Dealing with depression - suicidal thoughts - Join the conversation (including helpline details)

Roy Baty said:

I see my children picking up on the worse aspects of my personality now. Certainly the eldest is beginning to develop my stresses and panic. There is always that clamour "but what about your children?" - who I am supposed to be building this business for - but are they going to want to be farming after another 10/15 years of seeing the effects on their father? So much pressure now, and its not at all financial, but so little fun.

I do wonder if this drives farmers to generally taking poor care of themselves? I'd not want to have any of my family finding me strung up from a beam, but often think if I could just have a heart attack, or hit by a car, or something like that then no-one would really need to know would they?

It wasnt supposed to be like this. But seeing so many of my friends in a similar position.....such high potential but in the end I've just been a disappointment for the last 20 years.

Ah well. Tears mopped up and will go and slap on the happy face before I go out of the house.

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@Roy Baty you are not a disappointment. You are beautiful caring loving sensitive hardworking, great father, a decent human beings. I m sure you have achieved so much. Your job, being a farmer is hard work no many can do it, do not for a minute diminish your abilities skills knowledge and all that you have achieved. You are superman

Roy; I have often thought that (for some of us) anxiety/depression may be something that we have learned from our family upbringing but if that is the case, then it can be un-learned, or perhaps we can be re-programmed. Support and councelling can be a great help in those matters as can be sitting down and discussing our fears as a family.

A great number of people have a somewhat romantic vision of horses and working with them but upon moving into equestrian work they are gob smacked by the hours of hard labour, mucking out, swilling down, and grooming that they have to put in before climbing into a saddle. I imagine that most of us town folk have similar romantic views of farming and are shocked upon having our eyes opened to the every day lives of farming folk.

Your comments have left me wondering how old are the kids, how big is the farm, what is produced, and what are the present problems confronting you on a day to day basis? There are loads of willing ears, open hearts, and knowing minds on here and I am sure that many of them will have been confronted by the same problems that may be chasing you. I know verry little, or nowt, about farming and it's problems but I do know that there is a way through the darkness of anxiety and depression.

Roy Baty said:

I see my children picking up on the worse aspects of my personality now. Certainly the eldest is beginning to develop my stresses and panic. There is always that clamour "but what about your children?" - who I am supposed to be building this business for - but are they going to want to be farming after another 10/15 years of seeing the effects on their father? So much pressure now, and its not at all financial, but so little fun.

I do wonder if this drives farmers to generally taking poor care of themselves? I'd not want to have any of my family finding me strung up from a beam, but often think if I could just have a heart attack, or hit by a car, or something like that then no-one would really need to know would they?

It wasnt supposed to be like this. But seeing so many of my friends in a similar position.....such high potential but in the end I've just been a disappointment for the last 20 years.

Ah well. Tears mopped up and will go and slap on the happy face before I go out of the house.

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Worst thing for your family would be missing you, if you had a heart attack or other. Just think about how much you love them, and they will be thinking how much they love you. But I know it never feels like that.

We had a very carefully worded conversation with our angst ridden adolescent son, during a long car journey, after someone in their school year group had killed themselves.
He simply stated that regardless of his melancholy moods(wondering why we were born, what is the purpose of life/living, etc. etc.) he could not be so selfish as to kill himself, because of the grief it would cause/leave behind.
mth

Believe me when you are in the dark deep grip of depression, other people's feelings don't really count.

Difficult to "Like" that post, but sadly it's true.

Roy Baty said:

I see my children picking up on the worse aspects of my personality now. Certainly the eldest is beginning to develop my stresses and panic. There is always that clamour "but what about your children?" - who I am supposed to be building this business for - but are they going to want to be farming after another 10/15 years of seeing the effects on their father? So much pressure now, and its not at all financial, but so little fun.

I do wonder if this drives farmers to generally taking poor care of themselves? I'd not want to have any of my family finding me strung up from a beam, but often think if I could just have a heart attack, or hit by a car, or something like that then no-one would really need to know would they?

It wasnt supposed to be like this. But seeing so many of my friends in a similar position.....such high potential but in the end I've just been a disappointment for the last 20 years.

