I was for ten years (35-45) feeling similarly but I supposedly had a good, "stressless" life: wife, nice kids, full-time uni teaching post, etc. I realised this but was unable to reverse it at all. So you don't need to have problems in your life to feel that way, and it could be more your brain chemistry and the bias that it creates (the "dark cloud", I call it).
At the beginning I had some anxiety crises and went to see a psychiatrist. I remember that they asked about sleep upfront. I was sleeping okish, but not great. After some time I noticed I started sleeping less and less (woke up at 4am and couldn't sleep anymore), I went back to a psychiatrist (different one this time). She said I needed antidepressants, and I read about them a lot, especially against. I wasn't sure. But in the end I tried.
It took a while to "enter" that kind of medication, tried 2 and then another. But I was convinced somehow of trying until it worked. Everyone is a complex, beautiful "mess", so you have to find the way. But in the end Venlafaxine started working. And boy did it work...
Right now I feel like I did in my 20s (I'm 47). I've never been as optimistic about my prospects, I think I can do anything. I used to think that I was finished, that I was bound to be grey all my remaining life. Now I've started doing all the stuff that I had stopped doing because of the feelings you are having (helplessness, strong anhedonia). I sleep so well now that I dream quite frequently and I think that has made my mind waaay more plastic. I've regained all the piano technique that I had plus I've leveled up significantly (Chopin studies, etc).
I have the willpower (and the experience!) now to work on myself, and I think I've made a lot of progress even in interpreting events and not being so pessimistic, etc. Like I'm doing a kind of mild CBT because I want to invest, because I have hope.
So my experience is that medication was a really necessary crutch, which in my case was quite necessary (that's my belief at least), and it solved "everything" in the sense of making the baseline so much higher that recovery seemed almost easy.
But there is hope. One way or another, life will be awesome again. If you need me to tell you face to face, I can do that (@pauek on Twitter, DM me). It really helps to listen to people in a similar situation. Nobody seems to understand anything when you are hostage to depression, and that can dig the hole even deeper.
At the beginning I had some anxiety crises and went to see a psychiatrist. I remember that they asked about sleep upfront. I was sleeping okish, but not great. After some time I noticed I started sleeping less and less (woke up at 4am and couldn't sleep anymore), I went back to a psychiatrist (different one this time). She said I needed antidepressants, and I read about them a lot, especially against. I wasn't sure. But in the end I tried.
It took a while to "enter" that kind of medication, tried 2 and then another. But I was convinced somehow of trying until it worked. Everyone is a complex, beautiful "mess", so you have to find the way. But in the end Venlafaxine started working. And boy did it work...
Right now I feel like I did in my 20s (I'm 47). I've never been as optimistic about my prospects, I think I can do anything. I used to think that I was finished, that I was bound to be grey all my remaining life. Now I've started doing all the stuff that I had stopped doing because of the feelings you are having (helplessness, strong anhedonia). I sleep so well now that I dream quite frequently and I think that has made my mind waaay more plastic. I've regained all the piano technique that I had plus I've leveled up significantly (Chopin studies, etc).
I have the willpower (and the experience!) now to work on myself, and I think I've made a lot of progress even in interpreting events and not being so pessimistic, etc. Like I'm doing a kind of mild CBT because I want to invest, because I have hope.
So my experience is that medication was a really necessary crutch, which in my case was quite necessary (that's my belief at least), and it solved "everything" in the sense of making the baseline so much higher that recovery seemed almost easy.
But there is hope. One way or another, life will be awesome again. If you need me to tell you face to face, I can do that (@pauek on Twitter, DM me). It really helps to listen to people in a similar situation. Nobody seems to understand anything when you are hostage to depression, and that can dig the hole even deeper.