@noone — you chose a name to express your shame, your depression, your feelings of worthlessness? That shame, that depression, those feelings — they prove you exist, that you are someone. And you deserve to exist. As you can read, there are others, including myself, who have shared at least some of your experience, some of your intense feelings of worthlessness, your sense that there is no one to reach out to. You found a place with people to reach out to.

@Marshall and @Amanda — I think that you both are actually on the same page (just different ways of expressing emotional realms that are ever so difficult to express) (and we are certainly going to be somewhat sensitive to language that has worked and not worked for us in our past experiences).

Holiday times are often the worst for depression. They always were for me. It is a time when we are *supposed* to have warm fuzzy loving feelings with family and loved ones. I never felt even a hint of that possibility with my family when I was super depressed. And seeing images of idilic families on billboards, magazines, TV (as well as families in the street seeming to emulate those images), while all the while it all seemed to be about buying and selling and marketing… — it drove me further inward to hide from my shame and frustrations and rage and feelings of total worthlessness and self-loathing.

And from volunteering on an emotional support hotline for many years, it seems that my feelings of worse depression during holidays are not so unique to me — holiday times are the times when we got the most calls.

Please feel free to express whatever you wish here — it is totally anonymous (if you like), and it is a place where I hope you will feel fine and safe to do so.

For folks who don’t know, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the founders of Diaspora, committed suicide recently.  He was 22 years old. Ilya hung out at Noisebridge, and also led workshops and hackathons for Diaspora at our space.  Most people who met him were…

To the point of silent suffering:
I have seen outreach fail, but Mitch is absolutely right. A better life is worth it, and you always have choices.
Like I said, in depression we close options off. Fight that. Try something. All the things – as a habit, if you can.
Nobody has ‘the answers’ but seeking them with others is a lot more tolerable than presuming they don’t exist.

If you are in Austin TX, come hack at our space. We’ve got geeks w/depression too. Else Go. Seek. Try.

I used to think the same thing. And really, in my group of family in friends, in my head, it was true. But personally, my best resource was a therapist. I would attribute my being alive today to the 4 or so therapists I’ve had in my life. It sounds so cliche, but it’s what got me through. When I thought no one gave a fuck, my therapist was there. When I thought there was no one to reach out to, my therapist was there. The therapists that I’ve had through my last 20 years or so of battling my demons have given me the the clarity to understand what I was going through, the strength to reach out to others who loved me so that they too could understand what I was going through and therefor build a network of people, support and love to hold me up in the moments where I thought no one gave a shit.

All it takes is one phone call and a visit… an hour of your time… to maybe start a relationship that could give you the life that you thought never existed for you. And I get it. I understand at this point that you may not even want that life anymore… because it just doesn’t make sense that it could exist. But, being someone that’s been there before. To every single day, wake up, barely have gotten the sleep out of my eyes and immediately feel cornered and scared, alone and out of hope, options, desire and passion. I get it. But there is peace out there. There are people that care to listen, that “give a fuck” that are there to “reach out to”. For me it was a therapist. For others it may be support lines, or “Geeks & Depression” meetups. I just encourage you to make a phone call. Check out this website to find a therapist near you. http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/
Or email me for my phone number at amandalynn at me dot com. I “give a fuck” and I’m here to “reach out to”.