Quote:
Originally Posted by Rose76
It is really tough when there is just no one really to turn to. Coming here has made me feel less isolated.
I've experienced how over the years people I once confided in get - well - I guess they get burnt out. Then they close the door and may even disable the doorbell.
My depression is chronic. Nice people I know who would do a lot for me to resolve a problem they see as resolvable don't want to hear about a problem that is chronic.
Therapists have sometimes been least responsive when my need was greatest. One told me that "If I talk to you right now, you'll just escalate."
Once I was in bad shape and getting worse. The therapist whom I had seen for over 5 years said, "Don't delude yourself into thinking that you have ever really worked on your issues." I wondered why did it take her 5 years to tell me that. Previously to her saying that, she had been warm and positive and gave me no idea that I was not doing my part. I think it was her expression of frustration over what bad shape I had gotten into. But, it was very painful to be spoken to like that. It still rings in my ears as one of the worse invalidations I've ever received.
Currently, I'm not making therapy appointments. I am very depressed. I know therapists don't mind if you come in real depressed at the start. But, after some visits, they don't like it if you come in seeming to be making no progress. That's my experience.
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Yeah..I've had one person who was NOT a trained counselor think that talking to me for a year would get rid of my depression. But she didn't know what she was doing and she ended up doing MORE damage than good. My depression is also chronic and it's because of complex PTSD.....which means I'm unable to regulate my emotions and I can go from having a normal day to having melt downs and flashbacks in a matter of minutes. My doctor has seen that happen during a few of my appointments with her.
Burn out is common for people to experience when they try to help someone with depression and they're not professionally trained to deal with it. It's happened to me before.
Thankfully I have my favorite support person back slightly. She realized after having me NOT vent to her when I really needed to, that doing that isn't good for me and it will cause me to experience an emotional explosion. So she decided to let me vent to her if I want, but she won't read any of my emails that I write "vent" in the subject line. That way I can still vent to her without making matters worse for her. She knows that just the act of me writing to her helps me. And she didn't like the fact that I was suffering so badly and had been venting to others and that it wasn't helping.