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Discussion & help on depression & mental health related issues

The binman chronicles said:
Sounds like a great way to put a spark back in to your life, different people and culture and a change of scenery will freshen things up no end I'm sure.

I hope it all goes well for you out there.
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My thoughts exactly mate. Hopefully I'll be nostril deep in tropical maidens before you can say Geneva convention.
 
Diogenes the Cynic said:
My thoughts exactly mate. Hopefully I'll be nostril deep in tropical maidens before you can say Geneva convention.
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Exactly. I can't say for all cases of depression but for my own I had to fall back in love for life. To see that things can make you happy and be able to take life as an adventure. Sure some of it can be mundane or even downright awful but you never know what is waiting around the corner. Take your new job for instance - could you ever have foreseen that?

Who knows what awaits afterwards, your greatest experience or achievement are yet to come, you just have to open your mind and your heart and take in the wonders that can be had. From the sound of it you are well on your way to that goal.
 
COYBL25 said:
Great post mate, it`s good to hear some positivity, as it lets others know that things can and do get better with time and circumstance.

Maybe you could try swapping every other drink for a soft drink when you`re out - It`ll make a big difference the morning after.

Once people are pissed they don`t notice / don`t care that you`re not drinking ?
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Thanks mate.

Yeah I’ll have to think about doing that. I’ve started drinking in gin instead of beer because I tend to sleep better and have less angst-ridden hangovers on that, so getting the odd glass of soda or tonic water and calling it a G and T shouldn’t be too difficult.

I really hope the positivity continues and the worst is over now.

In the spirit of showing people that things get better, this popped up on my Twitter feed today

 
Billy Dean said:
Thanks a lot for your messages and sorry for the late replies.

Things have changed a bit. Couple of days after I went back into work my reporting line pulled me into a meeting and gave me my transfer confirmation, apologised that they took so long and stressed that I’m a valued member of the team and they’re happy with my confirmation, and before I went on holiday they have finally started integrating me into my new team. It’s definitely a relief, although after so many months stress it’ll be a little while before the relief fully kicks in. But at least I think I won’t be going through long periods of 4 hours sleep a night for the foreseeable. I’m hoping (touch wood) that the stress will slowly dissipate now.

Still feeling very exhausted though. On holiday but long haul and badly jet lagged. Quite vain but I’m quite shocked at the toll this last year or so has taken on my appearance. I look an absolute mess. I hope that will clear up at some point too. I look a bit like that picture of Tiger Woods when he got arrested.

