Published on 12, July, 2020
Not sure how I am coping currently, I finding very hard to concentrate and do tasks.
I break down emotional every day feeling hopeless.
It feels as everyone hates me especially after my meltdowns especially at work (which I documented in the community forum a few weeks ago)
I just make the same mistakes over and over.
I have a loving wife and daughter, but my wife can't take much more, over the last two months we have talked about going our seperate ways.
I have alienated family, colleagues and neighbours, I don't have any friends.
I have tried various help, but I have no long term support for my disability including Mencap.
I was contacted by a Mencap worker a few weeks ago after establishing links through the NAS, but I had no support, not even spoken to them in person or by phone. I had a few emails but only to establish my current situation, now my emails are ignored.
I feel depressed and lonely, is it worth me continuing ? I f I go to the doctor I guess I will be put on tablets.
Please help!
Nas hang in there! This time 3 years ago I was in the darkest place I've ever been. I was on going through a formal hearing at work, I almost lost my wife and family. Admitting to someone, even an anonymous telephone counsellor how I was feeling and what i was contemplating was the hardest thing I've ever done. It took me 2 months to summon the courage to pick up the phone and do it. Once you do it does become easier to talk about and it does get better. My wife made a comment that she thought I was Autistic as I struggle so much socially. I mentioned it to the psychotherapist I was seeing and she screened me. One year on from that I was diagnosed and I started to get answers ( and lot more questions) and I started to move forward.
When you hit the bottom the only direction you can go is upwards. Talk to your doctor, they may well put you on tablets, but they do help. If you physically injure yourself, we think nothing of taking medicines to help us recover. Your brain is no different, you're no less a person if you do. Depression is an illness and you need to look at it like that. I'm still on antidepressants the amount goes up and down from time to time and there nothing wrong in that. They just take the top off the peaks and the bottoms out of the lows.
You've already made a huge step by saying how you feel here, doing that takes enormous courage and strength. You may not feel like it now but you are tougher than you realise and when you come out the other side and you will,you will understand how tough you are.
I will echo Ellie and say contact the Samartians, even if it's just to generally talk to someone at first. It's what they do and they're brilliant a it.
Take care
Dan
I found the email support via Samaritans good to build the initial courage to express how I was feeling. It saved the face to face stuff or blowing it or getting too emotional/struggling to get it out in a phone call
Thank you guys for your support, it still tough but not as desperate as when I last posted.
I know support takes time and for feelings to disspate so I must show patience.
I think I must concentrate on one avenue of help at a time, it so easy once you get different avenues to explore to get carried away and get different opinons that muddy the waters.
My HR manager has been a rock and my manager is beginning to show more empathy. Its really my team colleagues who are struggling on how to approach and read me, of course I need to learn as well, I think deep down I know how I should deal with my feelings, its a case of more intention practice.
Where I have hit a brick wall is the ability to express to someone who won't judge me on how I am feeling, hopefully through paid therapy I can express myself and my current personal issues. It is my personal life issues that caused the meltdowns especially relationships.
So once again thank you to all with your support.
That's really good that Hr are being supportive. It's up to you, but I found being honest with my colleagues about the things I found hard like being disturbed when doing a big piece of analysis and how sound sensitive I am. It helped them to understand a bit more and make little tweaks to how they worked to make it easier for all of us. They would send me an email to say they needed to ask advise or questions, this allowed me to stop at an ideal point and concentrate on them without stressing. Do what is comfortable for you.
It will come, don't put yourself under pressure to open up, share what you are comfortable with. There aren't rules to it, it's about you .A good therapist will let you go at your own pace. Mine was amazing and I'm pretty certain she knew I was autistic long before I got diagnosed. She certainly wasn't surprised when I contacted her to say it had been confirmed.
Your writing reads a lot less frought than it did previously, so i'm really pleased. No one deserves to feel that way.
You can always come back here to talk to people who you know really understand :)