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

DrWazzock said:

I think that if major things happen here I’ll go back to Scotland. 70 years ago this week, grandfather moved down here . He said, that if he could, he would have sold this farm the day after he’d bought it. Might soon be time to go home. My work here is nearly done.

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Strange, your words; i was talking to a girl in Scotland, I explained that my restless feet were starting it itch and that 20 years in one place was quite long enough ….
It turned out that there was a vacancy coming up for someone to generally sort of oversee a large complex, there were holiday cottages and policies with lawns which would need cutting, firewood collecting, that sort of thing, there was in-by land and the Hill - and it was explained that for foreign visitors someone with an English accent would be of help, as so many of the visitors struggled with the heavier Scottish accents - oh, and as a by-the-by, and as they had quite some low-lying grass land, did I know anything about sheep? ……..
No one can be this lucky I thought ~ and I was right, the bloody man who owned the place only went and died ~ the miserable old sod - some people only ever think about themselves!

It really is quite dire. Mrs struggling. Crops struggling. Ukraine struggling.
Everywhere I look, bad news. I know there are folks far far worse off but do circumstances have to be so perpetually tediously miserable?
It’s only cussed determination to keep creeping forward, not stop, that keeps me going. I keep doing a bit outside. A bit of spraying in the hope rain arrives. A bit of fabrication. Some bookwork for the annual valuation. But it’s slow and difficult to get motivated. Like a lead weight hangs round me. Time to take the bin down the road. Ho hum.

@DrWazzock ~ I had a prompt come up on my screen, I read it and without seeing the name, I knew it was you ~ you really are remarkably descriptive in your writing, even if it does seem that life isn't how you'd have it …. I understand where you are too.

I suspect that were you and I to meet face to face and were I to press you, you'd explain quite simply that giving in isn't an option, wouldn't you? I get that too, totally, there are luxuries that simply aren't open to you …. and this I suspect is what is both a trap and the driver to continue - there's no one else to do it so we just keep going. You do actually have an option, but chose not to take it because, I suspect the very fabric of your make-up wont permit it ……..

In about1995 I lived alone in an enchanting if isolated cottage, no heating apart from an open fire, a damp level which was that bad, I could have shot snipe off the kitchen floor and in the winter months, I left an electric blanket on tick-over, just to keep the bed dry ~ you're getting the picture! I remember those February days coming home from my sheep in the dark, soaked and probably frozen too, with the dogs and myself to feed. You wouldn't believe the times that I sat and asked myself "WTF do you think you're doing …." but as you, I had no choice. I could have sold the sheep, rented a flat in the nearest town and got myself a job at Tescos …….. strangely though, the alternative had less appeal than the current predicament.

I get exactly where you are ~ were there just a chink of light to give you a bit of encouragement …. you'd cope with all the problems, if only your wife's health would improve, wouldn't you? The weather is so horribly cold and dour, nothing's growing and it wont until the core soil temperature improves ~ but it will improve, it always does. It's so difficult when we sit there with our head in our hands and with no sense of direction, to have confidence in the certainty that the sun will shine - it always has.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating; we have Faith, we have Hope and we have Charity - but without Hope, the other two are incidental, aren't they? The sun will shine man, it always has and it always will. In time you will look back and you will accept that not only did you come through, but you came through stronger than you went in ……..

Remember Calm

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) and we’re united against suicide.

& Qwell.

It's good to talk but these 2 are getting excellent feedback from the patients my Missus is seeing.

Qwell

Calmzone

Links Added.

Like I say it's good to talk..... But this is helpful... No chit-chat, nosing, or interrogation.

The missus does Mental health at 4 GP Surgeries... Feedback on these is good.

DrWazzock said:

NHS? Sorry I don’t rate it. They don’t listen. You are on a conveyor belt of standard treatment, often the wrong treatment based on preconceptions rather than actually examining and listening to patients. “Ask my GP” web based consultations have been a disaster here. Major stuff has been missed. NHS111 is a similar waste of time. Everybody ends up going to A & E and they wonder why it’s overwhelmed. GP surgeries are no longer fit for purpose. Shambolic and it’s not all because of covid.

