New To The Depression Support Community? Introduce Yourself Here!

Uh hey? I've never done this before so please bear with me! I've had depression for many years and i'm in therapy and on medication but not finding it helpful sadly. I'm chronically ill and have ptsd as well as other things but I won't bore you with them :) I thought I'd try and do this and see if it helps? My so called 'friends' have all stopped replying to me so I'm hoping you guys will be a bit nicer? Sending love!

Hi, I'm Matt, I wasn't really diagnosed with depression by a doctor, but I feel as if I may have some of the symptoms, such as struggling to get out of bed, or feeling really crappy about myself and being really self conscious about myself. I mostly feel I can't do anything right half the time no matter how hard I try, and sometimes people get upset with me about it. I'm really socially awkward and I'm extremely self conscious about that. My best friends try to tell me it's alright, but they have everything going for them at the moment and I don't, so it's kind of hard to relate to them most of the time. Anyways, I'm basically here to look for new friends, and hoping I can find someone that I can relate to, even if it is just a little bit.

Hi everybody!

I'm new here.

I've always been anxious and had OCD, but depression is new to me over the last few months.

I quit my job and moved across the country from a big city to a little town where my parents live and am feeling pretty isolated.

None of my usual methods like exercise and mindfulness seem to be working. I'm just overcome with sadness, worthlessness and feeling like I'll never get my life back together again.

Just found this app and really like it so far. Thanks for being out there and sharing 😊

Hey everyone. I'm Caelan, and I'm 14 years old. I've only been dealing with depression for about 9 months but it's a really heavy weight to carry on my own. I'm only on this site for help after I attempted to inform my mother about how I am feeling... it failed miserably. I have talked many people out of harming themselves, using substances to drown the pain away and attempting suicide

(Send buttons drive me insane) but I can't seem to help myself in those ways. I am seeking help now because I feel like I'm losing this battle...

Hey and i am 13. I suffer from severe depression and anxiety. Everything started of when i was small my parents use to fight and my mom suffered from severe depression so always use to be with sister she started looking after when i was a couple of years old so she is like my second mom. We had a lot of family problems. Things start getting hard for me when i was about 7 when my sister left the house so i was not allowed to talk to her or see her and i still aint. Like last year i found out that i suffer fron thantophobia. Nothing has been easy for me and worse of all i start self harming and i have not told anyone. I have had enough.

Hi everyone!

<< Sorry for the re-post - I've posted this on the main Intro page, but since one of my problems is a sever case of mild depression it seemed appropriate to place it here as well (plus I've spent like three hours writing it up, am quite proud of the end result and, frankly, just not in the mood to write another one of these 'essays'). >>

My name is Dale (no it's not - it's a convenient stand-in for my real name which is usually mispronounced by non-my-native-language speakers; also I just like the sound of 'Dale', way better then my actual name) and I think I have severe social anxiety and have been mildly depressed for the last 11-13 years. The "I think" part means that I've never acually been diagnosed by a trained professional, but the results of every online test that I've taken over the years usually have the cheerful life-affirming rendition of the phrase "YOU HAVE SEVERE ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION. PLEASE SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP!". And while it would be nice to have regular chats with a therapist or get some "feel-good party pills" from the friendly local pedl... psychiatrist, the first option is frankly overpriced (50 Euro per visit in a country with a net median wage of 600-700 Euro per month should be considered highway robbery, afaic) and the second one almost made me lose my mind (really bad experience - the good doctor was adamant that I'm suffering from bipolar, so I had to endure a month of olanzapine; at least now I know what it feels like to have no thoughts or emotions what-so-ever - SPOILERS: *not good, like, at all*).

Anywho, I can't connect with people that well. I can interact with them on a daily basis, I am not afraid of talking to unfamiliar people, heck, I can even manage a somewhat large network of old friends (pre-depression and anxiety), new friends (fellow depressed misanthropes from high school and uni), colleagues ("keep your friends close, your enemies closer") and acquaintances (a few rando weirdos - convenient to have on standby for odd jobs and good times) who for some reason DON'T hate me and are willing to hang out from time to time. However, although I can kinda-sorta navigate myself through the shallow waters of the sea of Necessery Day-to-day Socialization, the cringe-worthy name just given to this process can't even begin to convey the sheer awkwardness of the whole ordeal. Every interaction I have with other people seems both forced and stifled at the same time - I want to say so much yet I end up saying very little (this post is a good example of this - when I get a chance to write down my thoughts, the floodgates are opened and there's just no stopping the torrents of verbal sewage). I can't establish a deep connection with anyone since in real life I tend to apply so many filters to my conversations - all because of my desire to please people.

