Masking depression

[rosemole]

After many, many years of masking, I think I'm ready to admit I'm a depressive.
It's been something I've had to hide all my life due to the way my family have conditioned me to think - depression is a weakness and I'm being over the top if I express the fact I'm depressed and struggling.
Where do I go from here? Can anyone relate or suggest any useful resources?
I have a counsellor but that started for other reasons and I'm only just realising the cause of my lifelong issues now.

Definitely agree about alcohol. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I think I slipped into drinking too much without realising it and it's only this week that I've not bought any that I realise how automatic it was to finish chores of an evening and open a bottle of wine.

Have you ever cut it out completely? I did for about 9 months about a year ago but noticed I was (inadvertently) replacing alcohol with sugar (in different forms) , put on weight and then decided I'd rather have a drink and be slimmer. Very tricky one. We all have a vice.

levels of training and experience

most counsellors whilst they have a level of training they tend to focus more on person centred therapy they tend to pull in CBT resources which are great for anxiety but ive never found them useful for depression. they look at growth and goals. not really addressing the root cause. they offer a great safe space to release anything your building up

Therapists/psychotherapist I guess are almost one step up from a counsellor. It's just training and experience. they are better at looking into the cause of the illness and how to handle it

a psychologist won't prescribe medication but they'll be better equipped to go through different approaches. They will have a lot more experience than a counsellor/therapist. again will look into the root cause, how to manage it, different approaches.

I suffer from complex mental health issues and I have spoken to a counsellor, a therapist and a psychologist. my psychologist has been better by far in comparison to the others. but I need the experience that a psychologist can bring to the session and the different approaches they can take.

if youre happy with your counsellor and feel they are doing enough for you then stay with them.

this is all just my opinion drawn from my personal experience

That's a great insight @adulthoodisajoke and something for me to think about.
How did you find your psychologist? Recommendation or by doing your own research?

Funnily enough my counsellor has said to me - at a stage when I felt like I was in a bit of a counselling rut - that she wouldn't be offended if I wanted to explore other options and needed someone with more expertise in a particular area.
I started to do some research but gave up because I couldn't find anything suitable so just stuck with her. I'm in a better place with her though, as one of my issues/challenges is actually sticking with something/someone and not always chopping and changing when things feel difficult.

I'm seeing her next week so might be something that comes up again.

Thank you again for your comments/advice.

My psychologist is through the NHS. although they work privately as well if I wanted to continue with the same person when my sessions end (ive been in psychology on a near weekly basis for just over a year)

I'm speaking to my GP next week to see if they can refer me for specific therapy to treat one of my issues, speaking to your GP can help with finding the right person to work with and it might be available on the NHS. I will also be asking to see if they have any suggestions of a private psychologist for me to continue working with

I've done a lot of research into local psychologists and their experience/approaches.
Due to one of my diagnosis's a lot of therapists won't work with me so a psychologist is sort of my only option.
its really good to do some research into different people and therapeutic approaches

ive used https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb to look into different people to work with and found the site really useful

my counsellor realised quickly they weren't equipped to deal with my needs and asked if I wanted to be referred to someone more experienced so maybe your counsellor can do that?

@adulthoodisajoke I started via the NHS route and basically went as far as I could go. Because I was on benefits at the time I was referred to a low cost counselling service but now I'm starting to question - why wasn't I referred to a psychologist or psychiatrist? I think it's because I mask so well, especially during that time, I found it almost impossible to actually express the extent of my true distress. I was suicidal but wouldn't dare tell a soul because of my children and my fear of losing them. This is really making me think.

Well done on deciding to recognise your illness. It is a big step in healing.

I had depression for decades. It vanished about ten years ago and never returned. I decided to just focus on my health - mental and physical- for a year and prioritise it over everything else.

Things that worked:

Scaling back unnecessary commitments. If you do a lot of voluntary work or help family/friends etc more than you feel able to, just let them know that you have some health issues right now and are unable to continue with immediate effect. You might feel like a fraud, but you'll soon realise you aren't a fraud, as the stress drops and the energy seeps back. It was depleting you.