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I'm afraid I must agree with your general sentiment that this online consultations thing is BS and I won't be taking part in them. Fudge the covid; I've had it now and if it means catching it again, I don't mind at all.

Christoph1945 said:

Many years ago, when I once worked as a bus conductor/driver, one could witness how folks changed according to the weather conditions of the day but there were always a small number of folk that carried their own internal sunshine and brightened the day for all that they met.

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I have met a few people, doctors and nurses, who have this 'gift'.

Rossymons said:

What I would add is that I have tried the other 2 ways route of help.

I was on anti-Ds for just over a year which did serve a purpose. But I likened it to watching myself in 3rd person and hated it. I can see how medication can affect people. I also have issue with the relative routine use of anti-Ds as a solution leading to people becoming dependent on them rather than treating the person. But that is for another day.

I also endured counselling which absolutely did not work for me. Spending time discussing how I was feeling when I already knew did not help. The last thing I needed was to wallow. I was late for one session. 10 minutes I think it was so not a disaster especially I was sat downstairs the previous session for 15 and said nothing.

Anyway....I was late and got told off for it as it was "inconvenient and I should do better"

F**K ME!! I'm only here because I'm deemed a suicide risk and this is part of my treatment and you're the one put out?! I didn't return.

Then there was just grey and misery until last year.

So I don't know if I did was right. Could I have made life better by staying the course? I've no idea nor will I. But I probably wasn't receptive to any help in whatever form it came in. I'm open to help now and now that I care about myself I'm doing what I can.

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I would hesitantly suggest that maybe it just wasn't the right time for you to do the counselling. Being obliged to go as well, isn't ideal.

bumkin said:

the thing is when you are young it's easy to make friends all the pubs' clubs and bars are full of young folk being sociable when one gets older it's not so easy, also most people have got their circle of friends and don't need to add to it,

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I would sort of agree, but in our local pub, people of all ages are welcomed. It's like the tardis. You enter and get encapsulated by conversation and can't escape.

DrWazzock said:

It really is quite dire. Mrs struggling. Crops struggling. Ukraine struggling.
Everywhere I look, bad news. I know there are folks far far worse off but do circumstances have to be so perpetually tediously miserable?
It’s only cussed determination to keep creeping forward, not stop, that keeps me going. I keep doing a bit outside. A bit of spraying in the hope rain arrives. A bit of fabrication. Some bookwork for the annual valuation. But it’s slow and difficult to get motivated. Like a lead weight hangs round me. Time to take the bin down the road. Ho hum.

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I hereby ban you from reading the news. There, that sorts that problem. It's all BS anyway.

The thing is with Mental health. We are all different. What works for him won't work for her etc.

"Specialists" with not much more experience than a bedpan will be all over it having googled it and in the know.

That's why I don't post here much...

I'm relatively fixed... The Direction is of a straight pointing. No Time for sh!t Drama or Diversions.... I'm back to say as you see and careth not a f**k.

A low dose of the Sertraline and all is well.


Anyway over and out.

Considering the pressures upon everyone - health professionals and patients too, can we see any point to the fast forwarding of a training programme for volunteer lay-counsellors? There is a very real risk that with well intentioned, though inept application, matters could be worsened, but the stories of success do exist.

Of course adequate training and I suppose experience too would be vital, but it seems that currently, the existing system is either failing badly, or it simply doesn't exist.

Does anyone have any ideas …….. ?

Texel Tup said:

Considering the pressures upon everyone - health professionals and patients too, can we see any point to the fast forwarding of a training programme for volunteer lay-counsellors? There is a very real risk that with well intentioned, though inept application, matters could be worsened, but the stories of success do exist.

Of course adequate training and I suppose experience too would be vital, but it seems that currently, the existing system is either failing badly, or it simply doesn't exist.

Does anyone have any ideas …….. ?

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Talking therapies are alright up to a point.
But for some people who are figuratively being slowly crushed under a large rock they are as good as useless.
It’s more important to get the rock off them if you can and if you can’t then administer the right pain relieving or brain chemical changing drugs.
In my experience, no amount of talking will change a really sh!t situation into a good one.

