Am I depressed? Or something else?

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I broke up with my boyfriend in December 2007, but after the problems we’d been having, I didn’t actually didn’t feel too bad about it. Over the Christmas & New Year period I still enjoyed my happy, easy, confident social life (although, sometimes, as ever, this became rather manic conversing) & took pleasure in the normal and fun things I did.

In February, however, after a few relatively minor things happened, I started feeling very down. I became increasingly uncomfortable in social situations (confusion, dry mouth, panicky breathing and heartbeat) which is most unlike me. I felt tired, couldn’t stop crying and started avoiding my friends. But still wasn’t sure whether the suffering had stepped outside: "Having a hard time and not coping very well."

I decided to give it some time, but over the coming week, things got worse. I went to the supermarket and experienced something quite bizarre there, unlike anything else in my life. I have always felt pretty tuned in to people’s moods through their body language, tone of voice and posture, but in that store, surrounded by hundreds of people, suddenly I felt acutely aware of all their myriad of hurts and disappointments throughout their entire lives. Very difficult to describe, something like deafening screaming, but not actually hearing it. At this point, I felt rather scared to go to a doctor about it as I work with children and didn’t want to lose my job.

Somehow, within the week, I’d stopped crying and felt much better within myself. I returned to my lovely socialising and having fun and decided it was some kind of freak occurrence. And all went well until April, when again I started experiencing a feeling of discomfort in company, and also a real awareness of impending doom. I noticed that no matter how much I tried to paste on a happy face, I became very pessimistic when talking to people. Though I have always been a little thin skinned, I ceased to be able to take any comment, asking for clarity and reassurance about the most mundane things. After it became clear that I was not the easiest person to be around, having always been pretty popular before, many started avoiding me.

Things haven't got any better. I have occasional good days, but overall, just don't feel myself. The Summer was not kind to me, when I had some work stress, experienced some heartache and had a family bereavement, but can honestly say, since April (when nothing actually happened to set it off), I have not felt myself atall (crying, tiredness, poor concentration, inability to make decisions, acute anger and irritation at v minor things, feelings of worthlessness). Of course, things have happened since then which haven’t helped, but I feel that without some help, I’m wasting my life feeling so miserable and exacerbated by the knowledge that I’m scaring people away.

Have tried to continue to eat well and exercise, reduce caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol, though problems sleeping don’t help. Am I depressed? Or something else? Please advise.

[needtochange]

Unbelievable,

Finally got the courage to go see the Doctor and the surgery operates a half day on Thursdays :(

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Many Thanks rliz and MysticKatDaddy for your input, especially:

"One day the pressure form ignoring anger and sadness would get too much and things would just boil over" which struck quite a chord, and

"It sounds like you are dealing with a combination of depression and anxiety, both of which often occur together and which are treatable in the vast majority of cases" which has given me some hope.

I think six months of this is too long and it's time to take a big brave breath and take along a copy of my above post to my doctor :(

[MysticKatDaddy]

It sounds as if you are experiencing an existential crisis.Sometimes these things happen because of certain areas of our lives that we have been neglecting. We can ignore or push down certain negative feelings and this is eventually how they come out. I know people who would never get upset or feel bad. One day the pressure form ignoring anger and sadness would get too much and things would just boil over. These things happen in everyone's lives. Once you work through it, you will become a far superior and deeper person because you will learn to feel all of your emotions. I think you should see a competent psychologist first. The psychologist can help you determine whether you just need to change your way of thinking, you need to see a psychiatrist for medicine or both. You are doing some great things like eating well and getting plenty of exercise. That can be hard to do when you feel this way and you should be proud of it. If you get help you will be fine.