Is This Depression?

[goblinchild]

Lately I've been having more and more of this feeling like "Is this all life has to offer?" I feel like everything and everyone is so boring? I don't understand how anyone can be satisfied with their lives. Really. Even like, people who travel the world for a living. I'm trying my best to be interested and give things a chance before I write them off as bland. So far everything only seems mildly interesting. It's as if some things are only less boring than others by a variation of degrees. I feel like I'm always suppressing the existential dread and fear that this is all there is to life.
Sometimes I go to more metropolitan areas (so many kinds of people!) or I see people on youtube who are maybe living more alternative kinds of lives and it's like I feel normal for just a moment? And I question if I should move there, maybe that would fix it? But I feel other existential things when I'm there too! Or sometimes I think about moving to other countries or traveling and I worry about like.... what if things start to feel pointless or hollow somehow?

Also I feel like, around here, people totally used to just work the same job or farm all their lives! Have kids. That's it! They seem fine! I don't know how they do it. I don't see how anyone could stay sane like that. At least being a mother back then seems entertaining at best? But still! But lots of people did it. People tell me they're content and they don't understand eccentric people. They don't need to see Paris or whatever. I'm not even sure I could be content IN Paris! There must be something wrong with me.

[Boy22]

Hey goblinchild,

I think this is part of your CPTSD it is your inner critic not allowing you to take pleasure, for being happy could result in emotional abuse - a snarled "what have you got to be happy about?" Perhaps?

Depression is a lot more than just lack of enjoyment.

[Eyessoblue]

Hi, I get what you're saying, but I also wonder, all these people you talk about that 'seem' fine, -are they?  I to most people seem fine yet if these people even my closest relatives and friends had any idea what I'm going through and how I'm feeling they would be beyond shocked, due to my clever masking up and getting on with life.
I think most of us go through the rut of life, what else could I be doing, the grass is always greener etc and some people who look like they have wonderful lives really aren't -robin williams- prime example.
I think it's. Easy especially in the medical profession to hand out antidepressants for someone who sounds depressed and we are very quick to label ourselves as having depression, feeling depressed etc when really we like others are just having a difficult time for whatever reason.
I've been on antidepressants for 18 years and for about the last 10 I've wondered why I'm taking them as still feel pretty down every day but I put this down to my cptsd and not actually having depression now, so slowly I'm taking myself off of them as I can't really see what benefit I'm getting now, I'll be interested to see in a few months exactly how different I feel etc but hoping I can just remove that depressed label I've been carrying and accept that it's 'life' that makes me like this in general. The more I focus on feeling depressed then the more depressed I come until I believe that the label fits me well.. I bet if you talked to a lot of people they would actually be feeling the same as you, there's nothing wrong with you, it just makes you human to think that there must be better and bigger things out there, probably there isn't but for you to feel more excited about life you're hoping there is. Most people I speak to talk like this regularly, it doesn't mean you're depressed though.

[Kizzie]

It could be the way you're feeling is depression or is a symptom of CPTSD (e.g., feeling somewhat numb or dissociated), but if you're concerned it's probably something to talk over with your physician and/or therapist.   

[wobbly]

I think it's hard to decide what is and isn't depression, especially for someone else... I totally get how you feel, though. I also think there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to find happiness. For a very long time I felt like I had to be happy where I was. It's easy to think ''others are happy, so why aren't I?'' But it also makes no sense to think that way - we're all different.

And just to share my experience: I moved to a different city and started doing something I loved, and I even went to Paris. It was amazing and I'm so glad I did it. Doing all of that also made me realize that my problems weren't going away. I was depressed at home, and I was depressed in front of the Eiffel Tower. But it's still bloody beautiful. So maybe those things didn't fix me or cure my depression, but it was vital for me to know that I can travel anywhere, have any amount of money, that I could do what I loved, and I'd still have the same issues.

I think we forget that sometimes we need to learn those lessons by experiencing things. I really think we have no way of knowing unless we try things. Move to a city, move to the middle of nowhere, try a new career if you have the option, fall in love if you're so lucky, why not? You can always decide it's not for you.

Maybe zero of this resonates with you, but reading your post this Rilke quote came to mind and I just have to share it, please do ignore all of this if it doesn't resonate:
''Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.''