I Feel Suffocated

Hello all,

I'm a first time poster here. I really have no idea where to turn to but I guess this place is a good start. I apologise in advance for this lengthy post but I've so much on my chest right now and it feels like it's about to cave in.

I'm a 30 yr old male. I first felt signs of depression about 5 year's ago but thought nothing of it. Me? Depressed? Never. I was the happiest guy you could ever meet. I was naive and never understood depression, until I realized I had it. These last two years in particular have been absolute hell for me. I thought it might have been work related, or agitating my mood, so in the last few month's I decided to take a career break and go travelling, in hope that I might feel a bit better and have a chance to clear my head but it's not working, it's getting worse.

Funnily enough, before I left to go travelling, I sat down and had a conversation with my sister. The topic of depression was brought up. Just then I found out she was also struggling with depression for the last few year's. I was so surprised but also relived that I had someone to talk about it and visa versa. While I've been traveling she has moved to Australia but we keep in touch regularly.

My depression isn't a regularly occurring thing. It happens once, maybe twice, every 3 or 4 month's, but when it does, man it feels like a ton of bricks have fallen on me and it lasts full force for about 1-2 weeks. I might be doing something as simple as watching TV and suddenly a shroud of darkness engulfs me. I get stressed out, I cry, I can't sleep or eat, I can't focus and I find it hard to breathe and think about such negative things.

This happened to me last week on a beach in Thailand of all places. How the hell can happen to me while in such a beautiful place. I had to check out of my hostel and check into a hotel room by myself. It's the third bad dip I've had since on this trip and to make matters worse, I woke up one morning to find clumps of hair on my pillow!!! They fell out from the sides. It looks to me like alopecia and I will be seeing a dermatologist tomorrow to be reviewed. It's just what I needed...

Anyway, sorry again for such a long post but I really needed to get it off my chest. This is the first time I've decided to do something about it now that I've accepted that it's not going to go away.