I wanted to write a bit about my experience of depression which has dominated a significant chunk of my sober time. I know I’m not the only one!
Of course just because I’ve felt suicidal, it doesn’t mean that anyone else feeling that way will relate to what I’ve got to say. But I know when I was feeling my lowest, reading other people’s experiences helped me make sense of my own a bit. I am not a mental health professional, a counsellor or anything like that. I just know what it was like to be in my pit of despair, scared and thinking it would be like that forever. TLDR (and this really is a long one!) - it hasn’t turned out that way.
I probably had depression since I was a teenager. I didn’t really realise it, life was chaotic and I drank too much and I cried a lot but I kind of just got on with it. Like we do! After I stopped drinking in 2018, about five months into sobriety, I had a huge mental health crash. Being newly sober with emotions I had always suppressed or drank away, as well as life being life… Well I was a mess. I somehow managed to keep working, even though a lot of days I’d cry all the way there and all the way home in the car. Then get home and cry some more. I was anxious and overwhelmed and after a few months I went to the doctors. I’d kind of had a feeling of not really wanting to be alive for a while, maybe years, but the idea of actually killing myself had started popping up a lot and it really upset and scared me.
I describe my depression like being in a pit of despair. I am not sure that conveys quite how dark, lonely and hopeless I felt. But it’s the best I’ve got. The idea of this being all there is, forever… And I did feel that would probably be it for the rest of my life, maybe a week or two of feeling a bit less shit and then crashing back to the depths. One of the things that kept me hanging on, that made me feel fairly certain I wouldn’t actually kill myself, was the hole it would leave in the lives of people around me. Particularly my parents and my partner. The people who love me even when I feel totally unlovable, unlikeable, when I hate myself.
I took the medication the doctors gave me after a couple of months waiting for a referral to the mental health team that did not come to anything. To start with it kind of helped. I hadn’t realised how much anxiety I was carrying around until it was gone! It felt like a load had been lifted. The depression kept creeping back though and they kept increasing the dose. This continued throughout 2019 and into 2020. My suicidal ideation shifted over that time. I didn’t realise it to start with, cos I was just living with it - in my head, all the time. It happened gradually. It got to a point where it wasn’t this scary, upsetting thing. It almost became quite a casual option. Not quite inevitable… But something closer to that. I was still sad and emotional, but I became more numb. Empty. Detached.
I started getting into the mindset that people would probably be better off without me. They’d be sad, sure, but they would move on. The dog would be confused to start with but she’d be happy enough with my parents. My partner would probably find a better relationship. My Mum and Dad would be united in their grief and it might even make things better with their relationship. Writing that out now, I actually can’t believe those thoughts came from my own brain!! Even if there is some truth in any of those ideas, the thought that me killing myself would actually be better for any of those people is deluded at best. One of my friends died aged 26 (not by suicide) and the scar that has left on the lives of his family and friends, including me, is huge. Having spoken to people with friends or family that did commit suicide, they always feel such pain that they weren’t able to do more to help, on top of the normal grief of losing a loved one.
Anyway - that’s where I was. Deep in the pit and starting to really believe that the only way out was killing myself. This thing that used to be really scary and upsetting and now really wasn’t. I had been well immersed in recovery/ sobriety principles at this point and this thinking was the total opposite of all the stuff I’d been surrounding myself with. Stuff I believed too! I particularly like Buddhist philosophy, one of the core ideas that I find comfort in is impermanence. For me, that meant that however hopeless things felt, there was maybe, just maybe, a possibility that things wouldn’t be like this forever. And that the only way to find out would be to stick around and see.
So yea at some point I was like hold on, I’m having all these thoughts about killing myself in this really discompassionate way, but my body is having all these really human experiences (the sadness, tiredness, the physical depression symptoms) and part of the human experience is to SURVIVE. Look at the people all over the world in desperate situations, that keep going regardless. If I had a friend struggling I wouldn’t encourage them to kill themselves, would I? I would want them to know how loved they are, just for being them, just for being human and being part of the world with me. And if so, well I am human too. It doesn’t make sense that I am somehow so different that I don’t deserve to be alive when I wouldn’t apply that to ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING.
I started to think about it some more and I started to realise that the nature of my suicidal ideation had shifted and changed after I started taking the meds, as the doses increased the thoughts became more detached from emotion. I did some reading on it and saw lots of people had the same experience. Although most people I saw on mental health forums reported doctors switching their medication when they start feeling suicidal. And I’d read the leaflet, suicidal thoughts is a side effect of antidepressants.
