I go through the motions every single day. Drag myself out of bed, check to see if there is a power outage / snowstorm / some other reason not to “Pass Go” and force myself to get ready for a day of pretending I am cheery and happy.
I smile at everyone, exchange morning pleasantries with co-workers, make up stories about relaxing and enjoying my previous evening / last day off. I look my boss in the eye and smile and tell her she is right, I am wrong, I will fix that, I will have that for you at xtime, always smiling and cheery. I wonder if they can tell I’m faking it?
I return to my office, close the door and do everything in my power to not burst into an uncontrollable bout of tears because I am so unhappy, all the time, for no reason.
I take home a great pay cheque, have a nice house, a wonderful person to share all this with, but my body is physically wired to be unhappy. Medication helps, it gets me through the day, makes me function but it doesn’t and can’t make me happy. The Dr’s I have seen are doing the best they can – I appreaciate their care.
I went through a self-medicating trial but booze is expensive and the relief it short lived, outweighed by the inevitable hang-over or severe depression once the buzz wears off.
Why can’t I just be happy – I have no reason not to be. —Sucky Assed Depression sucks
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2013.
Money can’t buy happiness. Very cliche but so true. The root of depression is with one’s self not your boss, co-workers though they can make the situation worse. Some aspect of your life experience is eroding your ability to cope. Until you find and face that demon, you could be heading for a breakdown.
You mentioned doctors (plural) I assume that includes some psychological assessment. If so, you need to follow-up on that.
If you seem to have it all (by your own description) and are still very unhappy, you have to ask yourself if what you have is what you want or what you believe you should want, a huge difference there.
I obviously don’t know you but you seem a very nice person maybe too nice for your own good. Also, stay away from alcohol, surefire way to make things worse.
Maybe it was the day you spent as a traffic wench that drove you to this despair. It was only one day and you returned to your seat in front of the computer monitor so all should be butt-fuck and cum-drops from herein unless the orange vest person stays home another day … chill out.
op, will add my 2 cents with reg, stay away from alcohol or any other self meds. and apart from whatever prescription anti-depressants you are taking, do you get any analysis/therapy?
it’s not your fault. clara hughes is a good example of that.
money can’t buy happiness?
are you crazy?
Show me one person who’s sad riding a jetski…
booze IS way too expensive…
and if you’re drinking every day and still getting hangovers, you’re doing it all wrong.
To quote Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’: You don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone – I have a feeling you’ll be one of those people, OP, unless you change your self-indulgent attitude. There are people out there who would be more than grateful with half of what you have, if not less. You can either sit in your pity puddle or do something about it. I was diagnosed with severe depression as a teen and young adult so I’m not saying this lightly. It was me or the depression. I won.
At least on this forum you get more than one second opinion, the Doctor will see you now.
Pick up a hobby, something to look forward to and motivate you. It’s very easy to get caught in the drone routine, especially if you are financially stable. Run, paint, learn to play guitar. Speaking of running, exercise is amazing for getting out of a shitty frame of mind. I may seem like a chore at first, but that changes.
I think op is doing everything but stand on his head to cope with/overcome the depression, and certainly doesn’t sound self indulgent or self pitying. and does not sound like a malingerer. a malingerer would be milking the disability at home watching soap operas.
it would make someone who is already in clinical depression feel useless and even worse to be told they should be grateful for what they have. yet another hair shirt to wear in addition to the self loathing already endured for being depressed in the first place. this is why people are so reluctant to admit it. because others call them weak. they call themselves weak!
op does not sound like someone who is sad because they didn’t get to go to a party, or who has zits. op is functioning, very highly, and is probably terrified about failing to make that climb into ‘normal’ every day. what if one morning he/she just can’t? just collapses? dissolves and loses his/her mind completely? I would imagine this fear is riding heavily 24/7 and only adding to the burden.
I don’t believe there is any one pat answer to this. certainly not ‘pull up your bootstraps and give your head a shake’.
my words right now to you op, you are far stronger than you know. keeping yourself together like this is a huge accomplishment. the fear you have of unravelling is because you ARE such a strong and capable person. and intelligent. stupid people are rarely depressed. find comfort in small, real things that you can enjoy without additional stress. watch a bird peck at the ground. listen to the trees. give your brain a little shot of happy. and get a referral to a therapist if you don’t have one already. actual shrinks are covered under medical. if you don’t like the one you get/have, ask for another one. they are all different and one doctors methods may not sit right with you. nothing worse that an ill-fitting shrink LOL.
your last sentence says it all, I have every reason to be happy. and since you are not, it is not of your doing. it’s depression riding you. it is NOT something you invited in, it is not a weakness or moral failing. the fact that you are functioning so well, and not lying in a ditch with a needle hanging out of your arm is something to be very proud of.
Then end it already. FFS, “my life is so awesome but, I still has a sad. 🙁
Quit sooking up our webpage with your first world problems. Grow the fuck up and LEARN to happy like the rest of us.
Mental health problems are not a first world problem, you piece of shit.
I retract the harsh part of my statement. My apologies. But seriously, people need to not discount mental health issues.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/sudanese-…
You are right .. life is mostly unsatisfactory. No need to pretend to be happy, obviously you aren’t coping well.
Meds won’t help much, neither will psychologists, etc.
The fact is, life will not change just for you .. however unfair that may be.
