Depression and Anxiety downfall....what got you out?

[MisterTinkles]

[SIZE="3"]Most of us have had to deal with our inner torments and self pity. For some, its a short trip to figure yourself out, for others it can take what seems like forever. Im my case, it was three years.

The question is.......

If you have had to deal with coming to terms with yourself and the world.....exactly WHAT or WHO changed your opinion of yourself and the world, to "snap" you out of it??


Im my case, while dealing with my demons, someone commented to me that "you are letting them win".

I did NOT care who "them" was!!! Just the thought of somebody "winning" over my life and what I think and feel infuriated me to no end. I annihilated my demons and my inner bitch came out.

NOBODY, but NOBODY was going to "win" over me!!!! And I have been kicking it back in "their" faces ever since.
[/SIZE]

[nfisher1226]

My wife left me and I lost all contact with my kids. At that point, I felt as if I had nothing left to lose. Nobody held anything with which they could hurt me anymore, at least not anything I cared about. So I just said fuck it, if I have a lot of life left ti live I'll live it my way.

[southbiochem]

Well, this was and still is my ongoing problem

I am the ever outcast...and I don't mean the geek who has other geeks to hang out with...I mean I was the outcast thet the other outcasts ostracized..

It was like this in school, in college it is now in the work place

that took me to such a low level of self-esteem I still have trouble seeing the point in getting out of bed sometimes

How do I deal with it? Focusing in that which I'm good..

so OK, I'm a piece of crap in the social skills, personality and interrelations department, fine, I accept that....

so what's good about me: I was always a straigth A student..fine, there's an accomplishment..

managed to always be number one in all 12 years of school, and number 2 in college, academically speaking..

I am also quite gifted in my area of expertice and my boss has come to need me cause I'm a valuable worker..

so, for me it's this: I need to get out of bed because I have a job to do and because I am appreciated in it and I'm good at it...not to mention it's the ultimate duty.. I help bring the eggs to the house (cause we don't like bacon, ugh)...I am doing the right thing, what you're supposed to do, and I'm fairly successful at it: I don't let that to ever escape my mind..

so to all of those feeling down I always say "find that which your good at, and trust me there is ALWAYS something you are good at"

My sole pending issue is this whole being the closeted gay dude..

that I brought upon myself, I should have outed myself in college, cause it was all in all a safe environment to do it..

this obviously hampers me to pursue a love interest...

so, to deal with it I have set up a goal....I'm going to save money, get out of here, get my own place..and then...(if it doesn't happen sooner) I'm not even coming out....I'm just going to pursue "him"

I may not be ther best looking guy, but I donpt lack assets...a stable economical situatio being one of them

[VileKyle]

If you have had to deal with coming to terms with yourself and the world.....exactly WHAT or WHO changed your opinion of yourself and the world, to "snap" you out of it??

Years of therapy, medication, hospitalization, drinking, and a bad divorce. Waking up from rock bottom was a bit of an eye-opener after that.

[James]

Guess it was combinations of soildering, ptsd overcome, and meeting a gay man who tell me the story of his mom telling him people would find out and use it against him so he came out to defuse that situation. It's then I reliazed having been outed may have been a blessing, after all other than torrment which I can give back, what can they do, Jim

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I think the most profound moment in my personal life is when after a 4 day run with Tina (Crystal Meth), I sat on my bed and my wardrobe door opened (magically by itself). The inner door had a full body mirror and the door opened just enough to where I came face to face with that horrendous creature who was less than 120 pounds, stringy haired and hadn't slept for 4 days.

It was the first time in a long time when I actually looked at the man in the mirror and I realized I didn't like what I saw.

That was a pivotal moment in my life. It was that day that I vowed to clean myself up, sober myself up, and start actually seeking help for the 'load of crap' I carried with me instead of using mountains of meth and oceans of alcohol to self medicate away the pain.

Oh I didn't start immediately, I kicked the door shut hard, and loaded up another needle and injected. However during that 12 hour tweak the 'fun' was really gone.

The next couple of months I did manage to reach the point where I actually slammed one last time. 6 months later I was in therapy and actually trying to deal with 'my crap'. That was 19 years ago....

[HumbleTangerine]

I don't really know what happened to me.

Like most teens (perhaps gay ones in particular?) I had horrible self-esteem during my early teens. I was kind of chubby at first, but even when I had slimmed down to what was basically my ideal body type, I'd find other stuff to dislike. I hated my slightly crooked teeth, my eyes, my face and almost everything else there was to hate. The shallowness and ignorance that defined most of the kids at school also gave me an extremely pessimistic view of society at an early age. When I was around 13 I was worried about people finding out about my sexuality but reached the conclusion that I could just kill myself if that happened. After all, in a world that seemed so rotten, death couldn't be a half-bad solution.

I would suffer from what I believe to be extreme depression (although obviously I can't diagnose that myself) and I usually thought about different ways to die before falling asleep, which soothed me. I also idealized the act of suicide as a way of sending out a message. I never did go through with it though, because I figured it would devestate my family and my friends.

At the moment, however, I feel absolutely fine. I still have some of my physical flaws like slightly crooked teeth but they don't bother me at all. I wish I could pin down exactly why I suddenly started feeling good about myself but sadly I can't. I guess maybe I realized that I had underestimated the world in the extremely cynical state of my past. Also, once I became sexually active, some of the lies established by pornography that had partially caused my physical insecurities were dispelled. I realized that there was nothing wrong with neither my face or my body, that I actually liked some of my features and could live with the ones I didn't like. I also embraced the fact that some people will find me ugly, uninteresting and unappealing whereas others will find me handsome, interesting and appealing. This is something that applies to everyone.

[Rawr]

I don't think I'll ever truly understand the world we live in, nor my sole purpose of being here in it. The only thing I can do is continue my journey through life and experience the good and the bad it has to offer.

[trialbyerror]

Hi all..

For me, It was a short, frumpy, gentle Jew that gave me my life back, The tale, I've already told..

Oh, my beloved beloved mutt how I miss you so.....

[Dreamer]

I've suffered from anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and self-hatred for pretty much my entire life. That combination had taken me to some very dark and fucked up places. Sure, these are things that still do their very best to stop me in my tracks, but as I countdown the days till I turn 24 years of age, I've managed to ignore the noise in my head, turning down the volume, no matter the severity of the taunting that goes on within it, because, god damn it, I'm getting old! Next year, I'll be a quarter of a century old! After that, I'll be ancient.


Fear of my mortality, in essence, "the sands of time" is what's keeping me motivated to play catch up in every nook and cranny of my life that's been neglected, since my teen years, due to my dark past and mentality that still tries to keep me drowning in a pool of my own bile, but NO MORE! Through self-talk, I've been leaving my neurosis in the past.