Hi! Long time no see. It's been a good few years since I've logged in here, but I have always really appreciated this forum and have been advocating for open discussion of suicide ever since. I firmly credit my time here with a large piece of my recovery. Anyways, since I'm just rejoining now, I'm not sure if I posted this properly, or if there's already a thread about this or whatever. This post is asking for help/advice with my situation, but I admit it comes off a lot like a vent. It's hard to be concise when writing about something that is so all-encompassing of my life on a micro and macro scale.
TLDR: I'm no longer suicidal but still face depression symptoms which would be considered severe. It feels like everything I do is just to pass the time, which leads to me being exceptionally bored pretty often. This has started to impact my physical health too. I'm not seeing a therapist bc the only ones I can get on insurance are CBT and I've tried that like a dozen times, they've all said the same things and I've been fired as a client more than once. I'm looking for advice on how people living with chronic depression/dysthymia can find enjoyment in things, or alternatively, how to deal with symptoms like "Lack of interest in things they used to enjoy" when you KNOW that the symptom is never going away?
Longer post:
What am I supposed to do when I'm on antidepressants that WORK (I'm way worse when off them!), I'm not suicidal, but doing anything and everything feels like a Sisyphean chore? How can I cope with a brain that makes existing into some convoluted circular reasoning of being bored because I don't like doing anything? Anyone who has experienced feelings/situations like this before and can offer some advice are much appreciated. For my own part, I'm looking into a few of the Recovery resource posts here, and I'm gonna check my insurance website and see if I can find any non-CBT therapists. Thank you for reading, I know it's long and rambley.
TLDR: I'm no longer suicidal but still face depression symptoms which would be considered severe. It feels like everything I do is just to pass the time, which leads to me being exceptionally bored pretty often. This has started to impact my physical health too. I'm not seeing a therapist bc the only ones I can get on insurance are CBT and I've tried that like a dozen times, they've all said the same things and I've been fired as a client more than once. I'm looking for advice on how people living with chronic depression/dysthymia can find enjoyment in things, or alternatively, how to deal with symptoms like "Lack of interest in things they used to enjoy" when you KNOW that the symptom is never going away?
Longer post:
So I was suicidally depressed starting around eight years ago, up until around three years ago. At that point, I reached a sort of ambivalence where I no longer wanted to die. I have no idea how I got to this point emotionally. I have found a med routine that helped, but other than that, it's like something kinda snapped into place, but I'm not sure what that "thing" was.
Ever since then, I've been "drifting" in a lot of senses. I have ME/CFS, and am unable to work. I had a few retail jobs which I really enjoyed, but my body couldn't sustain going to them regularly. So I've been at home, alone, in bed, every day, for like four years. I live with family, and I can go out 1-2 times per month in a wheelchair (when I have someone willing to take me). I've been applying for SSI for a few years, but still not approved. Any money I have is from birthdays, Christmas cards, or whatever I can scrape together on a few money-making-websites.
I see a psychiatrist to continue prescribing my meds. I like her a lot, she's very compassionate towards my disability and mental health struggles. She's asked me before if I'd consider seeing another therapist. I would *consider* it, but I'm not sure how to approach it. Pretty much every therapist I could get with my insurance is a CBT practitioner. I've seen CBT therapists multiple times, and have never found them helpful. In pretty much all cases, they have fired me as a client. CBT has also damaged my mental health in regards to my disability. There's already no way to "prove" that my ME symptoms are real, and now you're telling me that if I was a stronger-willed, more determined, more upbeat person, that I could manifest myself OUT of these symptoms? A CBT provider with a ME patient can seemingly either ignore the ME, fake-claim the patient, or, somehow the best option, tell them to see a different therapist.
I have ADHD and I take Aderall XR. But there's not much I'm able to do throughout the day. I usually watch Youtube, knit, and play mobile games. I've had phases of being really into stuff like Minecraft or digital illustration, but I tend to get frustrated with those and the phase ends. The thing about ADHD is that your brain doesn't produce dopamine properly. Dopamine is what makes your brain feel pleased or satisfied, especially with activities like completing a task. But when you repeat the same task over and over, for people with ADHD, the dopamine you get from it decreases. So I'm more or less doing my daily activities to "bide my time". For what? Idk. Until I die I guess.
So having that lack of drive for the stuff I do every day leaves me in a weird spot. I'm constantly miserably bored, but I have no real motivation to help myself. I came back to this forum and wrote this because earlier I had a conversation with my Occupational Therapist. I initially started seeing her to help learn to use my wheelchair properly, but my wheelchair's needing repairs rn, so we've been discussing treatment plans lately. She mentioned that I should try getting a sleep study, which the doctor who diagnosed my ME/CFS also said. I've seen the sleep medicine people, and she pulled up the clinical notes from that visit. Basically, I need to take steps to improve my sleep hygeine before they'll do a sleep study. So one of those hygeine things is a consistent sleep schedule. Which I told her right now I sleep from around 4am-8am. My parents get me breakfast around 8am before they leave for work, because I can't get myself breakfast, and then I go back to sleep until I wake up naturally. She asked why I stay up at night, and I didn't have a great answer. One thing I said that she thankfully didn't dig into, but really reminded me of my bad depression days, was "I need to be awake at some point". She said that we could move to sleeping through the night by having me do things I enjoy during the day. Which lead me to realise I don't really enjoy doing anything right now. I do what I do every day because I have to do something, or else I'll go insane. None of what I do is something I could make myself stay up late because I'm excited about it. She said that it seems like I don't have any real motivators, and that I have very little sense of what I want to do with my life, or where I see myself in ten years. I told her that's all true. And she did the whole "breaking up with a patient" thing I've gotten from actual therapists before. "You need to want to change", "You can't say no to every suggestion", yadayada.
