How to carry on

[Jjc1992]

So it's a long one for you'll to read I just hope someone has got something new or helpful to add....

So I'm 31, with one little one age 7 and also nearly 25 weeks pregnant. Married for 11 years and 1st Feb he ended it. I wasn't emotionally there when he needed me. But anyway.... Move faward a week or so and I attempted an overdose. I can't begin to explain the pain, the pain of trying to lookafter my child, reminded of the ex everywhere, even just trying to get food and drink in me is near impossible. We've got a lot of support teams in place like home mental health teams etc but they just keep saying it's greaf, you will get through it. This is great but doesn't sink in when I'm at rock bottom. I just need something to numb the pain and feelings. Each day is mostly me sobbing and whaling, I can't breath. They have prescribed some antidepressants but these will take months to get working. Has anyone gotten through to then end, is there any mirical herbal thing that might help?

I'm so sorry you're feeling so bad. Maybe this analogy will help you.

When it comes to dealing with loss (bereavement, the end of a relationship, the loss of our job, or the death of a much loved pet) our mind can conclude that the thing we have lost was so integral to our idea of what happiness is that we can never be happy again. This can lead to depression, or worse, as we can perceive no possibility of future happiness.

In these instances, it really helps to imagine ‘zeroing the scales’. When we want to weigh out ingredients to cook something, we place a bowl on the scales and hit the zero button so that the weight of the bowl does not confuse our calculations. Then we add the ingredients and the numbers go up; were we to remove the bowl, the scales would read a minus number. To continue weighing anything accurately we must hit the button to zero the scales once more, now the bowl isn’t there. When we have a tragedy in our life we can be plunged into depression because our happiness levels now read a minus.

Any attempt to improve our life would result in slightly less of a minus... but a minus all the same. Depression is when we don’t see any way of getting back to zero. A person’s ability to move on from tragedy depends entirely on their ability to adapt to where they are now and to effectively ‘zero the scales’.

If we can accept where we are today (minus that loved one, or that relationship, or that job), we can start to once again build on our happiness
levels. Human beings are, in fact, excellent at resetting the scales and adapting to new circumstances, actually we do do it every time we improve our situation or circumstances but very quickly take that for granted.

Can you see tomorrow as your starting point? Everything that's gone before is in the past and you have a clean slate on which you can write your future?

Oh, and BTW I wasn't emotionally there when he needed me. is complete and utter bullshit.

I’ve gone through similar sobbing-wailing streaks, and I’ve learned to be ruthlessly practical about it. No amount of talking or comfort would ever actually stop the crying. I had to physically move myself to a new location whenever I felt the tidal wave rising.
A ten minute car drive with the radio on, a random shop with headphones and a podcast. Anywhere as long as it’s novel and distracting. Long walks in parks with nothing but my thoughts only ever made me feel worse.

My own house was just a constant reminder of my awful circumstances.

@Jjc1992 That sounds like a very tough situation, no wonder you are struggling.

Have you started the ADs yet? They do take a while to kick in but you should hopefully see a difference after a few weeks rather than months.

All you can do is take each day one at a time and try and do the basics. Eating and drinking is important. Can you or someone you know go to the shop and stock up on some easy to eat food? I lived on yogurt tubes, soup, smoothies etc. for a short while as it was easier to drink them than try and deal with "proper" food. I tried to eat a better meal in the evening when I tended to feel less nauseous but the "easy" food got me through the day time.

Also, gentle exercise like going a short walk and trying to get a decent sleep at night. Find things to distract yourself, music, TV, reading. It seems impossible and pointless but just distracting your brain for a short while can help. All the little things you can manage will make a difference.

Its good that you are getting support from the MH team, do you have family and friends who can help too?

Thank you for the replies guys. I think it helps when it's completely new people's perspectives on it all. I've been on the meds for like three days now, just trying to do the little things. It just doesn't help that he keeps saying he's here for me just not in that way. We've started a move on the spare/baby room in removing all his books and things. Trying to move faward but then the evening hits and it's like wham depressed again.