To ask if anyone else has plunged into a horrible depression recently?

[SweetCruciferous]

First lockdown was a weird time and all and a bit claustrophobic with some low moments but manageable. At times it was also even quite pleasant and cosy, and I enjoyed the increased opportunities available to get involved in new stuff online (‘hey there’s a Bhangra class in LA on Tuesday morning!’)

But at some point recently things have plunged mentally (for me) and it just feels like a Netherland of unrelenting swampy gloom.

There are contributing worries/issues in my own life which were there before all this happened, however they no longer seem resolvable – it sort of feels like the die is cast, which I wonder/suppose is at least in part to do with the fact that life is kind of suspended and it’s difficult to focus on the future or positive change. I am no longer approaching things with a ‘good attitude’

Just wondering if it’s just me or if others are experiencing similar at the mo?!?

YANBU - can relate
YABU - can’t relate

Solidarity and virtual hugs to you all.

I feel so low, I have no motivation for anything. After a long running battle with infertility, the things in life I took solace in (travel, career) have completely gone to pot too. Every day just seems gray and pointless.

I'm normally a sunny, smiley person with things to look forwards to. I need external motivation.

I'm empty.

When I am doing something nice, like meeting a friend, it feels tainted and fragile. I ran a half marathon a couple of weeks ago, but with that county going into tier 2 that week, I didn't have the confidence believe that it was going to happen until the night before. It was well organised, but incredibly quiet. I'm an average runner and have never been alone by mile 3 before. It didn't have the atmosphere and I didn't get that glow from doing it.

Everything feels like a chore.

I've always been cheered up by sunshine, and that doesn't work anymore. Even in the deepest grief, sunshine lifted the day.

I'm snappy with the children. One has SNs and I'm so worn by that extra bit of effort to get him to doing things like putting shoes on than it would normally be for his age. 5.5 months of pretty much constant company was not healthy.

I know the real cure is a few months of normality. Normal interactions. Spontenaity. Trusting that there are things to look forwards to, and enjoying.

I am begining to wonder if I need something to bridge me over until the spring when normality can resume. I cycle between empty, numb and angry. I wasn't an angry person. Temporarily cross, but not a tetchy, simmering anger that I now get some days.

YANBU. I'm one of life's "copers" but I'm really struggling with this second lockdown in particular and can't sleep, have no motivation whatsoever and no energy. My heart is racing and I can't be bothered to even brush my hair or teeth a lot of the time.

It is so hard. I am trying to WFH but have completely lost focus and feel totally overwhelmed. A colleague resigned a couple of weeks ago as her mental health had got so bad and now she has been signed off sick for her entire notice period. So my team are picking up all her work and a lot of it is quite specialised so only I can do it. We are on a recruitment freeze so no possibility of a replacement any time soon. I'm stuck at home with my adult DSS who is also experiencing extreme mental health issues. My husband is a key worker so he gets to leave the house everyday and my daughter is at college but I don't get to see anyone except on Teams. I am so so miserable and it all feels so bleak.

@BogRollBOGOF YES to "everything feels like a chore".

I feel like everything, even the smallest thing is 10% harder. And it is hard to find joy in it, even things that are normally a pleasure, because of the constant stress of covid rules and whether I might do something wrong. If I take the kids anywhere I'm stressing about whether they will upset other people by getting too close or touching something, or getting the one way system wrong (toddler and 5 year old, so it is inevitable), and then I become naggy strict Mummy all the time, which is horrible. I went to a work thing last week, someone had brought in homemade biscuits to cheer everyone up, which was lovely, but then led to a whole palava about how we can't share food or touch utensils in common and this was a bad thing to have done, so again a moment of simple joy became stressful and depressing.

I'm fortunate enough to be unaffected financially, and I don't have children to worry about. I had one vulnerable parent but she died in May. I have my DH who is mentally strong. I don't spend any time really worrying about becoming ill, or wondering when it will all end...but I have started obsessively worrying about small things that wouldn't have bothered me much before.

I've become rather over-analytical, cynical, impatient and insular. I think it's spending so much of my day in silence opposite a laptop, with occasional teams calls. This life is very strange.

I think it's very normal to find this one more mentally challenging.

Personally I feel very drained but I'm still going through the motions, trying to organise my life in a way that forces me to get out and about, take regular exercise, take pleasure in organising and planning the things i can control and surrendering the fact that there are large swathes of things I can't plan for right now.

Yes, I hit that wall this weekend. I work in a secondary school and the anxiety of facing work, feeling unsafe and the inability to control my surroundings is just too stressful. I only get paid a little more than the minimum wage too, so its not even financially lucrative.

Yes, I am struggling. This one should be better, as last time I was made redundant 4 days before lockdown and nursery closed, but it's not. We have been "Tier 1"/lowest cases since June so have had a fair amount of freedom and even went on a weekend to a theme park in September. I have a new job, nursery is open. But there's just this black cloud as I realise that yes, Boris's strategy really is going to be to faff, faff, faff and then lockdown again on repeat.

