It all adds up

I've been struggling with depression for over two years. It increased to the point over two months ago where I was hospitalized and could no longer work. I have been home from work since then and I am trying very hard to get better. It is a difficult road.

Triggering the depression were several events that occured about two years ago. I've had bad health all of my life (severe stress related illness) that I learned to cope with very well. But too years ago I was hit with several complications, the worst of which is severe rheumatoid arthritis. I have not found a solution to the arthritis that does not interfere with my other illnesses, and I am loosing hope that it will ever subside to a point where I can do things that used to bring me joy. My biggest passion in life has always been traveling to and riding rollercoasters (see my coaster stuff at http://www.idexter.com/the_house

He has convinced the social workers that this state of the house is a new development (a lie, it has been like this for 40 years) and that he could clean it up with my help. I have tried helping in with this in the past, in one notible case I was helping him decide what to keep and what to throw out in one of the rooms and after a few days in that one room discovered that he had been sneaking out to the garbage at 3:00am to bring stuff back in and hiding it in the basement). There is no way he is going to make any sort of sincere effort to clean the house, the social workers should no this because they have had volunteers over to help him; he is always very enthusiastic about the help but when they get there he sabotages any attempt to do any work, occupying them with talk or excuses (his favorite has always been "we can't through those papers out because I lost some money and it might be mixed in with those"---he's been using that one on me and others for many years). In spite of that, the social workers now think that I can have the "magic touch" of helping him clean up. Even if I was willing it would be impossible for me now because of the arthritis.

The latest development is that they will now not release him from the hospital until the house gets cleaned up. So now the social workers actually want him to MOVE IN WITH ME and he promises to go to his house a few days a week to clean up. Unbelievable. I won't let that happen but it has been very stressful having to explain myself over and over to the social workers.

The things mentioned above are only actually minor problems, the worst thing that happened to me was a huge disappointment with regard to a personal relationship that I thought was beginning to blossom. I have never found anyone interested in sharing a bond with me closer than just friendship. This has never bothered me because I always lived my life for myself and always believed that when the time was right it would happen for me. Two years ago all of my signals lit up, I met someone that I loved being around, with many many similar interests, that I believed to be my "soul mate". Moreover, I really thought the feeling was mutual, over time I felt our friendship heading in that direction. Finally I gathered enough confidence to address the issue, "make a pass" so to speak, only to find out I was about as off-base as I could be. We are still very good friends but the loss of hope to me was absolutely devastating. People keep saying not to give up hope but the truth is that with the arthritis and other problems, not to mention the depression, I really have absolutely no hope of that happening. I don't get out anymore because of all the health issues so I'm not even meeting people who might be possiblities. I am in constant pain so even if someone were to "fall into my lap" I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. Even sitting and cuddling now is quite painful. And I really feel old for the first time in my life.

I'm going to make this "chapter 1" and talk about some new issues I've been dealing with in another post later on, including brand new stress at my job (that caused me so much anxiety that I had to go into the hospital, and that anxiety is not at all resolved) and some new really deep abandonment from many friends who promised to be there to help me through this. I have no family to rely on so if this depression goes on and I can't pay my bills I have no place to fall back on. But more importantly I feel so alone in dealing with this. It is hard to get out and I have been making progress by going to support groups and such but the day-to-day, suffering here by myself, has been really really bad. If I can make it through this depression I don't know what I have to look forward to afterward, I don't feel as if I trust my friends anymore and can't imagine getting back into any sort of enjoyment of things again.

I'm still hanging in. One example was that I couldn't get ANYONE over to help me shovel my snow, even people who had explicilty promised to do so if I ever needed it. So I've been stuck in the house for 4 days and missed a support group last night. This morning I had a T appointment and I got up early to walk to the appointment instead of sulking (Actually, rode my Segway there in the snow if Dr. Grohl is reading . I do try to give myself credit for little steps like this but by this point I was hoping to feel at least like I am moving forward instead of backward.

More later.

