Annie_267Casual Contributor
Depression since childhood
Hi everyone,
I am new to this forum. I'd like to reach out to share my experience - may someone out there who reads this will know that they're not alone.
I am a working professional in my late 20s living in Sydney. I have been struggling with negative thoughts, self-doubts, anxiety, feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, emotional outburst at the smallest irritations, self-pity and a generally limited ability to feel joyful regularly.
I grew up in Vietnam and migrated to Sydney to live with a relative family and study highschool when I was 16. I have a collection of evidence pointing to untreated depression since childhood and the symptoms were labelled as my characters. Although the level of awareness of mental illness in the community was low, I did grew up in a peaceful household.
The list of evidence for my depression is quite long and they can be summarised into a few themes:
- Easily overwhelmed with negative emotions (anxiety, anger, feeling not loved/ accepted by family, self-pity, hopelessness)
- Engaging in violent/ revenging behaviours when angry (guilty of ripping off a teddy bear head and putting a screw driver through it to 'teach' my annoying sister a lesson at the time)
- Difficulty in letting go of these emotions, I remain sulky for a long time after the things that upset me passed - this is also now playing up in my personal relationship
- Not regularly feeling close to my parents - my mom is loving but also quite critical, until this day I still feel shy of sharing details of my personal life with her as I don't find her reaction supportive. When I recently shared that I am struggling with my career, she simply said when she was my age she already had two kids and a business. I learned that it takes certain skills and training to be able to just sit with and listen to a loved one struggling, so my poor mom and dad must also have been out of their wits about what to do when I was younger.
- Occasional thoughts of wanting to just disappear/ vanish from life at a very young age, whenever I feel upset
- Not feeling hopeful about the future, not feeling that there is a future for me
Fast forward one day my mom asked me if I want to study overseas. I did not think much of it and said yes. Then everything happened so much faster than my little brain can comprehend. My adolescence and early twenties years in Sydney were peppered with feeling guilty for the economic burden I placed on my parents for attending school where fees were expensive in Vietnamese currency. Without any conscious deliberation, I made obtaining Australian citizenship status my only goal, I worked extra jobs while at university to help pay my tuition, in response to the constant reminder from calls with my mom that school fee per term for me to be in Australia is equivalent to five years of one of my auntie's salary in Vietnam. I did not call home reguarly as I could not find anything exciting enough to share that would match the economic worries that were at the front of my mom's mind.
I accomplished that goal. And now I feel like the fish that escaped the dentist's aquarium in Finding Nemo. Now what? I have been working for more than 4 years now. I have come to realise the profession I chose when I was younger (chemical engineer), in order to purse my Australian citizenship goal, was not a good fit for me. I have come to realise that I hate working in an open-plan office and that I hate the commute. I often feel anxious and am prone to stress at work and feel that I have to be someone I am not at work. I often get into spirals of anxious thoughts, staying back late at work, skipping meals as I lose appetite. Despite encouraging messages from colleauges I often feel any sense of achievement dissipating very quickly.
I have taken some leave earlier this year and seek help from a psychologist. My well-being improved markedly during the time that I have off though I did not let my family know that I took time off. However, as I came back to work (4 days a week), the anxiety and self-doubt slowly creeped back in and I have taken more sick days recently. I am hanging onto this job while trying to figure out what to do next, I've started learning programming and quite enjoy the process.
My deepest fear is that no matter what I do, maybe this is all that there is for me - a cycle of struggle followed by very fleeting moments of joy, pride and peace. I feel that I have so much more to enjoy and experience in life, but just maintaining a baseline level of pleasantness and ease in the day-to-day is already an enormous task for me. It feels like I'm walking under water all this time.
