Depression or just realism?

I get that I'm supposed to be giving myself positive messages when things go wrong, like, "Things are tough, but my husband and I can cope," and so on.

But realistically, I can't see one single reason to believe things are going to get better, like, ever. I'll be 58 next month, he'll be 60 in April. I can't find a decent job, he drives 70 miles (3-4 hours per day) to work 10-12 hours a day and we barely see each other anymore. Meanwhile, we are buried in medical bills, even with insurance, and we can't seem to even raise the cash to file bankruptcy--which, in this state will run us around $2500.

Things have been going downhill for us since the crash of 2008, and it looks like we can fall much farther before we hit bottom. We have each other, we have our lives, and that's only for today. Beyond that, we seem to be screwed. It's hard to see a lot (or any) hope on the horizon.

I really am working on my depression. The meds help, therapy helps, but none of it is free, and at some point it seems like it should be OK to just say that things kind of suck and we can't fix them and that sucks even worse. At some point being upbeat just feels delusional.

Can anyone relate?

I mean, sometimes people get depressed for a reason. It's not always like it's just some chemical problem.

I can totally relate. My husband and I did in fact declare bankruptcy at one point. We've moved several times due to my husband's job, so it's been hard to maintain a stable social support network. I had to have an emergency appendectomy 6 weeks after the birth of our first child. Then we had an unplanned pregancy, and I had another child just 12 months after the first one -- that's when my depression started, although this second child has been an incredible blessing and I thank God for her and my other kids every day. A few years later I miscarried twins: first one, then the other. Throughout all this my husband and I had NO family support -- nobody to help out at all. We had to do it all ourselves. I grew up with alcoholic parents, and they were a source of continuous stress, not any sort of comfort at all.

I have repeatedly questioned to my psychiatrists whether my depression is physiological or just induced by all the environmental stressors I've been through, so I am right there with you on the question that it's not always a chemical imbalance.

It's good that you are on meds and getting therapy, and esp. that it sounds like you and your husband have a solid marriage.

Hang in there!

i dont want u to feel alone i can very much relate feeling a little upset today so i will post more later yeah i know a lot of times depression has to do with external stuff not a chemical imbalance i dont even like the term antidepressants cuz zoloft helps with serotonin levels but i could take all the anti dep in the world & still be depressed rite now things look bleak but when i read my Bible i always feel better in a way i feel guilty bout goin into difficulties cuz i feel like im complaining when God has been so good over & over but then i guess holding it in doesnt help either tired will post more later & again ur not alone with everything u mentioned hugs hugs

I can absolutely relate. I started therapy mostly hoping to work on some of my deeper issues - the things that still bother me during the rare times when life in general is going ok. But things have been so BAD since I started that that's all that we talk about. And it feels pointless. It feels hopeless.

Long ago I gave up on things getting 'better'. Because things DON'T get 'better'. They only get different. I would however like a 'different' that is a little easier to handle.

Thank you so much for the validation avidreader! It sounds like you have really been through the mill. I admire you for having the courage to keep going and to question. You sound like a really strong person.

I kind of think depression involves both things--a genetic predisposition AND external circumstances that are incredibly difficult. Like you I get frustrated that only the psychological and chemical part is usually addressed. I guess we can't change reality, but if no one even acknowledges reality how do things ever change 'out there'? Also, it seems like--especially for you in this case--that grief is a big part of it, and grief is not pathological, it's necessary. When these things don't get acknowledged, we end up carrying even more personal guilt--for being depressed! When really, most people in the same circumstances would not be feeling that great.

I am predisposed to depression as a chemical imbalance. But I also know that our current circumstances are not normal, that we are dealing with severe economical pressures that are not all our fault.

I am grateful to at least have a solid marriage. Thank you and god bless.

Yes! I am getting to that view myself--that things don't get better, they just get different. Reconciling myself to that seems to help, not hurt my mood. When I feel like I HAVE to keep hoping for a good job, good pay, relief from catastrophe--that's the part that is exhausting.

