[BlossomingLen]

Hello. It's been a long time since I last posted on these forums.

I hope everyone's doing alright.

As for me, I just finished crying my eyes out. Today definitely wasn't a good day for me. A lot of very troublesome things happened, which eventually led me down a path of self-introspection.

Even so. I always suspected that maybe my friends were changing. Maybe something was wrong. I wanted to help them. Yet I couldn't gather enough energy to even ask them if they were okay. My conversations with them started to grow more and more stilted and strained, far shorter and awkward. I thought maybe I just wasn't compatible with my friends anymore. Maybe they were changing and I just needed to accept that things change and people grow to be different over time.

But I think I slowly started to realize things about myself, as well. I went from the person who "tries too hard" to the person who "doesn't try at all."

Nowadays, it's difficult to even pull myself out of bed in the morning. I can't bring myself to do work and it's making me more and more stressed the further my work begins to pile up. Plus, I need to look after my brother and make sure he's healthy, eating, and getting everything he needs; because I know he'll forget and slack off with taking care of himself if I don't step in and remind him.

There's the ever-growing fear of my friends eventually leaving me. They're all I have. I used to have around seven friends, but now I have two. One of them hardly even looks my way anymore. The other one, I feel like I'm more of a burden to them than anything else. I constantly rely on them, because apparently I can't handle and fix my problems on my own.

It's just an endless cycle. I lose sleep at night, worrying about tomorrow, about how I'll feel and how I'll think. I try to stay up, drinking coffee, drinking Monster, doing anything that'll keep me awake throughout the night just to delay the inevitable arrival of daytime. Then when it finally arrives, I promise myself to do all these things, to finally step up and become a better and more productive person. But just breathing drains me, just talking drains me, any basic human action and activity only furthers my exhaustion. So I end up resting and moping around, not doing anything. Which results in my work piling up, my self-esteem crashing even further, and me worrying myself sick to the point where I'm afraid of tomorrow coming. Which has me beginning the nights with losing sleep, yet again.

I'm in this huge trench of depression and I don't even know how I wandered into it. Of course, I've had strong episodes of depression before. But at least I saw them coming. I knew why they were there. I knew how it was happening and maybe even how I could stop it. But this came out of nowhere, it hit me, and now I'm stumbling back in an empty daze. I caught me off guard and I'm making no attempt to try and combat it.

Because I've already tried. I've been trying for years. I'm sure this depression episode will simmer down soon. But even then, guilt weighs on my shoulders as I type that. Because it really does feel like a lie. It feels like I won't ever feel better, I won't ever get out of this hole that I dug myself into. At this current moment in time, I feel nothing but emptiness and hopelessness. Exhaustion and despair. Not a single bone in my body wants to try anymore. Even my fingers ache from typing this post, they just want to rest.

It wasn't my friends, my family, my environment, or anything that were changing. There were all the same people, locations, and feelings I've known throughout my life. I'm the one who's changing. I see this and it terrifies me. Yet I can't make an effort to fix or mend any of it. It feels impossible.

I finally understand.

I'm really sorry if I bummed anyone out. I just really wanted to vent. I just have no one else to turn to or talk to at this point. My friends won't listen anymore, my family are too busy to listen, I can't get a Therapist and I'm just cooped up in my house until I'm finally old enough to move out.

You don't have to feel obliged to give me advice or respond, if you don't want to.

Thank you so much for reading.

I'm sincerely sorry to read that you're having such a rough time. Why can't you get a consultation with a therapist or psychiatrist? Have you tried any antidepressants? Is it possible for you to attend a support group for depression or mood disorders?

[Skeezyks]

Hello BlossomingLen: The Skeezyks doesn't have any advice to offer. I simply wanted to leave note letting you know I read your post & sending you my best wishes for better times to come in your life.

[Fuzzybear]

[Rohag]

Hello, BlossomingLen!
I'm concerned about your lack of sleep, most especially your lack of quality sleep. Good sleep doesn't resolve difficulties on its own, but the lack of it makes everything worse.
Wishing you some good rest.

