What is a serious depression like?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’ve had several stretches of depression in my life and they are usually marked by a restless, anxious, gnawing, dark, aimless energy and an inability to sleep well or settle down and concentrate. I also tend to withdraw from interactions that require negotiating with people I don’t know (including simple things like making care tune-up appointments).

I’m really good at faking that I’m okay to everyone but the two or three people closest to me. When I’ve hit really rough spots I have actually wished that it was in my psychological makeup to say “screw it” and lie in bed for days until someone hospitalized me. Unfortunately, I’m a control freak and can’t even let go when I’m in acute distress. This last year has been the most difficult year of my life and very few people know this (well, now the 20 million people on SDMB know)

Ditto previous posters on the feeling that when major depression hits it often seems that it wouldn’t matter to anyone if you were to just disappear from the world.

I think I am fortunate in that when I hit late 20s I started to feel much better for longer stretches. Now depression seems to be more situational and related to events like death, major change and loss, etc . . .

22

I don’t think it is possible to describe what leads a person to become hospitalized for depression. I was in the hospital 3 times last year for this. It’s weird that it all just came to a head (meaning EVERYTHING). I’ve had frequent bouts my entire life but learned to live through it. To those around me I always apeared hard working and normal. I had self medicated with alcohol for years and years, all the while working through school, a career and life. A few years back I started ONLY drinking. This was after a good period of finally trying medication and feeling the change it brought. But, somehow, it wasn’t enough; it was more like a bandaid than real medication, I thought. Hell, I felt GREAT so why take drugs :frowning: . Strange, but I became complacent, drank more and more, quit meds because I felt great and “no longer needed them”. But then I found myself last year, 29 years old, a great job, a family that totally loves me, and yet I couldn’t see past the darkness. I really don’t know how it all happened, how that final straw broke my back, but somehow it all did. I’m an atheist who was raised a strict catholic. I have lived for so many years for myself and by myself. Last year everything in life lost that last spark of interest that kept me going. I used to somehow find things to keep me going. Then I couldn’t. I tried to check out, woke up in an ER. This was after landing in a hospital for a few days, and getting out and living a few months and feeling better. Then after that time things went great, then I started getting down, using alcohol, abusing alcohol, and then it all happened again. The final time I checked myself into the hospital knowing it could get better. I don’t know how it all works, or why everthing lined up like it did, but it did. That last bad bout, I couldn’t see anything in life that would make me feel interested in living. I would feel so completed emptied of energy everyday. But the biggest part was that FEELING that everything I did and every chance I took and every great moment I could have was all for nothing. None of it made sense. I don’t think depression has ever made sense. Well, TMI, I guess. But I’ve read of other’s experience with it and figure maybe my account can help.

23

kushiel, davenportavenger, and Jennshark – you’ve all just described “agitated depression”. Here is a quite succinct description of it.

I’ve suffered from agitated depression for most of my life. A few years ago there was a question whether mine was actually AD or hypomania (aka Bipolar II). I never got a definitive diagnosis, which is just as well because either, as you know, is hell to live with.

I can’t predict when I’ll go into an agitated state, or for how long. Anything can set it off. White-hot searing anger usually replaces crying, although not all the time. There’s something in me which compels me to keep moving – I don’t want to sit down because I won’t be able to concentrate; if I do sit down, I may never get up. If I’m not living in my own head thinking I’m the most disgusting worthless person in the world, I’m being particularly quiet because I don’t want anybody else to know I’m the most disgusting worthless person in the world. I take offense so easily that I’ll either break down or scream if someone looks at me the wrong way. I have to keep busy doing something – anything – because I’ll jump out of my own skin otherwise.

The older I’ve grown, the more I’ve been able to channel it. If I’m particularly agitated, it’s a good time to do all the chores I’ve been putting off. At work I can perform double the tasks I usually do. I’ll take a good long walk with the dogs or by myself, wash the car, start/continue yet another project…anything so as not to let myself get sucked into that suffocating fog that’s lurking around the corner.

