Has anyone got themselves out of depression before it sets in?

[SnowWhitesSM]

I am depressed at the moment. I haven't felt this way for a number of years. I have a GP appointment Thursday.

I feel so emotionally unstable and off balance. I have a very stressful job (social work) a stressful home life and feel that I can't meet my dcs needs, my job needs and my husbands. My job has always been stressful but I usually love it (apart from the pangs of guilt I have for not being there enough for my own dc). I'm also a step mother and there are lots of additional stresses in my home life because of the different dynamics going on.

I had AL last week and spent it in bed, I've taken this week off work sick. I knew I was going to end up cracking up. I've been trying so hard to fill my own cup - 2x PT sessions a week, making sure I saw my friends, having baths and consciously filling my own cup. I'm really upset with myself. I have loads of work to do on my case load, my house is becoming more and more cluttered and I'm in bed again feeling like shit. My periods are also all over the place since the vaccine so I'm also a raging hormonal bitch.

I just want to feel energetic again, I havent felt properly happy (happiness that lasts) in a long time. I feel happy at work but I know if I worked this week I'd be letting people down. I feel like I'm letting everyone down at the moment. I also feel like I'm letting myself down.

I've got physical symptoms of stress/depression I'm constipated, my jaw aches from clenching my teeth together subconsciously. I'm absolutely exhausted. I just want to feel like me again but I don't want anti depressants. I was going to buy some saint John's wart today to see if that helps.

I need advice on how to climb back out of this pit. I hate feeling like this, I am not here looking for sympathy but ideas on what I can do to make myself feel like me again.

Your DH wakes you up at night for cuddles, is resentful of you taking time off from a stressful job with a high burnout rate, and doesn’t clear up after himself. He doesn’t sound very supportive. How many step DC do you have, how often are they with you and how much parenting does he do? Or does he leave both his and your joint children to you?

Him never taking time off isn’t a badge of honour, it’s unhealthy. And him trying to guilt trip you for taking time off is nasty. Everyone needs time off to recharge.

The nice things he’s doing for you don’t sound so appealing to me. Running you both a bath and reading a book together just sounds a bit stifling. Is it a book you chose and want to read yourself? Is the bath just a nice relaxing bath or a precursor to sex, and if so do you actually want sex right now?

Personally I’d repost this in relationships as I think your DH is a big part of the problem.

If the muddles in the cupboards are bothering you and you want to sort them could you get your cleaner (or someone else) to come in extra and sort them together?

Read the Marie kondo book and ask the cleaner to help you go through cupboards etc. I think you'd feel better if the house was sorted. You can even hire professional organisers

Can I ask why you don't want anti-depressants? They are very useful to see as a crutch, something to help you cope whilst you get through these stresses that are really pulling you down.

Or you might need them full stop. Why have you had a tonne of counselling? Needing therapy and having depression are things I would have thought go hand in hand yet you say you are not a depressive person.

I am posting in solidarity but also shamelessly for ideas.

I have a 2 week busy work week where I'm feeling overwhelmed and not sleeping. After thats over I've said I will vontacg dr. Ive avoided drugs as I think I need therapy I cant access and am already overweight...

I also have to make some changes. So much of it is pressure. I cant be mum/look after house and do the work I currently do at the amount I am doing it.

Your dh doesn’t sound nice. He attacks you for annual leave?? So is that why you spent it all in bed? So you couldn’t even relax and recuperate or even get things done because he added to your stress?
Is he actually the cause of a lot of your stress?

Stress is a huge thing and it will affect your mental wellbeing massively.
Some ways to reduce stress is to have support, space and time to decompress, doing something just for you that’s relaxing, taking a long walk in nature. Nature is very soothing and calming and our connection to it can help restore and rebalance us. You could take your dcs out somewhere at the weekends.
I find that’s often the best way to spend time with them.

I had depression when I was a young broke single mum and my life was full of drudgery. I had 18 counselling sessions and ADs and they helped me (12 years ago). I feel like now what I felt then.

I have had counselling throughout the years to process my childhood. These sessions were not brought on by depression. I just knew I had inner work to do and I did it so I didn't mess my dc up. Then when I first started feeling like this (when covid hit and we started WFH) I had 18 sessions paid for by my LA and have been doing my best to fill my cup up ever since.

I don't have a horrible life like I did when I felt depressed before. I have family, friends and do take my DC out in nature. We walked up Pen Y Fan a few weeks ago and stone henge the week before that. I have a lovely home ect. My dc are teens and self sufficient. I have a lovely relationship with them.

I do think a lot of my stress is down to DH and DSS. I just haven't worked out whether it's me over thinking and over reacting (something I can do) or if it's DH. I am going to spend this week exploring that. He isn't a monster and does a lot for us, but I have disconnected from him because of his reactions to me.

I'll be honest, if my hormones or body chemistry is out of whack, medication is what fixes it. Usually a combination of the pill and antidepressants, and sometimes a bit of trial and error to find the right one. Vitamins and nutrition make a hell of a difference too.

I know Some of us can be more affected by depression so I’m not trying to analyse or diagnose you but it sounds like you’re doing all the right things, you’re working at what you know will help and do seem to have a lot of self awareness.
You can’t, however, control other people. It really does sound like your dh is the cause of a lot of your stress. You speak about your dss and the stress he causes. Is that indirectly down to your dh too and the lack of support you could get?

Your dh doesn’t have to be a monster all the time. Just enough to keep you walking on eggshells and adding to your stress in your life.

Can you reduce yr hours at work ?

Dh is definitely a cause of my stress. I wouldn't be as stressed if I left him but I also wouldn't be any happier in the long term.

I wrote a huge post but it's just a ramble so deleted it. When writing it I realised that I am on eggshells whenever dh is stressed. It takes me right back to my own childhood. Mix in a load of dad guilt and quite frankly poor parenting my home doesn't feel like a home, it feels uncomfortable. Then because I'm stressed I'm overloaded before I even start work. Work is stressful enough as it is. My case load is way to high, I have so many different crisis going on and work late most evenings and still don't get my stat stuff done.

I am going to rest this week. If the GP gives me ADs I will take them. Then next week I am going to sort the cupboards ect out and get back into a routine the week after. Dh usually gets really stressed in the morning as he's always late, always forgetting things, I won't be there to witness it as I'm going to be booking a desk in the office instead of WFH. I will have a think about other flash points and again take myself out of the equation so I'm not around his stress.

I know I over react to his stress. It makes me feel unsafe because of my childhood. His stress isn't abnormal but it feels to me abnormal because it triggers me.

I cant afford to reduce my hours, my teens are expensive and I don't want to not be able to buy them what they want and need. I worked so hard to get off benefits and go to uni that I feel I owe them a nicer lifestyle then the one we had when they were young and I worked so hard to get out of that.

Once ds is 18, or even 16 if he gets an apprenticeship like he's planning, then I can afford to go part time.

I felt depressed in the past when I felt trapped, not physically but partly by what I imagined society expected of me. So I moved alot with DH due to his job without complaint, I spent as much time as possible with ageing DM, we were well off so I was 'very fortunate' and shoudn't complain. But I was also bored, lonely, fed up and felt trapped because what I actually wanted in life would have been seen as selfish and would have greatly affected their lives.

I also lacked the courage to make the changes but that is what I should have done and sod the rest