How do I deal now?
November 8, 2013 9:45 AM Subscribe
After getting severely depressed in Japan, I quit my fabulous grad school and left my friends and boyfriend behind to go back to Germany last month. I am getting treatment, but what can I do to make sure I won't get worse again?
Female, 24, German.
After getting severely depressed in Japan, I quit my fabulous grad school and left my friends and boyfriend behind to go back to Germany last month. I'm still not feeling great, but a lot better most of the time after some shots from the doctor. I have also seen one counsellor last week and will see another one next week before I decide who to start sessions with. I want to make sure that whatever happened to me will not happen again, but I don't even know what exactly it is that made me so depressed and downright suicidal. (Two blood draws produced no answers, so it wasn't organic.)
I sleep better and eat a lot more since I'm back at home, which is obviously a good sign, but I'm also sad I had to give up my great classmates and won't see my boyfriend until next year. He will come to Europe then, and I can continue my studies through a different university, so it's not like my life is over, but as someone who was bullied or at least excluded pretty much all through her school life, having classmates I loved was so important to me, and now life has thrown me a curve ball again.
I also realised that while I missed my family while in Japan and they were great for the first few weeks, we tend to fight again now that things have settled down a little. For instance, I got really irritated at my father just now when he knocked on my door too loudly and we almost screamed at each other in the end. I'm also irritated by my little brother being too loud, which he always was, and I find it especially irritating when he's loud with friends because almost all of my friends are in Japan. I guess I'm still somewhat depressed because sometimes I think nothing ever goes right for me. I am, however, really happy to see my grandma a lot more often again, which was something I used to do at least once a week before Japan, and which I want to continue doing until the day she'll no longer be with is (the thought of which alone makes me cry!)
I basically went from sleeping on the living room couch to be closer to everyone and crying into my food because I was so moved to be home again to fighting with my parents again, and I don't even know how. I guess some day every one has to leave home, but I even have dreams about hating to live alone and would ideally not move out until I can move in with someone else, like a close friend or boyfriend.
I will mention all of this and what I described in the previous threads in therapy (I made files of my livejournal and a graph depicting my moods over the last few months to take to the sessions), of course, but I would like to ask those of you who have been through similar things before how to ensure getting better again and, if possible, not getting worse ever again?
Female, 24, German.
After getting severely depressed in Japan, I quit my fabulous grad school and left my friends and boyfriend behind to go back to Germany last month. I'm still not feeling great, but a lot better most of the time after some shots from the doctor. I have also seen one counsellor last week and will see another one next week before I decide who to start sessions with. I want to make sure that whatever happened to me will not happen again, but I don't even know what exactly it is that made me so depressed and downright suicidal. (Two blood draws produced no answers, so it wasn't organic.)
I sleep better and eat a lot more since I'm back at home, which is obviously a good sign, but I'm also sad I had to give up my great classmates and won't see my boyfriend until next year. He will come to Europe then, and I can continue my studies through a different university, so it's not like my life is over, but as someone who was bullied or at least excluded pretty much all through her school life, having classmates I loved was so important to me, and now life has thrown me a curve ball again.
I also realised that while I missed my family while in Japan and they were great for the first few weeks, we tend to fight again now that things have settled down a little. For instance, I got really irritated at my father just now when he knocked on my door too loudly and we almost screamed at each other in the end. I'm also irritated by my little brother being too loud, which he always was, and I find it especially irritating when he's loud with friends because almost all of my friends are in Japan. I guess I'm still somewhat depressed because sometimes I think nothing ever goes right for me. I am, however, really happy to see my grandma a lot more often again, which was something I used to do at least once a week before Japan, and which I want to continue doing until the day she'll no longer be with is (the thought of which alone makes me cry!)
I basically went from sleeping on the living room couch to be closer to everyone and crying into my food because I was so moved to be home again to fighting with my parents again, and I don't even know how. I guess some day every one has to leave home, but I even have dreams about hating to live alone and would ideally not move out until I can move in with someone else, like a close friend or boyfriend.
I will mention all of this and what I described in the previous threads in therapy (I made files of my livejournal and a graph depicting my moods over the last few months to take to the sessions), of course, but I would like to ask those of you who have been through similar things before how to ensure getting better again and, if possible, not getting worse ever again?
Best answer: most immediately, i would say ensuring you are in the hands of competent medical professionals you trust and feel you can be totally honest with is the best thing you can do to ensure things get better, and help mitigate the possibility of them getting worse again.
Fighting with your family seems par for the course and if anything perhaps a sign that things are heading back to normal? There will be growing pains for you guys with the new living situation, I would just try to ride it out, it sounds like you are close with your family.
