fiddlerpianist wrote:
Horus wrote:
Though since i've recently emerged from a very deep, dark and painful depression....i'm starting to desire human contact alot more.
i don't know if we've ever conversed, but for some reason I remember this quite well and felt horrible for you. I'm so glad you've emerged and are feeling better!
Well....I am FEELING much better emotionally than I was say, six months ago. I have been taking 60mg of Citalopram (Celexa) per day for the past three months and I believe it has helped me enormously. Nonetheless, nothing else in my life (which was the seeming cause for the depression in the non-neurochemical sense) has changed dramatically. Now i'm on the cusp of making some significant positive changes, but all of them involve a waiting game which I have no control over. For example....I am returning to college ASAP....but I need to wait and see if OVR is willing to assist me with the costs of tuition, books, etc.....If they are not willing to do so....it's really no big deal as pell grants will cover much of my tuition and my family and myself can easily handle the rest. Still....my family insists on finding out if OVR will cover any of my educational expenses at all before I just go and enroll for classes. I would like to start in January, but i'm not sure if that's going to happen yet. I have an appointment with my OVR counselor Monday and i'll find out then.
Also....OVR believes the first priority is helping me gain employment and I heartily concur with that. My savings from my last job are all-but tapped out and my family only pays for my basic living expenses. Therefore, I can't even buy a CD or pack of guitar strings until I have some income of my own. At this point, I don't care i'm just working part-time for $150.00 per week for the next couple months. I don't have all that many expenses anyway and even that pittance would give me SOME spending money and perhaps even a little left over to save.
I am starting to eat right again too and exercise on a regular basis. When I was feeling depressed, I just didn't care about my health or my appearance and as a result, I ballooned up to 179;lbs which is roughly 40lbs over my ideal body weight

Hopefully I can get back down to where I was two years ago (140lbs) in a matter of six months or less. It won't be easy with the holidays coming and all the feasting and drinking that's usually part and parcel with them, but i've done it before and since i'm feeling ok emotionally again, I know I can do it this time.
Also....i've been getting up earlier in the mornings and going to sleep earlier in the evenings. This is certainly a positive change since I was staying up until 4:00am+ when I was feeling depressed and often not waking up until 12:00pm or even as late as 2:00pm sometimes. Needless to say....that was an awful sleep regime and certainly not conducive to working and/or going to school. So i'm glad I broke that habit long before I start to work and go to school again.
I am also spending alot more time with friends and socializing. I am actually enjoying being around people (SOME people at least) more than I have for two years. I have rekindled my relationship with my two best friends (one I met in college 15 years ago and the other is my ex-girlfriend who I lived with for five years) after hardly talking to them at all for my two-year depression and seeing them even less. Now I have no problems being around family and friends when six months ago, all I wanted to do was reclude in my room, stare mindlessly at TV and surf the internet.
The only downside to feeling better emotionally is that my sex drive has really skyrocketed. I can't exactly say I have any outlets for it right now other than.....ummm....self-service

I don't have any viable prospects either, so this i'm somewhat frustrated. Still....i'll take sexual frustration any day over the Stygian darkness of severe depression. If I had my druthers, i'd be asexual in any case. Of what genuine value is sex anyway if you don't wish to procreate? (which can happen without intercourse these days anyway of course) It is simply a crude biologicaly-driven pleasure that even the spider monkeys in the amazon indulge in. It doesn't make you smarter, richer, (unless you're a golddigger or a defacto hooker...lol), more talented, creative, compasssionate, closer to absolute truth/god, (if either exist and let's just say I have strong doubts about all that), etc....It may be good for your prostate if you're a male and it has other physical/mental health benefits as well. Still....I view the sex drive as more of an annoyance than anything else. It's the itch that can't always be scratched and it never stops itching entirely no matter what you do or how much sex you have both in terms quanity and quality. It's sort of like lobster to me. There are many equals to lobster when it comes to delicious foods, but no rivals. Still....if I never ate lobster again in my life I wouldn't consider myself the least bit unfulfilled for it. If it's in my face however and not too much of a burden or expense to eat, i'll never deny it though. Ditto for sex....it's just one of those things I could happily live without, but I prefer not to so long as the biological drive itself is still intact and active.
Anyway......depression can rob you of more than just your happiness. It can rob you of friends, family, work, school, hobbies, etc.......ad nauseum. In some cases...it robs people of their very lives of course. I think anyone who has been TRULY depressed will admit that there are few things in our existence that seem like literal hell on earth when it comes to the inexpressible hopelessness, sense of inferiority, lack of energy/motivation, etc....associated with depression.
At any rate....thanks for the kind words!! ! I hope you and yours are doing well too