I hope life does get a bit easier for all of us soon, but I kind of think that lots of people are going through tough times now and they aren't over. Like you say, it does get to feeling pointless going over and over it.

These are very tough times for most everyone. Everyone has different degrees of misery ~ and different techniques for working through their stress. There are healthy and unhealthy ways to work through stress. Those are the facts. These facts can be pretty depressing.

The question of realism comes in when you bring up future. None of us know anything about the future. Logically, there are always little good things that still occur in our lives. Thank goodness for that!! While we don't know if things will start to look up for us financially (or health-wise) as the years pass, we can realistically expect more changes to come. Good and bad changes will come to all of us.

Hopefully, more good changes will come and we will better at working through bad times. This will make our lives happier (or less miserable ~ whichever way you want to look at it). As you can see, the words commonly go together...but they aren't the same. Know what I mean?

Very best wishes to you ~ I hope that things do improve soon!

What you are describing is the "double whammy"--predisposition to depression from a physical standpoint and then life circumstances and stressors that would sadden anyone. My oredicament is similar. But I've been able to rise up with the help of new meds and therapy to see a brighter future. Doesn't change the end zone being far away--financial freedom, that sort of thing--but makes the day-to-day living more pleasant. Hope this happens for you too. It likely won't happen overnight. You'll just realize one day that things don't seem quite as dreary, that you have more smiling monents you can recall. Cherish the time you have together; I think you'll work through this in time.

I was going to post something very similar just now when I read this. While I'm not your age, I'm 36, I have this hopeless- It's never going to get better- attitude. I've never been to another country or seen any of the US. I don't think I'm going to. I think I'm going to die just as miserable as I am now. Things have been tough for years now and they are definitely not getting any better.

Today my biggest issue, other than not having enough money to pay our bills...... My husband and I can't afford daycare for our 5 & 10 year old, so someone has to be home to get the kids off the bus. I work a full time at a job I love and with people I love, but at half as much money I made 5 years ago. I'm back making what I did 15 years ago when I started in my profession. Anyway, I can't always leave to get my kids and then having them at my work isn't great. They are "ok" with my kids coming and all, but it can't be everyday. Just not professional. My husband works freelance and needs to work as much as possible. He is a photographer and does a lot of real estate photography. He is really busy right now and he can't pass up the work, but then there are the kids..... if he can make it to get the kids off the bus, then he might have to take them with him- which again is not professional. But then they have to stay in the car. Depending upon the weather, it is either too cold or too hot for them to stay in the car, not to mention that they are very much siblings and fight over EVERYTHING. So, there is the possibility of coming back to the car to a massive attack.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to handle. My son needs therapy and I need therapy, but we can't really afford one much less both. So, he comes first. I hate these days when the anxiety kicks in and I'm all jittery. I'm internally freaking out. I used to be able to hold myself together better, but as I get older, it is starting to seep out a little more each day.

Sorry for the long post. This probably wasn't the right place, but the release makes me feel better.

i think it's both by reading your thread, pgrundy. i get upset that so many ppl including you all are barely keeping their head above water. i won't offer advice i don't feel (it's just puff) cause your situation is real and it feeds into your depression. a vicious cycle unfortunately. i hope you'll keep posting if you feel like it. it may not fix anything but dispersing your feelings among us who care about you may help in some way.

Thank you for all your thoughtful responses.

I think it's so true that so many of us are now faced with economic problems that have no quick or easy solution (or no solution) and that it's just that much harder for people like us who also struggle with depression--inherited, from early trauma, or both.

It does really help me to hear your struggles and I thank you for sharing them. I feel less alone when I know other people have their seemingly endless problems PLUS depression too. Not that misery loves company, just that it's good to know I'm not alone.

I'm trying to learn to detach emotionally from stuff 'out there' that goes wrong--maybe not even think of it as 'going wrong'. Just, stuff happens. And roll with it. It IS hard. But I'm working on it.

