Pix gave me courage to say something. I'm not sure I won't delete it. I don't like that I've said it. It's taken me two minutes to hit Post.

This morning was pretty rough. I stayed in bed until 10 trying to find a reason to get up. I finally did (hungry cat) and now I'm working, but it's been rough. My head is full of -- no one is listening to me, no doctor has been any good to me, even if someone listened no one can help me anyway, I don't want to cry on anyone's shoulder anymore, I don't need sympathy(pity) I need help and there just isn't any. On days when I feel bad like this, I know in a day or two I'll feel better, but better won't last more than a day or two either. Most days I'm just tired and sad and nothing changes. I keep telling myself, maybe this medicine, maybe this vitamin, maybe this diet, but no. I've been trying them for 25 years. I've been depressed my whole life, as long as I can remember. Some things help a little, but nothing has ever helped enough or for very long, and some things have made it worse. I've tried almost everything I've ever heard of that I could access more-or-less legally, except for the newer antidepressants, and frankly at this point I'm scared of them. They're all SSRIs and SSRIs have always made me more depressed. Most meds give me intolerable side effects and not enough relief to justify them. Exercise helps some but I don't have the energy and focus to do it. Anyway, if it really helped I wouldn't have quit doing it, I guess. I don't know what to do now. I'm about to try, again, to find a doctor who will listen and try to help without pushing their personal agenda for sad fat middle-aged women, but the thought of the doctor hunt is exhausting and feels futile. Everything just feels futile. My life is great, I have almost everything I ever wanted, it's time for me to be happy, but I feel like I'm slowly dying. Part of me feels like all I can do is accept that this is my life and just keep up the facade enough to keep my job and my friends, but I can't be content with letting everything I could be slip away because I'm too tired and sad to make anything happen. I don't hate myself, I hate this misery that's sitting on me like a bear or something. I can't move, I can hardly breathe, and I can't get it off long enough to get away. I don't know what to do. I know the answer is "go get help", that's the answer I'd give anyone else. I know I deserve better, that there are people who care about me, that the world is good. I don't need any more therapy. I need a key to this prison. Prison-bear. I mixed the metaphor. I need to not spend any more time crying uselessly when I need to be working, or any of the other things, like getting out of bed or leaving my house, that take all my energy and concentration to do. How can I paint or draw or dance or train for a marathon when I can barely get through a day of desk work with enough energy left to maybe fold laundry or something? I'm wasting my life and I can't fix it and it's killing me. I don't even know what I'm asking for here. Just to know someone's actually listening to me, I guess. Just to know that someone knows this is happening to me. Someone just tell me it isn't totally futile to go hunting for a useful doctor/unicorn again. Because if there's no doctor who can do anything, there really is nothing.

This is sort of freaky, because I was coming in here to post almost exactly that same thing, except for me it was 1 rather than 10. And the cat wasn't hungry, just pesky.

My breakdown can wait for later, though, because honestly yours sounds worse. I am, obviously, lacking in helpful things to say, since I have hit my "Maybe this is just it?" line. I'm thinking if I ever get to see another doctor, I might talk about executive function as well as depression, because I can't seem to accomplish anything, which makes me feel worse about myself.

Okay, that was me. Now you. Are you sure the good times only last a little while? Is it possible you're retconning them from a depression place? Or, um, or... yeah, I don't know. Except you kind of have to get back on the horse, because the alternative is even more of a waste. Maybe life is just something you alternately enjoy and suffer through, and doesn't build up to something. Maybe... maybe we both need new doctors. You HAVE had better times, I'm sure. Maybe they don't last forever, but nobody gets 100% uptime.

Man, if we could bottle the energy of useless thrashing, I'd be rich. Good luck. I'm in this foxhole too.

I was doing really well on my current AD until my period came back a couple of months back, and now I'm dealing with an emotional roller coaster again. I wonder if there is some sort of hormone test I should be asking my doctor to run, but I think I was tested for hormonal issues by my fertility doctor.

What the fuck?

Maybe the lack of Prince has sucked joy out of the world, with the blast waves also going backward in time. This would not altogether surprise me.

Sorry, guys. It's exhausting trying to find doctors and dealing with doctors and all the rest of it. It's a terrible irony that it's one of the hardest things to do when you're depressed and need it the most.

I"m so sorry, Zen. And Emily. And sj. I wish this managing brain chemistry thing was easier and foolproof instead of haphazard. Maybe the next doctor can help. and maybe look into ADHD treatments - that whole not accomplishing things,not having the energy or concentration to do things you want to do sounds familiar and while I may have some untreated depression going on the Adderall seems to help with all that enough.

In somewhat related news someone tell me I'm not the worst parent ever because ltc just gnawed a hole in the binding of her book. I had her safely in her activity seat with a book and nothing dangerous wishing arms reach so that I could rest for a bit, but I wasn't paying close enough attention to what she was doing to the book.

I know adderall helps me but I couldn't take it while I was pregnant or trying to get pregnant and I'm not sure if I can take it while breastfeeding.

My breakdown can wait for later, though, because honestly yours sounds worse.

nooo I don't want you to put off what you were going to say because of my rant. There's no worse or better there's just suck.

I'm thinking if I ever get to see another doctor, I might talk about executive function as well as depression, because I can't seem to accomplish anything

Yes, executive function. I don't know if I should bring that up with a doctor, though. I don't want to split their focus and confuse them?

Are you sure the good times only last a little while? Is it possible you're retconning them from a depression place?

Reasonable question, but nope, I'm sure. I've been paying attention to this for years. The good days usually last for two or three days in a row, and they don't come around often.

Maybe life is just something you alternately enjoy and suffer through, and doesn't build up to something.

That'd be fine, but "enjoy" and "suffer" seem disproportionate and not normal in either intensity or relative degree.

You HAVE had better times, I'm sure. Maybe they don't last forever, but nobody gets 100% uptime.

No, I haven't. I have not had any point in my life when I was happy in a normal way. I know what a happy life must be because I've had brief episodes of feeling the way I'm sure life is supposed to feel -- when the bear gets up and I feel lighter and doing everyday normal things isn't hard, and I see other people acting like they feel like living is a fun thing to do and they don't comprehend what I mean when I talk about how I feel. If I were normal the normal happy people would understand me. This is not normal.

I'm not asking for 100% uptime. I'm asking for a normal life. I'm asking to be able to get up in the morning and shower and get dressed and make breakfast and feed the cats and sweep the floor and sit down to do my work and put on a little makeup and have lunch with a friend and go to the store and put the groceries away and do some laundry and put the laundry away and read a book and work on my hobbies and hop on the treadmill during The Daily Show and go to bed and sleep, and do all that as if it were normal and simple and easy to do, and the next day? have the energy to do it all again. I'm not asking to be joyous every moment, I'm asking to be able to function.

Is it toxic, or do you just wish she hadn't damaged it? Honestly, that sounds like she amused herself in a relatively harmless way. But then I live with puppies.

Anyway, she was unharmed and probably happy. You're a great parent.