Living with Major Depression & PTSD

Randomness of the impact of these dis-eases is the most difficult aspect of managing your own well being.

One minute you feel you've conquered the 'Black Dog' and there can not possibly be a trigger for your PTSD that you've not encountered and designed a coping mechanism for. 

The next your back in  the 'depths of despair' as my hero Anne of Green Gables would say.

It's exhausting just trying to manage your days and weeks. When I am well and functioning I'm panicked by the pressure I put on myself to 'make hay while the sun shines' wondering the whole time when the next spiral down will be triggered. Or even worse if it will ever be triggered and that I'm actually well, but just a lazy person. Then out of the blue the next spiral downward commences.

Who or what do you turn to drag yourself back to your former functioning self? How do you turn to someone? How do you ask for help? When I'm in the downward spiral the last thing I feel I deserve is help, I don't feel worthy of help. If I can't fix myself with all the knowledge and ability that I have then what right do I have to ask for help?

Something that seems to be terribly misunderstood about Depression particularly is that when the spiral downward begins it isn't a matter of 'feeling sorry for yourself' as many people try to tell you when they say 'just snap out of it'; it's a matter of feeling completely unworthy and without hope that your life has any meaning at all, in fact often it is the feeling that not only do you have no meaning but that your life to date has been filled with so many errors that it has been detrimental to those around you.

Looking to the future is difficult knowing that you can't make these dis-eases go away no matter how hard you try, how much you rationalise and intellectualise your circumstances, they are what they are and you may never heal.