Ah well. Tears mopped up and will go and slap on the happy face before I go out of the house.

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If you don't mind me asking why do you think you've been a disappointment for 20 years?

I have not read any of this thread and do not wish to take anything away from anything that has been posted. Nor do I suffer from depression. However I would like to add a different angle perhaps to the discussion which is in this age of the internet and massive amounts of information available to us all 24 hours per day along with the media spinners showing us what they want to show us, my question is 'are mental health issues as bad as we are lead to believe?'

Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors and I would think that farming justifiably does have a large number of people issues within it due to the financial burden or simply the loneliness of the job generally. But when I see on the news figures like 25% of teenagers are depressed or suicidal I am afraid I switch off because in my view its drivel. Do not get me wrong, growing up is hard work but we have all been through it and in my day, you just got on with it. Nobody seems to 'just get on with things' now and instead complain. Multiple complaints leads to an epidemic which then gets media coverage and suddenly the country has a major problem.

I have an example also. A few weeks ago I was in a local pub and it was quite quiet at the time on a friday evening about 6pm. There was a lad around 20-25 years old sat at the end of the bar talking to the landlady. I was sat close enough waiting for a friend to be able to hear the entire conversation. This lad was not happy really and down in the dumps. He had just finished work which I gleaned was for a building firm where by he gets paid £150/day for 5 days work (monday-friday) 8am - 4pm including 90 mins off for breaks. He gets picked up and dropped off as well.
He was living with his parents paying them £50/week board which included food.
I actually heard him say 'I'm so depressed I wonder whats the point in life on a daily basis'. The landlady asked him why and his reply was that he was just fed up with life. She pushed him asking was there any money or health worries to which he replied no but he just was just depressed. She asked him about friends and he said no issues there and I have seen him previously with other people. Upon pushing him further as I could see she was a bit concerned he revealed that he spends £50 regularly for a line of cocaine and that he would perhaps do that 4 or 5 times every weekend when he is drunk because it then means he sobers up and can go and drink more. The landlady then said so why do you think your depressed and he replied 'because everybody depressed now a days'.

As a generation above him I sat there thinking the issues here are obviously the drugs and the drink for starters but also the fact that this lad has got it into his head that he's depressed because 'everybody is depressed'. So did the idea of depression start first due to the media which then led him towards the drugs? I'm going to dismiss the drink a bit because he's young and got money and we've all done that at weekends at that age. When I think about what I drank as a student it was quite ridiculous really.

So is mental health as bad as we all think or is it just another form of controlling us by telling us its bad?

Mental problems have always been there but these days we acknowledge them more instead of just saying 'cheer up you miserable sod'

Your example of the young lad however, drink and drugs aside, shows how today many confuse depression with just being fed up.

As you said, you dont know what goes on behind closed doors, I thought I was bomb proof in my mental health all my life until recently. Now I realise that mental health is just like physical health, taken for granted as being fine until you find you have a problem.

Years ago I was spreading slurry, driving up and down the road and a man was walking along the roadside, for some reason I decided to give him a really wide berth, good job I did because as I got close to him he tried to run under the tractor. I felt furious to start with, how dare he try to make me be his aid in getting out/hurting himself. But I saw the fear in his eyes when I picked him up and put him on the roadside waiting for the police. He was haunted, in the end I felt compassion for his plight.

Fromebridge said:

Mental problems have always been there but these days we acknowledge them more instead of just saying 'cheer up you miserable sod'

Your example of the young lad however, drink and drugs aside, shows how today many confuse depression with just being fed up.

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What about the idea that generally depression does not occur until say 30 ish and onwards? Obviously there will be cases of children and young adults with depression and I am not referring to the proper cases like those. I am referring to the mass of people that blame everything on depression just because they can.

Is depression just a fact of life that has been turned into an illness for the majority which is taking the seriousness off it away from the people that are the true sufferers?

D14 said:

Upon pushing him further as I could see she was a bit concerned he revealed that he spends £50 regularly for a line of cocaine and that he would perhaps do that 4 or 5 times every weekend when he is drunk because it then means he sobers up and can go and drink more.