This was all dealt with 2500 years ago. A prince had the very same problem as you, and found the path to happiness. Maybe you should try his path?
Type “Buddha” into your search engine, local buddhist organisations also exist. The Buddha taught a simple breathing meditation that will help you find that path to happiness.
life is mostly unsatisfactory? no. life is far more wonderful than we realize. most people scuttle about their day to day business paying no attention to their LIFE. monkeys on hamster wheels clattering non stop in their minds. busy busy busy cramming garbage in their maws and crunching drearily.
blech. go look at a fuzzy paterkiller Buddha. crush a bit of pine needles and take a good breath. life is very good.
Those non-depressed people from third world countries who were raised in squalor just don’t know they should be depressed.
Smoke weed, lady.. smoke weed 🙂
“…I wonder if they can tell I’m faking it?” – Stop. If you keep this up you’ll habituate faking happiness and cause yourself a whole world of additional problems. There’s nothing wrong with being sad. In fact, fighting it and denying it (depression) are not appropriate solutions. Acknowledge it, accept it, embrace it, and start to move on.
“…I am so unhappy, all the time, for no reason” – There IS a reason. Find out what it is. People’s default mode is not unhappiness, no matter what they say or feel.
“…my body is physically wired to be unhappy” – No it’s not; It’s physically wired to keep on living – You’re brain has been ‘inefficiently programmed’ so that you experience unhappiness. Reprogram it.
There are alternative, and what I find to be much more effective, methods to medication. And I don’t mean alcohol or hard drugs – although I will always remain an advocate for medical marijuana.
“Why can’t I just be happy – I have no reason not to be.” – Then BE happy. It is a choice, especially when the cause of your unhappiness is not obviously apparent.
Have you ever heard of monks, or yogi’s or spiritual people ‘living in the moment’? It’s about losing sight of past and future and fully experiencing the smallest possible increments of time, and in each individual increment making the choice to be happy and alive.
You have to habituate wellness.
While depression should not be trivialized as a ‘first world problem’ it is most def a first world phenomenon.
WAC, that was a very Yogi Berra ish comment.
I think its funny that the tone of the replies here imply that its a lady. I know plenty of men being treated for depressive disorders.
WHAT IS HAPPINESS?
“Why can’t I just be happy – I have no reason not to be.” Sucky Assed Depression sucks
What is required here is a little conceptual clarification, a little philosophical deconstruction if you like. The poster has linked happiness with reasons. In her case, however, she is unhappy but can find no reasons for being so. Nonetheless the linkage remains. Her distress comes from the fact that she can find no reasons for her unhappiness.
But is the linkage legitimate? Is there any cause-effect relationship between happiness and reasons? In other words, where the concept of happiness is a psychological condition or a matter of the emotions (we won’t quibble here about the degrees of happiness ranging from contentment to euphoria), the concept of reason has its home in the context of rationality, the exercise of reflective judgement. For the latter to influence the former, for rationality to guide psychology, the issue reduces to the question as to whether the emotions, in philosophical parlance, have a “cognitive core”. In its present application the question is whether happiness can be said to be the outcome reflective judgement. The ontological question, of course, relates to the ultimately fundamental question as to the nature of human beings themselves. What is man? Is he a creature of blind emotions or is he one of reflective judgement or, possibly, a product of both? So where to start? We must start with the question, “What is happiness?”
Human happiness is not some sort of free-standing condition which “just happens to be there.” On its own it is neither self-explanatory nor self-validating. It is necessarily the result of human activity of one sort or another. But what is the nature of that activity? At the risk of circularity, we must say that it is a self-fulfilling activity. It cannot be random, sporadic or without purpose. In philosophical terms, it must be in some sense “teleological” that is, activity with an end in view. But what sort of activity is it?
What one must understand is that “happiness” itself can never be the purpose of human activity. I put the term in quotation marks to demonstrate a commonly held but misguided concept of happiness for it can never be, in itself, the object of human activity. One can never aim at achieving happiness “simpliciter.” Rather, happiness is the by-product of purposeful, reflective activity. For example, as I write this I am happy. This post is the product of my purposeful, reflective judgement on the question of what constitutes happiness and how it is to be achieved. It has fulfilled the teleological conditions required to answer the question, “What is happiness?” So I am happy. But what about the poster?
She must take up philosophy.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I agree with WAC. I do, I do.
SG, you are wrong:
“… depression is the leading cause of
disease burden for women in both high-income and
low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2008). “
http://www.who.int/mental_health/managemen…
It appears that I am, Sir. Cheerfully withdrawn. See what I did th-
*click*
*boom*
Pot. Smoke pot, OB.
I hope you find something that works for you OP. I am fighting my own battle with depression and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I have to believe it will be worth it. Good luck.
I have felt like this OP. The best thing for you is to do something that you really want, out of your normal routine. It is a temporary feeling of bliss and whenever you feel at your lowest, you can think of that bliss over and over. Also, you should try to do it as much as possible. I went away in August and I plan to go away again in December, because I hate pretending to be happy and feeling lost and alone in this not so huge world that feels infinite to me and traveling is something that makes me forget my misery, it’s my escape. Find your moment of bliss OP.
This is also genuine advice because you are the reason I just made an account!
I wish you all the best and sending you lots of love and positive energy OP