A Long, Ugly Year of Depression That’s Finally Fading

I left my job in January due to depression, though I didn't tell anyone. I haven't worked a day since then and am just living off savings as they dwindle. I haven't spoken to any of my former co-workers who were my only contacts in the Bay Area since I moved from the East Coast to work at a startup. I've spent all day every day numbing myself with weed, porn, mindless internet browsing, etc. I don't even code, every time I open up Xcode or Android Studio I just end up doing nothing. And I honestly just don't want to do anything.

The last time I went out socially was in January of this year and even that was just with my then co-workers. And over the past ten and fifteen years it hasn't been any different. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been out socially over the past ten years that wasn't work related (and while employed the number of times I went out with co-workers also number in the single digits).

The isolation is what kills me. I haven't had sex in several years and haven't had any intimate relationships in my entire life (the sex were just one nighters and nothing more, and I've never had a "best friend", not even in high school or middle school). Unlike a lot of people with depression, I don't have friends, family (all on East Coast), or girlfriends (I've never had one). I don't even talk with people online, not through FB, not anonymously on web forums or instant messaging. In the past week the only people I've talked to is the cashier at the local supermarket, and that was just to say I wanted a bag and say "thanks see ya later". In fact this is the first time I've written about depression online, I've only told a few people (my mom and a doctor) that I even have it.

I've had a hard time dealing with it. I'm trying to get into meditation and what not. But I mostly fear the effect of this extreme isolation. There's a lot of evidence that it kills your brain (literally).

I'm reading a book called "The mindful way through Depression". I bought it over two years ago and only started reading it two months ago. I'm still only halfway through. The worst part of depression is that it saps my energy to do anything, even when I do read the book I'll read several pages and not remember a thing of what I read.

Sorry about the wall of text if anyone reads this, but it's 5:46 AM and I'm not doing anything else. I haven't gone to sleep yet...I'm just mindlessly browsing the web (I discovered a new TV show earlier today and am marathoning it right now). Either way I still hold some optimism for the future.

I've found that when I drink coffee regularly over a long period, my intake invariably increases. Eventually, it reaches 2 cups of double-espresso-with-milk or equivalent a day, and goes past that too... after a few weeks or something months of that, I start getting strange episodes at random times that I describe as "light anxiety attacks".

The way they feel is that I get an impression that something, SOMETHING is wrong. I'm not sure quite what, but I don't realise that I'm not sure what until I realise I'm having one of these attacks. There's an unpleasant feeling of tension that starts in the chest and radiates out to the rest of the body - all the way to fingers and feet, through shoulders, knees, etc. That's the physiological aspects. Mentally, I feel like everything is going wrong. Nothing looks like it's going to work out. I tend to be more aggressive and curt with people, and extremely negative of course, since nothing seems like a good idea. In one of these episodes, I could easily find myself thinking that this business that I run, that employs 17 people and turns over over a million pounds, is doomed and that I should just leave it and run away from it and do something else. When I think something so ridiculous, usually some part of me wakes up and says "hey, that's not quite right", and then I realise I am having an anxiety attack.

If awake, once I realise that's what's going on I can deal with it fairly effectively. Get rid of any physical discomforts (e.g. go pee if I need to pee), have some water, take some deep breaths, and refocus on positive things. It used to take longer, but by now, once I realise it's happening, I can get out of it in a couple of minutes, even while I'm in the middle of conversation with others, so it's not noticeable to others.

If I'm asleep, it's more bothersome, because I'm unlikely to notice it in a half-dream state... so I'll lie in bed half-awake and half into some kind of mild nightmare where everything keeps going wrong and I feel stressed. Eventually, 30-60 minutes later, I'll actually realise what's going on, and go and open the window, take some deep breaths, go to the loo, have some water, etc... then once it's calmed away, I can go back to sleep.

I would not call this an "anxiety attack" in the full sense because usually people who suffer anxiety attacks can't get out of them so easily... but it definitely seems to overlap with the general understanding of what an anxiety attack is meant to be like. So I call this a "very mild anxiety attack".

I've noticed that when those are happening more regularly (e.g. once or twice a day), if I reduce my caffeine intake to zero, they go away almost entirely within a couple of days. So I'm pretty sure it's caffeine-induced.

Marijuana is an analgesic. But in this case the effects are stemming from the fact that's its an anti inflammatory, so that the fluid in your disc is no longer compressing the spinal nerves. And the fact that it reduces anxiety also reduces inflammation even further, since anxiety is probably largely what was causing the inflammation.