“I love you eternally you know. Until I met you, I was totally miserable at school. Your instant friendship was one of the brightest spots of my whole life. I genuinely don’t know who I’d be without you.” — My friend Jack.

Hi guys,

Many of you know me as the overtly positive guy who is always making jokes and who likes to take care of others. To some of you this may come as a shock.

I’m currently battling a black tar of depression and anxiety. I have this intense pain that is like an all-encompassing malaise that effects every fibre of my being, leaving me feeling utterly hopeless. I’m currently three weeks into my fourth type of antidepressant and I’m not too hopeful about its efficacy. I’m feeling like the onus of me getting better is going to be more on me than a medication.

I spent the first few months of my depression isolating myself and trying to ‘get better’, not wanting to burden anyone else, but that didn’t work. I think it’s time I share my experience, scream out into the void, and see if any kind souls have any thoughts.

So what has brought on this depression? I’m sure many things, but the main cause is that I completely lost all sense of myself while I was looking after my father for the last three years of his life. He passed away last August. I was on anti-depressants for the entire time that I was looking after him and I decided to taper off them last spring. At which point I began a steady descent into the depression I’m now in. After discussing what happened with a psychiatrist, they asked me if I had trouble mourning my father when he passed, and I said I did, which they suggested made sense as the anti-depressant I was on would have muted my emotions and then after I stopped taking the anti-depressants, that’s why I began mourning my father so profoundly. I was grateful for the explanation as it was so confusing that I had become so overwhelmingly sad about my father just as life was starting to settle down again.

Our amazing son was born a month after my father passed and I wanted to replace taking anti-depressants with taking better care of myself physically and mentally. So last spring I began a regime of walking five to ten miles a day, eating far more vegetables, drinking more water, removing caffein, and taking Vitamins D, B, Magnesium, Omega 3 and MCT Oil. All great things, but sadly the overwhelming emotions of mourning my father and everything that went into looking after him overshadowed my positive efforts.

I’m pretty alone where we live as my entire existence was dedicated to looking after my father and now my wife is dedicated to looking after our amazing son, it has also felt as though I’ve kind of lost her as well. One thing I recognise is a deep desire I have to not feel quite so alone in this world.

My wife and I were told that we would never be able to have children, so I decided to take on the responsibility of looking after my father in order to let my siblings focus on their children and responsibilities. The idea being that once dad passed, we could have all the time in the world to recover and restart our lives. Then we became pregnant! Along with the birth of our son has come so many fundamental changes to our lifestyle that left us both feeling like our personal identities had disappeared.

“I would rather have my arm amputated without anaesthesia than go through the depression I’m currently going through.” — William Styron, Author

This is quite literally how this depression feels, although I am doing everything I can to mule kick out of it. I desperately want to live and to get better for my amazing wife and son. I just know it’s going to take a lot of work and I cannot see how to do that at the moment.

I’m aware that I’m a “good”, “strong”, “wonderful” person, as that’s what my friends and family are constantly telling me, but I need to fundamentally change my thinking and readjust to life without my father, as well as with the new responsibilities that come with having our amazing son.

I need help and I’m completely open to whatever form it may come in. ❤