In the long term, now that my bipolar disorder, which had effectively crippled my ability to handle most things for years, is well managed with medication and therapy, I have found that that the following help me to stay well:
-exercise
-eating well
-daily journaling about at least one positive thing that happened that day (retrains your brain to notice the good instead of the bad)
-finding and keeping up with a hobby/having a goal I can work towards and measure my progress in (for me this is running, which also takes care of #1).
-trying to remember to be kind to myself wherever possible--you may have to force this for right now, because you're probably defaulting to being quite hard on yourself--take baths, make your favorite foods, read a good book with a cup of tea, whatever it is that is just for you.
good on you for getting into therapy, once you address some of the depression issues I bet you will be sruprised how much everything else starts to fall in line.
posted by msjoannabanana at 10:53 AM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
Fighting with your family seems par for the course and if anything perhaps a sign that things are heading back to normal? There will be growing pains for you guys with the new living situation, I would just try to ride it out, it sounds like you are close with your family.
In the long term, now that my bipolar disorder, which had effectively crippled my ability to handle most things for years, is well managed with medication and therapy, I have found that that the following help me to stay well:
-exercise
-eating well
-daily journaling about at least one positive thing that happened that day (retrains your brain to notice the good instead of the bad)
-finding and keeping up with a hobby/having a goal I can work towards and measure my progress in (for me this is running, which also takes care of #1).
-trying to remember to be kind to myself wherever possible--you may have to force this for right now, because you're probably defaulting to being quite hard on yourself--take baths, make your favorite foods, read a good book with a cup of tea, whatever it is that is just for you.
good on you for getting into therapy, once you address some of the depression issues I bet you will be sruprised how much everything else starts to fall in line.
posted by msjoannabanana at 10:53 AM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: So glad to hear that you have made that move. It may not be perfect but I suspect that it was the correct decision for you.
Yes, living with family is stressful, but that's okay. In moments when there's a lull, be sure to tell each one of them, "You get on my last nerve, but I couldn not be happier to be back home with you. I love you." Because that's what love is, unconditional. It's okay to be angry with people you love for a bit.
I hate to say it, but you may always be suseptable to depression. So you need to develop tools for self-assessment. Here's an on-line one, but the therapist you work with may have one that he or she prefers to use.
Depression spirals, so it's best to catch it early in a depressive episode. Don't wait for it to be critical.
Medication is a fine way to manage depression.
Read up on it, nearly everyone I know is on medication for depression or anxiety, including me.
Hang in there. Once you're back on your feet, you'll be able to connect and build a new social network. Also, correspond with your friends in Japan. That may make you feel better too!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 10:55 AM on November 8, 2013
Yes, living with family is stressful, but that's okay. In moments when there's a lull, be sure to tell each one of them, "You get on my last nerve, but I couldn not be happier to be back home with you. I love you." Because that's what love is, unconditional. It's okay to be angry with people you love for a bit.
I hate to say it, but you may always be suseptable to depression. So you need to develop tools for self-assessment. Here's an on-line one, but the therapist you work with may have one that he or she prefers to use.
Depression spirals, so it's best to catch it early in a depressive episode. Don't wait for it to be critical.
Medication is a fine way to manage depression.
Read up on it, nearly everyone I know is on medication for depression or anxiety, including me.
Hang in there. Once you're back on your feet, you'll be able to connect and build a new social network. Also, correspond with your friends in Japan. That may make you feel better too!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 10:55 AM on November 8, 2013
Blood draws will not reveal the presence of depression that can be treated with medication (plus talk therapy). Talk to your doctor about the options, and poke around in askme because there are lots of things here about people's experiences with various depression meds.
posted by rtha at 11:10 AM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by rtha at 11:10 AM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'm from California and live in Australia... this happens pretty much every time I go home: homesickness slowly builds and I miss them terribly, I'm super excited to see them, and by the time I leave I am SO DONEand usually annoyed as well.
Therapy for sure, but slowly developing a plan for moving out 'when you are ready' and taking tiny steps toward that may help too.
Susannah Conway and Esme Wang both talk a lot about therapeutic journaling on their blogs and run online classes that you might enjoy too.
I've had a few bouts of hormone induced depression... it's creepy, isn't it?
I like Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. And Exercise and eat well!
posted by jrobin276 at 12:53 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
Therapy for sure, but slowly developing a plan for moving out 'when you are ready' and taking tiny steps toward that may help too.
Susannah Conway and Esme Wang both talk a lot about therapeutic journaling on their blogs and run online classes that you might enjoy too.
I've had a few bouts of hormone induced depression... it's creepy, isn't it?
I like Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. And Exercise and eat well!
posted by jrobin276 at 12:53 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
It takes time. Be gentle with yourself.
Also, bear in mind that in the long-term there will be options that fall in between the two extremes of living thousands of miles away and living with your family. When you feel ready you can choose to settle near them but not with them, and might find that you enjoy their company without being irritable.
