[Lifeistoopainful]

What does it mean if you have grown accustomed to depression and the dysfunctional lifestyle that it gave you? When depression feels home, pain has become the companion. If I have lost hope and let the depression make me rot in a corner, tired of struggling then what does it mean? What if the darkness is my home and everything outside is painful? Who am I then? How does it end when I stopped fighting for it to end? Alive but dead?

[basicgoodness]

I am sorry you are in so much pain. Depression is terrible. I am there with you. I hope that you find some relief soon.

[winter4me]

For me, this comes and goes. When I am "there", I do not really believe it has been otherwise, or that it will ever be different. But, the better times, the good moments, I have to remind myself, are just as real. For some reason, they slip away and are lost to mind too easily...
There are times when nothing feels quite as warm, safe, dark & lovely as the corner of a couch under the blanket. I found I did much better with a wood stove---something to be fed, tended, that gives back a soothing warmth, delightful, contained fire. And, I always feel better if I go camping. Even when it seems a stupid, impossible, thing to pull together for.

[Skeezyks]

Sorry you are feeling so bleak, Lifeistoopainful! The Skeezyks is solitary (although he should mention that he is married & he's old... which he believes makes a difference...) Beyond being married, however, he keeps as close to 100% to himself as possible. Some might say the Skeezyks' lifestyle is dysfunctional. But, after many years of struggle, it is the lifestyle he chooses to pursue.

In a sense, perhaps, the Skeezyks has stopped fighting. But, in another sense, he has simply modified the fight. Instead of continuing to fight his way through the outside world, he now strives to bask within the light of solitude. From the Skeezyks' perspective, there is nothing in the outside world that is worth the bother. And, in fact, there is a lot out there that is best avoided. The Skeezyks' point of view is that he is as much alive when alone as he would be were he to venture out... perhaps more so.

Human beings, as we're often told, are social animals. And there's a lot of social pressure to get everyone out there (preferably spending $$$!) The Skeezyks would like to suggest that there is not a gram of wisdom to be had out there... just a lot of argument & delusion. From the Skeezyks' perspective, being out in the world is sort-of walking through a mine field unprotected. It's mostly just a matter of which bomb you'll detonate!

So, with all of that said, from the Skeezyks' perspective, solitude is not darkness, but rather it is the one place there is the potential for light; & choosing to keep the outside world at bay is not dysfunctional. It is a logical response to an insane world. It's all a matter of perspective... But then the Skeezyks is old. It makes a difference...

I offer you my best wishes with the hope that you will be able to find your way out of the darkness.

[Fuzzybear]

[Lifeistoopainful]

I do constantly keep pushing myself against depression and sometimes pretend that nothing is wrong. I act normal, I smile in front of people and cry behind closed doors.

Sleezkys I really liked the way you described it, I feel exactly that way "solitude is not darkness, but rather it is the one place there is the potential for light; & choosing to keep the outside world at bay is not dysfunctional. It is a logical response to an insane world."

But yes you are right that it's easier to embrace solitude and find warmth in it being old, I expect people don't bother much. But being in 20s naturally I face a lot of social pressure from everywhere to act along the norms everyone lives by, as I do indeed live among these people. Living in a forest alone would have been nice perhaps.

I know I will heal again maybe, but the pit of my depression is a black hole that will suck me back again and again churning me in its gut till the day I fear I may completely lose control of myself.

[basicgoodness]

I am old, too, but I still have to be in the working world, where I am subject to a "push, push, push" mentality. A lot of pressure to perform when I feel like I'm dying inside. I know I am not cutting it, which makes the depression even worse.