Hello Dexter and welcome

Wow is all I could think of when I was reading your post. You don't mention your age but I am amazed at how well you are coping. You should be proud of yourself...reaching out to others takes a lot of courage and you have that.

I am so sorry about the loss of your Mother and how things are being dealt with there . What do you want to do in regards to a memorial service for her? Not what your father wants but you?

Gosh...your situation with your Father is sad. I would think that the social workers should be helping the situation...not adding to your stresses that you already are going through. Can you speak to someone else? Your Father's doctor? How old is he? Do you have any other siblings?

I am going to have a look at your site as well. I hope that you will keep posting here and reaching out. You are going to get through this....there are some wonderful people here who will listen and help as much as we can.

Stay strong.


Heather

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life - it goes on."
~~Robert Frost

Hi dexter,

It sounds like you have many issues going on all at once, that can really take a toll on a person
with depression. I have many of the issues that you are going through. I have bone spurs on the
vertabre of my neck and spine. Chronic pain is a living nightmare, and I am sorry to hear that you
suffer from chronic pain. My pain keeps me from doing alot of things as well. Being depressed
only makes my pain worse, and when I get to the MD i feel like they are basically telling me deal
with it, and I usually walk out of the office feeling like it wasnT even worth my time. Most of
the time I can do nothing but sit in my recliner, heating pads, pillows, blankets. It is all so
depressing I know. I did laundry today and picked up the house and my pain is getting to intense
to sit upright Thank you for sharing your story--
off to the recliner, take care

Chris

KRZYKRIS

>>I am so sorry about the loss of your Mother and how things are being dealt with there . What do you want to do in regards to a memorial service for her? Not what your father wants but you?

heatherm thank you for your post (thanks to everyone responding!)

Sadly, I do not have an overwhelming amount of grief surrounding the death of my mom. Because of my relationship with my dad I have been very estranged from her as well. I saw them both occasionally (maybe once or twice a year when they needed a ride somewhere or something) but because of the nature of my illness I am sort of "programmed" not to respond to them emotionally. That kind of carried over when she died.

Even so I know that I have some issues with "closure" but right now they are not pressing. I have it in my heart that if and when I am in a better place with regard to my depression and the anxiety, I will hopefully think of some way to provide this closure. Right now I really have no idea. Best of all worlds would be to do something on my own with my friends, although what to do is currently hard to imagine. If my dad and her surviving relatives want to do something with the ashes I don't think that I need to include them in whatever I do for myself. My dad will have a better idea of what she would want with her actual remains anyway.

The "surviving relatives" involved are all very distant and also estranged from me. The only ones I had some regular (supportive) contact with became very judgmental (understandably) with the way my mother's illness and death were handled, and that carried over to me so now they cause me as much stress as he does. Although they are the ones who know the most about our "story" they have still been pressuring me to do something to help him.

>>How old is he? Do you have any other siblings?

My dad is currently 86 years old. I am 41, and have been dealing with ulcerative colitis since I was 17. At first it was diagnosed improperly and I was near death before being treated correctly (at age 17 I weighed 55 pounds, the colitis did was not revealed in X-rays so they thought I had an eating disorder). I have no siblings. I've never been sad about being an only child but now that I am alone and dealing with so much additional crap so suddenly, it is now a constant source of pain that I have no one in my life to help me through this, neither friends nor family, to help with either with practical details (help me with my bills, a place to live if I need it, etc.) or with just emotional support.

krzykris and ozzie I've met so many people with pain issues. It is good to have people know how difficult it is. At least "outsiders" can try to imagine how difficult it is to deal with chronic pain day after day. No one understands the pain of depression unless they've experienced it. And when the depression combines with physical pain, it is unbelievable how much the two "support" each other and play against each other. The pain contributed to the depression, and the depression worsens the pain. What a horrible cycle.

Still getting through the best I can and hoping against hope that I can get through this.

Thank you for your comments.