It gets better, but it takes longer than you want it to. But it DOES get better.
posted by penguin pie at 2:34 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also, bear in mind that in the long-term there will be options that fall in between the two extremes of living thousands of miles away and living with your family. When you feel ready you can choose to settle near them but not with them, and might find that you enjoy their company without being irritable.
It gets better, but it takes longer than you want it to. But it DOES get better.
posted by penguin pie at 2:34 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I sleep better and eat a lot more since I'm back at home, which is obviously a good sign
I think you might have missed the other side of a causality loop there. Not only is sleeping right and eating right a "good sign", it's a necessary precondition for good health - both physical and mental.
Keep doing that, get competent medical help and make regaining your health and learning to maintain it your top priority for a while, and it will happen for you.
On dealing with family irritants: it might help you to consider your family's patterns as little dances, and work out some new steps you can insert into each one in order to lead the dance down a different path from its customary irritating direction. Take the dances one at a time rather than attempting to deal with all of them at once. You can drive change once you accept the fact that doing so requires sustained and systematic work.
For instance, I got really irritated at my father just now when he knocked on my door too loudly and we almost screamed at each other in the end.
Anger diverts blood flow from the prefrontal cortex to the limbic system, which makes clear thinking difficult and impairs your judgement. This means that acting while angry will often fail to get you the strategic result you want.
Next time he knocks on your door too loudly, try to take a moment to note and acknowledge the irritation that his having done so triggers within you, and make a deliberate choice to delay responding to that until you find the right moment.
This would be the next time you and your father are enjoying each other's company. At some point during that conversation, you could calmly mention that you'd rather he knocked more softly next time he needs to knock, purely because his usual technique makes a startling amount of noise inside your room.
If he seems up for it, run a little role play: he goes in your room, you go outside and demonstrate the effect of his usual battering ram approach vs the gentle knock you'd prefer, then you switch places and he tries out knocks until he finds one that works for both of you. This has the advantage that next time he comes to knock on your door he will be looking at the very same thing he was looking at during the role play, giving him the best chance to remember what he'd agreed to.
Consider the effect that being screamed at for something you meant no offence by, versus that of being calmly and respectfully asked to do it differently next time. Which do you think would make you more likely to feel sympathetic enough toward the person concerned to motivate behavioural change?
And of course he will forget and of course he will knock like he's trying to batter his way in again because he's thinking about why he wants to attract your attention and not about the fact that he has knuckles the size of house bricks. You need to expect that, and just keep dealing with it the same way: as soon as possible after finding your calm again, make your perfectly reasonable request in the same calm and respectful way (preferably using exactly the same words) as the first time.
It's especially important to avoid mentioning previous requests for the same thing - let him remember those; you just put on your game face and rely on the fact that the more often he's asked for the same thing in the same calm and respectful way, the more likely it will be for it to pop into his mind right when it needs to. This "broken record" technique also works well on children, by the way - file it away in the "in case I'm a parent some day" archive.
This is not about "bottling up" anger and backing away from conflict: it's about dealing with conflict promptly but not prematurely in order to resolve rather than perpetuate it. It's also about recognising that your own responses to your family's assorted irritating habits are something over which you can exert a degree of control - perhaps even to the extent that they're still behaving much as they used to do but that your irritation has gone.
I'm also irritated by my little brother being too loud, which he always was, and I find it especially irritating when he's loud with friends because almost all of my friends are in Japan. I guess I'm still somewhat depressed because sometimes I think nothing ever goes right for me.
There are a couple of ideas here that it would probably help you to watch out for and challenge when you notice them cropping up in your own thinking: "he always was too loud", "nothing ever goes right for me".
Try substituting "he's often been loud" for "he always was too loud". This is almost certain to be a more accurate observation about your brother, and you will probably find that improving the accuracy of your thinking on this particular issue causes at least some reduction in the sense of hopeless frustrated suppressed rage it's likely to be causing you at present.
Similarly, try switching in "I frequently need to deal with difficulties" for "nothing ever goes right for me". Once again, this is about improving the accuracy of your internal assessments to the point where they're no longer making it seem like improving your life is this huge mountain of impossibility.
These techniques are derived from cognitive behavioural therapy, which is all about learning to recognise and challenge cognitive distortions.
Just like the eating and sleeping thing, these cognitive distortions are symptoms of and contributing factors toward your present depression, and by picking them apart you can certainly improve your general outlook and help your antidepressant medication work as effectively as possible.
posted by flabdablet at 7:33 PM on November 8, 2013 [4 favorites]
I think you might have missed the other side of a causality loop there. Not only is sleeping right and eating right a "good sign", it's a necessary precondition for good health - both physical and mental.
