by threadbear » Sat 28 Jun 2008, 20:58:02
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')Ludi, I'm only focusing on you because you often talk about how you have had a pretty easy life, but I don't really think you have, though obviously there is a lot to be said for never having had to skip a meal because there wasn't any food.
Thank you. I always wondered, before I got diagnosed, why my life seemed so hard when I knew it was actually very easy! I've had few life traumas compared to many people, but seemed to struggle so much with feelings of despair and inadequacy, and many painful physical symptoms though my health was mostly good (other than high blood pressure at a young age). It was a huge relief to finally find out why I had been struggling so much. I actually resisted for years the idea that I might have something seriously wrong with me because I "wasn't that important" - I
couldn't have anything seriously wrong with me, being as unimportant as I was. I thought I was just "weak." Ignoring the problem for so long I finally got ill enough to get diagnosed, which was an enormous event in my life, both negative but also positive. Now I can understand and accept myself in a way I couldn't before.
I think in some ways situational depression (that brought on by life events and traumas), might be more difficult to deal with because it is outside of oneself and therefore in some ways more "out of control."
What you wrestled with is the most difficult situation of all. Thank God you got a diagnosis that dignifies the anguish. I had an ongoing unrelenting anxiety/ depressive thing in adolescence which subsided when I hit my early twenties. I was still messed up, but not hopeless for a few years, when I got hit with a chronic physical illness. Any time I feel trapped, frustrated, physically tested to the limits, I just think back to my teen years and it instantly checks my perspective. If you can get through the ego devastation and dysphoria of mental and emotional pain, you can get through anything.