[helplesshopeless8]

I desperately need someone to talk to, but talking to a complete stranger isn't going to help. Catch 22. I went to a mental health clinic a few times. You don't see experienced or even competent therapists at places like these, and the one prescription they put me on--effexor--didn't work for me. They wanted another 3 months to change it to something else.

I was blamed for that--drugs not just 'snapping me out of it.' Thought I had one good, real friend in my life, and she blamed me for my depression. Therapy would work for me and meds would work for me so obviously, it's my fault I'm still depressed.

What comfort is there to be had in 'dumping' on a complete stranger that either 1) you met on the internet and have never/will never lay eyes on, or 2) is a counselor who has only clinical and financial interest in you, and only insofar as needing the least amount of info that will allow them to pick the right drug to put you on?

None.

I live in an emotionally and socially deranged culture. Nobody gives a crap about the people they know in real life, have actual contact with, are friends with or related to. We walk around with our eyes down, staring like soulless zombies into little boxes. Meanwhile, people are cracking up all over the place.

I know what I needed from daydamnone--I need someone to talk to.

That was my unreasonable request. That's just too much to ask. I was to go to a stranger, get drugged up, and come back happy. Eat, shop, eat, shop, eat, shop, fake happy all day, every day, or I'll scrape you off. Go pay someone to talk to, because you have to have a medical degree in order to show basic compassion to someone you call a friend.

And that's exactly what happened.

I am apparently worthless. If I had worth, I'd have a friend to talk to. And I'm now also at a point where I'm too far gone--having a friend to talk to would do me no good now. It's too late. I also have four suicide attempts under my belt.

I really am sick of this. When you see someone depressed, in crisis, you know they're bawling every day--what exactly goes through your head as you shove them away when they need to talk? What exactly is that? I don't recognize that kind of apathy and coldness. Where does it come from?


And how accurate is this site's depression quiz? I scored a 79.

[optimize990h]

Hello helplesshopeless8! Welcome to PsychCentral!

I would like to know you are safe and will call crisis line or 911 if you are in an unsafe frame of mind. I feel you are worthy. I have to express that because you will understand as you read this post.

I am sorry you are having a frustrating experience. I know I am just an anonymous person typing out these words, but the members here at PC have helped me.

Like you, I would like a face to face discussion of what's bothering you. However, I have found people like myself(PC members) in similar circumstances, the details are different but the feelings are the same. These members have helped me a lot.

And I feel there are people here that I feel comfortable in expressing my feelings because they have made me feel connected to them. I hope you will be able to return here and feel supported.

I say this because I know what it feels like to be alone and unwanted.

These thoughts are just suggestions and my experience, take what you like and leave the rest behind.

Please take care. Update this post about how you are feeling when you can

[Rohag]

Originally Posted by helplesshopeless8

I'm coping badly. ...constantly surrounded on all times by sex, drunks, and druggies.

Originally Posted by helplesshopeless8

I need someone to talk to.

Go with your gut. I believe you are correct - you need a real person to talk to, a real person who isn't a part of the ugly environment you described in your earlier post.

Some benefit more from PsychCentral; others less. At least you can use these forums and us to rough out a vocabulary for describing what you are experiencing. You found at least one other poster who's situation approximates your own.

??? -

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) Home Page
DBSA Support Groups and Chapters

[helplesshopeless8]

A face-to-face really isn't the issue. Talking to a therapist would be a face-to-face talk--that's still a complete stranger. I appreciate the response, but I am, in fact, worthless. If I had any value at all, I'd have one person in my life who cared enough to be there when I needed to talk. When people run, they pretty much tell you what your worth is. I have nobody. That means I'm worthless. I can't just be sitting here completely alone all the time and magically have all this value somewhere. Being alive, breathing, and human doesn't guarantee personal worth. Some people are actually worthless. I'm one of them.