I was still hesitant about coming off the meds for a couple of reasons. First, I wasn’t sure I could bear the idea of going through an endless cycle of meds, dosing etc. I decided that if I tried another med and after 6 weeks I had anything like this, I would put my foot down and switch rather than going up doses again. I had coped with these feelings for however long. I could cope with trying a few more things. Starting to think it could be side effects of the meds was also helping me to challenge the suicidal thoughts. Second, I wasn’t totally sure it was the meds. It could have just been a natural progression of my depression. But I figured the only way to find out was by changing meds.
If I’m honest I was probably also a bit scared about coming out of my pit of despair. It was horrible and bleak. But it was what I had become used to. There’s almost some comfort in that I think. A kind of certainty, or reliability, I knew what each day would bring. But ultimately I realised that if the meds were the things making me feel suicidal, then I didn’t really have control over that outcome and so that wasn’t very certain or reliable either.
Over the summer of 2020 I spoke to three different doctors and got three different suggestions. So decided to wean myself off the meds. 10/10 do not recommend. In hindsight I probably did it too quickly and had a really rocky few months. One of the doctors had suggested weaning down on one antidepressant while introducing a different one which in hindsight would have been the best course of action. Fortunately I was off work by this point and I took the help my family offered me. My mum was at my house a lot and helped keep things ticking over. I was also having some CBT which I am not a massive advocate for, but it was definitely helpful to have a kind and supportive person to chat to and ugly cry in front of every couple of weeks. The main take away I got was to work on changing one of my core beliefs – from feeling worthless, not to feeling worthy but to feel enough. Just as I am, nothing to change or fix. I was also leaning into Recovery Dharma online meetings at this point, which really took off through the pandemic and were helpful in reinforcing that feeling of being enough (acceptance being another big part of Buddhist philosophy). After four or five months I started to feel a bit more even. Depressed, yes, but the suicidal ideation that had been so all encompassing just wasn’t there in the same way. In March 2021 I started a different type of medication (an SNRI, instead of an SSRI) and within a couple of weeks… OH MY GOD. I was floating around on a happy little zen cloud. It was NUTS. Truly amazing.
Over time things have normalised - to start with I imagine I just felt so happy because it was the first time I’d not been consistently depressed for two or three years. I’m not on a happy zen cloud all the time and I do struggle with my mood sometimes. But the difference is night and day. I wouldn’t say I feel optimistic about the future. But I very rarely think about killing myself anymore. It’s so weird, that at one point it was there allll the time. And now it just isn’t! My whole frame of mind has shifted or something. It’s hard to describe. I obviously can’t say the same would happen for everyone, especially with multiple meds to manage. But for me it has made a huge difference.
Along with the meds change I have made some changes in my life. I found out I was iron deficient which was causing a lot of fatigue (and some ADHD like symptoms, interestingly). Being in a better place mentally has enabled me to start addressing that. I try and treat my energy like a chronic pain patient would. Rather than taking on a load of things when I feel good, which later become incredibly overwhelming, I have to really be careful what I commit to. I have gone back to work now, but only part time.
I accept the help my family offer me, gratefully. It used to be something I resisted because I am supposed to be an adult and it made me feel incompetent, not being able to support myself. But if they want to offer help, and it’s help that I need, I know it benefits me to make use of it and they feel good about being able to give it. I try and repay it by being kind and understanding of the things they do that annoy me. I don’t always succeed with as much grace as I’d like to - they are still my parents after all! - but I do try. And I know that things will continue to change, so maybe one day soon I won’t need the help. Or maybe they will be the ones in need at some point, and I will be in a position to help them because of the help they’ve given me.
If someone had asked me in 2020 about my plans for the future, it probably would have made me cry because I couldn’t see one and didn’t want to. Now, well I still can’t see what my future will be but I’m curious to find out! I still have some work to do to uncover and get through some of the issues I’m holding on to, and I hope to arrange some counselling to start the ball rolling with that. It’s a journey! Today life is OK, and for now that’s enough.
Things can and do change. Keep going. 
Some links and things which I’ve found helpful, you might too:
Tara Brach’s RAIN practice Resources ~ RAIN: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture - Tara Brach
Recovery Dharma https://recoverydharma.org/
The mental health threads on the forum Mental health memes and discussion (Part 1) and Mental health memes and discussion (Part 2)
Feel free to add your own experience or any resources that have helped you in a tough spot 
I’m sure many of us can relate to your experience, in one way or another through our own experiences and I’m really glad you are doing much better ,
. Thanks for the inspiration. Will work on it. x