It takes an enormous amount of energy to do this. Sometimes I wonder what’ll happen if it suddenly runs out.

24

Whoops, here’s the corrected link:

www.depression-guide.com/agitated-depression.htm

25

I’ve been hospitalized for depression (although I don’t now believe that depression is a medical illness). Several times, all while an adolescent.

It was “just” unhappiness. It was a feeling that the situation I was in was completely hopeless; that I couldn’t trust anyone; that there was no point in going through the motions of living. I didn’t shower, I didn’t go to school, I gorged myself at every opportunity. I felt very, very alone. And those feelings and my mood didn’t really change. Basically, I was a total fucking loser.

But there was no magical mental mallady that would have prevented any of that from changing if the circumstances of my life changed for the better. I was still a regular human who could choose to act how I wanted and who reacted to the environment I lived in. In retrospect, my feelings were extreme, but they weren’t always irrational.

Fortunately, once I was old enough to move out on my own and take control of my life my “chemical imbalances” ( :rolleyes: ) all faded away–must have been something in the water in the town I lived in.

Should someone hospitalized for depression get the same sympathy that regular hospital patients receive? I think it depends on their circumstances–just like sympathy for regular hospital patents also varies a lot. Would you have the same amount of sympathy for someone in the ICU because he was trying to jump 10 crushed cars on his dirtbike as you would for someone with some rare, freak form of cancer?

26

I am bipolar and I am treated successfully now and have been for about two years. Real depression is horrible and distinct from normal sadness. To give you good evidence, my baby daughter died this year as well as half my house being destroyed by a giant oak tree strike and me losing a job simply because of bureaucracy and budgeting. I had been in terrible shape before meaning scary and truly unpredictable to people that knew me before this all set in during my early twenties. Many were terrified that I would just snap at the pressure but I handled it like a trooper. I had to explain to people time and time again that depression is a disease and it really doesn’t have that much to do with what is going on around you. I was in remission and I actually handled the objective pain much better than most people would. I have to say that the pain of losing a child is indescribable and will be forever, but it doesn’t cause complete dysfunction like depression did for me.

Depressive episodes for me meant that I was unable to experience pleasure. I also wanted to sleep all the time as in 18 hours a day or more and I would almost immediately pass out if I sat still for a while.

True story: I wanted to sleep all the time and I had fantasies about getting myself thrown into prison so that I could just avoid everything for the rest of my life and sleep most everything off. One night, I was completely irrational and I bought the equivalent of 10 beers and pulled into the woods right where a new subdivision development had just cleared a huge area just to build houses. I though that I could sit there in peace.

It was about 7 pm and apparently someone saw me go there and got alarmed for some reason. I was sitting in the passenger seat of my car (there are sensible legal tricks) just finishing off 7 beers when I saw weird lights moving in the woods. The police ended up ambushing my car at dusk and I was on private property in the passenger seat. I hadn’t committed any big crimes.

I lived less that 1/4 mile away in a nice house so they threatened me and said that I could either ride in the back of the car for a ride home or go into protective custody. Now this is a small town with lots of big talkers and the amount of beer that I had didn’t really affect me at all (honestly).

I decided that a night or two in jail would be a great thing if I could just sleep because my wife was obnoxious seeming to me at the time and actually expected me to get out of bed every single day.

The police thought it was extraordinarily odd but they took me into protective custody, put me in a cell, I asked for a blanket because the plastic slab was cold and I slept there for the next 19 hours. They didn’t really know what to do with me because I wasn’t charged with anything and I didn’t have any alcohol in my system after a few hours. They made my wife come pick me up the next day even though she was furious.

The first time I went into an inpatient ward, I was struck by how absolutely severe depression can be for some people. My depression that I described was moderate. Severe depression means that you might suspect that person for a corpse even when they are sleepy. They have an ashen look and zombie-like is the best way to describe. People that don’t believe in depression should visit and inpatient ward sometime because the symptoms are obvious and frightening even to a casual observer.

