online depression support

[DizzyKipper]

Hello all,

Does anyone know of any friendly online depression support groups? I think I really need to be somewhere that I can start getting help or talk about things, things haven't been right for a very long while.
If anyone had any suggestions of communities out there where one can talk and find mutual support/motivation to get on with life it would be much appreciated.

well how about here?

It didn't seem like I'd get the kind of support I was thinking of here, but maybe I am wrong. What I thought would be helpful to me would be being able to go somewhere regularly, with posters I could get to know, where I could post about the boring, mundane tasks I was struggling to do - and hopefully that by posting about it and putting these struggles into a 'social' realm it would therefore enable me to do them more easily. Using the support a bit more like a check list system - because at the moment I don't seem able to do things just by telling myself I need to do them.
I'd be posting about quite stupid stuff, such as "today I need to post that letter to the insurance company to make sure they don't cancel my policy" or "make sure I clean up my desk today". Things that should be very simple and easy to do, but which I never seem to do because I constantly feel overwhelmed.

On other forums I use they have a procrastination thread, where people post a list of what they need to do that day, and strike through as they complete.

What forums would they be? Are they for depressed people (I imagine posting in a normal forum and not being able to do things would make me feel like a failure and like they were all judging me).

We used to have a thread like that on here that ran for ages and ages, where people posted their to do lists and helped each other complete them. You could start a new one - people will join you - just make clear in the title what you want to achieve, doesn't matter if the title is 3 lines long!

Try using "Living Life To The Full" Website. HTH

DizzyKipper

I'm sorry you are feeling depressed. How long have you been feeling like this, and is there any reason for it?

Can I suggest e-couch?
It's a web-based cognitive behavioural therapy site, very reputable, run by an Austr or NZ dept of psychology.
Many health professionals recommend it, and the previous web-based CBT site from the same department showed improved mood/decreased symptoms anxiety persisted at 12 months when compared with similar patients who had not used the resource.
Lots of people I know have really benefitted -you can work at your own pace with a cuppa in your hand!
Hope you're feeling much better soon x

Thankyou for the suggestions. I've just joined the mood gym to see if it will help, and will have a look at these other sites. It's the most pro-active thing I've done towards helping myself (been on ADs twice in the past but compliance was not my strong point so came off them).

How I feel currently (measured as moderate to severe on depression tests as opposed to the just under medium I usually measure at). Well as briefly as possible: I was supposed to be getting married but then found out my dad had cancer, a family member a few weeks before my partner and I were supposed to be getting married declared she hated my partner and didn't want anything to do with him/wouldn't be there at the wedding which started a family fight that eventually involved both families. Coincidentally that happened exactly 1 week before my dad passed on (although I severely suspect he wouldn't have died then if all that family stress had not been caused).
Immediately after my dad passed OH's mum then decided it was actually me who was the problem and that I had completely changed him/made him a worse person so right after my dad's death (before we'd even had the funeral) was trying to get OH to dump me (which has since caused much stress in feeling like she hates me and bitches about me/tries to make me out to be a bad person to other people). Then 2 months after my dad passed I miscarried (this would be after 3 years of planning and waiting to start a family with OH). We've also throughout the period had issues with unemployment, court summons, struggling with finances and to this day I am struggling to get the hours I need to pay the bills and so am quite stressed from that (in a job I'm not satisfied in anyway and which is severely below my academic level).

So whatever I'm feeling I am quite sure is down to "life's circumstances" and so I don't want to go to therapy or medicate, I'd prefer to work on life's problems to try and get my life in order and get myself out of the depressive spiral of which I seem to be tumbling.

Oh I will add: depressed and suicidal from 9 years old, history of depression anyway but seemed to 'grow out of it' in my late teens and for a while was better. Happiest time of my life was meeting OH and being with him. It all seems to have crumbled away of lately though.

would this site be helpful www.blurtitout.org