Depression

[Loredoctor]

Me, I'm of the heretical opinion that whatever imbalance you may have is natural for you. That the flaws are part of the package as it were.

Heretical that is!

[Avatar]

Burn me you must...

--A

[Loredoctor]

Burn me you must...

Don't tempt me! God lord, how cathartic that would be!

[The Laughing Man]

Let's make him into a ladder!

[Loredoctor]

Let's make him into a ladder!

[Marv]

I definately take myself too seriously. Especially when i was younger.

[Fist and Faith]

I believe I've had a very small bit of depression my whole life. I've got a bit of blue in me most of the time. Maybe a small amount of anti-depressant would put me in a better place. But I just don't have the drive to try that, and I can largely ignore my blueness when I notice it.

[drew]

I used to get depressed all the time when I was younger..pretty much from about age 8 to age 20 off and on.

My wife (who was basicall the one who cured me) now suffers from SEVERE PPD...I used to think that that was a bunch of crap; but looking back, she acted the same a few months after each kids births...and worse each time.

[Brinn]

Av, I think you may not be seeing the difference between a crushing black clinical depression and a bit of melancholia or the blues. I don't think I've ever been clinically depressed but panic attacks, which started inexplicably, in college may have pushed me very close. I take Zoloft as a maintenance medication because it has effectively eliminated the attacks.

At first I was vehemently opposed to medication as it seemed that even seeing a doctor was admitting to a weakness. I felt I should be able to will myself better as anxiety is nothing more than a mental function which I should have total control over. After intermittent bouts with panic over two or three years I finally got to the point where I was ready to try anything.

If you've never experienced panic you can't appreciate how debilitating it is. It is the inability to control something as fundamental as your very thought processes and reactions. It is not something any sane person would want to accept, learn to live with, or incorporate into oneself. I've sinced gained a much greater appreciation of those who suffer with clinical depression. I used to think that they should just "not feel blue" or some other B.S. but I now realize that simple solutions like that are not realistic.

In my opinion, thoughts and emotions are fundamentally chemical reactions occuring within the brain. These reactions can be reliably modified with the use of medications. In that respect, use of SSRI's is no different than a diabetic taking insulin. I would certainly not tell a diabetic that they shoudn't use insulin on the basis that their lack of insulin is natural for them.

[lucimay]

... the inability to control something as fundamental as your very thought processes and reactions. It is not something any sane person would want to accept, learn to live with, or incorporate into oneself.

i gotta tell you guys...this is what monthly hormone rushes (high estrogen levels) do to my brain. this has been happening to me once a month since i was 12.

i cannot control my thought processes and they go VERY weird...uncontrolable weeping too...at things as mundane as a dead fly in the window sill. uh-huh. not kidding.

don't make fun now. it's AWFUL.

still...i don't think i've ever suffered unmanagable depression. i think i spent some of my childhood depressed. my parents fought alot. it was depressing. but was never treated. course by the time i was 18 i was into SERIOUS self-medication. gave THAT up at about 24 as it was making me stupid.

[matrixman]

Good post, Brinn!

This topic is educational for me. I can't say I've ever experienced something that I'd identify as depression. Sure, I worry about stuff, but that's different. Guess I'm just a dull personality - no big highs, no deep lows.

[The Laughing Man]

One may not feel able to control ones thoughts that cause anxiety, but one can feel that they are able to control their reactions to those thoughts.

Anxiety is based on fear, and panic is the direct result of total loss of control of ones reactions to fear. Realizing your mind, anxiety itself as a force, is generating those thoughts gives one a moments pause to not react at all, instead of reacting completely.

The root cause of all fear is death, the ultimate alone, exposed and unknown, expressed in a myriad of anxious and morbid predictions, not physical realities immediately apparent. If one can pause long enough to convince oneself that that they are already alone, one's death is already beyond their control, , and attempting to control or delay or deny its inevitability can likely cause a premature one, they can then realize they are already dead, and have nothing to fear whatsoever;

except living life in fear of death.

[Loredoctor]

Av, I think you may not be seeing the difference between a crushing black clinical depression and a bit of melancholia or the blues. I don't think I've ever been clinically depressed but panic attacks, which started inexplicably, in college may have pushed me very close. I take Zoloft as a maintenance medication because it has effectively eliminated the attacks.

At first I was vehemently opposed to medication as it seemed that even seeing a doctor was admitting to a weakness. I felt I should be able to will myself better as anxiety is nothing more than a mental function which I should have total control over. After intermittent bouts with panic over two or three years I finally got to the point where I was ready to try anything.

If you've never experienced panic you can't appreciate how debilitating it is. It is the inability to control something as fundamental as your very thought processes and reactions. It is not something any sane person would want to accept, learn to live with, or incorporate into oneself. I've sinced gained a much greater appreciation of those who suffer with clinical depression. I used to think that they should just "not feel blue" or some other B.S. but I now realize that simple solutions like that are not realistic.

In my opinion, thoughts and emotions are fundamentally chemical reactions occuring within the brain. These reactions can be reliably modified with the use of medications. In that respect, use of SSRI's is no different than a diabetic taking insulin. I would certainly not tell a diabetic that they shoudn't use insulin on the basis that their lack of insulin is natural for them.

Great post, Brinn.

[Avatar]

An excellent post indeed Brinn, and great to see you in the Close for a change.

I certainly see a difference between what you describe and the type of depression that I suspect medication is all too often prescribed for.

As I said earlier, there are clearly cases in which some physical malfunction of neurochemistry makes it impossible for people to lead a functioning life, in which case medication is clearly indicated as a means of permitting that function.

