I feel like I’ll never get better.

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Does anyone feel like they won’t ever get better?
I’ve been in therapy off and on (mostly on) for the better part of ten years. The talk therapy doesn’t work anymore. I know what they’re going to say. I’ve heard it all. I had a long stint of doing better due to Covid and not having anything going on, so my medication prescribed approved me to stop therapy with the condition that she can recommend I go back if I start to tank again.
Then as soon as a single stressor that most people should be able to tolerate hit, I lost it again and haven’t been fully right for a good month and the anxiety and depression have come back. These last three days have been particularly bad because I’ve even felt angry, which isn’t a normal thing for me.
At this point I’m on four mental health meds which help me but apparently don’t stop the extreme swings and episodes when I encounter a stressor, and talk therapy doesn’t work but I know my med prescriber will make me go back. I just feel like it’s useless at this point and I’ll never get to a better point. Anyone else? 😕

[Arabesque- golfing girl.]

Hi Dez,

I am so sorry that you are having a hard time with this right now and hope that soon you will be okay and feel like yourself again.

I get what you are saying, sometimes it feels like it's never going to be okay. Try not to watch a lot of the news, because that will make us upset and keep bringing us down so much more. Also when you are out doing something and someone is talking about it, try to walk away from them and not get upset.

I am so sorry about you're therapy, would you be able to talk to them and say how you feel when you are going and see what they say back. When you are having a hard time with all of this try to get you're mind off of this for a while, going for a walk or listening to music or drawing or painting or calling a friend or family member or reading or putting on a funny movie or TV show or finding something else that you enjoy doing and try doing that for a while until you are doing a little bit before. I hope that you will be okay soon. Sending you lots of Hugs to help you.

[Rivière]

I can't say I've ever felt like I'll never get better. This is because I've accepted I know that I never will. There is no science to prove that a human being will ever be 100% better from their mental health issues. Only that they will become less apparent with some more than others.

Talking to people helps a person, but only so far. Unfortunately counselling, therapy, psychiatrist, or any other mental health professional is just a tool. Just like medication, it's just a tool. A tool's effectiveness varies from person to person.

I remember when I first had counselling at 18. The counsellor made it very clear that she can sit there and listen to me, prompt questions for me, and talk to me for however long, but unless I'm ready to really utilise the tools she's given me to become self-empowered, talking is only going to work a short while. The counselling place I went to had a soft cut-off point of 2 years. This is because talking to therapists, counsellors etc, no longer help us.. We use them as a place to talk, but then we never really work through our problems. It becomes nothing more than an outlet and that's not the purpose of therapy. By being in therapy for a prolonged amount of time, it becomes nothing more than a crutch to prop us up when something goes wrong. We can't solve our problems by just talking to somebody about them, but we can by trying to change what actually is the problem from the root of the cause.

Medication can work for a while, but like anything we put in our body, it only becomes accustomed to it after a while and then we have to end up going back to our doctor with complaints that our medication is no longer working. They end up upping our dosage or try us on another brand of medication entirely. The cycle will never end.

I know this probably wasn't the response you were hoping for, but unfortunately the only true way to get better is to be the person who finds the strength to push past those hard times, work through the issues going on, and progress towards a goal. Having a goal gives a person a purpose, a meaning. It encourages and gives our life direction. If you focus just on going to therapy and having medication in the hopes it'll help you get better, you unfortunately won't. By changing your environment, confronting that evil in your life that did wrong to you, whatever it may be, that is that is going to help you move forward. That is what is going to help you recover.

Honestly, I feel like this a lot. I have Bipolar Disorder and BPD, among other diagnoses, and people told me my moods would even out as I got older. To some degree they have, but I don't think it's so much about age as it is about my choices. I've spent much of the last five years depressed and anxious, with a little bit of mania thrown in from time to time. I have been stable about five months in the last five years. Not a great track record. Thinking about it has often left me feeling hopeless.

I've come to learn that life doesn't have to be judged by the mood episodes. Like any chronic illness, there are times of good health and times where you struggle. It doesn't mean the struggle is "reality," which is what I used to think. It's just a part of the illness. The good times are just as valid because in reality, it's all life, and moving through life. Realizing that has helped me a lot, as has realizing when I'm having mood episodes I am interpreting information through pretty biased lenses. That's why it's important to keep up with my healthcare team.

I hope this helps. I know it's hard to feel like it sometimes, but it's not all bad. Even when there's a lot of bad there's still good, too.