All the best to all of you. You are all courageous and I wish you every good thing.

I definitely feel that many people being treated for depression do not seem to be given a break, so to speak, about events that would make anyone, even the most well-adjusted individual, depressed. I probably sound terribly pessimistic, but it has been my own experience, that, in the context of being treated over the relatively long term for depression, very few mental health care providers seem to recognize that some of these troubles (i.e., the ones mentioned in this thread, for example) would bother anyone regardless of the situation. Maybe they assume that because a person is in treatment for depression that he or she is automatically having a maladaptive, depressogenic response to a life event. That's the reaction I always seem to have gotten, anyway.

Am I making any sense?

I guess I'm a bit cynical, because I have moved so many times (but no more!) and have had to switch therapists several times (five times at least).

Mudgey, I can identify with a lot of what you wrote. I freelance, too, and I have kids, and we're struggling financially, too. It's tough.

I agree! I find it tremendously comforting to know that I'm not alone, either. At times in the past I have felt terribly alone. So glad I found this forum!

Avidreader, I can relate to what you are saying here, totally.

At 57, I've been dealing with depression/PTSD and the mental health field since my twenties, and after awhile I do feel that many start to look at me as a 'chart', not a person. Complicating matters, many people struggling with mental illness do end up making their illness their defining feature--the central thing about them. I think the system kind of encourages this, frankly, and I also think sometimes this response is just necessary for survival. It can take all of a person's resources, emotional and otherwise, to just comply and try to stay above water mentally and emotionally. I've sure been there before, and may be again.

When I was in the hospital in January (first and hopefully last time) it struck me that the caregivers and professionals were like people in any field--some were great, others not so much. A few were really awful. (There was a Nurse Ratchett clone there, ugh--I learned to just steer clear of her.)

It's taught me to be more assertive, weirdly. I have to remind these people I'm Pam, not Major Depressive Disorder with comorbid PTSD.

It isn't always easy but I guess it's not all bad. Thank you for your insights!

I am reminded that depression is anger turned inward. There is more than enough cause to be not just slightly upset at how you and your husband and millions of others turned out. I just had been a witness of a my friends young daughter who studied, looked for job, only thing she could find after 2 years was a dumb job in a call center, and she got depressed till she could no longer do it. She feels life is not worth living. What part of it can a person accept as merely "unfortunate"? Nothing unfortunate when you look at who profited from 2008 show and how much.

Unfortunately we are in a situation where inward is the only place our anger can safely go, but when you look at it from a certain perspective it is kinda nonsensical. Why should we be whacking ourselves for something someone else done to us so they can get richer?

I believe there is a 3rd road for you. I do not know it. But you found something when you found your assertiveness. May you find more where that come from. HUGS!!

Sunna, thank you! That is such a good point, the anger turned inward idea.

It's funny, I worked in call centers too--for eight years before I couldn't do it any more. Now I look back and think, wow, how did I last THAT long???

I learned from supervisors that each call center has a time limit stamped on its employees--they often call it 'up or out' but there's no 'up' to be promoted to, so really it's just 'out'. They know people can't take it for long and they WANT them to go away after a year or two so they can get a fresh crop of low paid fresh meat.

I worked alongside so many professional people who could no longer find any other work--therapists, social workers, radio announcers, teachers, insurance agents--all reduced to three minute calls and having their every move monitored for chump change. Now it's hard to even find call center work. Lots of that work has been subcontracted out as 1099 work--you have to buy your own equipment, no bennies, and less money! It's incredible and it's no wonder so many people are depressed! Who wouldn't be?

But like the saying goes, "this too shall pass." I think people are starting to speak out and make noise. I mean, at some point you have to. You can't get blood out of a turnip.

All the best to you and your daughter too! Thanks for the encouragement!

Just reading your posts. I am so sorry you are having so many troubles. I am thinking of all of you. I wanted to write some little quote but trouble is trouble. We all will get through it though!
Blessings;