But a positive attitude can get you a long way.

DrWazzock said:

But a positive attitude can get you a long way.

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The power of positive thinking eh? I came to the conclusion long ago, that anger, anxiety, and depression are all in the mind and after all is said and done, some bright spark (long ago) wrote that as a man thinketh, then so is he.

DrWazzock said:

Talking therapies are alright up to a point.
But for some people who are figuratively being slowly crushed under a large rock they are as good as useless.
It’s more important to get the rock off them if you can and if you can’t then administer the right pain relieving or brain chemical changing drugs.
In my experience, no amount of talking will change a really sh!t situation into a good one.

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Reminds you how sh!t the situation is.... got it

One thing I learnt is that if "who we considered our self to be" isn't actually us; then therapy/sharing can actually often just result in us bending that character (in order to "fit" better) just as we always have done, in order to fit better

it ultimately isn't very long-lasting compared to looking at what we gave up (or got) from all that "fitting in" and the compromises we made

it's different for everyone, being popular or liked (or "right about it) is often enough of a payback for people to stay where they put themself, but it occurs as 'survival mode'

getting into "thrive mode" almost always involves changing what isn't working,

eg. if being fed crap by the TV is a problem, stop!
Don't watch it and then complain about what you saw turn it off. Talking about it can't help like change can.

However where sharing is priceless, is that a fresh pair of eyes/ears can help us discover our blindspots, what's hidden from our view

Well the Mrs has advanced ovarian cancer as I’ve mentioned before. She’s gone into an extremely low mood over it and blames herself constantly for not getting diagnosed earlier at a stage when her chances of survival would have been greater. Everyday I try to persuade her that she needs to make the most of the time she’s got left (as we all do) but she just won’t have it. She keeps on saying “if only I’d gone to the docs earlier…..said this, said that….” She’s spoken ti countless counsellors and helplines and is under the care of an NHS psychologist. Everybody tells her the same thing as I do, but to no avail. I know it’s it a hell of a thing for her to cope with, but I can’t see any other way forward now other than brain chemistry altering drugs and the psychologist has also come to that conclusion. You just can’t change the fundamental way people think nor is it even maybe right to attempt to do that even though we try for their own good.
This has gone on for months now and I am at the stage where I just say I’m not listening to all that self pitying blaming negativity any more, but still she rants from waking up to going to sleep. Wears me out. I go outside and do something creative. It helps me if not her. A right old mess, like a living nightmare if you think about too much but I can’t take absolutely full responsibility for my wife’s failure to see anything positive at all in anything, quite frankly. I’m entirely sick of the whole awful situation.

I do have my own medical problems. Might turn out to be serious. But frankly I couldn’t care less. Every days a bonus as far as I’m concerned. It’s not how long you live, it’s how you live it.
By the time most folks realise that it’s too late.

Pensions, savings all that stuff, all waiting for that rainy day or round the world trip that never happens. Sod it. I’m cashing them in and buying a new sprayer. Why spend life rattling around on an old bone shaker knackering your guts and back when you can have one with suspension and least enjoy the job a bit more. You only live once. There won’t be a rerun.

DrWazzock said:

…….. I’m entirely sick of the whole awful situation.

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Reading of the balance of your post, the entirety of your ghastly situation is clear ~ as is your entirely understandable level of frustration. In your situation, you ARE entitled to be resentful, when it seems that what ever steps you take and in an effort to help, then such futility seems just utterly pointless, doesn't it? …. I get all that and in its entirety.

The only possible chink of light that I can offer is that before much longer, your wife will surely come to realise and accept the inevitable. You must by now be driven to the point of laying out the simple facts, but whatever the situation, you will also be aware that she can see it all for herself and attempting to explain to someone what they're already aware of, though not accepting, achieves very little …. and you'll have your head around that too.

Is it easier when we're aware of an impending passing? ~ do we somehow start our grieving process at the outset? ~ I suppose that every case is different ~ except that you have managed to face and identify, indeed even catalogue your problems and despite your clear and obvious sense of the abyss before you, you have and are taking the right steps and it is equally clear that you need to start caring for yourself.

What was it that Churchill said? KBO ….