

 

[Bad_Bad_LB]

Ever hear that thing about abortion, you have an unmarried woman, the father is older, she's poor, liable to be outcast if she has the child.

If you give her the abortion you aborted either Hitler or Da Vinci?

Sometimes I feel like I was Hitler in a past life and I'm being punished, sometimes I feel like I was Da Vinci in a past life and somehow I've not met my potential (see the being punished)

I fee like I have so much to offer, that for some reason I'll go down in history and be well known, but I don't know when or for what.

I'm frustrated.

Some days I think I'm the mesiah, some days I think I'm cursed.

I should be a great writer, a great singer/song writer/musician, a famous actor, a leader of men, a hero.

But I'm not, and I don't understand why?

I'm just lonely, frustrated, tired, unhappy.

 

[Woodmiester]

Damn, and here I thought my life was still being fucked up over the former. Wanna borrow my 45?

 

[babydoll2u]

Hun did you count how many times you wrote that you're not depressed?
Who are you trying to convince? you or us?

I hope that ranting has helped *hugs*

 

[babydoll2u]

Damn, and here I thought my life was still being fucked up over the former. Wanna borrow my 45?

............. .............​

 

[Bad_Bad_LB]

Hun did you count how many times you wrote that you're not depressed?
Who are you trying to convince? you or us?

I hope that ranting has helped *hugs*

What is the difference between depression, and being in a state where there is little pleasure, and little to look forward to, and reacting realistically.

That's where I think I am; I think I'm in a situation where normal people would be unhappy and I don't think that is a unwell state. Wouldn't depression be a incorrect reaction to a situation, perhaps a exageration of a situation.

I'm not going to kill myself, but I'm not happy, but I think not happy is the mental state that most people would have were they in the same situation as I am.

Would you think I'm depressed, or having a expected reaction? Do you think I should be happy at 41, living in my parents house, not seeing my children as often as I would like, having gone through a failed marraige, and being pretty much destitute, or do you think I should be unhappy.

And what is the diffrence between being unhappy for quite a while and being depressed.

The psychatrist told me my ex-wife had been depressed for a long time. I don't know why she was depressed, she got practically everything she wanted yet she was depressed.

She seems much happier since she divorced me, I didn't realize she hated me that much, I wish I had known sooner of her extreme dislike for me, I wouldn't have invested as much of myself into our relationship, I wouldn't be so damaged, so wrung out.

When I was younger I was an adrenaline junky, I've broken myself up, I feel like I've been in a car crash and I'll never be where I was before.

I'm a etheral image of my former self, I feel like I've been crippled permanently, now I'm learning to deal with the disability, do I have to be happy about it?

 

[smy3th]

Bad-Bad,

Yes, you are depressed.

People can be happy or unhappy regardless of their circumstances. You yourself listed a number of positives. A great many people are far worse off than you are, and yet they are happy by comparison. Yes, there are also a lot of negatives in your life as well. But even with the negatives, happiness is still an option. Consequently, I disagree that your unhappiness is just a realistic evaluation of your circumstances. You are depressed. If this has been going on only a few months, then I would say it is a natural reaction to setbacks, and after a while, you should be able to come out of it. If it has been going on for many months, then it is deeper than that, and you should seek treatment for it.

I say this coming from a position of having a lot of the same feelings: I feel like I have little to look forward to, and little that makes me happy, and a lot of negatives. I tell myself that my unhappiness is just a realistic evaluation of the situation. But if I really compare myself to many others, I am extremely well of in most ways. Yet, I am unhappy. I am depressed. I struggle with just the problem you describe. I am getting treatment for it.

Get a book on depression. A good one is "Feeling Good" by David Burns. He describes your situation, and shows why it is not actually realistic for you to be chronically unhappy. There are things in your life to be unhappy about, yes, no doubt about it, but there are also things to be happy about, and it is a matter of focusing on the good instead of the bad; on what you do have, instead of on what you lost or don't have.