Alcohol & Mental Health

While I was riding down to Weston today I had a chance to think about things and the way my brain is and I’m just not right at all. I’m going to sit down with my wife tonight and tell her how bad it’s got, she knows I’m not always that happy but I don’t go into detail because I don’t want to worry or burden her with it and there is also nothing she can do to help.
I hardly drink these days and to be honest I felt better when I sank a bottle of vodka everyday, not that I’d ever go back to that and I’ve also tried various things to feel better but I just keep feeling worse to the point I go to bed at night desperately hoping I won’t wake up again. If I could get on a bike and just keep riding and not come back I would but even then I couldn’t escape my own head.

 

Please, talk to someone on a professional basis. Ask friends relations etc and find someone who can be recommended by them.

It may take some time but it certainly will help

 

am glad you are going to talk to your wife, you both made a promise to love in sickness and health, she deserves the chance to be your shoulder, as much as you deserve the chance to lean on her. i hope that you can find relief and maybe some respite from your head

 

I’ve suffered with this most of my life and as I get older it just gets worse, I’ve had counselling in the past which didn’t work, Samaritans are a fucking joke who can’t get you off the phone quick enough, I’ve had prescribed medication which just made me feel no emotions at all just totally numb to everything which was worse than how i was not taking them, I’ve tried many other treatments and potions and non of it works. To be honest I just think I’ve come to the end of it all. I’m not going to do anything daft either (I’m a coward luckily).

 

Talk to your wife mate.

I’m not trained in anything but I’d be very happy to lend you and ear too if you need it.

 

I've posted this before, but worth posting again as it was a different thread.

To anybody suffering from depression, you must read this book:

'Depressive Illness: The curse of the Strong' by Dr Tim Cantopher it is recognised as the accessible book for people suffering and wanting to understand why. I have bought this book for at least 10 people who all say it has helped.

The 3rd Edition is the one to go for as they added a lot of religious elements to the 4th edition. (I can understand why as the book is a force of humanity, but it just detracts from the message within)

Give it a crack Zeus! HERE

 

Talk to the missus mate and get professional help, I've been on meds and I'd never go on them again. I've daily practices which help me through and eventually hacked my fucked up BIOS.
Don't 'man up' and do it alone.

 

Thanks all for the replies

 

Look after yourself and PMs always open if u fancy a natter x

 

beautifully articulated, couldn’t say it better myself. But please get some help, it doesn’t make you weak, it takes a strong person to take that step

 

I had a talk with my wife last night, probably shouldn’t have started with “I’ve got something to tell you” but anyway. She was as always very levelheaded and also thinks I need to talk to a professional, she also knows I do not trust doctors after the last few years so we started looking at private counselling and there are a few options near us, I’m not keen to be honest but the thought of carrying on feeling this way for another 30 years is not great either.
She also thinks the book recommendation could be helpful for me to understand it better.

 

Your GP will be useless, you'll be offered pills and more pills. Having said that they may be able to refer you on to something/someone more useful. A cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) course? Might be worth a call at least.
You mentioned you were drinking a bottle of vodka a day. Has this stopped? Perhaps try AA? I've mate who's been sober 10+ years now and will openly tell you how it saved his life. He continues to go to meetings 2-3 times per week.

 

Yeah I’ll never go to see the GP for anything, I did see some therapists specialising in CBT so I may try that route.
I drank like that for 10 years (10 years that I can barely remember) and stopped 14 years ago when I met my wife, she saved me really and I wouldn’t be here now if I’d not met her. Only an occasional drinker now.

 

Very interesting point about daily practices. I find remaining on a keto/semi-keto diet does as you say "hack the BIOS". I guess each individual has to find what works for them.

 

One of the barriers I found was finding the right person (for me) physically nearby. I recently came across https://www.betterhelp.com/ that though I haven't tried seems to solve this problem of the barriers of location. Please do you own research as I know nothing about them, other than in my time of need I wished I knew of them.

 

come on mate, hardest part done, it’s always hard to swallow the man pride and tell a loved one you are struggling, now’s the easier bit, get yourself along to a professional and trust the process.

I did around 4 months of sessions before I ultimately left my wife, I was in such a bad place mate, dreaming of not waking up. Things happening like I fell off a ladder one day and instead of thinking ‘crap’ I imagined a senario where I got caught up and suffocated and that was that, dark mate.

we are internet strangers but we share massive parts of our lives in common and we are all here for you or anyone on here struggling.

I’ll never be ‘fixed’ but I’ve developed just enough of a tool kit to know when I’m spiralling and to know when to take some steps specific to me

 

When we switch to depression mode, our core personality goes to sleep and we forget the meaning of hope; forget how to.
Then, either, after, probably, a few days, neurochemical balance shifts again - perhaps remaining in the depressive state wears us down - and we remember who we are, and remember that life is precious; or we commit suicide.
The trick is to understand the signs as we begin the decline. There is a mental lassitude before full-blown depression; increasingly negative thinking, when the core personality still has the power to intervene. This is when you need to remember hope; when you need to understand exactly what is happening to you and that it serves no purpose; is your greatest enemy.
When that lassitude begins, you need absolute clarity. You will, in effect, take control of your brain chemistry, in so far as it is possible to do so.
But we are complacent. When things are always there we stop seeing them, and when threats are absent for long enough we forget about them. So you have to drum it into yourself until remembering is a conditioned reflex. If you've suffered depression for much of your life you have incentive to do this.
The best way, I suspect, is to choose a mnemonic.
I experienced several major bereavements over five years leading to what I concluded was PTSD. Where I lived reminded me daily. Eventually I hit upon the mnemonic notion. From the film The Magic Christian, the song by Badfinger 'Carry On til Tomorrow'; specifically the chorus "Carry on til tomorrow, there's no reason to look back. Carry on, carry on, carry on"

When you think of that enough you know the truth of it; and when you recall it as depression begins taking hold, knowing the truth of it stops the regression in it's tracks.

You have to learn your mnemonic like it's your saviour.

It's about remembering 'hope' before you forget it.