I suffer from very poor MH triggered by the death of my DD 7 years ago. People with no previous history are suffering but what some will be experiencing are magnified expected but difficult emotions in what is an extreme time. It will pass once we have a vaccine or the virus burns out hopefully basically when this time is over. I have had to manage my MH for years, it’s very tiring but below is what I do to help maintain it.

When feeling very low try and change what you are physically doing
Do not drink alcohol at all it is a known depressant.
Talk with someone trusted irl if you can and /or on here
Exercise regularly however little
Eat as healthily as possible
Draw, paint
Write down your feelings and destroy them after if you want no one to find them
If you have contact you don’t want with anyone that causes you distress consider if that has to continue at all or minimise it
Practice deep breathing

A lot of this is about centering and distracting yourself and not ruminating.

Yes. I noticed it a few weeks ago. I’m actually feeling a bit better since acquiring a SAD lamp and starting to take vitamin D (4000 IU).

I'm generally pretty optimistic, but this is very depressing.

I'm vulnerable, so have been almost 100% at home since early March. No social life, no holidays, no visiting friends or family. Combined with endless reporting and commenting on how we 'should leave the old and vulnerable to die', this is the most depressed I've ever been.

@Valkadin - I’m so terribly sorry about your dd. I know this time must be so much harder for some people.

It's because of the seasons. Most people prefer spring and summer.

I'm the other way round in that I don't like that time of year. I get depressed and I found the 1st lockdown unbearable.

My time of year is autumn and I'm feeling better for lockdown 2.

There is a name for this, called SAD, which applies to most people in this thread but I have the opposite version.

It's not at all related to the time of year for me. In fact, maybe it is, since September to Christmas is my favourite time as I love being out and about in autumn and winter. It feels like it's being taken away this year.

Can totally relate!

We had a baby in the first lockdown and I was finally starting to see my NCT friends more and enjoying motherhood now we're out of the newborn phase.

The idea of being locked down again is wrecking me mentally.

I'm clutching on to the two things that really matter to me. DS continuing to go to school and being able to do my outdoor exercise classes, or if that isn't allowed, continuing to run with my friend.

I've started to step away from some mumsnet discussions. I'll have typed out my reply and then I think am I robust enough to deal with any responses, and if the answer is No then I will delete it. I'm teaching myself that I can't change peoples views sometimes so it's easier to not engage.

I've stopped watching news if I can help it. It's funny as DH is so different from me as he enjoys understanding all the numbers and information whereas I get overload. I refuse to let him talk to me about Brexit - simply can't cope with any more what ifs and economic disaster projections.

I've had moments like this. I'm feeling better from focussing on what I can control - getting out before work every morning for daylight and exercise, meeting up with people outdoors as far as is allowed, thinking of stuff I want to learn and do with this time.

But I've not faced job insecurity or illnesses among loved ones, I've had it relatively easy compared to many.

to anyone struggling for any reason

YANBU. I have found myself thinking of the outbreak of the First World War and how they thought it would all be over by Christmas.

I'm not personally feeling depressed but I am very anxious about my parents catching Covid as they're over 60 and at risk and I have severe OCD, which makes the whole thing even scarier.

I have been depressed lots of times in the past though. I don't tend to have melancholic (sadness, despair) depression, I tend towards feelings of emptiness, purposeless, nothingness and I think it's less situational.

Personally I find treating it like any other physical illness helpful so taking Vitamin D and Omega 3, drinking coffee to stimulate my brain a bit, eating well, exercising if I'm well enough, if I'm in a state where I can still enjoy anything then watching films, listening to music etc, challenging my thinking (so for example sometimes it's related to S.A.D. and even just telling myself that things will change soon helps [for example the days will be getting longer again from 23rd December].

I also find reminding myself that depressive episodes don't last forever helpful- that my feelings change through the day and that any episode of depression will not last long.

I have spent time in hospital for my OCD in the past so I'm not a smug 'it's all fine for me' person but just haven't felt depressed yet over Covid/lockdown; just shit scared of losing someone to it.

Yep. I managed to stay relatively upbeat for the past 7 months, with the odd low moment but I have not been able to pull myself out of it since this announcement. Compounded by the fact I tried to pull my small socially distanced outdoor get together with friends forward a few days to before lockdown and all 3 said they'd rather not come. I can't even hibernate, because this time round I still have to go to work and take kids to school, but with none of the fun stuff to lighten the mood.

I’m going to crack. I feel out of control, panicked and I can’t go on. I’m terrified I’m going mad, losing it completely.

My husband is out of a job, I’m headed for redundancy, we live in a place which is super in summer and very very wet and grey in winter. We are a sporty family and have now lost access to all the facilities, training etc. Our hobbies have all been cancelled, one of them never even got started again after March.

Covid has kept me from my family for over a year already.

For a party that said “for the many, not the few” Labour seems to have decided to rule in favour of the few. I feel let down, angry, heartbroken.

I'd never considered the stress of all the rules and regulations but your right, that alone is stressful. I'm off work with stress. Something I never thought would happen.

The plates started to crash so before they all went i got rid of a few.

I was much worse during the first lockdown. But still struggle with anxiety and low mood days