Not sure where to go from here

[Jerry1111]

Well my story is a little long but any input would be appreciated:

To start off at present situation i am on abilify, paxil, lamictal. I have overdosed on sleeping pills once and another time on effexor. I have also been to 3 different mental hospitals. I have not been to the hospital for awhile now i think its close to a year now.

I have always suffered from depression even as a child. Back then i thought it was just social anxiety or that there was something weird about me. I didnt even realize what was wrong with me until after college when i first overdosed on sleeping pills.

Now what i have been having a problem with the most is an ex-girlfriend that I was almost married to. We had been friends throughout all of highschool and she had a crush on me the whole time and i didnt know this. We hung around same group of friends and she dated all of them she told me so that she could be closer to me. So after highschool my friend tipped me off that I should ask her out and so I did. She was very excited and we dated for 4 years after that and even got an apartment together. We spent every day together and seemed to be getting along perfect. Well time passed on and then on the weekends she would leave town and come back late sunday night. She said she was hanging out with girlfriends of her. I believed her and thought nothing of it.

Fast forward a few weeks/months and suddenly while in bed she would act all weird like she didnt want to be touched. This was a far cry from how she was before when she would stare at me naked in the shower and say what a "work of art" i was. I couldnt figure out what was wrong I mean i even had ring picked out for her to get engaged and she knew it. Well shortly after, I woke up one morning and she was getting ready for work and told me its over and gave me no explanation and just left. She moved her belongings out the next day and I never saw or heard from her again.

Well as I sit here today 8 years after breakup and basically a mess of a life I still cant get her completely out of my mind. I have not dated seriously since her and I feel like im cheating if I do. Sometimes I get weird dreams with her in it and then i wake up in a cold sweat and wish I could go back in time and fix whatever went wrong. It just kills me that I dont know what I did wrong and to me she was the perfect girl and she felt same way about me for a long time. Im not sure what to do to get rid of thoughts of her. I mean I failed in my 8 years in college in attaining a degree because of depression and no confidence in myself in learning how to handle harder challenges the correct way. I have gone from 150 lbs to 225lbs and it just compounds being depressed. I have tried to diet/exercise and see no result after first month or so and quit. Just getting the energy to do that takes massive will power for me.

I have a deep resentment against society for my treatment all throughout school. I know how people really are and it just bugs me because I know the only difference as adults now is that they are better at hiding their true feeling about you because they know its not socially accepted. I hate the day time because of the brightness of the sunlight and all the noises it irritates to the point of having to sleep during the days and staying up at nights instead. I feel like I cant move up in life in my current situation even if I wanted to. I am on disability and was just finally approved for this after a 3+ year hassle. I would love to be part of the working force again and be a "normal"person but on disablity you cant make extra income. The other problem is many days are just trash for me where I cant seem to function at all and I become extremely angry/deperessed. This doesnt exactly equate into a winning formula for working a job with a regular schedule. I never know how that day will be until its come and gone. So the point is I want to move forward and the governement doesnt encourage it and to top it off even if I wanted to, what kind of real career would let me just take days off or even weeks because in their ignorant eyes ïm just not feeling good"?

Well I hope you made it this far into reading this post. Just wanted some advice on what to do next...

[crystalgaze]

Hi there Jerry. Welcome to the forum! Write to your heart's content. It's alright. (I'm a long poster myself.)

We are similar. I was on Lamictal for a short time. I overdosed as well. I was in a mental hospital also. We both survived, so YAY! for that.

I was also depressed as a kid. I didn't entirely accept what was wrong, until after I overdosed as well.

There was an ex-boyfriend who I was with for about 4 years. He cheated on me & left. I had always told him when he didn't want to be with me to just tell me. He didn't tell me, until about 6 months after he had already gotten in with another girl. The only thing I was mad at him for was not telling me sooner & then the stuff that played out after that.

He left, but it's okay. I believe it was for the best.

As for the weight, I went from somewhere around 120 or 130 lbs to 200 210 lbs before saying, "Okay. I've got to do something about this." I lost 20 lbs and stopped. I tried on & off for about 3 years before I even lost the same 20 lb I just mentioned. I would quit as well.

I've decided to do my weight loss in bursts because that's what I can do. Maybe something like that might work for you. I am getting ready to do my next burst soon. (I've lost a lot of strength I used to have from not exercising.) The longest I've gone with exercise is about 3 months.

I am going to work to exercising every day (yoga), though.... I'm just not there yet (& that's okay).

My advice here to lose the weight & keep it off is to find something you like to do. I used to dance & love dancing & do it almost every day. That's how I stayed 130 lbs. When I stopped doing it & didn't find something else to do that I liked, that's when I gained a bunch of weight. I also ate too much junk food & my portions were too huge. It took me a while to realize it, though.

Overall, I would say baby steps, patience & a plan might help. Do you like to write? Maybe keeping a log of every thing you want to do & what steps you want to take to get there might be worth a try. You can always post it, if you feel comfortable on here for input.

That's how I got as far as I am now... I'm still not where I want to be but it's far from where I started.

One thing that was a really crucial part in being more functional was that I believed that I would be able to get better & that I only had to search myself to find some kind of answer, as a starter for more thought & eventual action. I guess that was called hope....

I made sure to build on that belief little by little. There were days when I didn't feel like I would get better or at least be functional, but I kept plotting away any way and backing off for a short while when I needed to do so/nothing good would come of it.

What you might want to do also is check out other threads/topics on the forum to see if there is any thing that might be of value to you. For example, you can just click on someone's user name to find all of their posts or you can look in the different sections.

Take care & chin up because you can do it! ~Crystal

[Jerry1111]

Thanks for the reply crystal. Yes it seems like alot of the battle is just tricking my brain into thinking positive and looking at things in a more positive light. My problem is I always go back to the way I naturally feel or something triggers negative thoughts or memories. So I guess I just have to work at it some more.

I know the weight thing would help me out alot because when i weighed less i had more energy than i knew what to do with and girls actually found me attractive at one time. This helps self esteem and I guess I just gotta work at it and stick with it. Its just you always want to see results and they dont happen right away. I remember my therapist said that its not a mind over matter type of sickness. The medical world wants you to believe they can only fix it through synthetic drugs. Ive been fighting this train of thought for awhile and want to prove her wrong with the rest of the medical world. It seems they are only there to make money off of you instead of truly trying to help.

Ty for a little bit of inspiration. Going to check some of the other members as you suggested and see if i can gain some more insight

[Mich]

Jerry - I just wanted you to know that I read your post and I can tell you are suffering greatly. I am severely depressed (also with many overdoses and mental hospital stays) and I understand how debilitating this condition is. Your story is a painful one and I am wondering if you have ever talked it out in therapy? You have a lot to share and perhaps a trained therapist could help you work through the painful feelings that you are experiencing. I hope you keep posting. It's good to see a new person here...I am relatively new too. Take care today.

[xn728]

hi jerry 1111 not much to say just now ,my wife is poorly and im not so good ,but i welcome you to the forum ,and look forward to speaking in the near future ,i o,d,ed 3 times many years ago and have had simalar problems ,you will have many new freinds on here ,and just share
xn728 ken