lived experience

Your pain must be huge with the sudden loss of your son. I am very sorry for your loss.

I lost my oldest son five and a half years ago now and I still have days of deep grief.

It's great you can get yourself out of bed in the morning to go to work! It's good that your workplace is positive. I hope it helps a bit.

I hope your husband can find reasons to keep going, and I hope you can too. It can be very tough.

Thank you all for being so open and for sharing your experiences. @sazzarocks that sounds like an extremely challenging situation. That's good that your employer has been understanding. It makes a big difference to life since we spend so much time at our workplace.

My workplace is not understanding of mental illness and see it as a weakness. I haven't told them I have bipolar type 2, but the way they speak about people with mental illness makes me afraid to and highlights there is still such a stigma with it. They get surprised that people all of a sudden have a 'breakdown'; but they wouldnt be surprised if someone came down with diabetes, glandular fever or cancer.

These ilnesses affect people's lives and can be lifelong the same way a mental illnes may be, but they are far more accepted by society. For instance, you wouldnt look down on someone with cancer and question their ability to do their job.

I think that change needs to happen at a societal level. It is not just people with an illness that need to change.

Anyway. Just my thoughts.

Thank you LAM,

Very sorry for the loss of your son too. No one truly knows how it feels until they have lost their child so you do understand. Your heart is broken never to be repaired. I guess we learn to live with the pain and adjust to the hole in our heart.I never saw myself in this position but then who would?? My advice to everyone with kids is kiss them every day and tell them that you love them unconditionally. I have no regrets. My son and I were very close.

I am going along okay. It is my husband I worry about but I can only do my own journey. He needs help but won't go see anyone because they can't give him what he wants which is our son back. It has been two and a half years. Not long in the big scheme of things, but I doubt things will change with him.

It can be very tough but I am determined to keep going in memory of my son because I know that is what he would want me to do. Keep going and have a decent life!

Hi bp101,

Sorry I must have missed this thread in the rush of early posts otherwise I would have replied earlier.

I've got bipolar 1 and mostly my issue also has been coping with crippling depression, sometimes literally too as I have chronic sciatica which makes it hard to walk (and I now know is directly linked to when I am struggling emotionally). So I know what you mean about how terribly debilitating it can be.

Years ago a fellow sufferer shared a strategy with me which seemed rather harsh at the time, but it has helped me a lot over the years. He said "every single day you do what you need to, and then what you can". Some days even doing what you need to can be excruciating: feed self (& kids if you have them), shower, shop or pay bills so you have food/utilities/roof over your head. Those days try to acknowledge every little thing you achieve, not comparing yourself to how hard or easy it is for others, but just to see your own achievements. However "small" these tasks are they take courage to achieve because depression is like wearing a millstone. When you are having a slightly better day do what you can and celebrate that too.

I saw a suggestion one of the others made elsewhere on the forum which I think is helpful too, each day find space to do something which you enjoy or is special even if it is small. This in itself can be quite hard work too, as depression tends to sap one's sense of enjoyment, but all the more reason to practice it.

I think the biggest thing that has made a difference to me is having more compassion for myself. For so long I didn't understand WHY I suffered from depression so constantly, and I felt like there was something wrong with me as there was "no reason" for it. It's been a long lesson for me - I've found there are always reasons for these things, we just may not hold all the pieces of the picture to make sense of it yet.

When things are hard or painful, rather than telling yourself to get on with it and stop whingeing (or whatever version you use to beat yourself up with, that was one of mine), try acknowledging the pain and difficulty and then encourage yourself as you would a good friend who is going through a terrible time and needs all the support they can get.

I hope this helps answer your question somewhat, it's a big one.

Best regards,

Kristin