Going low-contact with my parents who, like yours, had no time at all for their children having problems - we were there to support them and our own needs got minimised. I had no desire to stir up drama with no-contact but I did explain I was unwell and unable to run around after them as much as I had. They quickly found someone else to be at their beck and call. When they behaved in ways that I had come to realise triggered severe depressive episodes in me, I just started walking away - literally making excuses to leave the room, the house, or leave early from visits.

I did online CBT worksheets on self compassion, self care, self acceptance, and other online depression exercises.

I started taking supplements - B complex, Vitamin C, iron, Vitamin D spray, magnesium, L-Tyrosine. You may not need all of these. Research what kind of depression yours might be - serotonin depletion or dopamine depletion, and experiment with topping up what your body might be low on.

Big increase in exercise - HIIT, yoga flow, bootcamps, regular walks in nature, swimming, rowing. And in mental health exercises, with daily meditation or affirmations and journalling - 10 minutes is plenty.

Trying new things - anything really, with no pressure on myself to continue or commit to something - I just had to try once. It felt nice to expand life a bit. You might find it interesting to try some tiny new thing each day, something a bit bigger once a week, bit more ambitious once a month etc. Everyday stuff is just things like trying new music, foods, routes to work, just to disrupt the depressive loop. Weekly things might be trying a new form of exercise or going to a local place that you've always meant to visit - a museum, or landmark. Once a month could be a small but challenging project like redecorating a room, going away for the weekend somewhere new etc.

there's no shame in medication. I don't know if all this would have worked without it. I came off it within a few months. But if you don;t feel ready to take that step, then trying any of the above that appeal to you might help shift it a bit.

You're absolutely right, but I decided to change my way of thinking about this. I remember heading home from a beautiful walk and the gloom set in as I got near home. I was thinking what is the point, ? It takes my mind off things temporarily but as soon as I stop distracting myself, the depression rears up again. Then I realised that was the point. To have a break from it. And if you frequently do these things you are getting frequent breaks from it and if you stitch enough of them together, you are fending it off more often than not. It is exhausting. But it is also so lovely to get those breaks. I had in the past been so depressed I couldn't work or leave the house, so all these things you do sound like really powerful tools against it overpowering you.

@SereneCapybara thank you for your lovely messages.
So do you think your depression is still there somewhere in the background, or are you free of it but worry it might return or you feel 'cured' of it?
I've had it for so long I can't even imagine not having it, even though I so desperately want to.

Thank you @SereneCapybara, that is so
inspiring

OP give acupuncture a try

@FeistyFrankie tell my why!

Such great advice.

I have just never heard of doctors referring to a psychiatrist or psychologist. I say this because I have been very closely involved with someone who was actively suicidal and deeply depressed for years. No help was ever offered beyond antidepressants which made things worse and a course of CBT. When someone is that depressed they can’t engage with CBT.

@Tealeavesinthecup that's awful for your friend. I hope she got some help.
I have a friend who was referred to a psychiatrist via her GP so it's definitely possible- it's the same as a GP referring to any other medical specialist so I wonder why it wasn't the same for your friend.

God knows. There were enough doctors and enough pleading for help. I am afraid I’m quite cynical about doctors as a result.

I don't blame you and I feel similar. I now look at all professionals as individuals rather than their title - some are excellent, some are shit.

I think NHS MH services are in such a dire state these days that the threshold for any real support is so high. The only option to get help is to go private which is obviously very unfair for those who can’t afford to do so.

I agree with this about the threshold for NHS services, having some awareness of this in my job.

For myself and to the OP, I wanted to say I recently realised that masking depression was a thing. I have had depressive episodes on and off for thirty years, which I have taken medication for and at one point, I had to take several months off work. When I had this realisation, I also realised that depression was a chronic condition for me and sometimes it would flare up and sometimes I will be more fine. Previously in these ‘I am fine’ times, I thought this was recovery and the depression was gone. And then it would come back at some point. So now I see depression as something I have to work to manage and that I have to put value on the things which I need to do to manage it and ensure I do them.

I also have a full-time job and am a single parent to two children, so for quite a lot of time, taking medication was just the way through. Now I am trying to put priority on going to the gym, and walking most places as the children are older. When I have more time, I visit the coast or the countryside or I work on my garden. I cannot sit still long enough to do arts and crafts, but I find - again when I have time - working on my house in some way also good. I am editing to add that I stopped taking medication because for me, the side effects outweighed the benefits and I am okay with managing it myself.

