Do you ever wonder what the point is?

[Changingmynameyetagain1]

Regular poster but NC.

Recently quit sertraline and struggling - my brain feels even worse than it did when I started.

I literally have no idea what the point of me is. I go to a job that I don't really enjoy then go home. I try to do a lot of various activities and socialise when I can, but it all feels largely pointless.

My DH is a wonderful man but works shifts and I am alone a lot. I have started to feel very lonely.

My friends all have their own things going on and I don't want to bother them. My best friend (we have been like sisters for over 20 years) has a separate group of friends I think she'd rather spend time with. We don't see each other half as much as we used to. My family are 300 miles away - my mother very staunchly believes there is no such thing as mental health issues. I have very much been brought up with a "crack on" mentality - I don't feel like I can do this any more.

I must start this by saying I would never act on anything because I couldn't do that to my parents - but I'm really realising that, if I wasn't here, the world would continue to turn, people would get on with their lives and everything would be just as it was. I don't think I would be particularly missed.

No idea why I'm posting this but I don't feel like I can say this anywhere else. Everything very very grey at the moment.

I'm also awaiting counselling through work. I would like to get signed off again but my sickness record is poor due to my mental health.

OP, have you stopped Sertraline on the advice of your psychiatrist or GP, or just decided to stop treatment yourself? And are you weaning the dose down in a controlled manner, or have you just gone cold turkey?
Because rebound depression is not uncommon, and it sounds like you have definite depressive symptoms, particularly anhedonia.

@Babdoc weaned off on the advice of my GP. Its been about 4 weeks since my last dose. I didn't want to be on them in the first place, but they helped me through a tough time - it just feels 100 times worse than before now.

I'd never heard of anhedonia before, that's an eye opener.

I would make an appointment to see your GP again. Discuss your symptoms and agree a management plan. That might mean restarting Sertraline (or another antidepressant) or waiting a further few weeks to see if your symptoms settle.

Why did your GP advise you to stop taking sertraline OP?

I stopped taking it myself voluntarily a few months ago. The first few weeks were very hard, angry and tearful all the time. Things have got better now, but I still don't feel great and think I stopped too soon. There's no shame in needing to take medication for how you feel.

Although the sertraline definitely helped with my anxiety (I tend to catastrophise and have a "busy brain"), I really disliked the way it made me feel. I was so numb to all emotions. The physical withdrawal was horrible and I don't want to have to go through that again.

I am going to try with talking therapies - without going into my whole life story, I have some trauma that I've never dealt with properly and I wonder how much of that affects my mental state now.

Well, there isn't really a point to life tbh. We're ultimately just like ants, with a biological imperative to breed and continue the human species. 'Happiness', contentment, and fulfilment are superfluous things we've made up along the way.

That's what I always seem to come back to when I try and rationalise my life. So instead I just try and focus on what I enjoy.

I've tried a few SSRIs and didn't really like them. I just stopped and gave up with the cognitive therapy too as it wasn't really helping. Nowadays I'm pretty content in my own somewhat cynical way and perhaps the biggest factors were giving up office/corporate work (which just made me feel like a cog in a machine) and equally importantly training hard at the gym.

I feel exercise has been the best thing for depression (also backed up by loads of research) but it's a double edged sword as hard to get motivated at first. If I stop training I quickly feel myself getting more agitated and moody.

I have ADHD which I don't medicate for as I'm used to it, and also because taking amphetamine based medication would create a lot of loops to jump through regarding my hgv licence (would fail any drug tests and potentially have license revoked while being investigated for suitability for driving etc if I declared treatment). So I understand the 'busy brain' bit.

Again, I find training helps a lot here as it's hard to sweat the small stuff when you're physically tired. It just seems to get rid of the excess energy.

Thanks @YesJess. I've been really lax at exercising lately - I've never particularly enjoyed much but could always make myself do some yoga or go climbing or something. I just don't want to do anything at the moment.

Strangely, ADHD came up when I was a child but I never got any sort of assessment or diagnosis because my mother doesn't think it's a thing 🙄

I think those that enjoy it are the outliers tbh. Most force themselves to do it and keep doing so because the results/benefits outweigh the hassle of going. Certainly the case with me.

I enjoy it when I'm there lifting, and feel great after, but the little voice trying to make excuses to not go is always present. 😂

I'm quite a sensitive person but also very objective in that I can recognise when the thing I need to do isn't actually what I want to. If that makes sense. And I find overthinking never solves things for me like taking action does, cheesy as that sounds.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've never been able to think/rationalise myself into the right state of mind after years of trying. I've only ever attained happiness through deciding 'maybe I need to try xyz', then doing it. And then I gradually found what works and slowly made a lot of different changes over time, found new habits. And I'm really good at overthinking.

Do you feel like this all the time or is it cyclical? I mention this because I've had bouts of this for years only recently tracked it to the luetual time of my cycle. Its just a possibility to think about.

No single person vanishing tonight is going to have a massive impact on the world. The world will keep on turning, yes. But as you yourself said, your parents might notice.

There is no point to anything, if you want to really get to the existential philosophy side of things. So why so few nihilists? Because they make their own meaning, which is, indeed, what people do given the alternative is to reason oneself into despair and apathy.

I'd say reading stoic literature would help fashion a sense of self that embraces this fact. When you realise things are what they are, you can work on mentally accepting this and filling in the reason for continuing in your existence, be it through work, play, or hookers and blow. No judgement.

I don't find medicating the issue to work, since it invariably is down to a mode of thinking. Relying on pharma to get around hangups that are deep seated because of the way our culture is now, doesn't work as a long term goal. You can only really effectively deal with this by confronting issues head on with counselling and CBT. I've at least one friend who has tried every SSRI on the NICE register, and they're still no better after over a decade of this. This is naturally dependent on the person's circumstances.

From personal experience, I find my cynical streak helps alleviate some of the darker thoughts I may get from a stressful day or a particularly unhelpful exposure to the news and Internet.

@Liebig reading Marcus Aurelius 'Meditations' some time ago was a game changer for me.

Another satisfied customer.

I think if a lot of people just looked to the past to resolve what many see as modern issues, they'd see that there's nothing new under the sun with humanity. People have had these conundrums in their brains since time immemorial, and many people cogitated and solved such problems to the best of our reasoning capacity.

I'll have a look at that book!

Feeling chirpier today. Spoke to Mind this morning to sort some online CBT.

Read a quite on here today, something like if you tell a man a problem he will try to fix it, which definitely describes DH. He's a wonderful man, but just out of his depth. I had a panic attack last night and he just didn't know what to do and stood around awkwardly - I''ll discuss this when I get to counselling/

I have some trauma that I've never dealt with properly and I wonder how much of that affects my mental state now.

Probably a lot. There's a part of your mind that's still trying to work out what happened and, until it does, the issue will continue to affect you. Hypnosis (or mind coaching if you prefer) can held you to deal with the trauma without having to go through your life story.

Thanks @Eyesopenwideawake . The (lovely) lady who took my initial assessment said as much. Crazy isn't it, many years on you think you're doing ok but maybe you've ignored the catalyst.