[allimsaying]

I hear where youre coming from. You want your life to have value and you believe it does not. For the sake of your point lets just go with your statement as if it is true. If it is true that you have no value, is it also true that nothing in your life has value? What about your family or a pet or your community? Are all of those without value in your view? What about firemen, EMTs, hospitals, nurses? Do they have any value?

What Im trying to get at is that value is a thing we attach to people and objects in our lives. So even tho you may not attach value to yourself, in this moment, at this time, can you at least agree that some things in life do have value?

When you can find that there is value in life you can then begin to see the things that matter to you and have significance. With that feeling can come a sense of direction, for example, desiring to spend more time in the activities you believe to be valuable. You might want to become an EMT, a doctor, an artist, a musician. If you cant become these things then you are still able to appreciate them, adding a sense of goodness and value to your world.

I dont know if this will help at all but I hope you will at least think it over. Values change, people change. The best you can do is be open to what good there is. It can never enter if you shut it out.

[helplesshopeless8]

Originally Posted by allimsaying

I hear where youre coming from. You want your life to have value and you believe it does not. For the sake of your point lets just go with your statement as if it is true. If it is true that you have no value, is it also true that nothing in your life has value? What about your family or a pet or your community? Are all of those without value in your view? What about firemen, EMTs, hospitals, nurses? Do they have any value?

What Im trying to get at is that value is a thing we attach to people and objects in our lives. So even tho you may not attach value to yourself, in this moment, at this time, can you at least agree that some things in life do have value?

When you can find that there is value in life you can then begin to see the things that matter to you and have significance. With that feeling can come a sense of direction, for example, desiring to spend more time in the activities you believe to be valuable. You might want to become an EMT, a doctor, an artist, a musician. If you cant become these things then you are still able to appreciate them, adding a sense of goodness and value to your world.

I dont know if this will help at all but I hope you will at least think it over. Values change, people change. The best you can do is be open to what good there is. It can never enter if you shut it out.

I'm not sure where this is going. If I had anyone in my life, I'd have someone to talk to. I didn't say everyone is worthless--I don't even know EMTs. I said I was worthless--who are all these other people? I'm talking about me.

What I was actually wanting an answer to was my original question:

When you see someone depressed, in crisis, you know they're bawling every day--what exactly goes through your head as you shove them away when they need to talk? What exactly is that? I don't recognize that kind of apathy and coldness. Where does it come from?

[allimsaying]

I think to truthfully call yourself worthless you'll need to ask 7 billion people if you have value or not before you know the answer. You are looking for others to give you value, rather than finding/becoming valuable on your own.

To your second question, I am not that way. I care about people. I do not shove them aside. One friend is not everyone but I know it can really feel that way.

[helplesshopeless8]

I'd really not want to go to the trouble of asking 7 billion people if I have any value. It would be apparent in the way I'm treated by the people I come into actual contact with every day.

This is another roundabout discussion wherein I'm not allowed to realize the way things actually are. I'm worthless. That's the way it is. Think of it this way--you wish to present counter-arguments, and yet, you don't know me. For all you know, I'm sitting in run down trailer completely surrounded with child porn and dead bodies. I'm an unknown quantity to you, right? No one in here can argue whether or not I have any value because no one in here knows me. So when someone tries to argue the point anyway, I logically question the motive. Is it so to foster an unfounded sense of personal worth in someone who knows better?

If I had worth, someone in my life would care about me. I just really can't fix that with a bumper sticker. I respect the attempt, but my worth was not in question. I already know that I have none. Was just looking for an answer to my original question. Thanx.

[allimsaying]

My apologies. I attempted to resolve the question of worth you raised philosophically. My bad and I should have learned by now.

I didnt mean to get off on the wrong foot with you. I can see youre hurting. Ive been there but this isnt about me, its about you. Just wanted to help you feel better by knowing youre not alone and things can change for the better, but you have to want them to.

[helplesshopeless8]

Originally Posted by allimsaying

My apologies. I attempted to resolve the question of worth you raised philosophically. My bad and I should have learned by now.