On the subject of meditation, I like Tara Brach’s teachings but I also think if you have a lot of trauma that meditation can maybe take you places which it is not emotionally safe to go. I found it cleansing up to a point and then not. So I can use meditative techniques to help me calm down when I am anxious and it has been great to stop me ruminating about things, but beyond that, I exercise a bit of caution.

I was lucky enough to have a year of counselling from someone at Women’s Aid which was very trauma informed. It didn’t scratch the surface of some things but it put me back together again, if that makes sense, after some things. But apart from that, I think counselling is a bit of a lottery. The NHS told me I am too high-functioning for referral to a psychiatrist, which was before I ended up off sick for a few months. But in a climate where even serious mental health care is stretched, I agree with them. I am okay.

This is a lot of personal detail so I might ask MN to delete it at some point relatively soon, but I also think it is important to talk about these things and I have found this a helpful thread to read, so thank you.

Honestly, I think it has completely vanished. I was certain it would be there forever. I was on and off antidepressants for decades but the side effects were so awful for me - constant exhaustion, carb cravings, foggy brain, massive weight gain, so I knew I had to wean off them and replace them with something else.

I had depression from age 17 to about 51 aand found it hard to believe it would ever go away. At 51 I was so broken and worn down by it I literally devoted a year to healing from it. I tried every single thing I had ever heard of that might help - every alternative therapy, every self help book etc. By half way through the year I was doing pretty well, by the end of the year I was off antidepressants and had learned which tools genuinely helped me and which didn't so much. I kept a record of them all.

What's interesting is, I now sometimes have those 'descending into depression' days where I tear frozen and teary for no reason and find it hard to do anything. On those days I just take a step back from whatever I am doing, and ensure i have a good long shower or bath, a walk, do some meditation and journalling, avoid sugar, eat lots of veg and lean protein, get some serious exercise, make contact with a kind and gentle loved one, and do something I have never done before - however small. two days of that and the fog has cleared before it got stuck in. That only happens about once a year now. I used to be deep in that fog for at least 10 months of every year.

I think proper exercise (which it sounds like you already do), doing something new, and massively stepping up my self-compassion, putting invisible barriers up against very demanding, critical, snide and ungrateful parents did me the world of good. I still saw them, loved them (they have lovable qualities too) but no longer let them drown me in behaviour which triggered severe depression. I do wonder, from the little you have said, whether a healthy reconfiguring of your relationship with your parents might help you. I don't advocate cutting them off or deciding they are toxic. There's a middle ground, where you recognise what aspects of your relationship with them have a very bad impact on your mental health and you cut out those aspects. For example, I started going to films or shows with my parents. It's a memorable, celebratory occasion but limits the amount of negative chat available.

Find a really good gestalt therapist , ime
it really helps also learn to meditate.
counsellors are very often not very qualified and a lot of them just don’t know what they’re doing.

This is a great post. I must admit I have found NHS counselling to range between almost useless to actively counterproductive. A complete waste of time except if you want to focus on a single issue. Once of twice I got lucky with a counsellor if I pretended I just had a single issue causing me anxiety, so we looked in detail at one thing that was really challenging. But no way could they deal with the root cause of depression in 6 30 min sessions most of which are taken up with tick box generic checklists.

But, FWIW, I am not convinced that digging for the root cause is that helpful. You may never find it. Even if you do, so what? It doesn;t change where you are now. I actually like CBT because it is very gentle. It says: How are you today? How can you make today better by thinking fairer, more balanced thoughts about yourself, taking care of your physical needs, addressing one or two issues that are causing you grief, maybe adding some small, doable thing that gives you pleasure. I don't see it as a sticking plaster on a deep old septic wound. I see it as an approach to the here and now, which is all we have, really.

Apologies, I couldn't reply any earlier....

Buddhism is a very gentle religion. There are many different schools of Buddhism. The school I follow is based on the Lotus Sutra, the last of Shakyamuni Buddha's Sutras, the one he preached in the last 8 years of his life. Here is a quote

"Right from the beginning I made a vow to make all people equal to me".