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He will have more to worry about than being "a bit fed up" if the wrong person overhears him in the pub and he loses his job (many sites do random drugs testing), or worse, has the Police doing a raid on his mum & dad's house...

Looking to drugs to provide fulfillment and satisfaction in life is a slippery slope towards throwing your life away.

Sounds like he needs to get back in charge of his destiny and join the forces before he ends up in prison or worse...

D14, food for thought! I think that it was the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, wo said..............as a man thinketh, then so is he!

So, if we think that we are depressed; then we are depressed. If we think that we are happy, then we are happy.

Could it all be just that easy? Stop thinking depressing thoughts and start thinking happy?

I think that Jesus also said.................a man becomes like unto that which he meditates upon.

Christoph1945 said:

D14, food for thought! I think that it was the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, wo said..............as a man thinketh, then so is he!

So, if we think that we are depressed; then we are depressed. If we think that we are happy, then we are happy.

Could it all be just that easy? Stop thinking depressing thoughts and start thinking happy?

I think that Jesus also said.................a man becomes like unto that which he meditates upon.

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Law of attraction. That which you spend time thinking on is what you draw to yourself ( at least I think it goes something like that)

Or to put it another way - your constant thoughts become your reality.

Chasingmytail said:

Yes its horrible I had horrific panic attacks when my 1st marriage ended. I was just 30 no children. The loneliness was horrific even though I had friends I had lost my best friend I felt alone on an iceberg - Luckily I remarried 3 years later. Now, as a mum in an intense lifestyle I also wonder what will happen when the boys grow up and I'm left here finding things to do I can understand why farmers wives go because they have given everything to be superwomen and its a hard and lonely life. Its important that we have hobbies and interests that involves social and freedom to escape. I always say its like a death. So many years together then gone. But its important to make some serious changes that suit you, change everything in the house, find a hobby or passion but make sure you have time to grieve. Being lonely and having to learn to be domestic must be tough. Dont expect to bounce back and dont knock yourself for struggling. Give yourself tiny goals.

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Ooh. That touched a few places. So few non farming friends un
derstand a farmers wife life and it helps reading posts from other farmers wives and to realise you really are not alone. most of the non farming people I mix with have so little understanding of what our life involves that I have given up telling them about it. With no friends as their world just dosnt mix with mine and my only real friend is my dog and my life is the cows, losing either could easily tip the balance and its only reading this forum that makes you shake yourself and remember there is always somone worse off and braver than you.

D14 said:

What about the idea that generally depression does not occur until say 30 ish and onwards? Obviously there will be cases of children and young adults with depression and I am not referring to the proper cases like those. I am referring to the mass of people that blame everything on depression just because they can.

Is depression just a fact of life that has been turned into an illness for the majority which is taking the seriousness off it away from the people that are the true sufferers?

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Any age, any class/status and any profession it can strike. I experienced extreme isolation in my early 20s and that left me in a bad bad way and very ill, yet I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone as it seemed so silly why I was like it.

To those that have been right to the bottom, do you ever get over it? I have waves and spells of being happier, but I'm never happy and it never truly leaves me, keeps spoiling the few friendships I get the chance of. Things do seem to get slightly easier as I get older, maybe I just get more used to the feelings?

Having been into a deep deep state of axiety/depression, complicated by withdrawal syptoms from heavy doses of prescribed drugs and spending over four months in a mental hospital; I thought that I would never work again, or for that matter have a normal life.

Recovery has been a long educational process for me and at 73 years of age, I am still learning. In general, there are ways to improve your recovery rate and give you the tools to beat the black dog at it's own game.

1 See your GP and talk it through.
2 Seek advice and support from one of the manny agencies that are there to help.
3 If you are taking prescribed drugs; do not stop taking them without medical consultation and only then should you be weaned off them.
4 Check your diet; perhaps something in your food intake is triggering some moods. (Acohol, caffein, gluten, or drugs can influence our moods.)



Above all. remember that you do not have to face it alone!

