Beast of Burden
So it seems my strategy for dealing with my depression of late has been "ignore it and hope it goes away". I'm on meds, I talk to my wife about it a bit, but I don't know much else I can do. I can't afford therapy (and believe me, thinking about the fact I can't afford it brings on whole different waves of depression), and I don't have a lot of friends I'm really close enough to talk to about it. We always seem to drift apart.
Not only drift apart, but as of late I've felt like I'm a burden on the friends I do have. Like they might only be talking to me and hanging out with me at various events because it would be rude to say otherwise. Or they like my wife and figure if they're mean to me, she'll stop talking with them. And the toughest thing about these thoughts is that I'm not even sure that my depression is trying to lie to me. I honestly feel that I don't have very many friends that just want to be my friend. I don't get invited to gatherings, no one ever says "Hey, you wanna hang out?", even playing games online I feel like I'm just bothering people.
I'm pretty sure a lot of my feelings towards this are coming from my former roommate using my wife and I pretty bad like we were pawns in a game of hers. Since we have found out the truth, she has lied pretty much constantly (turns out that was happening before anyways), and has been spreading really awful lies about us to anyone willing to give her the time of day. I've noticed some people treating us noticeably different - and that's not the depression talking. With some people it's very obvious that they are believing the lies being told to them. With others it's more of a "keeping it in the back of their mind until they receive more data" thing. Knowing that many people you know are constantly scrutinizing you can make you break a bit. It makes you second-guess a lot of things.
It invalidates you.
And I guess that's a bit how I feel right now. Invalidated. Not that I need validation constantly like a lot of people. It would just be nice for people to approach me once in a while and say "Hey, I heard this about you. Is that true?" No one has done that. Not a single person has does that since December when everything began falling apart. Granted there are a lot of people who suddenly began talking to me a bit more after that time, and seemed to become much kinder, but that could also just be them collecting more data. That is not them believing I am trustworthy as much as it's not believing someone else is trustworthy.
Right?
Am I nuts for thinking of things this way? Do I have good friends that just don't see friendship the way I see it? Do I have these friends who consider themselves close enough to me to talk to about this shit, and I'm just blind?
I have no idea. I don't know what to think about it anymore. I'm trying to stay positive. Nothing exactly bad is happening in my life right. Things are actually on an upward trend. I'm just . . . depressed. In my day-to-day, I keep it hidden. I'm not even sure if most of my friends realize how depressed I really am. Of course my wife knows - we talk about it. There's just not much than can be done to fix it. Nothing either of us can do, anyways. It sounds stupid and attention-seeking, but I think what I really need right now is that validation. Just people to say truthfully "I'm here for you if you need to talk" or "I don't believe those things that she said about you, just so you know" or even "Hey, let's go grab a beer and hit a comic shop".
Not only drift apart, but as of late I've felt like I'm a burden on the friends I do have. Like they might only be talking to me and hanging out with me at various events because it would be rude to say otherwise. Or they like my wife and figure if they're mean to me, she'll stop talking with them. And the toughest thing about these thoughts is that I'm not even sure that my depression is trying to lie to me. I honestly feel that I don't have very many friends that just want to be my friend. I don't get invited to gatherings, no one ever says "Hey, you wanna hang out?", even playing games online I feel like I'm just bothering people.
I'm pretty sure a lot of my feelings towards this are coming from my former roommate using my wife and I pretty bad like we were pawns in a game of hers. Since we have found out the truth, she has lied pretty much constantly (turns out that was happening before anyways), and has been spreading really awful lies about us to anyone willing to give her the time of day. I've noticed some people treating us noticeably different - and that's not the depression talking. With some people it's very obvious that they are believing the lies being told to them. With others it's more of a "keeping it in the back of their mind until they receive more data" thing. Knowing that many people you know are constantly scrutinizing you can make you break a bit. It makes you second-guess a lot of things.
It invalidates you.
And I guess that's a bit how I feel right now. Invalidated. Not that I need validation constantly like a lot of people. It would just be nice for people to approach me once in a while and say "Hey, I heard this about you. Is that true?" No one has done that. Not a single person has does that since December when everything began falling apart. Granted there are a lot of people who suddenly began talking to me a bit more after that time, and seemed to become much kinder, but that could also just be them collecting more data. That is not them believing I am trustworthy as much as it's not believing someone else is trustworthy.
Right?
Am I nuts for thinking of things this way? Do I have good friends that just don't see friendship the way I see it? Do I have these friends who consider themselves close enough to me to talk to about this shit, and I'm just blind?
I have no idea. I don't know what to think about it anymore. I'm trying to stay positive. Nothing exactly bad is happening in my life right. Things are actually on an upward trend. I'm just . . . depressed. In my day-to-day, I keep it hidden. I'm not even sure if most of my friends realize how depressed I really am. Of course my wife knows - we talk about it. There's just not much than can be done to fix it. Nothing either of us can do, anyways. It sounds stupid and attention-seeking, but I think what I really need right now is that validation. Just people to say truthfully "I'm here for you if you need to talk" or "I don't believe those things that she said about you, just so you know" or even "Hey, let's go grab a beer and hit a comic shop".
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