Depression and depersonalization

My levels of depression and depersonalization are quite severe. When I try to sleep, I usually end up spending hours crying in bed. My mind is overwhelmed. Sometimes I walk the streets at night, seemingly blinded by my own depression and guilt, detached from the world around me, wallowing in shame. The reality of my situation and the few options or paths I can take in my future are what is driving much of this. I don't know yet for sure how the new medication is playing into all of this, I'll have to watch how I act over the next few weeks as I adjust the dosage before deciding whether it's helping or hurting.

Having to face the fact that whether my family and I elect for electro-shock treatments, institutions, personal self-help coaching, or just living with the status-quo and hoping that I'll eventually succeed on my own, all of these scenarios in the end require a lot of emotional and financial support of my family, and I feel I've already pushed the financial support they can offer to its limits. I'm not sure if it's just my own fears or not, but I'm not sure how much longer I can realistically ask for their emotional support.

I can't help but think that the good of the many out-weighs the good of the one, and that I should pack my things and just walk out of their lives and take the burden off of them, but I'm sure they would hear nothing of that. I do know that where ever I go, my feelings, my emotions, these awful thoughts and symptoms will go with me wherever I may go. In the end, it's up to me to fix what problems I have, and I don't know how much longer I can keep putting up any effort, each day it continually gets harder, with only a few brief moments each day of having a positive can-do attitude. I can't help but feeling that I'm in some way abusing my family by continuing to ask them to support me as they have for many years, knowing that even if we do some radical procedure there is little chance any of them will bring about both a significant and long-lasting relief for me.

I spent a long time trying to balance my budget today, it was very difficult keeping my mind focused. I forgot to pay some of my bills, I had a stack of mail sitting on my bookshelf that had been lying there for a month, and trying to keep my mind focused on the task was very difficult. My aunt asks me very nicely to help her with some very small chores, but my mind races so much that when someone asks me something it is like a distraction that makes me lose the fragile grip I had on whatever I was trying to do, further making me feel hopeless and frustrated. Making to-do lists still doesn't help me much, even when I set them up so that my computer displays a message and beeps at me telling me I need to take care of something.

I do get inspired, even if it is just for a short while, when some of you email me and open up yourselves and tell me that my sharing on this website has helped you. I really appreciate that, it does help. Some of you may not be able to email me because I am still having problems with my email provider such that certain people, depending on who their email provider is, can't send me email.

I feel like I want to go and apologize to all of the people who have meant something to my life, tell them I'm sorry that my mind and emotions are crumbling around me, sorry that I am falling into a black abyss when I once had so much potential.

My family often asks me "What more can we do to help you?" and I can't give them any answers. The only answer I can think to give them is to simply let go of me, to stop worrying about me and stop taking care of me, and focus on taking care of themselves instead.

I'm currently reading a good book written by a self-publishing author. When I am finished with it, I'll talk with him and seeing about posting a review of it here, so far I think it's a book every doctor should read. If you're curious, you can find out more information in my links section or just follow this link: Reading Your Body

I finally received my copy of the movie "Awakenings" , and I cried a few times while watching it. It did inspire me for a while, inspire me to help others who are facing the same troubles as I am. It is a good movie starring Robin Williams and Robert Deniro, Williams plays a doctor who tries to help patients with extreme Parkinson's disease awaken from their coma-like states, and is based on a true story.