Depression, anxiety, and (1) relationships

Since I'm on the internet and none of you can see my face, I'd like to tell you all a story I've told roughly zero people in ever. (This is an exaggeration; my therapist is aware of it, as is my current girlfriend. However, it is something that I don't talk about, in general, even if it comes up in conversation.)

I have both depression and anxiety. This is not uncommon, as they frequently come together. Neither are severe. (My girlfriend has severe anxiety, and has been hospitalized over a dozen times for it, and is only now, at the age of 23, starting to get it under control to the point where she can put her life back on track.) I'd like to write a blog, maybe a few blogs, on how these illnesses, untreated, can impact your life. I'd like it if those of you who are experiencing things similar to what I've experienced read this and identified. And for those of you who can identify, I'd like to keep my message simple.

Get help.

--

I will preface this by saying that I am an incredibly lucky person. I have struggled with these illnesses since I was around 14, but they were only diagnosed recently. In spite of this, I have led an objectively successful life: I have a job, which I have held down for several years; I did very well in college; I am typically dating somebody. I'm fairly smart, I am hardworking when I can focus, and the sight of me naked doesn't make women vomit uncontrollably. In general, I am my own worst enemy. This is mostly due to luck. I've had very little to do with it until recently.

The first subject I'd like to tackle is relationships.

--

Tell me: What would you think about a relationship you were in if you frequently, although with no regularity, felt shitty around your partner? If you take those scenarios in a vacuum, you would probably draw the conclusion that your subconscious was telling you that your partner wasn't right for you. The notion that you feel good around someone who is a good partner is fairly intuitive.

But what if, other times, you felt incredible around your partner? The sight of them filled you with love, with devotion and admiration and protectiveness and attraction, and you couldn't imagine being with anybody else.

What if you were both sharply critical and strongly admiring? What if some days you wanted to fuck them three or four times in a day, and others you didn't even want her to touch you? What if some days you couldn't wait to see them, and other days the instant you saw them you felt nothing but irritation?

If you're me, at least, you'd be pretty fucking confused. This has been me since I started dating. Some days I felt wonderful around my partner, and some I felt like dogshit after a day in the sun. Having no point of reference, my assumption was that this was called "being confused about a relationship."

But being confused goes away after a while. When you think about it, you come to a conclusion, one way or another. I never did. I always held part of myself back, and as a result, I was frequently moody with no explanation, very inconsistent, and generally just not a good partner. That I ever held down a girlfriend for longer than a month is a miracle to me.

What do those feelings really mean? I have termed them, for lack of (creativity) a better phrase, bad feelings. The italics are important. They're inexplicable negative feelings. Sometimes they manifest as irritation; sometimes as sadness; sometimes (frequently, for me) as completely uninhibited, unrestrained anger. (Again, I am lucky: I grew up in a Quaker school, and so violence against others, even when I am furious, does not even occur to me. If I had gone to public school, if I had hit somebody even 1/100th or 1/1000th of the times I'd wanted to hit someone, I'd probably be in jail.)

None of these emotions had any source, but all emotions carry information. If you examine a feeling you get, you should be able to determine two things: What the feeling is, and where it comes from. When you put those two things together, you can learn what an emotion means. As a (very silly) example:

You have a bad feeling. It's pretty apparent that it's anger, from the way that you want to pull somebody's tongue out through their asshole. It clearly comes from the fact that this somebody just spat on you. You put those two things together, and you determine that you're angry at someone for spitting on you. You can follow that back further and understand that you don't like being spat on.

This example is quite silly, but it's demonstrative. Take something from a relationship: Your girlfriend has come over and asked you to clean your dishes, they're gross. You get angry. You're angry at being told what to do. But you can follow that further, and maybe you find out that there's been a pattern of you getting angry when your girlfriend asks you to do things in your own house, but when your girlfriend asks you to clean the dishes at her house, you don't mind. You can quite reasonably come to the conclusion that you feel like your personal space is being intruded upon. Your bad feeling had a source and an emotion, and it carried with it some important information.

Bad feelings which come from depression may not carry any such information, and this is where I, at least, got into trouble, because I assumed they did. These feelings had no source, because their source was an illness called depression. I would be sitting on the couch watching television with my girlfriend, and suddenly start to feel angry, or sad, or irritable. There was no reason, so I began to believe it was because I secretly hated her; because she wasn't right for me, and my heart was trying to tell me as much. In retrospect, that's quite melodramatic, but at the time, it didn't seem so.

So I was confused, in a big way, and it showed. Nowhere concrete, nowhere distinctive, but it was always present in my behavior, and it was always just a manner about me. I was always a little standoffish. I would maintain my personal space even when there was no reason for it, when I didn't even really care about it. Because I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to throw myself at somebody who I wasn't sure about. And there was no way I could have been sure, in that mindset.

