Thanks for your absolute commitment and open way forward with this painful topic. One thing struck my mind while I thouhgt “Hell, yeah! I’d love to join you, but I am located in Germany”: Why not make an open platform with live attendees from all over the world? To show that noone is left alone, that everyone has someone to reach out? If we make this worldwide and have volunteers from all corners of this lovely planet, we can effectively create a 24 h “hotwire” to reach out in case of need. If I had a deep depression again and could reach out to somebody in Iceland or Malaysia in the middle of my night, I really think that could save me to the next day or even beyond. “Operation Reach Out – Geeks and Depression”. Being a member of Diaspora, I think even Ilya would have liked the community idea. But that is just a guess. I have never known him. Unfortunately.

Thanks for your thoughts and insight.

All the best from Hamburg, Germany,

Arnd

@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”.

I’ve dealt a little with both problems, and I have *some* tools for dealing with them.
I’ve been chronically depressed at interval (age 7-32) and it never ceases to surprise me how much little things matter. If you can win a thousand small battles with depression. You have… a thousand less battles. But they matter! Why?

When you can’t control the thing that is killing you:
The careless acts of others. The actions of world powers that suck and are dumb.
Stupidity and pain and dead end lifestyles/jobs.

You can control something.

Clean your favorite spoon. Read. Make something. Have a chat about it. Share!
Like all training of the brain and body a habit will take hold.
One attempt, a hundred attempts, it might not cut it. So make a habit of having good habits.
Assistance…from the right people… may also be iterable =]

Anyway, habits count. They’re my best tool, though at this point I have many.
@someone @noone Good luck in yer struggles!
@mitch thanks for sharing! Hugs!

@someone I almost feel as if I could have written your post myself, but, I’m not quite that far. Hang in there. I am trying to.

I hear your pain. And maybe I understand it, too.

As you have (sadly) experienced, there is no guarantee that reaching out to someone means that they will care. But I am very glad that you have found a way to live for a while longer. While you are alive, you can, if you think it might possibly be worthwhile, explore other options. Not much to lose in doing so.

When I was super depressed during the first half of my life. I used the same reaspon to stay alive — not thinking that I had a right to make my parents so distraught by killing myself. That kept me alive to eventually explore other options. I pushed most people away from me, and surrounded myself with people who really didn’t care. But over time, having nothing to lose, I made some exprimental choices, was burned badly, but in new way (not the same old ways). That led me to try other new choices. I learned from the consequences of my choices, and had more experiences — good, bad, and indifferent, as well as horrible. But at least there was some good (which surprised me!). Over lots of time, and lots more trials and errors, I actually had friends who did care, and who I knew cared (I may have before, but I pushed them away, or was too depressed to know it).

Eventually I got to a place where I actually had friends, actually had a life I didn’t hate all the time, and eventually learned to live a life I love.

There’s no guarantee that you can find this in your life. And I really don’t want to talk you into or out of anything. You make your own choices. But while you are alive, why not explore the possibility? You really do have nothing to lose.

As your the name you gave yourself shows: you *are* someone — a real, live, breathing human being. You deserve to be happy.

Best,
Mitch.