I feel like a ghost

It is so beautiful outside today. Very fall like low 70's no humidity. I can't inspire myself to get off the couch.

I know I am depressed and I am going through the grieving process. But this flavor of depression is different.

I know I am alive but I feel like a ghost. Like the essence of who I am has either left me or is trapped way down inside myself.

I have no energy, no ambition, no desire, I am just a lump of flesh using up air.

I don't want to shower, dress, go out, do anything around the house.

This is my 4th week on Effexor 150mg. I don't feel anything from it.

I force myself to do some exercise in the house, hoping it will help. It doesn't.

My therapist is away this week. But she hasn't been helping. She keeps giving me assignments. But I have no energy or desire to do them. She listens to me cry and talk about how I played a part in my sons death.

How does one comeback to the living when you feel this way ?

Or maybe you never do......

I hear you saying you are lost in grief for your son and you have no motivation to do anything. you seem lost in hopelessness and it does not appear that your meds or therapy are yet effective in putting a dent in your grief process. grief is complicated. it takes time. you will get there. I would talk to pdoc about trying another antidepressant if this one hasn't shown signs of helping yet. have compassion for yourself. you have suffered a great loss. it is going to take you time to get over it. t is there to listen to you cry. take care.

Oh speed please don't say you played a part in your son's passing, i know you are still hurting my love , i really think that will never go away, but i don't think for one minute your son would want you to give up.....go back to your GP and demand some grieving counselling, it takes a while, and grief takes on physical forms as well as emotional, i still grieve for my mum 5 years on, i will never be the same....
i feel your pain
god bless you and prayers are on the way xx
gismo xx

Im new here and don't have any advice to offer. But I do want to say how very sorry I am for your sons death. You are in my thoughts and I hope you feel better soon. Hugs

Oh L sweetie You really think you had a part in Jason's death? Do you want to talk about it? I think you're just wishing you could've done something to prevent it. No parent wants to see our kids addicted or hurting, but they do these things and we can't always stop it. I think that look he gave you going up the stairs was him feeling bad for relapsing and not wanting you to know or to disappoint you. And I think you said before that you had a pang of a bad feeling like he might be relapsing. But how many times over the years you must've had that worry. You're a loving mom, stood by him all the way, did all you could to help him, but addiction is strong & twisted and can happen to anybody, you are not responsible for his death. It was a tragic accident.

I think this grieving process is going to take a really long time. We all wish we could help you somehow. Wish you had some physical good friends nearby to even lay on the couch with you, stare at the wall even, rub your back or feet and let you know you're not alone.

Also sounds like you're disassociating - and I don't blame you, I start leaving my body during depression too. Who wants to be in their body with so much sadness going on? Problem is that it leaves you with no energy to even get out of bed or off the couch or to process the feelings and let healing in.

If you're interested look into a mindfulness therapist. She's the one who helped me see I was not in my body. I resisted and thought she was a quack at first. But in guided meditations, she kept asking where I was, and to look further out. I seriously found myself in outer space, cold & alone looking down at earth, wishing it well but feeling it was doomed. She brought me to standing on a grassy field, letting me know that all my well wishes for earth, that earth wants to return love to me, and I allowed green sparkles of light enter my feet. It was a process but that's an example of healing I experienced in mindfulness therapy. It was intense & very spiritual & interesting. I should go back to her cuz I'm falling again, but it is deep & I'm a little afraid to open up, even though I know it's best for me.

We are here for you. Please keep talking & I'm sending you much love.

A minor point given all you've been through, but the angle of the sunlight has changed, and this tends to spark depression even in those of us who've been more or less hypo/manic all summer. I can only imagine what it might be doing to someone who's already depressed. Light therapy can be very helpful in this case.....check with your T or your pdoc.

Now, of course there are vastly more important issues going on here, and I sincerely hope you're not blaming yourself for the loss of your son. There is NO WAY you could have foreseen what would happen, nor prevented it. Please, please don't do this to yourself......you deserve so much better!