I didnt mean to get off on the wrong foot with you. I can see youre hurting. Ive been there but this isnt about me, its about you. Just wanted to help you feel better by knowing youre not alone and things can change for the better, but you have to want them to.

You didn't and I'm sorry I gave you that impression. My nerves are shot and I'm out of ideas. I just can't understand what is making us like this--not one or two people here and there--I mean as a society.

And everyone's sitting around actually wondering where all of us are coming from.

I do want things to get better. They don't. I just have no control over that.

[allimsaying]

Amen. You could have been me with that thought some time ago, even now I feel like that at times. I wonder what the heck people are thinking?

Something Ive told myself, maybe you could try it too, is since I am so painfully aware of everything I see unhealthy and wrong and bad going on around me, rather than letting it beat me up, shouldnt I become involved in changing it in some way? If I let it drag me down and defeat me, havent I become just one more person contributing to it by either not doing anything or by becoming as angry and nutty as the rest of them? Not saying what you should do, just saying those were my thoughts about it.

[helplesshopeless8]

Originally Posted by allimsaying

Amen. You could have been me with that thought some time ago, even now I feel like that at times. I wonder what the heck people are thinking?

Something Ive told myself, maybe you could try it too, is since I am so painfully aware of everything I see unhealthy and wrong and bad going on around me, rather than letting it beat me up, shouldnt I become involved in changing it in some way? If I let it drag me down and defeat me, havent I become just one more person contributing to it by either not doing anything or by becoming as angry and nutty as the rest of them? Not saying what you should do, just saying those were my thoughts about it.

I've tried that a number of times. No one else bothered themselves to get on board. Nobody else was the least bit troubled by what's going on. Makes me wonder if I'm the only one seeing elephants in the room.

I'm going to end up dead, hospitalized, or on the news.

[allimsaying]

I hope Im not pushing too far, if I am just say so. But thats what happened to me too. Seemed like I was the only one who gave a crap. But consider your audience. If youre trying to convince those that love poisoning themselves with booze drugs and what all that they need to change, thats hard, next to impossible. But if you look at some charitable organizations, they got this a long time ago and have been working at bettering things for a long time. Thats the team Id join.

[EJ711]

HH8,

I don't know about the depression quiz, but I understood everything you wrote in your note.

It is especially difficult when your best friend(s) let you down.

Interestingly enough, I lost a job I had held for seven years two weeks ago tomorrow. I bowed and scraped to keep this damn job. Now that I don't have it, I see myself standing up for myself with friends and other people.

Mental health care in the U.S. is very poor. You should not take responsibility for the poor care that has been given to you by the professionals, and any people around you lacking compassion.

Please note I have no professional training in counseling people, but have endured multiple difficult problems for the last 11years. Please feel free to PM me. I don't sign on here everyday, so it may take me a little while to respond, but I wish you the best.

Don't let the turkeys get you down.

EJ

Originally Posted by helplesshopeless8

I desperately need someone to talk to, but talking to a complete stranger isn't going to help. Catch 22. I went to a mental health clinic a few times. You don't see experienced or even competent therapists at places like these, and the one prescription they put me on--effexor--didn't work for me. They wanted another 3 months to change it to something else.

I was blamed for that--drugs not just 'snapping me out of it.' Thought I had one good, real friend in my life, and she blamed me for my depression. Therapy would work for me and meds would work for me so obviously, it's my fault I'm still depressed.

What comfort is there to be had in 'dumping' on a complete stranger that either 1) you met on the internet and have never/will never lay eyes on, or 2) is a counselor who has only clinical and financial interest in you, and only insofar as needing the least amount of info that will allow them to pick the right drug to put you on?

None.

I live in an emotionally and socially deranged culture. Nobody gives a crap about the people they know in real life, have actual contact with, are friends with or related to. We walk around with our eyes down, staring like soulless zombies into little boxes. Meanwhile, people are cracking up all over the place.

I know what I needed from daydamnone--I need someone to talk to.

