Skip to main content
Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Something’s not right

WeAreAstronauts
Casual Contributor

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. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12 REPLIES 12

Re: I Feel Suffocated

Hi @WeAreAstronauts and welcome to the forum.

I read your post thinking about how confusing it might have been for you to experience those signs and symptoms without really being able to connect them to depression. While I'm sorry to hear that you experience such lows, it is really good that you're able to recognise what they may be as it will allow you to seek support with it.

Interesting to hear of your experience with feeling as you did while you were on the beach. Depression really doesn't seem to care where we are or what we're doing!

It's great to hear you have what seems like a supportive relationship with your sister. It can really help to find others who have similar experiences as I think things are way scarier and more confusing when we feel completely on our own with them. How do you feel about talking with a doctor or other professional about what's been going on for you too?

If you have a chance to have a look around the forum, you'll find lots of people who live with depression. You can search for existing discussions using the search function and/or join in anywhere. If you'd like to reply to anyone specifically, you can use the @ symbol in front of their username to tag them.

Great to see you here and I hope you find it helpful to be here.

Re: I Feel Suffocated

HI =D ❤️

Re: I Feel Suffocated

Hi all =D ❤️

Re: I Feel Suffocated

Hi @Juro and welcome to the forum to you also 👋

 

If you'd like to you can introduce yourself here. It's a great place to start meeting other members 🙂

Re: I Feel Suffocated

Hello @CheerBear,

 

Thank you for replying. Yeah, I'm finding it really hard to accept it. I feel like I might have a long road ahead of me and it's terrifying. 

 

I have thought about speaking to a professional, quite a bit actually. But I'm in a tough spot right now. I won't be going home for about another 3 month's and I really don't know if I can wait that long. There's most likely going to be a language barrier problem between the specialist and I the places I'll be over the next few month's and I'd prefer to have someone I can speak to regularly each week.  Each day seems to be getting progressively worse and this has been going on for the last two week's. In the past I would have felt better by now but it's really lingering on which is why I'm starting to worry. I'm seriously considering cutting this trip short but I've invested a lot of my time and money into this and I wouldn't be able to explain why I did it to people back home. 

 

 

 

 

Re: I Feel Suffocated

@Juro Hey Juro. How are you doing 🙂

Re: I Feel Suffocated

Wow @WeAreAstronauts - being in another country and having a language barrier definitely would make it harder to find support soon.

I'm wondering whether there are any traveling people on the forum who might be able to give some advice or suggestions (ill have a think and keep an eye out). Anxiety destroyed my want to go beyond an incredibly small circle around where I call home, so overseas travel is not something I can even imagine!

It would be a big dilemma for you, thinking about making your trip shorter but not wanting to waste money or have to explain yourself to others.

What kinds of things have helped you come out of your dips in the past? Perhaps being able to identify them and focus on trying to do that where you are, might help.

Re: I Feel Suffocated

There are some Aussie psychologists that offer online appointments, although I don't know of a way you can get them under medicare while overseas so you may be stuck on private full price. I know my old psych used to offer them for people in remote areas but I'm sure being overseas would also do it.

There are also "online therapy" programs which may help, but I'm not sure what sort of qualifications are behind them.

Re: I Feel Suffocated

 I think it will make thing's worse heading home sooner than planned and I cannot face the thought of going back to work right now. I'll try to ride it out for another few week's and just hope that thing's start to pick up again. 

 

You see that's the thing, I don't know what has helped me in the past. It just kind of faded away. I've been trying meditation these last few days, my sister said it helps her a lot, but I've had no success with it so far!

 

Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

For urgent assistance