Atypical depression (does anyone relate?)
I was trying to explain to my non-depressed friend that depression isn't just 'it's hard to get out of bed and I'm tired and empty and weighed down'. I tried looking up symptoms online, but what I'm experiencing just isn't quite what is described, so I feel alien and misunderstood. Does anyone relate to the following?:
-There's a part of me that is screaming at me to completely stop but another part of me is burning and dragging my body forward relentlessly, so I always feel there's a violence happening in me and I don't know who to root for at this point.
-There's a part of me that dismisses my pain and pushes me to keep going and another part that is willing to literally flay me alive if that is what it takes to get me to stop.
So, because of this, my depression isn't just about laying in bed or crying- it's breaking objects, screaming, and self-destructing. I keep reading descriptions of depression that make it seem so lethargic and passive, but it's like my version of depression is just violence all the time.
Is this relatable at all?
@determinedSea4370
The way I understand the "basic", chemically determined depression is feeling enormously sad, sometimes suddenly and out of the blue, out of nothing and with no special reason.
My first impression while reading your message was like you could have been describing some PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) symptoms. The feeling of pain and anger at the same time. It sounded to me like an echo of a past abuse, broken boundaries or living a double life, because of the conflict between the expectations of the outside world and the things you would really like to do by yourself.
But when I looked up your previous posts, it looks like your emotional landscape might be much more complicated, with fighting alcohol addiction, self-harm thoughts and work-related stress/exhaustion. It seems like you wanted to find something that is the core reason of all those feelings. For example I would not underestimate the addiction, because it can both induce depression and reveal some difficult feelings, which before were toned down or masked by alcohol consumption.
Of course I am not professional, so please do not treat it as any kind of diagnosis. But this is how the things might look like from the external observer's perspective - who certainly doesn't know you from the inside and your personal story as good as you do...
@jacek73 Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and thoughtful response, I appreciate it. And you even went to the effort of looking at my other posts! Thank you for being thorough. I find it helpful to get others opinions on things, since I tend to get tangled up in my own head. It's interesting that your impression was ptsd, because I bought a ptsd workbook last year and started working through it and it was helpful. Maybe I'll pick it up and try working on it again. I haven't been to war or been abused in the traditional sense, but there are a number of traumatic events that haunt my brain on a daily basis, so maybe it is a form of ptsd or something. Being chronically alone and crying while also being surrounded by witnesses who do nothing to help you in a city, going inpatient for months and being hypersensitive to everyone else's chaotic emotions, having intense and scary mental breakdowns- all these things have left wounds in me that maybe haven't healed yet and maybe that's trauma.
@determinedSea4370
Yes, I agree with you: we usually imagine trauma as something that happens once, big and very intense, but recently I have learnt that it can also be "smaller" traumas cumulated event by event, day by day, like rejection, coldness or negligence.
However, in case you would like to heal traumas while struggling with some more current issues, please, be cautious. Remembering experiences of being wounded, ignored or left behind can be painful, and potentially triggering to addiction.
@jacek73 Thank you for the advice. I know that dealing with self-destructive coping mechanisms while also trying to sort out trauma can be a recipe for disaster, so I will try to be as cautious as I can and have my therapist and psychiatrist help me.