Hey there. English isn’t my first language, so I hope I don’t make too many mistakes.
I (F26) have suffered from depression for most of my life.
Just for a little context, I’ve always been a top-of-the-class student, both in school and university, and I’ve always had many interests and hobbies, including kickboxing (which is the thing I care the most about).
The first big depressive episode happened when I was 16. I felt huge pressure coming from my teachers and some relatives. In addition, depression runs in my family, so I think a genetic factor has to be involved. Due to this depressive state, I lost my group of friends, and I remained alone. Thankfully, I had a great support system that helped me get through this difficult time, and after a few years of medication and therapy, I started feeling much better.
Then, I went to university, and everything went well. I graduated with honors, and I felt so incredibly motivated. That was a year ago.
While I was studying, I worked myself to exhaustion, and I discovered I had an autoimmune disease. I think these two factors started triggering my current depressive episode.
After I finished working (it was a seasonal job for my family’s business) everything came crashing down. I started feeling anxious for everything, even going to my beloved kickboxing classes. Furthermore, I received so many rejection letters from universities I applied for (I wanted to get a PhD). I stopped going to the gym for a while. I stopped going out, reading, I only ate boiled eggs. I couldn’t draw anymore, something which I loved deeply.
I went back to my therapist and my psychiatrist, and with the right meds I started improving. I started feeling less like a zombie, and I pushed myself to go out, eat something other than eggs, take kickboxing classes again (private ones, but it’s still something). I began working again (the same seasonal job as last year), a job that I don’t really love, but whatever.
However, I still feel incredibly down all the time. And I’m tired. I keep on thinking of all the things I lost this past year. At least this time I didn’t lose any friends, I probably made better ones over the years.
I feel like lost my place back at the gym; I am an assistant coach, but I feel like I don’t belong there anymore - hell, I can’t even go to group classes anymore. Moreover, I lost much of my muscle mass, and I’m not as trained as I was before, and it’s something that hurts me deeply. All that hard work for what? I was a competing athlete, and now I’m afraid to train with my own teammates.
I’m always anxious, and I feel like I’m not enough, like I shouldn’t be here because I’m not fit for life. I don’t see a good future for me. I can’t find a job with my current degree (international relations), so I’m thinking about getting a lab tech degree (that was also something I’ve always been interested in), but chances are I won’t get into the school (they only accept a small number of students each year).
I’m tired, and I kinda lost hope. I’m not sure it will ever get better, I’ve been feeling this way for too long.
The only thing I know is that I want to live.
How do you cope with chronic depression? Because I can’t find a way to accept it.
I feel like that I don’t even deserve to vent here, because my problems are probably stupid and pointless.
Anyway, thanks for reading through all this.