That was my unreasonable request. That's just too much to ask. I was to go to a stranger, get drugged up, and come back happy. Eat, shop, eat, shop, eat, shop, fake happy all day, every day, or I'll scrape you off. Go pay someone to talk to, because you have to have a medical degree in order to show basic compassion to someone you call a friend.

And that's exactly what happened.

I am apparently worthless. If I had worth, I'd have a friend to talk to. And I'm now also at a point where I'm too far gone--having a friend to talk to would do me no good now. It's too late. I also have four suicide attempts under my belt.

I really am sick of this. When you see someone depressed, in crisis, you know they're bawling every day--what exactly goes through your head as you shove them away when they need to talk? What exactly is that? I don't recognize that kind of apathy and coldness. Where does it come from?


And how accurate is this site's depression quiz? I scored a 79.

[TheRealFDeal]

I really resonate with what you wrote, HH8. I too feel I have no value because nobody places any value with me. I've lost all my friends. My family seems to have no interest in what really goes on in my life. My 3-1/2 year therapist, who was my only connection to the world, terminated me last month because I was too dependent. I have absolutely no faith or trust in human beings anymore. I can only speak freely on this forum because it's anonymous and I never will actually meet anyone in person. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I feel that it's something of a myth that one can have control over one's own life. S**t happens all the time. Admittedly, I hold an extremely negative view and most everybody disagrees with me. I could go on, but I feel my temperature rising and I don't want to feel this s**t.

[RJ78]

Hi HH8,

You're absolutely right that a number of things have changed in society, and this has happened in a very short timespan. The number of people with mental illnesses, particularly depression, bi-polar and generalized anxiety in the U.S. and Canada has risen exponentially (literally, some say 10 times) since the end of WWII. This is not due to any natural change in human biology, this is due solely to changes in the environment, human biology does not change that quickly.

If we take this as true on some level, how in the world can we explain this troubling phenomenon? It seems to me there are several options, but one of them is NOT that we somehow prefer this state as humans or are somehow weaker on an individual level. This is a large public health issue with serious social ramifications, and yet, the very symptoms of those who suffer from these illnesses add to their social isolation and self-blame.

Interestingly, cancer rates have increased substantially during the same time period, but we generally don't blame cancer patients for their illness. So yes, something disturbing has changed in our social and natural environments that has led to the increase in certain illnesses.

I have found a community of people who can discuss these changes and link them to their individual experiences with illnesses and not feel defeated by it, and I feel quite lucky about this, since for years I felt doomed.

To answer your question, yes, I think that the changes that exist in our North American society, towards a slow embrace of neo-liberal social policies, in which we are all urged to take responsibility for ourselves, and only ourselves, you know, "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" stuff, is severely severing social bonds. And yet, here we are reaching out to each other, trying our best to offer each other support.

For some reason, I care about you. You're right to say that we know nothing about you, but for some oddly compelling set of reasons, right now in this moment I'm thinking about you and your well-being.

RJ

[Hellion]

Sorry you're having to deal with that all, I feel similarly in a lot of ways. I don't like the way some so called mental health 'professionals push drugs and it feels like they just keep cutting you off just to get a very basic amount of info so they can say 'well try this drug if you want to get better.' A lot of psych meds I've tried did anything but make anything better, I ended up commiting myself to a psych ward after giving klonopin a go. Then one of the meds they gave me there started having some nasty effects after I had gotten out....just glad the bad side effects didn't quite kick in while i was there otherwise I'd probably still be there.

I have to agree about the deranged society, I certainly don't like it either...in fact I am sure its a contributing factor in my depression. The only thing I can figure out to do for that is thinking of what could create a better society(though I certainly have no means to put any of it into action). People give me crap for being an idealist because I would like a less deranged society...well sorry for wanting some improvement. I mean it's no wonder quite a few people simply cannot handle it.

I can understand a lot of that frusteration, I don't really have much advice though because I haven't found a solution or peace of mind yet(if such a thing even exists).