Now, let's be clear - some people are just reasonably uncertain about their partners. They simply haven't made up their minds yet. This situation is different from that one. I am not an indecisive person. I try to make my relationships work, even when I undermine myself in the sorts of ways I've illustrated.

The other half of this picture is self-esteem. Anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem are good friends. There's not a lot to be said on this topic - when you feel bad, especially inexplicably, you don't also feel like someone who can make pants disappear with a look and a come hither. Sometimes you justify this to yourself - I certainly did. I reasoned that I was annoying, unattractive, socially inept, which is why women avoided me. Except for all the women I'd dated, but I ignored them. It defies logic, because there's nothing logical about it. There's not a whole lot to illustrate on this point. I still haven't figured out how to raise my own self esteem to the point where I feel like I could get a girl if I tried. It's led me to wonder if the love I feel for my girlfriend isn't just relief. Sometimes I get flashes of confidence - I'll look in the mirror and say "I'm not Brad Pitt but I'm not Danny DeVito either," or "I can't count the number of times that I've had a girl, or many girls, or many girls and guys, in stitches with laughter." But depression erases that. Or makes it harder to remember, anyway.

I still haven't figured out how to be in a healthy relationship, but I've figured out what helps - being honest. Instead of being moody, instead of getting angry or irritated for no reason, I'll tell my girlfriend flatly, "I'm feeling depressed right now, and I don't have a reason for it." And I'm lucky that she's had a similar background, so she can understand intimately. But I don't think that any partner who loves you and is worth being with wouldn't at least try to understand. So to those of you who are reading this who struggle with similar sets of feelings, if you trust your partner, try explaining it to them. And if you don't, but your partner does, understand.

--

That's me on relationships.

I'd like to reiterate: If you find yourself in a situation similar to mine, or you simply find yourself experiencing frequent, unprecedented, unpredictable, incomprehensible bad feelings, which prevent you from keeping a healthy relationship, from holding down a job, from treating yourself well, I'd like to encourage you again to get help. See a therapist. Get treatment. Nobody will force drugs down your throat and nobody will withhold them from you. Nobody will ask you to cry about your childhood and nobody will stop you from doing so. Because I finally took others' advice and sought out help, I am learning to cope with my issues, and push towards leading a normal, healthy life.

Last edit: 2012-03-22 05:12:57

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

StarStruck March 22 2012 04:27. Posts 19309

You cannot help those who don't want help. You can encourage and support them, but it always comes down to them in the end.

P.S. about your mood swings (as I have quite a few of them myself), its only a symptom to the problem. Not the problem itself. Sounds like you have a lot of unfinished bullshit to deal with.

English United States. March 22 2012 04:29. Posts 444

Very well written and informative. I gained a lot of insight through this post and hope it helps people in a similar situation.

Vega62a March 22 2012 04:43. Posts 702

On March 22 2012 04:27 StarStruck wrote:
You cannot help those who don't want help. You can encourage and support them, but it always comes down to them in the end.

P.S. about your mood swings (as I have quite a few of them myself), its only a symptom to the problem. Not the problem itself. Sounds like you have a lot of unfinished bullshit to deal with.

My goal isn't to fix people's problems. It's to show people that their problems are not existential or magical, but real illnesses that can be treated. That's why I said "get help," not, "let me help you."

If I didn't indicate that my mood swings were explicitly a result of my depression, I apologize. That's what it is. I'm quite aware of it. But reading through my post, I feel like it was fairly clear - I've added a line to say it outright, though. It kind of sounds like you didn't read the post.

Last edit: 2012-03-22 04:46:40

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

viOLetFanClub Korea (South). March 22 2012 04:51. Posts 388

On March 22 2012 04:43 Vega62a wrote:

TL's not the best website to help people that need psychiatric help, sir.

Vega62a March 22 2012 04:54. Posts 702

On March 22 2012 04:51 k1mjee wrote:

TL's not the best website to help people that need psychiatric help, sir.

o.O so your message is "don't even try?"

TL is the only place on the internet I go that has any sort of traffic and I can still be anonymous.

(Spoiler for irrelevant comment, as pointed out to me later. Not going to edit it out as I'm not trying to dodge it.)
+ Show Spoiler +
I don't understand why my sharing what I've been through in the hopes that someone might relate is met with hostility. I don't feel I've been condescending or offensive, or that anything I have said is incorrect or misleading or generally damaging to anybody. In the very worst case, it's nothing, because, as you said, perhaps people will ignore it. If someone could explain, I'd appreciate it. Ah, internet.

Last edit: 2012-03-22 05:54:31

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

FourFace March 22 2012 04:59. Posts 701

I got 99 problems and depression and anxiety are 2 of them. Good blog.

I don't know, lynch me!

guN-viCe United States. March 22 2012 05:08. Posts 561

You write well. Good post.