I know what my options are for hobbies and such. I try what is accessible to me and seems interesting. But that list is increasingly shorter. I mean, look up lists for passing the time with ME/CFS, and you'll get ideas on how to spend a few hours, not something to do every day for the rest of your life. A person can only do so many crossword puzzles before they spontaneously combust. So those hobbies I mentioned are the few I have that allow me to pass the time. But they don't truly fulfill me. And I find myself increasingly displeased with doing them. I often find myself refreshing Youtube over and over, finding nothing I want to watch. I have a list of shows I wanna watch, but none of them ever feel right. Youtubers I like will upload and I'll put off watching them, because even though I'll laugh at the video, watching it feels like a chore. I have a TBR with like a hundred books on it, and I get audiobooks for free. And 90% of the time I DNF (mark the book as "did not finish") within the first chapter because my brain just refuses to listen to the audio (and don't get me started on reading normally, that's a hundred times harder to concentrate on).
Ever since then, I've been "drifting" in a lot of senses. I have ME/CFS, and am unable to work. I had a few retail jobs which I really enjoyed, but my body couldn't sustain going to them regularly. So I've been at home, alone, in bed, every day, for like four years. I live with family, and I can go out 1-2 times per month in a wheelchair (when I have someone willing to take me). I've been applying for SSI for a few years, but still not approved. Any money I have is from birthdays, Christmas cards, or whatever I can scrape together on a few money-making-websites.
I see a psychiatrist to continue prescribing my meds. I like her a lot, she's very compassionate towards my disability and mental health struggles. She's asked me before if I'd consider seeing another therapist. I would *consider* it, but I'm not sure how to approach it. Pretty much every therapist I could get with my insurance is a CBT practitioner. I've seen CBT therapists multiple times, and have never found them helpful. In pretty much all cases, they have fired me as a client. CBT has also damaged my mental health in regards to my disability. There's already no way to "prove" that my ME symptoms are real, and now you're telling me that if I was a stronger-willed, more determined, more upbeat person, that I could manifest myself OUT of these symptoms? A CBT provider with a ME patient can seemingly either ignore the ME, fake-claim the patient, or, somehow the best option, tell them to see a different therapist.
I have ADHD and I take Aderall XR. But there's not much I'm able to do throughout the day. I usually watch Youtube, knit, and play mobile games. I've had phases of being really into stuff like Minecraft or digital illustration, but I tend to get frustrated with those and the phase ends. The thing about ADHD is that your brain doesn't produce dopamine properly. Dopamine is what makes your brain feel pleased or satisfied, especially with activities like completing a task. But when you repeat the same task over and over, for people with ADHD, the dopamine you get from it decreases. So I'm more or less doing my daily activities to "bide my time". For what? Idk. Until I die I guess.
So having that lack of drive for the stuff I do every day leaves me in a weird spot. I'm constantly miserably bored, but I have no real motivation to help myself. I came back to this forum and wrote this because earlier I had a conversation with my Occupational Therapist. I initially started seeing her to help learn to use my wheelchair properly, but my wheelchair's needing repairs rn, so we've been discussing treatment plans lately. She mentioned that I should try getting a sleep study, which the doctor who diagnosed my ME/CFS also said. I've seen the sleep medicine people, and she pulled up the clinical notes from that visit. Basically, I need to take steps to improve my sleep hygeine before they'll do a sleep study. So one of those hygeine things is a consistent sleep schedule. Which I told her right now I sleep from around 4am-8am. My parents get me breakfast around 8am before they leave for work, because I can't get myself breakfast, and then I go back to sleep until I wake up naturally. She asked why I stay up at night, and I didn't have a great answer. One thing I said that she thankfully didn't dig into, but really reminded me of my bad depression days, was "I need to be awake at some point". She said that we could move to sleeping through the night by having me do things I enjoy during the day. Which lead me to realise I don't really enjoy doing anything right now. I do what I do every day because I have to do something, or else I'll go insane. None of what I do is something I could make myself stay up late because I'm excited about it. She said that it seems like I don't have any real motivators, and that I have very little sense of what I want to do with my life, or where I see myself in ten years. I told her that's all true. And she did the whole "breaking up with a patient" thing I've gotten from actual therapists before. "You need to want to change", "You can't say no to every suggestion", yadayada.
I know what my options are for hobbies and such. I try what is accessible to me and seems interesting. But that list is increasingly shorter. I mean, look up lists for passing the time with ME/CFS, and you'll get ideas on how to spend a few hours, not something to do every day for the rest of your life. A person can only do so many crossword puzzles before they spontaneously combust. So those hobbies I mentioned are the few I have that allow me to pass the time. But they don't truly fulfill me. And I find myself increasingly displeased with doing them. I often find myself refreshing Youtube over and over, finding nothing I want to watch. I have a list of shows I wanna watch, but none of them ever feel right. Youtubers I like will upload and I'll put off watching them, because even though I'll laugh at the video, watching it feels like a chore. I have a TBR with like a hundred books on it, and I get audiobooks for free. And 90% of the time I DNF (mark the book as "did not finish") within the first chapter because my brain just refuses to listen to the audio (and don't get me started on reading normally, that's a hundred times harder to concentrate on).
What am I supposed to do when I'm on antidepressants that WORK (I'm way worse when off them!), I'm not suicidal, but doing anything and everything feels like a Sisyphean chore? How can I cope with a brain that makes existing into some convoluted circular reasoning of being bored because I don't like doing anything? Anyone who has experienced feelings/situations like this before and can offer some advice are much appreciated. For my own part, I'm looking into a few of the Recovery resource posts here, and I'm gonna check my insurance website and see if I can find any non-CBT therapists. Thank you for reading, I know it's long and rambley.