I missed a week and a half of support groups due to misinformation (wrong directions), snow and illness. Yesterday I almost gave up because it took me about 20 minutes to find a parking space when I showed up for the Friday group. I stuck it out though and was glad.

We had some special topics though about "dealing with visits from family members over the holidays" which initially made me sad because I don't have any family to come over or to go to over the holidays, and lately I've felt so abandoned by my friends. I got a chance to talk about it though and it was good to express those thoughts to the group.

For a while I felt like Lucy when she thought everyone forgot her birthday and joined the "Friends of the Friendless" (anyone else remember the song?) expect of course that I didn't have a surprise party waiting for me at the Tropicana when I decided to confront my mate (complicated by the fact that I don't have a mate).

I still feel like I have so much to deal with, including the loss of a relationship that never was that occured on New Year's Eve 2 years ago that was probably the biggest contributer to the onset of my depression.

--The world is what we make of it--
Dave
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>

Hello Dexter,
I wanted to say welcome!
I'm very sorry for your loss and everything you have been dealing with within the last two years. I hear you on the Depression side of work also. that's how I felt and I'm glad I left when I left.
you said your father suffered from OCD and depression.
I have to say OCD is very difficult to control. you sound like a very understanding man and very caring at that. I give you alot of respect to the fact that not only are you dealing with your own problems but, your fathers to add on. as far as never finding someone, Reading most of your post I find you to be a very outgoing guy. Like you said within time I'm sure the right person will come along. I wish you the best and you will make a great addition to this room.

Though I have fallen, I will rise.
though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light
...He will bring me out into the light; I will see his
righteousness........... Micah 7:8-9

Thank you Duchess.

One thing with my dad is that he always seeks attention and pity and has practically made a career out of it. He lies constantly, blatant nasty lies about his health and other things. He sabotages things, for example intentionally mismanaging his money, so that he can extract pity from the people around him. It took me many years to realize this after trying to help him with his situation only to discover that he was lying to me and sabotaging the help I was trying to provide, and then after catching him in outright lies to other people about me, about his situation, and about what role I played in his situation.

I tried sincerely to work through these issues with him and improve our relationship many years ago, on several occasions. Each time, rather than working toward a true understanding of one another, I found him again resorting to more lies and manipulation to bring me "closer" which instead pushed me further and further away. Eventually I realized that for my own health and sanity, the only option I had was to remove myself from his circle of lies and keep a good distance from him.

The angering thing is that his lies and deceipt have not only affected himself but also my mother. At least I was able to get out of the house and be on my own. My mother had to suffer his financial sabotage and his lack of any sincere attempt to get help for his propensity to horde things (I remind you again of the current state of his house at http://www.idexter.com

I don't mean to be nosey but is he on meds? how long has he been batteling his depression? what have the docs. diagnosed him with?
" The angering thing is that his lies and deceipt have not only affected himself but also my mother".
This is the second time i see you mention this there most be some kind of hatred towards your father or guilt towards yourself for leaving her behind? I'm so sorry you had to go threw that. also so to hear of the things you must deal with now. It must be very difficult on you.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth & love have always won. there have been tyrants & murderers, and for a time they can be invincible, but in the end they always fall.
think of it... always. Mohandas Gandhi...

He is and has been on meds but always gives the docs a difficult time. There are times in the past that i know he has been on meds he didn't need because he lies to the doctor. he does this to get a doctor's "stamp of approval" on his lies.

I don't know exactly what he is taking right now, but I know he has been giving the caretakers difficulty and being non-compliant. Since they are ready to send him home I assume he has been taking them regularly now. The complicated part is that for things like depression there isn't any sort of physical "test" to determine what meds you need, the docs rely on your description of the problem and your description to the reaction of medications. So if he is lying in the first place, and they prescribe something, he may be being "non-compliant" because the depression makes him want to stop (as can happen to any of us) OR he may be non-compliant because he knows he is taking something that he doesn't really need because he lied to the doctor in the first place.

