[Patandorf]

While I watch the world move forward,
While I watch the news recount tails of violence and death,
While I watch over everyone,
While I watch I am reminded that the universe,
no mater how big or small,
will keep me alive to torment me with this.

Torment me with my past,
Torment me with my love,
Torment me with my compassion,
Torment me with what I have found along the way.

I will always be suffering for things that aren't mine,
I will be always be reminded how things were,
I will never forget,

And the universe will keep going,
And I will keep suffering,
Longing for the time where the universe just says stop.

And when that happens,
I will be more than thankful for my long pain to end.

I just want this to stop,
But things keep holding me back,
Making me suffer though it all,
Killing me and what I am, further and Further.

There is no end to this,
I just want to stop.

I don't think I'm going to end it anytime soon, even thought the pain has gotten far past my level of understanding and coping. I'm almost 22; I have been living with depression for the vast majority of my memorable life and right now, I just can't take it anymore and I don't know what to do from here. Two and a half years ago, I found myself getting help for this; The doctors gave me medicine that made me lose my mind and it took them awhile to realize it. I've been in therapy, I've done most of what I've found in terms of getting different help. I have been open to them all until the last 6 months or so. I have just simply lost faith that any of them know what there doing and have any desire to help me. About 4 weeks ago, I received a message that made my mind just stop. It was nothing bad, It was nothing good either, it was just my friends remarks of his job and how well things went. He's a Paramedic and it got into detail. It made my mind break into several thoughts about how no matter what, I'm just going to keep failing at what I do. 2 weeks ago, I went to my therapist, I didn't want to talk to her about it, but something similar came up and she make me start thinking (eventually) about how I will always fail to meet the expectations of others and how I could never live up to the expectations people have of me that were set by my parents bragging a gloating about how well my older sister was doing in school and was going to be great. I'm in architecture school, and even though I am constantly put down by my teachers (That's just what architecture school is, I'm not saying they have it out for me or anything, they do that to us all because that's just the nature of architecture schooling. Looking elsewhere to go to school, I find the same thing over and over again), I always find a way to be far better in my design work that most everyone (I'm not gloating, or being self-centered by saying that, I most certainly don't think I am, that's what many others have said). Still, no matter how good I am doing, not matter what, I still haven't met the expectations set in front of me. Leaving this past semester, my mother said something to reaffirm this, I can't remember what it was, I just remember feeling like I was nothing to my parents. Right now, It's really bad, and I don't want to go talk to my doctors because thy don't care, they have don nothing but make me worse. I just don't know what to do from here. This pain hurts so very much, much more than what I can handle; all I want is to feel something else, and physical pain is something that has crossed my mind.

As I sit here typing this out, wondering if I should go force myself to eat something, in a relatively mellow moment of my busy day full of product research and trying to figure out what new phone would be best for me to replace my broken non-smart phone (Non of which I have any desire to do), I'm just lost and confused on what to do and what my options are. I have tried it their way and have just lost anything I had, prior to seeking help, of protecting my heart from this. The only think I can think of is ECT, something drastic I have never I would be thinking about as an option, But I don't know how to tell that to them. I have been on many different kinds of medications without any difference, therapy has done nothing. I just don't know what my option are that are left for me or what to do.


I'm sorry this is long, there's just been a lot I have been thinking about lately that I can't figure out. I'm sorry

[Travelinglady]

Don't worry about length, dear one. We have plenty of space at Psych Central!

You say that depression has been a big issue with you for a long time--and it certainly comes out in your poem. I know folks who have tried lots of meds to no avail and even different therapists. I'm wondering, though: Have you been to a therapist who does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? I say that because I can tell that the way you are thinking in itself could create more depression. And, I also say this: Yes, we want our parents to affirm us and to compliment us, but for whatever reasons, some parents just can't or won't do that. It's time to seek affirmation from other people. I was glad to read you acknowledging that you are good at something! Keep saying that to yourself!

A number of folks here say that they have been helped with electro-convulsive therapy, if nothing else has helped. I've been told that it might even be done first in some other countries, before considering meds. However, have all possible meds been tried?

Please have a heart-to-heart talk with your medical professionals as soon as you can. It's too early to give up. Okay?

[Patandorf]

Thank you. First I have no idea what CBT entitles or even is my therapist knows how to do it. I go in and see her and we just talk about anything with no real direction. However, last time it got into how I always had to compete with my sister and how she was always pushed to be number one in her graduation class, both in high school and college, by my parents and how I always had to follow in that. Leading up to how no mater how good I got at anything, I only got pushed into doing things for themselves (my parents). My parents pushed my sister into a lifestyle she enjoyed; I have expressed my dismay with what they had me do, they made me play baseball, basketball and hockey, I was only good at hockey, but I disliked playing sports and I told them. They still kept forcing me to go, my sister played all kinds of sports and was good at them, she also has her Gold award (girl scouts's highest honor). I did boy scouts and the last 5 years of it I disliked it a lot and wanted not to do it anymore, but I got my Eagle award to try and make them happy with me. I never felt love from them, they only cared about themselves and what they can tell others about how "good" of a job they have done. They have given me everything and may have loved me, but I never felt loved. They now know this and I can say for curtain this has happened because the school had to intervene with them when my younger sister started cutter herself. They have changed since then, knowing that not everyone can follow in my sisters strait A, valedictorian, sister who everyone, steps. Even most of my teachers, looks at and compares me and my two younger sisters to her. The little things I hear from them still tell me that there trying to love me, but I'm just not feeling it and it's the little things like their voice changes to a non compassionate tone when they say I (or we) love you. I just feel so alone in all of this and I don't know why I'm so sad.
I'm getting far off topic, I don't know if any of them know what CBT is, I think my primary care physician does because he has started asking me those kinds of things, I think.
With ECT, no, not all possible medications have been tried, in terms of how many there are out there. I have been on a SSRI Fluoxetine, it shatter me into a suicidal place. I have been on Lamotrigine (I'm getting off of it now, I don't know if it ever helped or if stopping it is making this worse), also Bupropion, Buspirone, T3 and T4 thyroid hormones. All, but he thyroid, I have been on for more than 2.25 years with no change. I don't know if switching to a different medication in the same class will do anything different. That's why I started looking outside of medication for something. I never liked being on them in the first place either.
Having a heart-to-heart with my doctors is not something I can do right now, I have lost my trust in them and I just want to get off all this dam medication that has done nothing.
I just don't know what my options are.
Again, I'm sorry for the length. Everything just hurts so much and I'm just having terrible problems keeping to together to make myself do what needs to be done. I just want to lay in bed and do nothing, but Architecture is all I have left and if I fall behind, that's that, I'm done. I already took a year off to deal with this without any progress with help from my doctors and I'm far to along to start over again. I also can't go find another therapist, not by myself, not alone.