Keep doing that, get competent medical help and make regaining your health and learning to maintain it your top priority for a while, and it will happen for you.
On dealing with family irritants: it might help you to consider your family's patterns as little dances, and work out some new steps you can insert into each one in order to lead the dance down a different path from its customary irritating direction. Take the dances one at a time rather than attempting to deal with all of them at once. You can drive change once you accept the fact that doing so requires sustained and systematic work.
For instance, I got really irritated at my father just now when he knocked on my door too loudly and we almost screamed at each other in the end.
Anger diverts blood flow from the prefrontal cortex to the limbic system, which makes clear thinking difficult and impairs your judgement. This means that acting while angry will often fail to get you the strategic result you want.
Next time he knocks on your door too loudly, try to take a moment to note and acknowledge the irritation that his having done so triggers within you, and make a deliberate choice to delay responding to that until you find the right moment.
This would be the next time you and your father are enjoying each other's company. At some point during that conversation, you could calmly mention that you'd rather he knocked more softly next time he needs to knock, purely because his usual technique makes a startling amount of noise inside your room.
If he seems up for it, run a little role play: he goes in your room, you go outside and demonstrate the effect of his usual battering ram approach vs the gentle knock you'd prefer, then you switch places and he tries out knocks until he finds one that works for both of you. This has the advantage that next time he comes to knock on your door he will be looking at the very same thing he was looking at during the role play, giving him the best chance to remember what he'd agreed to.
Consider the effect that being screamed at for something you meant no offence by, versus that of being calmly and respectfully asked to do it differently next time. Which do you think would make you more likely to feel sympathetic enough toward the person concerned to motivate behavioural change?
And of course he will forget and of course he will knock like he's trying to batter his way in again because he's thinking about why he wants to attract your attention and not about the fact that he has knuckles the size of house bricks. You need to expect that, and just keep dealing with it the same way: as soon as possible after finding your calm again, make your perfectly reasonable request in the same calm and respectful way (preferably using exactly the same words) as the first time.
It's especially important to avoid mentioning previous requests for the same thing - let him remember those; you just put on your game face and rely on the fact that the more often he's asked for the same thing in the same calm and respectful way, the more likely it will be for it to pop into his mind right when it needs to. This "broken record" technique also works well on children, by the way - file it away in the "in case I'm a parent some day" archive.
This is not about "bottling up" anger and backing away from conflict: it's about dealing with conflict promptly but not prematurely in order to resolve rather than perpetuate it. It's also about recognising that your own responses to your family's assorted irritating habits are something over which you can exert a degree of control - perhaps even to the extent that they're still behaving much as they used to do but that your irritation has gone.
I'm also irritated by my little brother being too loud, which he always was, and I find it especially irritating when he's loud with friends because almost all of my friends are in Japan. I guess I'm still somewhat depressed because sometimes I think nothing ever goes right for me.
There are a couple of ideas here that it would probably help you to watch out for and challenge when you notice them cropping up in your own thinking: "he always was too loud", "nothing ever goes right for me".
Try substituting "he's often been loud" for "he always was too loud". This is almost certain to be a more accurate observation about your brother, and you will probably find that improving the accuracy of your thinking on this particular issue causes at least some reduction in the sense of hopeless frustrated suppressed rage it's likely to be causing you at present.
Similarly, try switching in "I frequently need to deal with difficulties" for "nothing ever goes right for me". Once again, this is about improving the accuracy of your internal assessments to the point where they're no longer making it seem like improving your life is this huge mountain of impossibility.
These techniques are derived from cognitive behavioural therapy, which is all about learning to recognise and challenge cognitive distortions.
Just like the eating and sleeping thing, these cognitive distortions are symptoms of and contributing factors toward your present depression, and by picking them apart you can certainly improve your general outlook and help your antidepressant medication work as effectively as possible.
posted by flabdablet at 7:33 PM on November 8, 2013 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I want to make sure that whatever happened to me will not happen again
This cannot be guaranteed. I think its best to see what these feelings are about and learn to accept and work with them, and expect that being human means these periods happen to us. The trick is to let yourself experience these feelings when you have them, then let them go a few moments later. Takes some work, however.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
This cannot be guaranteed. I think its best to see what these feelings are about and learn to accept and work with them, and expect that being human means these periods happen to us. The trick is to let yourself experience these feelings when you have them, then let them go a few moments later. Takes some work, however.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:27 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
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Have you talked openly with your family about your feelings? It seems like you might keep this bottled up and just suffer in silence, or wait until it explodes out in an argument. Maybe sit down with your family and let them know that you're still having a difficult time, and you can all work on ways to live with one another peacefully.
If not, it may be time to move out.
posted by xingcat at 10:48 AM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]