never felt so alone

:cry: I was diagnosed with SAD about 6 years ago and I had been handling it quite well over the last few years but now I feel so alone and desperate. I don't know what to do. I live alone so nights can be very long and lonely and my partner (who lives 100 miles away) does not understand me and thinks I am just feeling sorry for myself. I think I have now reached the end of my tether!!!!!!

Because not many of my friends or family know much about it. I try and tell them but I am sure they think I am mad. I feel so angry!!!!!!!!!!! I just want to shout scream and cry but no one listens to me!!!!! I have been raped, sufffered 3 miscarridges, I have polycistic ovary syndrom and now the winters here again I am even more depressed. Sometimes I wonder why i bother!!!!! :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :? :? :? :? :x :x :x :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

I was admitted to hospital 2 years on the trot cause I was so depressed and then one of the doctors mentioned SAD but no follow up help was offered I was basically discharged and told to get on with it. I looked into SAD and started to find some answers to why I feel like I do. I have not been using any treatments I have just been struggling through the winter and hoping that I make it in one piece!!!!! I sometimes doubt myself and wonder weather I do suffer from SAD or weather it is all in my head. Does that sound strange????? :? :? :? I have only just found this site so I am hoping to find some answers here

Hi Janine

I am so sorry to read that you are feeling very low right now.

Like Julie my SAD is self-diagnosed.

I have experienced clinical depression since the age of 15, I am 31 now. When I was 25 I was so ill I became suicidal and ended up in hospital after having taken an overdose. My depression was diagnosed and I agreed to anti-depressant medication. The change in my emotional state was massive. The following winter I realized that slowly I was becoming depressed again and could not identify any reason why - hence my self-diagnosis of SAD.

I have found that a combination of light therapy, anti-depressants and healthy'ish eating making a huge difference to my winters now. I have learn't a lot over the preceding years about what does and does not work for me.

I can also relate to the isolation of living with SAD and being surrounded by friends, family and work colleagues who have no direct experience of the condition themselves. I guess it is important to find people who are prepared to listen and be empathic, like the guys on this forum. It is an excellent resource :lol:


Best Wishes
Carlos

Hi Janine, I thought I was imagining the SAD over many years until I got weird joint pain this year - I don't think you can imagine this, as it is sore to touch.

As well as lightbox and antidepressants, I find reading self help books about depression comforting. Most recent I read was 'Depressive Illness - The Curse of the Strong' where the author says only the best people get depressed, cos they care too much and try too hard and let others put on them. The also tend to judge success by how others see them and are vey sensitive to criticism (well that last bit is me!)

Healthy peole never really think you are really 'ill' if you are depressed in my experience. I tell those who will listen that depression is a physical illness, and if a lumbr puncutre was perfomred on a depressed person the chemical readings would not be normal. Hnece it is not all in your head - but some people do not even beleive medical fact I'm afraid. My own mum recently said to me that I was 'only' suffering from 'mental illness' - cheers mother...

Sorry if this doesn't sound reassuring, but I do beleive that only the best and most sensitive and creative peole suffer this way - cos others are often too weak, lazy or stupid to let things get to them anyway.

Have I gone too far with this - sorry.

Keep smiling all!!

PS - the above two message are from Dawn

Hi Janine, Amy, oldhippy (what is your first name?!), Kim, Carlos, Dawn and Calm.

Janine ~ am horrified that you were just dumped by the Drs who initially cared for you, the state of the care in mental health in this country stinks. Frankly you will get better care on this forum, sorry, but, sad isn’t it.

Kim ~ empathise totally with you regarding people saying you are ‘just depressed’. Words don’t actually often fail me I have to say, but, words fail me. Be comforted, I too (as have many others) have found it impossible to describe sad, depression and panic, and to feel that I am completely understood, I always feel that the listener is saying to themselves, “OMG she’s a wacky woman”. Unfortunately, it takes another soul on this same plateau to listen and actually hear and feel what you say. I am so sorry that even beyond SAD life is so damn hard. If maybe you get to grips with SAD, you might then have the personal power at your disposal to start to ‘cope’ with the rest of your life. All good wishes.

Oldhippy, you truly are a light on our daily forum horizon!

Carlos, sounds as though you have worked it all out yourself and have got your life, depression and sad compartmentalised and most successfully managed. That’s not to say it all ‘just goes away’, as I too have found, it just doesn’t, but being in a position to ‘cope’ I sometimes consider to be a luxury to me.

Amy thank you for the Lightbox Queen Boost! You’re a sweetie, always right in there, geeing us all up, giving us the will to get off our butts, stop eating napping and procrastinating and go for it!! Your resilience and bounce-back quality, along with your mental energy are enviable. You also always manage to tell it just the way it is, which is great for the rest of us. I was new to lightboxing last year and followed the operating instructions to the letter, but this year being ‘an old hand’ I got complacent and a bit cocky and snatched light whenever for whatever length of time………IT DOESN’T WORK! Routine and timing are of the essence, I cannot say that loudly enough.

Absolutely feel the same way as Dawn regarding the fact that she feels that SAD and depressive bods are of another more special level when it comes to thought, word and deed. There is a power of understanding, a depth of being in us that makes other apparently more ‘normal’ people seem rather wishy-washy and shallow.

Hang on in there everyone and keep coming back. Julie

Yep them mornings when the sun does not want to rasie a smile or give us anything are days we all hate in the Winter. The evil thoughts that rediuce us to exclusion and maddness :twisted:



Like my self wake up :shock: look at myself in the mirror and think I see the something the local gov office have reduced to a demanted fool and who is that looking there at me :?:


Look at my hair and think its time it was cut and remove the last sign of independence from the main stream. :mrgreen:

Feel parnoid that they are out there waiting to get me :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Then again I think *hit this its SAD trying his ugly hand at trying to reclaim my body again :lol: :lol:

Life is a right Bitch but with SAD its a bigger Bitch, when the depression and everything else with sad arives to great the Winter like Stanley and Livingstone I try now to make sure the good times always outweigh the bad time of SAD (hey did I say good)

Like in a relationship work towards the good times, let them rock.

The Human mind is a wonderfull thing and getting controll of it during the Winter is the thing to do on my part. like you know that fav little record you have? play it remember the times that brought pleasure and kick SAD where it belongs.....
http://www.taterhollow.com/GIFS/sun.gif

Hi All,
Bright One - it was me not Carlos that mentioned the book - it is by Dr Tim Cantopher. It is not about SAD and only mentions it in passing, but is about depressive illness brought on by stress. (Which I think SAD is intitially). Anyway it is easy reading and I got through it in a day. As part of my SAD I crave reading this stuff (I know I am no longer depressed when it no longer interests me). Any other good relevant books out there anyone?

Keep smiling