Hi, my name is John. I am a 55yr old Male. I'm Happily Married and not wanting for much.
My life is better than most. However, I suffer from depression. I'm not sure why I have these feelings.
Currently, I am feeling more depressed than normal, and thought I would try to share my feelings with strangers to hopefully learn more about myself in hopes of finding better coping mechanisms.
Over the years I have taken the time to try to focus on the nuances of my thoughts and attention.
Here are a couple of things I have noticed.
1) One major issue I have is not being able to make eye contact easily. If I'm talking and trying to make eye contact, I often lose my focus and train of thought. I basically have to look away when I speak to people. I think that is off-putting and probably has a lot to do with how people perceive me.
2) I'm good around people for short periods, then I start getting nervous and need to be alone. However, once I am alone, I feel worse since I feel like I would rather be around people. That is a big struggle for me.
I will be happy to reveal more about myself fully (except for my identity) if I get some support here. If not, no worries, it was a good experiment, and I will move along.
Thank you for any constructive input.
I Like your tags: "depression", "age", "feelings", "mental" :-)
I got my second depression when I got 60 last year. But they have good medication nowadays. Funny thing, one of my few friends has some similar issue as you, when we talk to each other, for some reason she looks in all directions. But I don't really care about it.
Ahh, thank you!
I look at depression as a lesson my body and mind are trying to teach me. Take your time to listen to it carefully and you will emerge stronger afterwards.
I understand. I've been dealing with depression and anxiety for most of my life. I also have social anxiety which sounds to me like what you are describing.
Anxiety can cause a bit of depersonalization sometimes where you feel like you lose your train of thought and aren't really connected which sometimes happens to me when I try to force eye contact. Try looking inbetween someone's eyes. They won't be able to tell and it's not as disconcerting as looking directly into their eyes.
Don't be so hard on yourself about needing time away from social situations. I set parameters in advance for social engagements so that I don't feel bad leaving early.
hello, this situation is very familliar to me, my best friend had the same problems. after we lived together and I noticed his problem and started to think about it, he couldnt do eye contact and he was always wearing sunglases, if for example sometimes you made eye contact he started nervous so much, plus agression was increasing in him. his parents took him after and started to treat him giving him tons of medicine nothing worked you know what worked?
doctors where saying it was social enxaety or something like that, you know what is interesting in this case, after i lived with him it started with me but in a small scale, i could controll it but still was a bit harder to make eye contact then i tied and practised practised and overcome this problem myself too. So what i could tell you from his and my own experience that everything is you, you are the one who creates that, realize it first that you have a problem and start fixing it with ur brain, thinking practising . go and start thinking what you realy want, if it something that scares you it means you realy dont want it and move on and it will be fixed itself you jjust have to believe that whatever you have is only in ur brain and its all about perception :) hope this will help, in fact only think what you want and where you want to go, dont waste time thinking if something went wrong, if you know what i mean :) take something you always liked and make it as ur defence system agins ur uncontrolled nerves, practice practice and you can do anything, you are also human also anything that you will realy want, dont have fears, think about it and you will understand, maybe not today but continue thinking and you will understand and help yourself in that case :)
Very good advice!, thank you for taking the time to help a stranger :^)
Cool! I follow you.
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