I wish I could tell you that there's an end to this terrible kind of grief, but I don't know when or if it will come. I only know that even in the most tragic type of loss, the pain does lessen, almost imperceptibly, with the passage of time. When I lost my little girl almost 30 years ago, I didn't see how I could possibly be happy ever again, but eventually it did happen.

However, losing a child (or a spouse) isn't something people ever really get OVER......we get through it, and if we're blessed we can get past it, but we never, ever get over it. We simply learn to move forward, because there's no going back.

Wish there was something I could say or do to help. All any of us can do is offer our prayers and good thoughts, and tell you to hang in there. SOMEDAY you won't hurt as badly as you do now. SOMEDAY you'll look up into the late-summer sun and be glad you're alive. But it's certainly understandable that today was not that day.

WHAT??? Why is your t bringing up your role in Jason's death? Maybe I misread what you said, Speed, but if I understood you, I can't understand how this is helping your grief process. You are still in such pain, and I am so glad to see that you are sharing again. We don't know how long it will take on your road to a peaceful place, but I know that I would never try to push you through your grief.
BlueInanna and BpRN have offered much more compassionate words, and I don't know how to verbalize what I am feeling for what you are going through. I just know that you are hurting, and I hope we can offer some words to help you heal.
Please just know that my heart is with you and I believe in prayer. I send up prayers for you each time I see that you are hurting.
Many hugs!
Bluemountains

Thank you all for responding. I appreciate all your input and prayers.

But what if I did have a part in Jason's death. Hear me out ...

He was around 10 when he saw his Mom go from super Mom, to in and out of Psychiatric inpatient admissions. It was ugly and I wasn't always emotionally there for him. He was a very sensitive being, I know it took a long lasting toll on him.

In the last year of his life addiction took a strong hold on him. He was very ill. He didn't have medical insurance at the job he had, they were a very small company. He had to go to state funded rehab. The first one he went in with a pill addiction and learned about heroin.

My husband and I talked about paying for him to go to a much better one when we found out he was shooting heroin. But, we didn't because he didn't stay as long as he should of at the first one and didn't really want to go in the second time. He was actually kicked out after a week for leaving and coming back with heroin.

I think about all the money we spent on his funeral and wonder if we used that money for him to go to a first rate place if things would have been different.

He came back home after getting kicked out of that second one. We had a strict set of rules. He was supposed to go to intensive outpatient rehab in our county, that was why he was living with us. At 3:00 am in the morning of his starting day my husband found him on the bathroom floor. This was his first overdose.

He went into the hospital. He had an abscess in his arm and it had spread in his body. He had a pic line in and was very sick on all kinds of antibiotics. He was on Psychiatric floor where the people had medical problems. We don't know a lot of what happened because he denied us access. We do know for some reason they were giving him diluadid, one step down from heroin.
Why I don't know. They caught him breaking the pills up mixing them with water and using a syringe he shot them up his pic line. We were mortified.

Alcohol addiction runs in both our families. Like I said Jason was very ill. Just like with mentall illness, I don't think people with addiction get the care they should.

When he came home from the medical hospital he looked awful, so thin and no light in his eyes. We just thought if we loved him and supported him and didn't give him any access to money or a car, we could protect him.

I did talk to him about seeing a therapist and offered to pay until he could. But I didn't push the issue, this is where I let him down. I should have dragged him there !! I knew I my heart he needed to talk about what was eating at him and pushed him into his addiction.

I failed my son !

I get it, the self blame, wishing we had control of the uncontrollable. I do the same thing. My kid is having trouble again. I'm beating myself up over it. Wish I could've given him a better life, wish he never saw me depressed. If I'd been more present... But I wasn't and couldn't I was really ill with depression. Parenting is so hard - I kicked him out today - very scared I made a huge mistake... There's just no way to know. I'm just letting you know I relate and most parents too probably carry guilt for being depressed in front of our kids. Please don't double triple punish yourself, you've been through too much already, this depletes energy you need to carry on. I don't know if it makes sense, my brain is spun today. Just know I care & sending love & prayers.