Aibu to ask for your advice about depression

[Whatintheworldisthat]

I've had depression for a very long time, it's almost become part of my personality to be honest... I started a new job last year and although I love it, it's quite intense. Work also paid for me to do an MA in the field so I could advance this September. For the last 2 months I have been given study leave to finish my dissertation and to do the required placement for the MA. It's been good but obviously this leave isn't paid and I have had to watch my spending.

My life is a bit chaotic at the moment. My mother is unwell and my dad isnt good either. My sister just got divorced and is demanding a lot of my time as she is lonely. I have been between mine and her house constantly. She doesn't let me have time on my own she will always turn up unannounced....

For the last 2 months I have really been struggling to wake up. To the point on a few days I have stayed in bed all day and slept again all night. I am extremely irritable and tearful. My whole body aches all the time. For some reason I have also dropped a stone and my face is gaunt. My hair is falling out, and I have started to self harm again for the first time in a very long time.

I just really need some advice. I need to get through the last stages of this MA, but again I have woken up today and felt completely dead. No matter how much i sleep I can't wake up.

The university know I am struggling but it's a distance learning course so they haven't been able to do much really.

I just really need some tips, how do you study with bad depression?

First of all I’ll say you have a lot on your plate and that’s enough to make anybody feel overwhelmed.

Have you spoken to anybody IRL about your depression - it’s a difficult beast to tackle and it impacts people in a myriad of different ways. If you haven’t already, I would seriously recommend going to see your doctor for advice. I know that can seem like putting yourself in the spotlight and it is difficult to open up about certain issues, but truly you can benefit from their help.

I can’t offer advice on studying whilst suffering from depression but I can share my experiences with it.

My depression was similar to yours, sleeping constantly, my reason for this, discovered upon self reflection, was that I wanted to try and block out all the chaos in my life that made me feel like I was drowning, through sleep (basically like sticking my head in the sand).

When I had my better days I found myself throwing my energy into helping others through their difficulties whilst not taking time to care for myself or my own needs. Then feeling overwhelmed again and restarting the cycle of sleeping too much.

I started off trying to improve my situation with setting myself a simple task that needed completing each day, just one, to be done at any point. Some days I didn’t manage to get the energy to complete those tasks and I’d feel guilty but then that would be my task for the next day.

After a while I found myself completing more things (basics like tidying, changing from pj’s to clothes, reading a bit etc.) and I found my mood improved somewhat, but I still struggled to get up at a reasonable time. Or would feel the urge back to sleep after getting up at a good time, doing a bit around the house then running out of steam. It took a long time and also cutting myself off from others a bit, to focus on myself, to get back to stability.

My GP helped a lot and when I opened up to friends and close family, they were as supportive as they could be.

Be kind to yourself, please, I hope things improve for you soon

Ok, so I had to take an extra year in my final year of uni due to this and I'll share what I did then...(although years ago)

Mine too was due to family stress and work, I was also working part time too...I related the year basically in the days of grants (so had another grant and loan) but the main thing was counselling and cutting down / boundaries with family. and any other stress. also I had prozac which seemed to help me focus