Close to a breakthrough
Hi! I was wondering, if anyone has experience with overcoming dysthymia, what was your turning point to recovery? I feel like I’m close to a breakthrough, but it’s like I’m missing something.
My story with dysthymia
The earliest memory with depression was in 4/5th grade. I was brushing my teeth before bed. All of the sudden I felt overwhelmed by all of the demands in my life, such as doing well at school and making friends. On my way to bed I broke down in tears in the living room. My mom tried to comfort me, but I couldn’t articulate why I was feeling the way I was feeling. Mostly because I thought that my case and the demands I had wasn’t anything special, because everyone else seemed to handle their life well.
The moment I actually became really depressed was in higher secondary school. Besides normal school demands, I had a part time job and was operating a youth business as a part of one of my lectures. At that time my day was school from 8am to 3pm, homework and dinner, part time work from 6pm to 10pm, and staying up to 1am to work for the youth business. I became so exhausted, so as a coping mechanism, I developed binge eating disorder. That resulted in me weighing 165kg at my heaviest.
Although I was depressed and had developed an eating disorder, I managed to get two bachelors degrees. During the last bachelor degree, in 2020, I decided to finally commit to losing weight. I worked with a nutritionist, and between 2021 and 2023, I lost a total of 80kg. Looking back at it, this was the happiest time of my life. Not because anything had changed, it was just that my whole purpose at the time was losing weight.
Finally, in 2023, completing my second bachelors degree and losing the weight, I moved to Oslo for work. I started working in a kindergarten, and in the beginning everything was going great. But slowly I started getting more depressed. I worked in a big kindergarten, 160 children, which left me completely drained after work. This led to me isolating in bed after work. And in the weekends, I would go out partying. Not a good combo. In spring if 2024 I decided that I had to switch jobs, and I got work in child protective services outside of town.
Although things was about to change, the day after I quit the kindergarten, my little brother died in an accident. That whole summer felt like an hallucination, just coping and dealing with the grief. Three weeks later I started the new job. Everything was going well in the start, work helped keeping my mind elsewhere. But the exhaustion and isolation kept persisting. After three months working, I finally couldn’t take more. I kept crying at work, and a coworker convinced me to get a sick leave. Getting that sick leave took everything away from me, because it became the realization of how sick I really was. I got referred to a psychiatrist and started medication.
The status today is that I’m stable. I’m on Wellbutrin 150g and Brintellix 5g. I’m going to my psychiatrist and a psychomotor physiotherapist weekly. I work out four times a week, and eating well. So even though I’m not heavily depressed, I’m stable. But that’s the thing right there, being stable has been my way through it all. While on the outside, it seems like I’m managing well, I have not truly recovered. I have been here so many times, but it feels like I’m missing something. That one thing that makes me go from maintaining staying stable, to actually living. I try to do things that make me happy. And although I can feel happiness in the moment, that happiness only exists in that moment. Nothing makes me want to go back and do more of it. And when I try to listen to what I want to do, nothing comes to mind. All I want to do is play games and lie in bed. And even though I try to stay social, I really struggle to feel connected with people in the moment. Usually what happens when I’m with people, is that my mind goes blank and I become an observer. I stay silent and I begin observing my actions and other peoples actions. It feels so hard to connect with people, because nothing truly interests me. And even though I try to engage, it just becomes a reaffirmation of what I cannot manage. And also, I start to feel guilty, because I can’t appreciate what everyone else is doing for me. I can’t appreciate or miss someone. And I think to myself “I feel like the world’s worst human”.
I know what I’m struggling with now is my depression talking. But again, I feel like I am at the brink of a breakthrough. That thing that takes me from surviving to actually start living. To actually feel emotions and appreciation for life. So the question remains, what was your turning point to fully recover?
Thanks for taking the time to read, and I appreciate every response or advice I can get.
Male, 28, Norway