The school I follow was founded by a Japanese monk who was exceptionally bright, studied all of Shakyamuni's sutras and all the commentaries to those sutras. This Japanese monk (Nichiren Daishonin) came to the conlcusion that the original Buddha was never a God, he was a human being and his deepest wish was for all people to achieve the same state of highest mental well-being as he had achieved (otherwise known as enlightenment).Nichiren Daishonin concluded that the way to achieve the enlightenment in this lifetime is to chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo, the heart of the Lotus Sutra.

We chant twice daily to let go of all negative emotions. The minimum is 5 mins, sincerity matters more than quantity.

I know that chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo aloud sounds complete bonkers. However, I always find that chanting for at least 20 minutes lifts my mood. I begin to see a problem from many different angles and I have made many breakthroughs in my personal and professional life in the last 13 years I had practiced.

The purpose of the chanting is to get yourself into harmony with the Universe by letting go of all negative emotions and drawing out your own wisdom, courage and compassion (compassion towards yourself as well as others).

I also try to attend as many Buddhist activities as I can. Sometimes we chant together, sometimes we discuss how to put the principles of Buddhism into challengies of our daily lives.

The meetings are very informal, no one is preaching, we believe we are all equal in terms of our potential to achieve enlightment and we treat each other with utmost respect. The meetings are completely free. They are run by volunteers mostly out of our houses even though we do have 3 centres in London and one National Centre in Taplow Court in Surrey. The centres survive on donations, SGI-UK is a registered charity dedicated to the propagation of the Lotus Sutra. I hope I answered some of the questions you might have. I am sending links to 3 books with excellent reviews.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BUDDHA-YOUR-MIRROR-Practical-Buddhism/dp/0967469783/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3AR8470HZGYTB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.VycHindHtdoMOj6uquJlQqOIbxOCWY-w9mpYFd-EyZgVSWFpPZsWz-qtEjsgJRFeLiEQl6Fi4U0PsbwjCfyk0m9dGduWBx_0xGsF3RqEBwgwl21-MwWDYI43E2fsIg_35AaJyRVNc9v3rgR1ikTIiquxyrGHYrwiTFoWzUlimiybObMauz7HyKvI4w4iumEd6hg13Mj7YqtzqoYb11oTnWm98v_9S4fE15n4cDScmMo.Znr7JKM-lZZ88hTlIF3zXr3w6ponHXEggXJbS0qNAPM&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+buddha+in+your+mirror&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1733578866&sprefix=buddha+in+your%2Caps%2C100&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Buddha-Daily-Life-Introduction-Daishonin/dp/071267456X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=29COMD77BKX9J&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JLhzETW5NGQPJXBMj4Qyi0dhiDGiq07JCtwfZ4U23c7z5y5cBeL0_eZ-ixcb6d5qHlepgHVD8r9b96GbXR-d1A2ce-rtDUfDv-kgK8E3BpDHf8iwnzzuceoCnrVXVGCfJdQhycg9pzeRxAcFDuXEBtHwLDK_4ztqyEcl7HpbPetdPiB6WU9KAur99xUOnzsPCNwUr_3iWOxSDSFqaPT5paM0wlby2lIq9a_gly4vd_Q.Zi24kev8IAcHcLBfhgiNa29uLwsge4fAjJbiB5-7dPY&dib_tag=se&keywords=buddha+in+daily+life&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1733578909&sprefix=buddha+in+daily+life%2Caps%2C124&sr=8-1

www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781902056005/basics-of-buddhism--key-principles-and-how-to-pra-pb-issue/used?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAgdC6BhCgARIsAPWNWH1HEnPn-2BTLEdYnhzGh9t5nDG6AOGIylgz6M_YXLsjsyGyat3Ocm0aAmrpEALw_wcB

I became very interested in this form of Buddhism after watching a documentary about Tina Turner. It completely changed her life and she was a devotee until she died. Unfortunately I didn’t really find anyone to explain more to me which I needed.

There are about 20 000 of Nichiren Buddhists in the UK now, about 20 million worldwide I believe. You should be able to get in touch with some of the via SGI-UK website. Alternatively feel free to explore the books I mentioned earlier. Buddha in Your Mirror is my favourite and it has 4.7 rating on Amazon.

It may not have that effect on you though !
I am back on meds !