27

I suffer from both anxiety/panic attacks and depression, but not often at the same time.

I’m nearly always on the verge of an anxiety attack. As long as I recognize it and take time to prioritize things, I can deal with it without meds. This means that Mr. Kiminy has to deal with me thinking things out two or three days in advance, and with occasional spontaneous calls to make sure that the accident I heard about on the radio didn’t involve him, but we manage.

My severe depressions have never involved suicidal thoughts or attempts. I’ve also never been hospitalized with depression. But I have had occasions where depression pretty much controlled everything I did, and where I’ve had to take anti-depressants just to keep going from one minute to the next. I tend to just “blot out” everything around me when depression gets really bad. I lose track of what’s going on around me, and would probably do nothing but sleep if I ever let it get complete control of me. I probably have underlying depression all the time, but it gets out of control when I lose control of what’s going on around me–like when my son was hospitalized with complete paralysis caused by Guillain-Barré Syndrome for more than a month, or when the company I worked for was bought out by another company, and my job description changed completely overnight. (Being fired would probably have been easier on me, since it would have allowed me to take control of what kind of job I was comfortable with. As it was, I ended up quitting within a few months.)

Both my mother and my daughter have been hospitalized to treat depression/anxiety that led to suicide attempts. They weren’t hospitalized just because of the depression or anxiety, though. If they had not been suicidal, they probably would not have ended up in the hospital, since hospitalization is generally reserved for people who are considered a danger to themselves or others. It’s a very expensive proposition, after all.

28

Metacom do you feel that you were misdiagnosed, or that depression doesn’t exist?

29

I don’t feel that I was misdiagnosed. I met the diagnostic criteria in spades.

I don’t feel that depression exists as a specific medical illness. I view depression as an extreme end of the normal human emotional spectrum. I think that most depressed people are so because that’s how they respond (by choice, environment, and genes) to the circumstances in their lives. Some people may be depressed due to some sort of infection or specific genetic disorder, but I don’t think we’re ever going to find a single magic cause of depression.

30

And, before anyone points out that I wasn’t in a position to assess that, plenty of bona fide mental health professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psych techs, etc.) supported that diagnosis.

31

Why would you think we won’t ever know the reason? My background is in academic neuroscience and, although the brain is complicated, progress has been made and continues every day. Academic research in the area runs about 10 years ahead of even well-informed popular knowledge and there are 100’sof studies already reported that contradict your assertion in both animal and human research. There isn’t any single one that you can point to because science in this area depends on a complex body of knowledge that requires expertise coming out of many fields.

My own bipolar illness responded to lithium right away even when the fancy and profitable pharmaceutical cocktails failed miserably. Lithium isn’t exactly what most people mean by drug and nobody knows exactly how it works. It is an element and could be a “natural” supplement if it wasn’t so toxic and limited in use.

I am not a huge fan of psychiatry in general because my earlier doctors went off on some weird tangents that almost killed me or destroyed my life and the lives around me. These are not subtle effects we are talking about. They are differences that shook people to the core when they saw me before and after.

After all the fancy stuff, it was a simple element that cleared things right up just like it does with many people in my former situation. If that isn’t simple biology, I don’t know what is.

32

FWIW, after my own experiences I agree with you. Yes, it exists and it involves chemicals and electricty. Yes, it ruins people’s lives and they should seek whatever treatment helps them. But it is not exactly like a broken arm. Human consciousness has always had it’s challenges, it’s ups and downs, it’s stuff we are still working out. You can’t just seperate this one part out and claim it’s not real, it’s just an illusion by the wrong chemicals. Everything in my brain is an illusion caused by chemicals, not just depression. You can’t just parse up my brain in to the “sick” parts and the “well” parts. Some of it sucks, but it’s still all me. It’s still a part of my humanity.

