What do you think? Am I depressed? I can be objective...

[ItchyAngryBear]

Have changed my name but I am regular here. Finding this really hard to write.... so forgive me if it doesn?t read well....

Bit of background, I had rough time when young/ growing up and then had 5 years of counselling in my early twenties. During which I know I was depressed, tried to self harm and often had a date planned for suicide (never attempted), I never saw GP or got a diagnosis as I was scared that Id get a label and it would meant medication which would mean I couldn?t driveand I had to drive for my job at the time.

After I finished therapy, i felt much better, moved on, got married and now have a 2yr old DD. I work full time in a manic, manic manic job. Its bittersweet because I love what I do but I am not coping with things day to day anymore. This isn?t chiefly related to my job. I feel like Ive had a revelation recently and think I might have some kind of anxiety/ depression thing going on. After ages of thinking the faults lie with everyone else I think it might be me...

I am permanently (and have always been) hugely negative about everything. I can?t enjoy things much , always find a reason to not enjoy. E.g. lets not go to beach on w/e as I will be too tired, or there will be traffic or its too much for DD... All rubbish, I know if we went it would be good, but I struggle to get over the negativity. I talk about work with DH and however good I think the day was I find myself only highlighting the negative. I can?t help making negative comments about everything. It just comes out. I generally say what I am thinking without really thinking about what I am doing (am ok at work though). The not being able to enjoy thing generally extends to all aspects of my life but is particularly bad regarding sex life. I find it really hard to just get pleasure...

Generally I feel as if I need to fight against the world, get the feeling everyone is against me, laughing at me etc. I want everyone to like me but Im crap at being really social. Means I am not great manager at work as I cant get relationships work.

I feel regularly paranoid about a lot of things. Things DH does, things friends do, assume they are talking about me, being horrid when they have no reason. I will generally think the worst in all cases.

Right now I am feeling low and work is hard and it all feels to much. DH tells me I am so stressed and negative.

Got a GP appt in couple of weeks about something else but thought I might discuss this...

.Does this sound like depression? Will my GP just tell me to take up yoga again and go away....?

Thank you if you are still reading....

It sounds more like the negative mental attitude is really the problem. Don't really know much about it, but believe you can get cognitive behavioural therapy to retrain how you think about things. Being negative all the time won't just be affecting you - it will be really hard for your DP to live with, so it will really benefit both of you if you take steps to do something positive about it. Good luck!

I would definitely discuss all this with your gp. Can you remember whether you feel similar to when you were depressed? Being negative can make you feel depressed which in turn makes you feel more negative about things = vicious circle. Maybe ask your gp about CBT.

Thanks for your replies. Sorry to post and run last night...

I will look into that negative thing. Ive not heard of that before.

Depression is up and down and not as all consuming as before. I used to feel like I was wearing a black cloud all the time before. Now I get waves of that.

Reading about people on medication here I am quite scared about it...Although it could be that i need something more like CBT as suggested.

Any more advice would be great :)

I'm on medication, and am glad that I am. I used to be negative about days out - the effort to do it mentally was enormous, when if I just bit the bullet and went, it was fine. I wholeheartedly agree with CBT, and if you need medication for a short time to just get you back on track, then so be it. It's taken me years to be more comfortable in my own skin, but I'm there now, and you can be too.

Thanks Mad.

Did you have CBT?

Good to hear good stuff about medication. Timing of this isnt great as I was thinking of TTC in Summer.

I didn't, but my husband did when he had crippling anxiety and it brought him back to the real world. He was off work for a year with it and he's now running his own business. He's a far more positive person.