I hate making people uncomfortable. I try to avoid conflict as much as possible. I smile when I ought to be enraged. I become passive when I should be taking action. I think the word "moist" sounds great, but would never tell that to anyone within my network of peeps (yes, "peeps" IS an acceptable stand-in for "people" and no, I don't care whether anyone thinks I'm a lunatic or not). This internal censorship is driving me insane - it messed up my ability to focus, it messed up the relationships with the little number of family members I still have, it prohibits me from learning, establishing new enjoyable relationships, having freakin' life goals (alas, "being a wisecracking apathetic nihilist" is not a valid life goal nor a good previous job description). Therefore, I decided to change something in the way I approach interpersonal discourse. Unfortunately, I have no clue where to start or what is it that I am supposed to do to conquer my sever social anxiety and mild depression (please don't say "steal a horse, hit the Steppes, build a yurt, subjugate Eastern Europe", 'cause I am sure that you don't have to be "the Mongols" to become more assertive and stop feeling like doo-doo about your life). I hope that there is someone who can help me out with this. I also hope I did not bore anyone reading this depressed, anxious geek's tyrade - these long-winded 'essays' help to unwind (pun intended, not sorry). I also also hope that I did not break any rules and it is in fact okay to leave a long post in this section - please don't ban me, I will atone for my sins in any way I can (people pleasing is what I do BEST).

TL;DR. Am anxious, depressed. Don't know how stop. Need help. Please help.

- Cheers, 'Dale'.

Hello, new here.

Don't want to go into details, to be honest. Had a rough 5 years. Had a few traumatic experiences, have got an anxiety disorder, been abused and used as my family's emotional crutch. Been using 7Cups for a while, finally starting to come out my shell more. Been slowly getting better the passed few months. Hopefully, going to university next year. :)

Where do I even start? Currently I wake up every morning and have to remind myself to breath in and out and to carry on with my life. I have to fight with the urge not to suck start my pistol. In short I feel like my world has and is continuing to implode on me.

Many years ago I was medically retired from the U.S. Military. I broke and fractured both my spine and pelvic bone. This caused me a great deal of pain in my daily life and still does for that matter. My wife at the time was from the Philippines and she had the idea that moving to her home country would make sense as my pension would go farther over there than it does here in the U.S. While there I was having stomach pains and so I was taken to the hospital. They decided that I appendicitis. They then proceeded to cut me open and searched for my appendix for seven hours. They did not find it and told my wife at the time that they closed me up because I was turning black. They left an 8 inch scar on my stomach and the wound refused to heal up. It took nearly ten months for it to heal. I could not stand up as it would cause it to tear open and bleed and so muscle atrophy began and between the surgery, the back pains and the muscle atrophy i became for all practical purposes bed bound.

I would remain in bed for over 8 years there in the Philippines. I grew depressed and began to chug on Mountain Dew like it were water and ate junk food like it was going out of style. So while my depression grew so did my waistline. I got up to 623 pounds at my heaviest. I was killing myself, my wife, my daughter and our once happy family.

My daughter got me to start loosing weight and trying to strengthen myself daily. It was a long process. It took me nearly two years to get down to 511 pounds and to be able to sit up for more than 15 minutes without being in severe pain. While I was improving and making efforts to get better. It was too little too late it seems as my wife decided that she could no longer deal with it. I dont blame her. She needed a life and I am still struggling to get one.

My daughter wanted to return to the US and so she did. Six months later so did I. The plane ride home was painful and at the layover they had to drive me from one plane to the next and when I touched down in Los Angeles they had to wheel me out to my fathers truck. I was 497 pounds at this time.

I have now been in the US for going on seven months and I am growing stronger physically and able to move around a bit better. I can shop on my own now and i drove from California to Missouri. I had bought a house in Missouri but as i drove to my new home it had caught fire and burned down on July 3rd due to kids playing with fireworks in anticipation for the fourth of July.

So I had no place to live. I have family members in Oklahoma that were willing to help me. So I came here to Oklahoma where I currently live alone in an RV park in tiny 22ft travel trailer.

My daughter recently got married at the age of 19 which I feel is a mistake and left college.

i sit in this trailer staring at the walls daily. I feel like my weight will never get down to a reasonable level. I walk with a cane and I am pretty sure that no woman will ever want a fat crippled man so I know I am doomed to spend the rest of my life alone.
I am not sure I want to live if this is what my life shall continue to be and so suck starting my pistol remains an attractive solution to me. This deep loneliness and helplessness that i feel is far more painful and scary to me than the thought of death.

Hello.

My name is Ci, and I have suffered from chronic depression most of my life. I believe I may also have a mild form of bipolar disorder, although it has not been diagnosed. I joined 7 cups in search of people who understand what it is like dealing with this and to help others.