Never give up, never surrender!!! ~~ Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -Sagan

MadNeSs Denmark. March 22 2012 05:24. Posts 1504

can someone make a tl;dr version of OP for me, please. I dont have time to red all this, but sounds like it's interesting.

Vega62a March 22 2012 05:28. Posts 702

On March 22 2012 05:24 MadNeSs wrote:
can someone make a tl;dr version of OP for me, please. I dont have time to red all this, but sounds like it's interesting.

tl;dr: Depression can lead to frequent, powerful, baseless instances of extremely negative feeling which can manifest in a number of ways, and ruin a relationship.

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

viOLetFanClub Korea (South). March 22 2012 05:35. Posts 388

On March 22 2012 04:54 Vega62a wrote:

o.O so your message is "don't even try?"

TL is the only place on the internet I go that has any sort of traffic and I can still be anonymous.

Are you the same person who says "Oh sure, Incontrol beat Sleep, but he did cannon shenannigans so it's not legit. And plus Sleep was probably tired. And plus Incontrol plays Protoss. And plus I hate Incontrol?"

I don't understand why my sharing what I've been through in the hopes that someone might relate is met with hostility. I don't feel I've been condescending or offensive, or that anything I have said is incorrect or misleading or generally damaging to anybody. In the very worst case, it's nothing, because, as you said, perhaps people will ignore it. If someone could explain, I'd appreciate it. Ah, internet.

Appreciate your enthusiasm to help others, I was just saying that this would be of more assistance if you posted it on a website that had more traffic geared to those that need help, and not gamers (for the most part). I wasn't taking away from the article/piece you wrote at all, I was just merely saying maybe it would be used better if it was posted somewhere where the majority of people look for things like this.

Also, what the fuck @ that analogy with (P)

iNcontroL and (Z)

Sleep? Not even related.

NonY March 22 2012 05:40. Posts 6939

On March 22 2012 04:43 Vega62a wrote:

What do you mean by 'existential' here? I don't get it.

"Fucking up is part of it. If you can't fail, you have to always win. And I don't think you can always win." Elliott Smith ------ Yet no sudden rage darkened his face, and his eyes were calm as they studied her. Then he smiled. 'Witness.'

FFGenerations March 22 2012 05:41. Posts 2652

before you can be loved , or before you can love another , you should find out how to love yourself :/ kinda thing

Cool BW Music Vid - youtube.com/watch?v=W54nlqJ-Nx8

Vega62a March 22 2012 05:42. Posts 702

On March 22 2012 05:35 k1mjee wrote:

iNcontroL and (Z)

Sleep? Not even related.

The inc/sleep thing was just an analogy for strong, baseless negativity. It made sense to me :/ But then, a lot of things make sense to me and not to anyone else. I don't think that's a good thing

I've edited it into a spoiler, though, because it's not relevant, you're right.

I understand that the population of TL isn't coming here looking for psychological advice. But I also understand that depression and anxiety are very prevalent in the gaming community, so to my mind, this is an excellent place to post it.

Last edit: 2012-03-22 05:45:50

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

Brutaxilos United States. March 22 2012 05:44. Posts 887

On March 22 2012 05:40 Liquid`NonY wrote:

What do you mean by 'existential' here? I don't get it.

I recently searched you up on liquipedia and it stated that you have been dealing with depression as well. How have you managed it? Thanks.

Vega62a March 22 2012 05:45. Posts 702

On March 22 2012 05:40 Liquid`NonY wrote:

What do you mean by 'existential' here? I don't get it.

Poor choice of words, thanks for pointing that out. The wordy intended meaning was that strong, baseless negative feelings are not necessarily a result of a specific problem with the things or people that are in your life, or a general dissatisfaction with your life, but from a specific mental illness.

If anyone has a suggestion as to how to succinctly word this, I'd appreciate it. I can't think of one for the life of me.

Last edit: 2012-03-22 05:55:26

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

FFGenerations March 22 2012 05:46. Posts 2652

if you arent comfortable with yourself then its more difficult to be comfortable with things in general ; how can you be "cool" about a problem when you arent able to be cool about or within or with yourself ?

Last edit: 2012-03-22 05:46:33

Cool BW Music Vid - youtube.com/watch?v=W54nlqJ-Nx8

Vega62a March 22 2012 05:47. Posts 702

On March 22 2012 05:46 FFGenerations wrote:
if you arent comfortable with yourself then its more difficult to be comfortable with things in general ; how can you be "cool" about a problem when you arent able to be cool about or within or with yourself ?

o.O Who's being cool about what now?

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

Vega62a March 22 2012 05:54. Posts 702

Edit: Misclick, sorry.

Last edit: 2012-03-22 05:54:12

Content of my posts reflects only my personal opinions, and not those of any employer or subsidiary

Nudelfisk Sweden. March 22 2012 05:55. Posts 99