@Jokerdan re the ale yes since the op I seem to be hitting it harder than before it. I guess that’s down to the xhaustion too. It takes me more booze than normal to get in that merry spirit. Which then as you say makes me feel worse the next day and affects my sleep. Especially bad when I do it on work nights. Bit of a catch 22. I’m an expat (posh term for immigrant) and so my social circle fluctuates as people come and go. I’m in the process of making new friends at the moment so feel I need to be in that merry spirit more than i might have done a couple of years ago.
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Good to hear. I think the effects of drink worsen as we get older. I used to think nothing of four night weekends with loads to drink. Never bothered me. Now I get three day hangovers and barely drink because of it.
Diogenes the Cynic said:
I don't really post much at all on here although a few people may remember me as a much more prolific poster.
I've been a silent observer of this thread from the start wondering if i should make comment or not. It's a wonderful thing and it's only my own personal demons thst has made me pause.
I've experienced mental health problems from both a professional and personal point of view. I'm a mental health nurse and I've worked pretty much every environment going. My main background is acute but ive worked secure, crisis team, rehab, substance misuse etc.
I've suffered from anxiety since i can remember. It's like i have a need to be liked and loved by everyone so i am a complete people pleaser and so although in public i appear to be a confident clown inside it is very different.
I took my first overdose about 10 years ago. It wasn't so much as an intentional overdose, more that the worse things get the more extreme i go with my lifestyle until i don't care anymore. I think that night it was flake and popping opiate painkillers until i passed out. I woke up face down in vomit, if I'd fell a different way i doubt I'd be here.
I picked myself up. Things are always up and down with my mood but like a lot of people you become a master of disguise.
I just poured myself into my work. With no partner or kids i moved around, getting what i wanted from the job then leaving for promotions and somewhere new.
I started managing an acute ward. It was in bad shape when i arrived but i got rid of all the bad eggs and recruited a new team who were inexperienced but full of passion. We worked together for 2 years and they were like family. Then the hospital was taken over and they changed the spec. They started taking referrals that i felt unsafe for the environment. I wanted to protect the team and the patients and tried to battle the exec team and obviously lost.
They got rid of me and i went downhill fast. I was too proud to let anyone see me down. I turned into Charlie Sheen (minus the AIDS and sadly Bree Olson) and eventually hit rock bottom.The girl i was seeing turned out to be shallow and falseand that hurt me. I just remember waking up in a hospital bed with the crisis team looking at me. I obviously knew them personally and I got them to put it down on my record as accidental alcohol poisoning and came back to Liverpool.
My anxiety became so bad i struggled to even leave the house. I became obsessed with cooking and would spend the entire day cooking and watching cookery shows.
Eventually with a kick up the arse from an antidepressant i started to ride my bike a bit outside and from there gradually became able to go in public again.
I took a job managing an acute step down hospital. I was promoted to manage the acute services. But i was struggling. I had a team unwilling to change their culture and an exec team unwilling to back my changes. I spent 10 months in a place where i couldn't trust anyone and it was a completely hostile working environment.
I'm on the sick now but im not going back.
I can't go back, someone or some staff have been compiling a list of things I've allegedly done and so im suspended pending investigation. I hate it there anyway.
Ive been prescribed lots of antidepressants in the past but it's my anxiety mainly that leads to my low mood. I didn't want to go on an antidepressant only and so i took a short course of benzos. I had been prescribed propranolol previously but ineffectively and I asked the gp to give me pregabalin because i shouldn't be taking the propranolol with my asthma.
One of my nurses was a good friend and we started a relationship. She broke up with me this week. I've had the pregabalin pushed up to the max dose but im eating them like sweets and taking double my mirtazapine to get to sleep.
I feel like i did before but not despairing more like resigned. I feel like ive been fixed just to be smashed into pieces again. And it's not like i want to die anymore, i just don't care if i live. So at the moment i am in Charlie Sheen mode, last night i cut and pasted the same message to girls on a dating site until i got some redhead to come to mine and then even after she left i was wanking like a safari park chimp to babestation daytime until the rum and pregabalin made me pass out.
I woke up at teatime today. I just feel numb. Everyone i know is getting married and having kids, i have absolutely material to show for my life, no wife, no house no cat.
But I've been offered a chance to work overseas and i am going for it. It's my lifeline because if i stay here i think im done.

Apologies for the long and rambling message, I'm not asking or expecting help.

I don't know why i wrote it really, only to unload and put it in black and white for myself and because I have read this thread for so long with pride and admiration really.
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i don't know what to say other than what a story. You sound like the kind of manager I would like to work for and, with my Union rep head on, give thanks daily for a boss who is willing to look after his staff. Work can be a toxic place and it is still not acknowledged how much a bad working environment can cause so many problems that impact in every aspect of a person's life.

Take the job abroad. It seems like karma has conspired to drop this in front of you. And, if I was you, and was offered an opportunity like that and said no, there would always be a huge "what if" in my life. You an always come back if it doesn't work out.

Good luck and thank you for sharing your experiences.
 


Long-time occasional anxiety sufferer here.

Some of the things I have found that really help: regular exercise, as already noted by other posters - chemical effects, but if you feel in shape, it lifts your whole self-regard;

Diet is super-important as well though - caffeine, sugar and alcohol really are toxic, even if we all like to indulge. I actually did a treatment for candida infection because of eczema/psoriasis, but it's amazing the beneficial effect that it has had on my mental/emotional state also. There is an increasing amount of studies out there linking gut and mental health.

See also, meditation (the Headspace app is great) and breath-work can be really powerful as well (I'm actually training to teach the latter right now on the side).

I wonder if any other folks on here have tried coming at it from these angles and how they got on?
 
st.domingo said:
Long-time occasional anxiety sufferer here.

Some of the things I have found that really help: regular exercise, as already noted by other posters - chemical effects, but if you feel in shape, it lifts your whole self-regard;

Diet is super-important as well though - caffeine, sugar and alcohol really are toxic, even if we all like to indulge. I actually did a treatment for candida infection because of eczema/psoriasis, but it's amazing the beneficial effect that it has had on my mental/emotional state also. There is an increasing amount of studies out there linking gut and mental health.

See also, meditation (the Headspace app is great) and breath-work can be really powerful as well (I'm actually training to teach the latter right now on the side).

I wonder if any other folks on here have tried coming at it from these angles and how they got on?
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Exercise is the key for me mate and at long last, it`s starting to get recognised and used by health care professionals as part of treatment for anxiety / depression.
 
Skipped the past two weeks at work because I just couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed in the morning. Phoned in sick so kept it covered. But I am SO anxious to go back tomorrow when people ask me what was up or call me a dipper etc. Horrid night “sleep” ahead for me.
 

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