I just discovered this sub-forum, though I see it's been getting posts since September of last year. Reading through some threads here, I was surprised to find so much I could relate to. I don't usually get that much out of reading the general depression forum.

The first thing that caught my eye on one of the threads was the frequency of people reporting that they took hydrocodone for relief off depression. Me too . . . no more than 10 mg per day, and it's not helping as much lately.

I've been in bed all day, just getting up for a couple of bowls of cereal. I don't have the ambition to cook anything. This is not the most despondent I have been, but it's getting close to the most defeated I've ever felt. I feel tired and weak. I believe I've become physically deconditioned from lack of activity to the point that now I really don't have the strength to do much. It's starting to seem to me that I can't turn it around, and I just keep thinking that I wish my life was over. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. There is nothing to wake up for. I'm on SSDI for over two years and haven't even tried to go back to work.

Mostly, I take care of my sig. other who is in badly declining health. It wasnn't a great relationship, so we haven't lived together for years, but I care about him still. I'm at his place more than I'm home. Today he has an attendant for 4 hours, so I'm taking it easy and staying at home. We used to kind of take care of each other, but now it's pretty much a one-way arrangement. I do everything for him that he can't do alone, which is nearly everything. He barely manages to walk from one room to another, using a walker. He can't take a shower without help from me.

I seem to feel better when I am with him getting things done. But I'm losing interest in doing anything for him or for myself. I think of going to the doctor to say I'm going downhill, but I figure what's the use. I had years and years of therapy and all kinds of meds tried. The only thing I've stuck with is amitriptyline because it actually helps somewhat. I'm not interesred in trying ECT, which was recommended a few years ago. I just don't believe in it. I worked in a psych facility some years back, and I always saw the same patients coming back in, with no one really improving, regardless of ECT treatments. I no longer even think of mental depression as a medical problem.

Whatever it is, I've been struggling with it since at least age 8, and I'm completely demoralized and just sick of myself. I'm probably lazy and have no self-discipline, which isn't going to change. At least when I was working, which was most of my life, I had money to do things. Now my check is spent before the month is up. I have the necessities, but I can't go out for dinner like I used to do. My boyfriend doesn't cook for me anymore, which he used to like doing. Lately, I'm not eating well at all. I don't get enough protein.

I don't know exactly why I started this thread. I'm sick of living. I feel like a failure. I have gone back to thinking a lot about suicide, which I had stopped doing for a while. I don't have any hope that there is anything that doctors can or will do for me. My sleep is getting worse and worse. Too tired to write more.

"Too long a sacrifice can make a a stone of the heart."