I have had depression off and on for 5 years getting worse every year. I am now 19.I am still young, and from this experience fear i, this is just the start of many years to come of depression, anxiety, ocd, and eating issues.

I have only a few friends, and they are one's i met online, although live in my town. I do not fit in well with anyone my age. I am not into drinking, going clubbing, ect whatever people my age do. I read alot, and feel i act older than i am. I feel lonely alot, yet prefer this than being around people who do things i don't enjoy. I Have a great boyfriend, who is 26, i feel i have alot in common with him, he is alot more mature than most people my age and he also has depression problems so is very understanding. Although, love does not seem to cure my depression, i feel guilty because of this, and feel i may be letting him down.

My ocd exhausts me. I know this is maybe not the best place to write about this as there is an ocd board, however, i find that board very triggering. my complusions, are usually in the form of buying a certain thing, to ease my anxiety, and i am already not very well off.

I also get horrible intrusive thoughts, which scare, and depress me in horrible ways.

I feel i can cope, then i feel i can't, i can, then can't again, you get the picture.

There is no way to know if i will ever feel content with life, however if i knew for sure that i was always going to feel this way i would end my life now. I can not do that though, as i would be hurting my family and my boyfriend.

When i take meds, they sometimes help, although i fear weight gain so much i have to lower the dose. My boyfriend is on prozac, and it has helped him alot, so i am going to ask my doctor if i can try that, to see if that helps me too.

Sometimes even when i feel quite happy, i still do not want to live. I really do not see the point in living, as sad as it may sound. I don't understand why we are all here.

can anyone please give me their experiences on prozac too.

thank you for reading.

Zoe.

I understnad how you feel, I often feel the same, I dont go out much, I dont go clubbing, I drink sometimes but only 2 or 3 pints max. I dont like partying, I like being on my own. And certainly my depresion has made me even isolated. I think none of my real friends are younger than me, I have a couple who are the same age, then the rest are older, the olderest ones are in thier 40s, and I like talking with them. I am 21, by the way.

I feel i can cope, then i feel i can't, i can, then can't again, you get the picture.

I totally understnad it, I am the same, i bet a lot of ppl here feel the same, I think it's a normal experience towrds recovery, right now I am on the "I feel I can cope" side, but this is the 4th time in 2 months, so I dont have much faith left to be honest.

I have been on Prozac for just over 2 months, I was on 20mg for abotu 6 weeks then up to 40mg for a months, still nothing has changed, I have been feeling even worse in the past couple of weeks. I have experienced the usual common side effects like headache, unable to sleep, shaking, anxious, chest pain, feeling dizzy... I think my Pdoc is gonna either increas the dosage or change it to sth else next week. Which both myself and my care worker aint keen on coz of the side effects I have got, and they dont seem to go away... Also, I think I am a "lucky" one since almost everyone complains or worries about weight gain, I have been slowly lossing weight, I think I have lost about 10lbs in the past 3 or 4 months...

Oh yeah, about the sciuidal thoughts, I have a word with a frd the other day, he asked me a question that I couldn't answer and I was very ashamed of myself after, so I am gonna ask you the same question, not that I want you to feel ashamed or anything, but I think this question is helping me to stay away from suicidal thoughts.

Our conversation is like this

Him: "If you are not afraid of death, then why are you scared of living?"
Me: "I am not scared of living, it's just very frustrating with all the symptom depression caursed, so I guess I was a relief, so do we all."
Him: "Relief for what? The rest of your life?"
Me: "I suppos so."
Him "Well, there isn't the rest if you died, coz you would be done, you woud dbe finished, so there isn't the rest ,and you will not feel relief, coz you won't know, you would be dead."
I didn't wht to say, coz I agree.... so hang in there, for yourself, for your boyfriend, for your family, for your friends.

Good luck

E

Hi Zoe, I have been reading your posts all year. I think that you should start with your anxiety. That is causing your OCD and most likely your depression IMO. You are anxious for a reason and if you can understand this you can then fix it. IMO we are anxious because we grew up never feeling secure for whatever reasons. I think that mostly it was because there wasn't an adult in charge. This is what helps us to feel secure, when we can grow up under the security of an adult who can take care of us and help us feel safe. Of course we can also grow up with an adult who goes the opposite extreme, an adult who is very controlling and anxious themselves. The end result is still the same though, we didn't feel safe and secure. An adult with anxiety just doesn't lend this feeling to us. These are only a few scenarios that I can think of. There must be more. What in your upbringing might have caused your anxiety?

Yes you are right sannah I don't feel i did have a secure family. My mother has always been an anxious person, and stopped acting like a parent i feel when i was about 12. she had so many issues of her own and was depressed. My father used to take his angar out on his kids. When i was about 8 he would beat me when he was in a bad mood. This caused terrible anxiety for me, i was always scared arounf the house, and never knew what mood he was going to be in. At school i was aa very nervous child, and i think as a concequence was bullied a bit, by classmates who were more confedent than me. I had some "friends" in junior school who would always push me about.

Right now in my life, i find it very hard to trust people. I feel it's easier to be a reclusive than to open myself up to the risk of making friends with people and possibly getting hurt. Being alone is natural for me. I stay in my room alot, it makes me feel safe.

Despite what my parents, mainly my father did to me when i was young, i feel no resentment. I feel sort of numb to that effect, and feel i will always love them anyway. But i do think that was probably the main reason why i am lke this today.

Zoe.

Zoe, what helped me recover from my anxiety was when my anxiety was triggered I would tell myself that these feelings were from the past and that this is the present and I don't need to be anxious now. The anxiety is such a reflex and a way of life. Trusting people, I believe that you can learn to trust again. It would probably help if you could resolve your past feelings, though, because feeling anxious now interferes with trusting today. Can you say now that your anxious feelings are basically just from the past? (And BTW, I can totally see why you are anxious today growing up like that.)