I am so depressed

The way I feel right now is as though there is no out. There is no door. It's just me inside a small black room and every breathe feels like I am slowly suffocating.

I am so so depressed right now. I don't know what has triggered this but it happens to me about once every month. I am not crying right now, atm I just feel morose but I was crying earlier, and I didn't know why except that I am really unhappy in my life.

I am always struggling for money. Always living month by month, never enough money for me to start doing the things I want. Always just earning enough for rent and bills and food.

I am so unhappy. I can't do anything right now. Except wait for this to pass so I can keep working.

Depression can be debilitating. Sometimes, just being heard helps, even if it's very slight. I find when I'm feeling really down, any positive feeling even if it's small can be used to help pull yourself out.

And yeah, when there's money issues in the picture, it can make a situation much worse, because money is so necessary for survival and beyond survival, you usually need money to pursue the things you really want in life.

Perhaps try using the pain you feel right now and funnel that into your work, or something that you believe will be fruitful. When things look really bleak, my best resolution is always to follow my heart. Even if it seems all the odds are against you, following your heart is the best thing you can do. That's my personal belief, because no matter how difficult and trying certain times in my life have been, following my heart has been what has led me closer to fulfilling my dreams.

I sincerely hope you feel better, and even if you don't you can always come here and vent your feelings with us - that might help you feel less alone.
*hug*

As someone suffering from depression myself I have some idea how you feel. I know how painful it can be to keep going through those cycles. The pain, the darkness, the not knowing why, the hopelessness, there is no meaning or beauty, just pain and anger and a vacuum... Then we get out it. Something changes, we feel better, some light and colour comes back and we hope again, we hope we are free.... But eventually the clouds and the darkness and all those feelings so heavy they feel like they will crush us come back again, and the extra pain of knowing we have ended up yet again in this place.

There are no easy solutions for depression. One of the most frustrating things about depression (and one of the things that can trigger a spiral into deeper depression) is that we cant figure out why we feel so bad. The initial reason we feel bad can be due to many things like childhood experiences or our genes, but most probably a mixture of both. I read a recent article that said that the influence of genes compared with environmental factors on your "happiness" is actually about 50:50. This thought is both upsetting and a relief. Its upsetting because it would indicate that if I have depressive genes, there is only so much I can do about it but I will ultimately always be partly depressed. It is a relief because it kind of takes some of the pressure of feeling like its my own fault that I am depressed. This comes back to that downward spiral. We feel bad and dont know why and then part of us usually blames ourselves and says "come on you sook get over it" and "your such a sulking sorry sack feeling sorry for yourself" and so we put ourselves down which in turn adds to our deflated self image and at the same times makes us less resilient to the effects of depression. And so realising that it is not our own fault, that our negative feeling are something we are born with can ironically really help. Who knows anyway, I think maybe also depression is just a result of people being born with a mindset and perception that is out of sink with the main trends of current societies social conscious. We live in such an all encompassing all pervasive social world these days that if we have some fundamentally different values and attitudes to the mainstream it can be a burden. However this is only part of the explanation and ultimately it is important for people to realise they hold the key to their own happiness. But for a depressive person, this is easier said than done. One thing I can suggest, that I think is a healing therapy for so many afflictions is - the power of helping and doing good/charitable things for others. This is not just a 'goody two shoes wives tale'. The positive mental benefits of helping others has been scientifically demonstrated in many studies. And hey, deep down we know it makes sense anyway. Try and get get out and help in a charity event or simply just buy some presents for family and friends or both.

Dont stop trying!!! It might be the 1000th try, it might be the millionth try, it might be the billionth try, but eventually you will find our way out of the cave. Maybe the solution is more about realising that there is no permenant solution. During our whole lives we will have times we are out of the cave under the open sky with sun and wide horizons and other times we will slip back down the slippery slope into the cave and be lost again feeling our way through the dark tunnels not knowing which direction is up or down. But as long as we keep searching, we will get out again and have our times to enjoy the sky and the stars and the horizons once more, even though that cave is always there and we can always fall into it again.

I hope this helps.