My Black dog is running around outside off the leash, as on Tuesday I had to let him go as he had been barking and whining and I could put up with it no longer.
My house is much quieter and more peaceful without him, but I miss him, as he has been a part of my life since I was a teenager.Everyone I met either had one or wanted one and had to have one,so I went looking for one and soon discovered my blackdog.It was a beautiful puppy,longing for a master I was so chuffed to have found him,I took him home to show my friends and family who all adored him.The girls loved him and I thought I had cracked it with my new companion by my side,I enjoyed his company he made me feel wanted and appreciated,we had some fantastic times together especially at college where I would proudly walk him around the campus and show him off.
For the first few years we had a great time and became inseparable,he gave me confidence to go anywhere do anything and he just lapped it all up.I thought that this was a match made in heaven,that it was the ideal duo he made me feel special and that I fitted in with everyone else,I belonged.
Over the years the dog became bigger and badly behaved,it would sulk if I did not give him the attention he was used to,he would keep me on my toes by running off and I would have to go out at night searching for him and when I found him I would have to show him how important he was to me and how much I had missed him.This falling out and making up went on for years but every time it happened the black dog got more aggressive and knew that he could manipulate me so he got my attention again.
Some of my friends liked the black dog and enjoyed his company,others who knew me before I found the dog were not so sure and could see the dog was controlling me and that I was no longer it's master.I knew the dog was getting too aggressive to handle but he had been my faithful companion so I felt I should stick by him as he had stuck by me.
Just lately the dog has become uncontrollable as he realizes he has to play second fiddle to other more important things that have come into my life.I am now trying to decide whether to go looking for the dog or perhaps we have grown apart and it's time to move on.Perhaps the dog and I can live happily together again if he learns to know when he is allowed in to be with me.Maybe I'll never see him again but I doubt it,I need to be ready for when he comes scratching at the door asking to be let back in.I think I have three choices,leave him outside and put up with the incessant whining,let him in so longs as he has learnt his lesson and behaves or muzzle him and have him put down.

chester said:

My Black dog is running around outside off the leash, as on Tuesday I had to let him go as he had been barking and whining and I could put up with it no longer.
My house is much quieter and more peaceful without him, but I miss him, as he has been a part of my life since I was a teenager.Everyone I met either had one or wanted one and had to have one,so I went looking for one and soon discovered my blackdog.It was a beautiful puppy,longing for a master I was so chuffed to have found him,I took him home to show my friends and family who all adored him.The girls loved him and I thought I had cracked it with my new companion by my side,I enjoyed his company he made me feel wanted and appreciated,we had some fantastic times together especially at college where I would proudly walk him around the campus and show him off.
For the first few years we had a great time and became inseparable,he gave me confidence to go anywhere do anything and he just lapped it all up.I thought that this was a match made in heaven,that it was the ideal duo he made me feel special and that I fitted in with everyone else,I belonged.
Over the years the dog became bigger and badly behaved,it would sulk if I did not give him the attention he was used to,he would keep me on my toes by running off and I would have to go out at night searching for him and when I found him I would have to show him how important he was to me and how much I had missed him.This falling out and making up went on for years but every time it happened the black dog got more aggressive and knew that he could manipulate me so he got my attention again.
Some of my friends liked the black dog and enjoyed his company,others who knew me before I found the dog were not so sure and could see the dog was controlling me and that I was no longer it's master.I knew the dog was getting too aggressive to handle but he had been my faithful companion so I felt I should stick by him as he had stuck by me.
Just lately the dog has become uncontrollable as he realizes he has to play second fiddle to other more important things that have come into my life.I am now trying to decide whether to go looking for the dog or perhaps we have grown apart and it's time to move on.Perhaps the dog and I can live happily together again if he learns to know when he is allowed in to be with me.Maybe I'll never see him again but I doubt it,I need to be ready for when he comes scratching at the door asking to be let back in.I think I have three choices,leave him outside and put up with the incessant whining,let him in so longs as he has learnt his lesson and behaves or muzzle him and have him put down.

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Have him put down if you can