Sadness after hapiness

I don't know if this is a depression-specific thing or a me-specific thing but one of the most difficult, heart breaking, and frustrating things to deal with is sadness after happiness.

I will give an example: I go out with my friends, we have a lot of fun. Maybe we go see a movie, or stay at home and watch netflix and laugh about fictional characters butts. Good times. But then I go back home, and after having a good day where I feel good I am suddenly hit with an overwhelming sadness and loneliness. The only reasoning I can think of is that brains generally have a baseline happiness level and mine needs to be knocked down several pegs before it goes down to my "normal" levels (which is everyone else's "moderate - severe depression" levels)

A lot of things about depression are shitty, but this I could easily put in a top 3 list of shitty things because I can't even enjoy being happy. It's hard to look forward to good times, and it's impossible to hold onto those good feelings for very long. This isn't "I can't feel happy" in the first place, this actively steals what joy you can feel.

and yeah. it's really awful.

 

Don't feel like making another thread but I'm having a bad day :(

maybe I should just go to bed early tonight and hope I feel better tomorrow. Being suicidal sucks, thinking your life is ruined sucks, thinking you have no value as a person sucks. Depression sucks.

ADDENDUM: please don't worry about me I am literally just going to log off and go to bed soon I will see all of you guys tomorrow. Even if everything feels like pointless bullshit it's all marginally better than being dead.

ADDENDUM 2: had a cupcake and sperged about things I liked for awhile and I think I will be ok for tonight

 

sounds kind of like dysthymia, a subtype of depression, which as far as i can tell from my dr's explanation means your baseline 'normal' is lower than everyone else's. the good thing about it (insofar as anything about depression is good) is that it's a recognized and treatable thing.

i hope your cupcake was good.

 

I had to look it up, seems legit given my history though.

Probably shouldn't have read bout the treatment resistance part though. It's something I've coped well enough with basically my whole life but the very thought of that is really exhausting I wish I wasn't born with sad brains. :(

 

@Beldaran Oh, so maybe THAT'S what my psych meant when she said she thought I "didn't have depression, just persistent depressive thoughts"? I thought it was a weird way of saying "you don't have an illness, you just feel bad constantly because oh well".

 

I don't know, dysthymia is depression. Just depression that lasts basically forever instead of coming and going in episodes. (which is why it was renamed chronic depressive disorder, because there is no real clinical reason to break things down between depression lite and full blown depression)

Either your shrink just worded things really awkwardly or you might want to look into a second opinion on that.

 

second verse same as the first, today is a worse day than yesterday, and yesterday was worse than the day before.

I'm really tired and I hate myself a lot, but I'm still trying to find things to look forward to.

 

@liminal I really understood your post, frankly. It's something I struggle with a lot less now, since I'm in a life situation I actually like, but it used to be that making myself go to college after a break would make me cry all night because i had to go from normal life, like, talking with people over the day, having people i like converse with me, going out and doing things occasionally, to being alone, boxed in, uncomfortable, living with roommates i didn't know, and probably being followed around by some asshole who wanted to date me because that was always happening. drinking back to the dorm after a visit form my parents or a rare night out always felt so fucking bitter and unfair, because though i knew i would get used to my alone life again... i read a quote somewhere once about how loneliness is like being hungry, you don't know how much you are until you get to eat. yeeaahh. going back into starvation after a short meal would SUCK.

like i say, for me, the solution was sticking it out until i got into a life situation that was better. but i was lucky, i have a strong relationship and now i'm living with my girlfriend who is supporting me for a short period until i punch through the job sector on my own. that not something i can suggest as an easy solution. but what i needed was a daily life i actually wanted to live, and the time to heal, and look at me, having those things. unbelievable, what god likes me.

but yeah. understanding is in me. i used to be pretty convinced that there was no such thing as enjoying happiness without eventually suffering for it, since happiness was a pretty intense and rare feeling for a while and its absence afterwards was painful and shocking. it was harsh. i get a whole lot less of it now. every fucking ounce of luck directed at you, this was some of the worst shit i had to experience, and i really fucking hope the pain numbs for you. feel free to talk to me about it since i think i get where you're at at talking to someone who gets it is nice.

 

Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

I LEGIT THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE.

I have the same basic problem--if I have a really good day, there's a very good chance that I'll "crash" once it's over. And I honestly always assumed that was just a Weird Acey Thing but holy shit I'm not alone?

Thank you for this, @liminal. Seriously, I don't mean to make this about me, but thank you for sharing this.

 

I also have dysthymia, though I usually say depression in casual conversation. And yeah. It's a bitch. Everyone here has my sympathies and hugs. It sucks to be sad all the time. I'm having some luck treating it with citalopram and slow life changes, but ... it's hard. I definitely get the immediate crash after a good thing, and "chronic depressive disorder" hits the nail right on the fucking head.

I don't care if I'm happy all the time ... I just don't want to be sad all the time. There's gotta be an in-between.

I'm tired tonight. Moirail is really sick. Got a bunch of shit done and now I'm just ... blah. y'know.

 

It's okay, you're not making it about you. I didn't know if I was alone or not in this either. Finding out you aren't some lone weirdo on our spinning space rock in the cosmos is one of the beautiful thing about divulging personal stuff on the internet.