Is this normal for depression?

Mental health
1

Hi folks, first post here for apologies if I blabber on or anything.... 

I'm currently in my early 20's. I was diagnosed with depression around 12 months ago after a particularly bad period of time in my life where I just had a really torrid time of things. And whereby my mental health really declined and I felt I HAD to seek support before it was too late. I spoke to my GP, started seeing a university wellbeing advisor and started to feel better again. Then around August 2014 I started to feel it again and I returned to university and saw a counsellor again which helped. Since October I've had on and off days of depression etc. but I think back to when I was 16 and 17 and I feel that I was probably also depressed then but more so during difficult periods in my life if that makes sense? Everybody becomes sad and has low mood etc. during difficult times but how I felt then was almost the same to how I feel now on my bad days.

I just wanted to know if it was normal to suffer the following things when depressed. 

Inability to sleep due to anxiety and worry. To the point where everything you do in a day just passes you by because you're so tired? Being so worried, scared and above all else, emotional that you just cannot function properly? As in you just cannot think straight what so ever? You can't make logical decisions about your life or about anything, every decision you make is usually wrong because you can't focus or you do silly things to just put yourself "at ease" because if you don't it will literally eat away at you until it's all you can think about? So you do daft things you wouldn't usually in a million years do because you just need to try and make yourself feel better? You can't follow instructions or you read things and just completely misunderstand them because your head is just a mess?

I didn't know if this was normal behaviour and feelings for depression along with the obvious low mood etc. 

Thank you.

2

As a depression sufferer for 23 years I think I can safely say the things you are describing are all part of the illness.you won't be like that all the time but when you experience a bad bout of depression these symptoms will probably appear

3

Hi Carolyn,

Yes you are right, it's worse during bad bouts but it seems to be affecting me to some degree in general now which is annoying.

But it is reassuring in a way to know other people experience this too.

Thank you for your reply.

4

Howdy George

I'm someone that pulls back from confrontation and thinks about things then comes forward with a plan / answer / whatever. I think its called a tortoise personality. When I do come back in a day or so, I get accused of abuse cause i'm "holding something against someone else" (who only wanted someone to attack while they were angry about something) I have just had that situation happen in

So to answer your points I'm describing it in the way I am experiencing it though - hope some of it makes sense;

- sleep deprivation

1. I either want something nice to replace the bad stuff during the day, so I stay up watching videos etc Mulling / practicing what I'm going to say the next day.. (then getting frustrated that the person can't even remember what they said.)

2. Turning over all the options in an argument / confrontation or designing something takes a lot of energy.

- Focus. = sleep deprivation and by the time i've come up with 100 answers for an issue, then no wonder I can't focus

- Head mess - 1. I have had 2 confrontations with 200 outcomes (socks) each so My brain is storing 400 socks in the tumble dryer which is spinning away happily all night keeping me awake. One or two socks will come to the front, then some others will. Even if emotions take 15s to drain away, cause there are 400 separate repeating 'charges' of emotion, then I last 400x15m = 100 hours of fun.

The miracle is why I'm able to coordinate breathing let alone follow instructions.

There is a test I came across recently called VAK - Visual input, Audio input and Kinetic (touch) input.

Im 30/4/4 so I'm VERY visual. This means that I have trouble reading instructions.

I think it IS normal behaivour to "self access" when a crisis happens, just that I tend to keep the crisis going in my mind (thanks socks). If I am able to reduce the importance of the issue, then it seems to go away.

But I feel cornered because my workmates see the stress / reaction / resolution and keep reaction in mind to hold against me later. "You know, youre always doing XYZ"

Not the best place, but I was put thru the offical Government wringer as an additional load during my engagement breakup and I managed to come away with mud stuck to me.. BUT I still have a job, and I can see an opportunity on the horizon that others havent seen, so I'm quietly working towards that.

Hope some of this makes sense and the only other suggestion I can add is TRY (difficult) but try to treat each issue as separate otherwise they all end up the same importance and you can't work out what fire to fight first.

GOOD LUCK MATE!

5

This is a fantastic way of putting it Froggy!

I think sleep deprivation and depression go hand in hand and the thing with sleep deprivation is.... Even if you're getting to sleep early (which is rare), you tend to have very horrible dreams and restless nights and end up waking up not refreshed at all.

The sock analogy is great. It really does feel like I spend so much of my stressing and getting utterly depressed over POSSIBLE but highly unlikely situations which I feel need a massive explanation but in reality could be cleared up in 5 minutes. That's even if a problem ever occurred..... They never will. But it's hard to get out of that mindset!

Spending most of my time criticising my younger self for doing immature things and not addressing some of the problems I had doesn't help either! But like I said, in a reassuring way almost, it's good to know this is normal although I do wish that all of you rid yourselves of these awful symptoms and problems one way or another as they are debilitating.

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Also thank you for your input Froggy it was a big help and best of luck to yourself! Keep fighting!!

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Good to know I'm helping :P appreciate the words..

Wish there were 'stickies' on this site as I've repeated the socks story about 10 times now

Yeah looking back - I grew up late - was always a find a room and stay in it for 15 years type of person.

I only had my first relationship / engagement at 44!!

But my first love at 18 left me with "Sliding doors" and I went the wrong way and killed my life according to me. So I have been living to die since then, instead of living to live.

~ Dunno about others but the more I bounce stuff from this forum, the more I focus on what I am.. I need a mentor in my life or it doesn't make sense to me which is why the engagement breakup was so bad cause I lost my listener..

"Keep fighting!!" sounds like the Korean - pop cry of encouragement!

If anyone wants FUN distraction not ripping eachother apart - the k-pop shows are way cleverer and nicer than the US / AUS stuff, and you can utube them [ENG SUB] for subtitles.

8

Hello George.  As someone who has depression for almost 30 years I reckon I know all the feelings that go alone with depression. 

Yes it is normal to have insomnia.  I have had it all these years.  Never sleep well.  Part of my depression.  Tiredness was the symptom I went to when I first found out I had depression.  I described it to the doctor as "wading through treacle."  Every day an effort. 

No you can't function normally, everything is an effort.  Like you say you can't think straight.  All typical signs of depression.  Concentration is difficult and I found everything got me stressed and was a drama.  I am talking about when I was in the acute stage when I was first diagnosed.

Over all those years I have been on many different anti depressants, and they helped me so much.  I would not be here now if I had not taken medication. 

I do hope anti depressants and seeing a counsellor are helping you through this down stage.  Depression does have ups and downs and good and bad days.  I have learned to live with this.  You are very young and I do feel for you having depression at such a young age. 

You have helped yourself by seeing your doctor and counsellors.  You definitely need all the support you can get.

I don't know if it is any consolation telling you what you are feeling is normal with depression.  There are many many ways it can affect you, physically as well as mentally.  Does it help to know you are not alone in how you feel, that everyone here who has depression knows exactly what you are going through? 

Take care

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Hi Anne,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, it's difficult. It's hard to explain how much depression affects your cognitive functioning and ability to make decisions and stop yourself doing silly things.

I never liked tablets, I just wanted to speak to people really. I've been ok recently, very busy with university work and I'm hoping I will feel better soon.

Thank you all for your kind words and support, it's so nice to know people care and are willing to offer advice and help others