I (26f) have been chronically depressed since I was 11. I struggle so much with the idea of making it to 30, let alone 60, or 70, or 80.
What motivates you to keep going? Especially to those of you with mental illnesses, or those who have gone through a lot of loss.
I’m hopeful that there is valuable advice to be had here
Comments
I think this is beyond the scope of reddit to make a meaningful difference. See if you can get hold of a therapist.
For what its worth you want to be living your life in a balance of the present and the future, have a goal something you want to achieve or at least work towards, whether that is a personal skill or a career goal, a health goal or something else entirely, but equally important is to not totally neglect the present spend time with people you like and do activities that you enjoy.
Now I’m well aware that you can’t just flip some magical switch and change your entire outlook on life, and that is why treatment/therapy is so important.
Trigger warning for those who can’t deal with frank conversations about depression:
I’m not elderly, but I’m in my mid 30s and suffered from depression in my late teens, early 20s.
First off, take all the help you can, there is nothing wrong with having help. I realised this later than I should have. I took up therapy/CBT and it really helped. You do need to want to get out of it though. Therapy needs you to be pushing. You don’t have to be “perfect” at it, you just need to be willing to try.
But when it comes to what’s worth living for, I think this is a very complex to answer (in a positive way). I love seeing new things, experiencing feelings I’ve not had, just trying to do fun stuff. You get to see where you can get your life.
My real push was that I saw what someone ending their life did to everyone. They thought no one cared about them or that they were a burden to them. The truth was, so many people wanted and needed him there. It helped me take that off the table for me. Then I got to a point where I couldn’t live the way I was living because it felt overwhelming, as if there was no way to get better. So my choice felt like it could only go 2 ways, ending it or getting better. And as one option was basically not existing, I thought I should give existing and potentially being happy the 110% effort, because I lose nothing but I could gain something. And I’m so insanely happy I went for that option. It took some work and it took a few months but I can’t even put my happiness on the scale that depression was on. I hardly have any “low” days (maybe once a year now, a few years on) and even that low is like 0.01% of a good depressed day.
You can understand happiness, but you need to stop asking yourself the existential questions and try to hype yourself up to fight depression with the help of professionals. It’s worth the effort. You honestly don’t have to be perfect and you can have set backs. I had a few but I knew I wanted to get back on it and keep fighting. I was happy within a very short time and had low days where I needed my bed again, but those low days got measurably further apart and measurably less “low”. It’s honestly a feeling that I didn’t believe I would ever have. I promise you I know how unrealistic it feels to you right now. I felt that. But it’s absolutely realistic, you just haven’t given yourself the chance to fight for it.
I promise that if you try, you’ll start to understand what there is to live for.
50 here still having new experiences, enjoy seeing my kids grow up ,still enjoy my wife’s company .enjoy video games not quite elderly but getting there.oh and maybe the greatest thrill performing music for other people is the best .Also Steak and lobster, also coffees in the morning.
I’m almost 30F, I’ve been depressed since I was 6/7. What has helped me recently was identifying sources of pain, distress & discomfort. I realised that my family were toxic, & now that I have been no-contact with them for the last 10 months. My mental health has improved significantly.
I also got rid of fake friends & distanced myself from fake acquaintances. In my case, the pain came from people I was surrounded by (I was a family’s scapegoat).