I think I might be depressed and have been for a while. i have been thinking of going to my GP, although i went a while ago and he was totally unhelpful and basically just brushed everything off as a phase. I am 18 and I really don't know what to do next.
The problems:
- find it hard to work and concentrate, feel absent/ out of it
- don’t sleep at all, or like last week only can sleep, go to bed immediately after dinner
- don’t enjoy anything, only want to go to bed
- feel the need to drink so much alcohol to cope in the evenings
- make plans to run away somewhere fresh, but don’t fulfil them due to fluctuating levels of energy.
- Binge a lot when unhappy and make myself sick using carbonated drinks and my stomach muscles.
- Feel misunderstood, compromised, stripped of my dignity. Because of guilt and just things that people say who don’t know how I am feeling.
- Avoid doing anything I don’t have to. I try to have coffee with friends during the day and do nice easy things, but that’s it socially. I don’t go out in evenings.
- Sometimes make cuts on my wrists when feeling empty, lost, angry. Its a warming feeling. Also used to burn myself with a lighter and a hot knife, but stopped last year.
- Sometimes tempted to cut a bit deeper… but I know the feeling will pass over so I drink enough to send me to sleep.
- Feel oppressed or blinkered a lot of the time.
- Find it hard to motivate myself to work because I can’t see what I am working for. The thought: If everything that I am working for were given to me now, would that make me happy? Instinctively I would answer no.
Things I do to help:
- I try exercise every evening
- I go for very long walks when I can
- Listen to classical music when I go to bed, or whenever I’m in. grieg, Beethoven, brahms, pachabel etc.
- Burn ylang ylang, lavender etc.
- Tidy/ clean my bedroom when I can, change the pictures on the wall
- Try to keep on top of my work by making plans repeatedly and trying to work through them
- I try to wait until dinner for alcohol, and only drink socially
- Take a multivitamin and have tried various herbal pills.
- Smoke rolled cigarettes when I want to binge because they make me feel light headed and its just helps for some reason. But this is probably once a day, not really a habit.
These help, but sometimes things deteriorate and I don’t know what to do. I have exams soon and I need to somehow get through them.
Sorry this is long, but i would really appreciate any advice