Anyone battling clinical depression??? (Page 4)

I've dealt with (mostly) very mild bipolar disorder for nearly 20 years.  Usually, the swings are moderate - extreme focus and intensity during manic phases, and depressive phases which ranged from lethargy to, at its worst, suicidal ideation.  

Like many here, external stress would lead to a depressive incident - extreme anxiety before post-grad studies led to a several day long period of nearly nonstop crying; a 3 month period of unemployment a few years back (with house and student loan payments stacking up) had me thinking about driving my car into the woods until it got mired in the snow and continuing on by foot until I couldn't go on any further; and more recently, temporary financial setbacks from a non-paying client lead to an inability to get sufficiently motivated to complete some ad hoc work that would have done much to dig me out of the hole I was in.

During my 'down times' as my wife calls them, it is a struggle to train for the S/R.  My gym bag will make the trip to and from my office several times without ever leaving my car; running shoes left by the bedside for an AM run go ignored.  However, it seems that I'm never able to stay away from the bike for more than a couple of days - even in my worst funk, even if it's only on the trainer.

Interestingly, although I've been largely sidelined by injury for the last couple of months, I haven't had a significant slide - it's although I've been in a prolonged manic phase, fixated on recovery.

Best of luck to all of you,

SYJ

I too had psy problems, then I got a divorce and I haven't had any psy problems since.  :-)

LOL! Awesome laugh Spearit. Thanks!

Funny how life got better after divorce for me as well. Geese I wonder if Anna still reads these? Four years of mental illness posts, pretty impressive. But to answer her question and do I have the background to offer an opinion unfortunately yes I do.

Things weren't going well for me, stopped by my local psych ward to "talk" and ended up being a resident there for many months. Apparently what I did as a profession didn't agree with me and I had severe PTSD and major depression.

Anyway, long story short and many psych drugs later I'm an Ironman finisher. I couldn't have done it at first while medicated (4 -5 different meds a day) unless it was Tri a Trizombie race or something. But once I unloaded what was making me ill (by talking finally) I was off all the meds except one and training for nothing but mental fitness.

Then I found triathlon. I don't need meds anymore ( the Doc even said so) as training is my med. Mind you I'm not OCD about it, I have a training plan and its realistic for me resulting in a life that is worth living again. If I'm stressed, I hit the spin bike with Sufferfest (everything is frozen here at the moment) and all is good in the world!

Garry

Thanks for the question Anna, hope things are cool.

Tears out of control again.  What kind of a man cries at stupid tv shows, or just the mention of a pet that died.  I thought I had this under control.

Now laid off after 6 years with the company, and my own business for 15 years before that, at age 60 I will probably never work again.  I am a 47 % er.  I want my Obama phone please.

Thank goodness for swimming, cause the tears look like water from the pool, and while cycling no one can tell anyway.  If it wasn't for working out, I would probably end up back on Wellbutrin and Xanax.