To ask if you’re a functioning depressive

[Am1beingUnreasonable]

Apologies for the title. I suppose in my head this predicament feels a bit like people who are described as a functioning alcoholic, they have big problems but somehow… function.

I am mid 30s, have the usual worries and and day to day annoyances that everyone else does. Diagnosed moderate depression for the past 20 years, on and off medication for a majority of that time with constant medication (Effexor) for the past 2 years. I am fine, in general. It’s evened out my moods, I can get by and no one would guess how I feel, I don’t find much joy in anything but I’m not wildly unhappy. Intrusive thoughts, often have depressive / dark thoughts but again no one would know.

But then something happens and I can’t cope. Like yesterday, someone I could consider a friend lost her battle with cervical cancer. She was young. I’m heartbroken, more so than I have any right to be. She was well known in the community, well loved, the outpouring of sympathy and shock online has been huge. People knew her much better than me, I feel like I have no right to feel how I do. I’ve taken to my bed, I’m crying and crying. I’m heartbroken for her husband, her family. Everything feels very dark.

But in a day or two, I’ll push it all back down again and carry on.

Am I alone in this? I can’t help thinking so many other people must feel the same. Joyless, faking the smiles, not wildly unhappy but quite.. empty perhaps?

Has something caught you off guard you weren’t expecting and suddenly you feel all the feelings at once?

I do wonder if the world at the moment is just rather miserable and worrying and most people are just getting on with life outwardly but feeling miserable or hollow inside.

YABU - I’m very happy, inwardly and outwardly

YANBU - I keep up appearances but inside is a different story.

I felt like this a lot before I had kids. I was from a dysfunctional alcoholic family background and had some up and downs in my teens and used to come home from nights out and cry myself to sleep. I am in a healthy relationship now and don't drink and my children give me purpose.
I thought I was foinh great but some pics of me were taken of me at a playgroup and posted online and I look so...... Sad.
I've never had a depression diagnosis or taken any medication but what I'm trying to say is there is a hollow broken element to who I am that I can't shift. My partner is the complete opposite but had a very happy and stable upbringing.

I think if your inner child is wounded you will always be a slighty functioning depressive.

And you are completely entitled to feel devastated about your friend. I'm sorry for you loss.

Yes, this is me. Life feels… heavy most of the time. I have to be outwardly upbeat for work and it exhausts me. My hobby is sleeping to regroup and cope. I also had a very troubled childhood and have no parents, family or partner. I can go for ages dealing with lots of the day to day drudgery and set backs, but one thing can then unexpectedly set me back and I really struggle to wash, eat or stop overthinking. I do wonder if life will ever be different for me. Thanks for sharing, it’s nice to know there are others like this.

Yes. This is me. High functioning but ultimately so very sad.

Sending hugs. Keep talking x

First, your reaction to your friend's death is normal. I am so sorry

The grief we feel at losing a friend tragically early is often more acutely painful than the grief we feel when a loved one dies at an old age. It shocks and destabilises us in a different way. You absolutely have the right to be as heartbroken as you are.

It will take time to process and deal with, please don't expect too much from yourself and be kind to yourself.

Secondly, yes, I've also struggled with functional depression for most of my life. Much of it has been situational but you're certainly not alone in feeling the way you usually do. Life is especially hard for most these days.

You've had a terrible bereavement and you're going to be grieving for a while, so take extra care of yourself and don't dismiss your right to your grief.

I am excellent at this. Shouldn't be a brag but I have 2 DD and a stressed out partner so I'm still managing to look like I have it all together because I have to but on the inside it's the exact opposite.

I've always struggled with depression and anxiety but managed to do my best to keep it at bay but after another traumatic birth I'm back in the dark place but I don't want to feel like a burden when I know so many people have it much worse.

I truly hope you start to feel in a good place because I really can resonate ❤️

I really understand this OP. I’m not sure if it’s normal, but I am also mid 30s and am outwardly okay, trucking along most of the time until something happens and it all unravels. It doesn’t take much, either. I’m in a bad patch at the moment.

