>>Dexter, are you sure it isn't the depression making you see your co-workers in such a dark light?

SeptMorn I'm glad you brought this up, this is something I think about a very very lot. Especially because even before I was officially diagnosed with depression and before I really knew I was suffering this is something that I know is relevant.

Specifically, concerning the isolation of depression.

Before my trip to the hospital I absolutely knew I was isolating myself from friends. Part of this is that I didn't want to expose my "plans" and didn't want them to feel guilty. But also because of the depression, like you said, I became very paranoid, maybe not paranoid exactly but very accusatory in my own mind. "They say they didn't call because they didn't have time, but I think they had time to call someone else, were they lying to me?" Well, I guess that is paranoia. And yes the depression makes us expect the worst from people.

I believe that a huge factor in the isolation of depression (this may not be the case for everyone but I believe it to be true for me) is a sort of "self protection". I know for a fact I spread an attitude of "I don't want anyone to talk to me" in some cases I became just argumentative but lots of times I just nourished the impression that I didn't feel well and didn't feel like chatting. (This was especially easy because the pain of my arthritis was very visible even when people didn't know that depression was an issue). But underneath I wanted them to call and stay in touch, and to keep calling even when I put them off. Even while I was doing this I knew it was unfair. I was setting an impossible hurdle for them and then getting angry that they couldn't or wouldn't broach it. And if they did I just made the hurdle higher. I didn't want to be hurt anymore by anyone so I made it impossible to hurt me by setting up the illusion that they were all scum. I hurt myself with their hands so that they couldn't hurt me with their hands.

The thing is, when I went into the hospital, I had made a conscious decision to try to work things out, and an important step in that was to reconnect with my friends and for me tp make the effort to stay in touch. Obviously not everyone is comfortable dealing with depression, but many or most of my friends had good conversations with me, thanking them for letting me back in, in many cases saying they actually had some experience with depression and knew what was going on but didn't know what to do for me, and promising to support me and help me through this.

At first this went well. People called and made an effort to visit. I made an effort to call them and to reassure them that I wanted to remain in touch. I stopped being "touchy" if "they didn't call me first" or keeping track of "my turn"/"their turn" to call and idiot stuff like that.

I also made a point to try to call many people so that I wasn't laying too much on any one person. I tried to keep the conversation "light" for those who I thought weren't really up for details. For those who pushed me for details, I tried not to keep calling them, to get by with more casual calls to others to keep me occupied, and to encourage them to be honest with me about how much they wanted to hear.

The thing is, over the course of the several months I've been out of the hospital, all of that has completely erroded away. I don't think my friends don't care, I think they are just too busy and consider me "secondary". I think some of them assume I have a line of people waiting to pick up the slack. But the worst part is not that we've lost contact but that they've made impossible excuses even in the face of my direct requests. As I've said before, some have made specific appointments to visit and then just didn't show up, no call to cancel or explain, no call afterward to apologize or explain. And yes, I've been telling them specifically to please call if they can't make it, that it is very important to me. As I've said over the holidays I couldn't get in contact with ANYONE and didn't get a single call and got absolutely no presents from anyone for christmas or hanukah. And even when the depression is not an issue, I've had so many people promise to help me at the house with things like shoveling my snow because of my arthritis. Yet when we had the snow last month I was snowed in and missed two support groups, had to walk to one doc appt (luckly close by) even though I called seven people who had promised to help with such things. Most of them didn't even return my call to say they were sorry they couldn't make it. So yes, I'm pulling myself away from everyone again, but this time I feel seriously, seriously hurt. Hurt and alone because I am only secondary to everyone I know.

There's a karma issue too that I want to talk about in another response.

As for this specific instance... the "first guy" from work I do believe is uncomfortable in general with all of this, although he said otherwise, I get a different "vibe" from him even though he had been visiting early on. That is why I made the offer for him to drop my stuff at a mutual friend's house, to give him that option. And without making too emotional, I did let him know how important it is to me for people to keep commitments, just from a health standpoint.

The second guy is someone I've given a lot of support to in the past, both on the job and in his personal life. He has always made an effort to tell me that he was my friend and was concerned about me, when things were going bad at work he would come and say "Don't worry I've got your back" and he would encourage me to talk to him when he knew I wasn't feeling well. I really believe that once I went in the hospital things became much too serious for him, so I don't blame him but I still feel hurt that I misjudged things so badly, he was someone I had expected to stick with things.

So, long answer to a short question, but yes, I do really think that my depression is still very much coloring this issue. But on the other hand "this time around" I do have some actual experiences to back up my fears, which makes it even harder to accept it all.

Thanks for responding. I'm still mostly just really sinking in the depression, and still looking for that elusive rope. I'm back to making my support groups regularly (twice a week) though.

-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
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