It's not that I'm opposed to anti-depressants per se, so much as I am opposed to them being treated, as I said to StoneMaybe, as some glorious panacea that will cure all ills, and make everybody the happy functioning social unit that they think they're supposed to be.

And of course, my own lack of personal experience with such a fundamental problem makes it impossible for me to appreciate it from an internal perspective.

A dyed in the wool control freak when it comes to myself, it's incomprehensible to me that a person is unable to, as Esmer said, control their reaction to stimuli.

I suppose the closest I can get to it is by likening it to experiencing extreme pain that forces you to pull your hand from the fire, or whatever it is in order to end that stimuli. And yet even that reflex, like all reflexes, can be controlled.

I certainly don't dispute that some people require medication in order to function normally (or whatever passes for it ), but I do think that it is a tool that is being misused, much as I think that Ritallin is something that is too often misused, no doubt with the best of intentions, but ultimately with a more negative result than if never employed.

Which is, in your specific example, and quite probably in LoreMasters position also, clearly not the case.

--A

[dlbpharmd]

Drew wrote:

My wife (who was basicall [sic] the one who cured me) now suffers from SEVERE PPD...I used to think that that was a bunch of crap; but looking back, she acted the same a few months after each kids births...and worse each time.

My wife had severe PPD after our first daughter was born. One of my mentors had warned me about this. He basically said "you may think you're wife's a sweetheart now, but after that baby is born, she'll be the devil." I thought "no, not my wife." Boy, was I wrong. Celexa saved her life, of that I have no doubt. After our second daughter was born, she restarted the Celexa the day after, and did so much better.

PPD is REAL.

[drew]

Oh I know it's real...we're not realy into meidactions though.

She wasn't in a Devil mood...but (after the second one) I'd come home from work and find her just starring out the window; and then after a few months more destructive behavous began.

After the third, it's nearly the same, the only difference she beleive that there's something wrong, and that she's not just going crazy.

[Fist and Faith]

At first I was vehemently opposed to medication as it seemed that even seeing a doctor was admitting to a weakness. I felt I should be able to will myself better as anxiety is nothing more than a mental function which I should have total control over.

I'm sure that's the problem with a HUGE number of people. People should not feel any worse going to a doctor and taking medication for such things than they do for going to an optometrist and wearing glasses. DNA.

[sgt.null]

i enjoy the mood swings most of the time. the mania anyway, but it doesn't happen a lot anymore.

i did have a panic attack once. i was getting an mri and i felt the attack start to happen. rather than call it off i went with it and rode it out. quite exhilerating after, but awful during. i told my wife, she said i was wierd.

[Nerdanel]

I've experienced depression. I've always been something of a perfectionist and striven for good grades. In the university I still got good good grades a lot of the time, but had to work much harder for them. Some courses were just nasty, and I failed a big course due to my pair not doing anything, and things like that. At one point I noticed I wasn't happy like I used to be, but I ignored that. Then I found out that I was unable to pass any courses anymore. My mind was too full of holes to even remember reliably my shopping lists. A summer helped some, but soon I was again not passing anything. I found out that my mind shut itself down to protect itself from overexertion.

Finally I sought help and was directed to a psychiatrist. I didn't want any drugs but I got several months of sick leave, after which I felt better and started working on my master's thesis. However after a while, aided by a flatmate from Hell, my depression returned and the thesis stalled. I kept trying, but at one point I noticed that I was medicating myself with chocolate to make me more alert so I could do schoolwork. (This works, but the effect isn't particularly long lasting, and the side effects are obvious.) I decided I needed real drugs.

So, for a few months I've been on antidepressants. First I used citalopram which was effective but messed up my sleep cycle. I switched to sertraline, which suits me much better.

[SoulQuest1970]

I most definitely experienced depression starting at age 10 until I was about 32. Some of them were terrible... since I was suicidal at 10. I remember praying to die, sick to my stomach, curled up in bed for months at a time refusing to eat. This happened off and on every couple years through my teens and these severe spells would last anywhere from a few days to a few months. I continued to have these severe bouts, but the suicidal part went away after I started college. All this time I was told the stomach aches weren't "real"... they were "in my head." Yeah, right. When I found out I was pregnant with Alex it got really bad and for the 2nd time in my life (the first being at age 10) I was diagnosed with Anorexia. I could have lost her, but I didn't... she's a tough kid. Once I held her in my arms I knew my problems were very real and I very much HAD to deal with them so my problems would not get passed to her by example. I grew quite a bit before I had Calli and got into counseling (been in it off and on since I was 10). Then I found out that I have acid reflux and anxiety disorder. This completely explained the past bouts that were supposedly "in my head." My very real phobias and anxiety kicked off my reflux and ulcer conditions. I realised everything I had been through growing up was not my fault. By the time my ex left us and I had Nick I was so much better. I had learned to manage things to a degree with meditation, but that didn't fix my phobias (throwing up being a big one). My phobias interfered with my ability to care for my kids when they were sick with throwing up... it was really ugly... total fight or flight panic. I talked to a doctor and got on Paxil and 6 days later Alex threw up and I was ok for the first time ever. No panic attack. I took it for 3 years and have been off of it now for nearly a year and the panic attacks have not come back. For the last 4 years I have been very happy... genuinely happy! I just love being me. I might have been able to do it without the Paxil, but it sure helped me a lot when I needed it. I can only imagine that while I was on it, it helped my brain rewire to fix the problem setting off the panic attacks. It is nice not to need medication anymore.

As I think about it, in the past 4 years I have had ample reason to be depressed. But I have not been. Hmm.... Now I laugh about the circumstances. If I am going to be an indigent single mom of 3, I might as well be the best one I can be! lol