As I said I do believe that he is really suffering from depression now. But I don't believe he is telling the 100% truth about the course that it is taking. If I had to guess I would say the sincere depression is a result of my mom's death two years ago.

As an example of what he does, when I last visited him in the hospital he was very anxious to go home and he was really treading a fine line between letting me know how bad he felt but also that he felt well enough to go home. Although I have very deep (bad) feelings toward him I do NOT want him to suffer, and I know how bad it is in the hospital, and I do want him to feel better and be able to go back home where I know he feels he will be happiest. But that will not happen unless he makes a sincere effort to change his lifestyle with regard to letting people help him clean up the house. He said he would but was giving me the same old "line" he has in the past about wanting to clean it up, that he never follows through on. I pushed him a bit on the issue to let him know he really has to go through with it this time or else the doctors are not going to let him live on his own. Although I cannot physically help him myself I was trying to set up some specific plans to get rid of some of the clutter he is living with. He became very very defensive (to me, a sign that he certainly does NOT really want to clean up the house) and all of a sudden switched the subject to the fact that he also has prostate cancer that he didn't want to tell me before (because he didn't want to worry me). That was supposed to make me feel bad for him and stop arguing with him. The thing is he didn't know I had spoken with his doctor a few days before and the doc specifically mentioned to me that they had tested him for prostate cancer and some other things while he was in the hospital and all the tests were negative because physically he is in fine health!

To me that is the worst kind of manipulative lying. I didn't call him on the lie because at that point I just needed to get out of there for the sake of my own health. It is telling not only that this was a blatant lie, but that he whipped out the lie only at the point when I was clearly not going along with his attempts at pity, and when I expressed my desire to help him make real changes in his life that he is not willing to make.

>>there most be some kind of hatred towards your father or guilt towards yourself for leaving her behind?

Yes there is hatred there, but over the course of many years I do not wish him any harm or ill will, I just want to be left alone and not have any involvement with him. There is some pressure now for me to take over his affairs and I am reluctant to do that, first of all because I don't want to be involved in his life, but also because I don't know that I am in the best state to be making decisions for him. For example I know that what he wants the most is to return home. I do believe he will be happiest there. I also am really concerned about his safety there and his ability to take care of himself in general. If it were me, I would want to be allowed to go home. I know that choosing to place him in a care facility instead would make him very very angry and unhappy. However it may be that that is the best solution for him at this point. That would be a very difficult decision, to make the "tough but right" choice and I don't believe I can be subjective enough in the matter. Right now he has about a billion social workers helping him, they all seem to be sincerely concerned, and I want to leave it to them to know what is really best for him. The best thing I can do is to stay in touch with the social workers and give them as much "insight" into his character as I can so that they know what track they are on.

As for my mom there is not a lot of guilt there mostly because I was so estranged from both of them for so many years. I kind of became "numb" to them for my own sanity. My mom had plenty of support from her family and plenty of opportunity to leave or get help cleaning up the house (I don't think she ever wanted to leave him but she could have been more insistant about cleaning up the house, and had the support of family to help her with that). Instead she ALWAYS chose to defend him whenever anyone was critical. It was always her choice to allow him to live like that rather than do something about it. In many ways I believe she was happy with him but the huge obsticales with regard to their living situation had to take a large toll.

Bottom line is that I always tried to help "fix" the situation with the house and was always rebuffed or lied to by him and she never wanted me to push it further, so I did what I could and then had to care for myself.

I should make it clear that with the colitis I suffer, the stress of the family situation has been literally life threatening for me several times in my life. I was down to a weight of 55 pounds when I was 17 years old, was hospitalized for almost 2 months, and was hospitalized again for long periods several times in the years following. The only thing keeping it under control was very large doses of dangerous medications that I was on for far too long. I was only able to switch to safer "maintenance" meds after leaving home. I still have periods when times are rough but for the most part it has been under control for many years now.

--The world is what we make of it--
-- Dave
-- <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.idexter.com>http://www.idexter.com</A>