[Misterpain]

Len there's good news and bad news, what you are experiencing sucks,but it does get better , the distortions you experience are because of not sleeping , your brain does more things when you are asleep then when you are awake,when you sleep your brain processes all the information it gets from all of your senses, it process memories and puts them where they need to go so you can recall them later, damn where did I put my keys ? Take a power nap yes it sounds strange but it's true before you ransack the house and get no where fast take a break , and you are more likely to remember spontaneously, of course if you rip the couch apart you'll find money you did not know you had but finding all that change isn't worth it ,because you found all those quarters that fell out of your pocket , but guess what still no keys your back to square one .
Most people think insomnia and go call a shrink to get some sleeping pills, wrong answer go to someone who is trained to do the job a sleep pathologist, sounds simple but it's really not because these experts in sleep are a real small crowd as in in the entire United states there are 6000 licensed but some of these guys don't see patients on a regular basis they do research , then there are those that for some reason are not practicing , but don't despair there is another group who have some of the needed skills alot of Pulmonologists also cross train because sleep apnea is a silent killer , now in the good old days they would put you in a sleep lab ,but if you can't sleep at home ,how are you going to sleep in a strange bed with wires attached all over your head and body, we've come along way baby ! You can can one to go, with tachonology and miniaturized electronics you can go home and not sleep in your own bed ,now alot of us used to go to the lab and get wired up and go to bed only to be told they don't know anything because you did not sleep,but that's were the get one to go is awesome because you can take it home and study the ceiling day and night until you do sleep and it gets a whole bunch of data a all your Brain waves muscle activity ,oxygen saturation level, pulse, blood pressure, how much light sleep, how much deep sleep, ah there I bored you to sleep and your gonna hate me when you wake up,because with alot of us insomnia sucks but a little sleep will make you feel worse. Balancing your mood has alot to do with your sleep, and in case you missed it going to a Psychiatrist will likely get you miss diagnosed as bipolar and given a script for an atypical antipsychotic, this is bad those things tear up you sleep cycle even more and Psychiatrist have been told stop using those things as first line therapy for insomnia, it has something to do with the oath that Doctors newly minted from those institutions of higher learning used to take ( alot of places skip it these days) but "First do no harm" is in there and they are supposed to know it, even though said school did not teach it , oh and just so you know a sleep study is Polysomnography so when you hear it again it does not make you Humm, I am not a doctor ,I did not play one on TV, but I did NOT sleep at a certain hotel last night, now I won't give you the whole sleep hygiene Speach unless you want me to , I will say people have been doing battle with not getting enough or any sleep since we discovered fire and brought it into those nice dark caves we used to call home, and then they invention of the light bulb was the shot heard around the world and has been bringing circadian rhythm disorders to a place near you ever since, and here's the really bad news that cell phone ,tablet, or computer monitor your starring into the evidence is piling up that LED is even worse than the original light bulb ,now I can't tell you concretely what to do but that evidence is starting to say put that thing to bed a good two hours before you try not to Sleep! Sad but true oh and this also applyies to those video game consoles and we won't even talk about those refresh rates and crazy strobing lighting that cause some of us with epilepsy to have seizures, I remember getting a refund for my admission price when "Saving Private Ryan" premiered had the popcorn, the soda, Gummi bears and milk duds and the film started going and those damn little holes at the edge of the screen set me off, and then the nurses at the hospital reassuring me I was alright because theres nothing worse then kicking someone's butt because your really confused and cranky post ictal .if you ever need a friend or more info on something I'll be there just post or PM me, if something gives you the feeling I am an idiot,I plead auto correct.

Card carrying member of the not sleeping club since about 1975, membership has its privileges in the club you never wanted to Join!

If you learned something great, if it made you smile even better ,if your just waking up yes I am just shutting up now.

Misterpain

[MickeyCheeky]

I'm sorry you're struggling I can relate. Can you try to see a doctor/therapist? Maybe that will help