Take care of yourself

Here.
Put on a brave face at work.
Try to smile a lot, you know, fake it till you make it.
But I need help and the mask is wearing thin.
The issues are that Seroxat made me very ill, in my twenties, and I am scared of asking for antidepressants. I also had a psychotherapist back then, but I could not relate to her or open up about how I was feeling. I felt embarrassed, ashamed and like I was wasting her time.
After I had PND and a bereavement, in my thirties, I was referred to a psychologist, whose attitude was Who wouldn't feel low after all that? He was lovely but I didn't admit how bad I was feeling as I had been referred by my GP, who also involved community midwives. When I said I just needed someone to take the baby so I could go to the toilet in peace, they looked at me like I was mad.
Rightly or wrongly, I have stayed away from doctors and mental health services ever since. Have managed to hold down jobs - am now in my fifties - but the last three years have taken their toll. I feel like I have aged twice the rate, am knackered all the time, look awful, have fears at work they find me a joke/unprofessional and that I am not fooling anyone.
You are not alone

The sleeping.. I've never found anyone else that does it!
If I'm angry or sad or anything, my instinctive reaction is to sleep

Yes. Everything is bleak, I'm never happy. I shove myself forward every day and get on with things but I'm just going through the motions.

Yes this is me. Very functioning and performing amazingly at work, always there to lend a hand to others and I give a great impression of having it all together.

By god I'm so unhappy though. I am generally just existing because of my children as I want them to have a better childhood than I did, but my life is incredibly bleak and miserable

All of you struggling right now- don't be afraid to get support from your gp (see someone else if you're is unsympathetic). And there's a huge variety of anti depressants available so if you've not got on with one or two in the past, there's still hope!

I've tried several, had luck with some but following a particularly horrible couple of years I've found one that makes a huge difference. I don't care if I need to take it for the rest of my life, it's worth it.

I've been to the very darkest places, but there's always hope.

I feel like this a lot. Since having my children, with each I had six months or so where I should have seen the doctor for PND. but didn’t. And now, I function absolutely fine day to day (if a bit short tempered sometimes), but it’s like I have a deep melancholy inside me somewhere which I can’t ever shift. If I sit and think I just feel heavier and heavier. It’s made me rather addicted to my phone as Facebook or Instagram distract me. I am always exhausted, no matter how much I’ve slept or rested. But I get out of bed every morning and I dress nicely and a reasonable amount of the time I do things that feel happy.

Someone I know, barely an acquaintance really, suffered a terrible bereavement lately and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It felt absolutely selfish, and I couldn’t explain it, but when I found out it hit me and I went home and sobbed and sobbed.

Another one here.
when things get bad, I just think about what a complete failure I am and wonder what the point is, where everything went so wrong It feels like I am so alone, so isolated, unable to really live my life. It’s like being in a glass filled with a white mist, not able to be part of the real world.
i find listening to audio books helps intrusive thoughts from breaking out from behind the iron doors of my mind. They are still there though, no matter how hard I try to push them down.

I voted the same as everyone else and I feel the same. It’s really sad we all feel like this :(

Earlier this week I had a 36 hour period where i couldn't even speak, even though I wanted to to. I don't do smiling depressed. I'm a glass half empty person, I hate that the most about me.

YANBU.
I have a lot of health issues.
CFS, C-PTSD, depression, GAD, OCD, Binge eating disorder, PCOS which means I literally have all the hair that should be on my chin on my head, sleep initiation insomnia, sciatica, and I'm incontinent at 31.
No one would guess at most of the above. I seem so happy. So energetic, I seem to make it all look like a breeze apparently.

I think of killing myself daily, I just have to be here for my kids.
I'm always overwhelmed and don't have ice support. There's sp much guilt that I just push on and on and on.
Each time I'm put under anaesthetic, my true colours come out. I always end up crying because I don't feel like shit for that short period of time.

One of the best things I read about depressives was how they often just keep going.

Me to a T, OP.

Same here, people think I’m happy, smiley and jolly but inside I’m an empty shell. I feel cut off from my DH and children so I overcompensate by fussing over them.

Reading this reply really struck a cord with me. The ‘hollow broken element to who I am’, I can relate to this so much. Nothing terrible happened to me as a child but I did have a lonely childhood and have always struggled with anxiety. I have always felt like something is broken within me, something deep at my core. As I have gotten older (30 years old now) I have definitely gotten better at masking it and being functional but my mental health issues are still just under the surface.

I have to be careful with medications too as they don’t always balance my brain chemistry and I can end up a bit manic and unable to sleep (even though I’m not bipolar). Even herbal St. John’s wort has had this effect.

I think more people than we know struggle with mental health, some people are really good at masking it and appearing functional. But you never really know what’s going on with a person inside.

Grief makes these symptoms much worse too. I’m sorry you lost your friend OP…

I have lost some people close to me, and the grief always stays there, never fades with time as people say, I think this is a myth. You just sort of learn to live with it. I can sometimes sense their energy around me though at random times. I like to believe they check in and watch over me sometimes.