33

There’s one other aspect of depression that I haven’t seen mentioned here: SI, or self-injury. This usually means cutting or burning one’s self, although some people extend it to slamming fingers in doors, pulling hair, or almost anything you can think of that would hurt. This isn’t a form of suicide attempt; people who SI usually say that seeing the blood helps them feel something, or else that the SI serves as a distraction from their depression. There’s no desire to kill one’s self in this instance. Most medical opinions of this that I’ve seen suggest either that the chemicals released as a pain response serve as a natural painkiller, so I suppose this is vaguely parallel to people who self-medicate. It’s far and away most common in teenagers, so I suppose it’s not that strange that it hasn’t been mentioned yet.

There’s a limit to how much I can say about this, because I’ve never experienced this firsthand; I’m limited to what I’ve seen in a couple of my friends. Anyone who wants to read more can find a relatively short (possibly over-generalized) summary here or by googling “self injury” or “self harm”.

34

I had one wierd and surprising bout with severe depression I still don’t understand.

I had been unemployed for a while, and was what I consider normally depressed for a decent time. By Normally depressed I mean my life did suck and I had an appropriate ammount of unhappiness about it.

Then all the sudden I woke up one day in the middle of the night after a nightmare, with an overwhelming feeling of the pointlessness of absolutely anything. I was actually past suicidal, it occured to me there was no reason for me not to be dead, but the thought making an effort even towards that just wasn’t something my brain could comprehend. There was just an absolute certanty that doing anything was pointless. I had no food in the house, but couldn’t fathom actually going out and getting more, I didn’t eat, shower, or change clothes for about 10 days, nor answer the phone or door. The not eating cought up with me and I was pretty much in a daze that I still cannot remember anything about, or how I finally got out of it. but eventually I was back to normal, and got some food, and showered. But by the time I was really thinking clearly I had no idea what had changed back.

It still freaks me out thinking about it, the best I can come up with is that I got into an abnormal brain chemistry state in the nightmare, that somehow just wouldn’t reset into normal concious life, until my body finally hit “Oh shit, were gonna die” survival mode.

35

I was never quite a cutter, but I used to jab my arms with nail files when it got really bad. The physical pain in a way numbed the pain of depression.

36

I can speak a little bit about cutting.

For the early part of my cutting years, it was a matter of being so depressed and so numb and so hopeless that it helped to have something to do to physically demark the affects of the depression. Like, I was sinking into a void and it helped me cling to the edge a little.

Despite what some may think, this was never an attention-getting action, and I went to great lengths to hide what I was doing. I was eventually hospitalized for depression and suicidality (several times, in fact) and at this stage of my depressive years, another patient remarked that “Someday, when you’re 30 years old or so, you’ll regret cutting because you’ll have all those scars on your arms.” Her words were absolute gibberish to me. I couldn’t imagine living that long (I was 23 at the time) and, even if I did, something like caring about what I look like was beyond me. At that point, every single day involved clawing through this hideous depression just to survive, so something like vanity seemed impossible.

Later, though, it was really a matter of trying to get through what others have described as agitated depression. I’d get into this state where I was so worked up, so mad and sad and frustrated and about to blow, that I just couldn’t function. Cutting then helped me to calm down. It was like I was so agitated that I couldn’t breathe, and then I’d cut and it would calm me down. I could function, go about my day, sleep—whatever I ahd been too agitated to do before.

I guess I’m lucky that it happened in this order, for the latter was easier to recover from, IMO. (And by “easier”, I mean that it was really, really fucking hard, as opposed to really, really, really fucking hard). I eventually learned coping skills that really worked (as opposed to the meaningless suggestions mentioned above), and stopped cutting.

On a bad day, do I still think about it? You bet your ass I do. But it’s been over 10 years, and I have kids, and I’m just not going down that road again.

FWIW, my hospital-mate was right. I do regret it now. I have to wear long sleeves all the time, even in the brutal New England summers, and I feel like a freak. Plus, my daughter is at the age where she is starting to ask what the scars on my arms are, and, really, what do you say to that?

37

I haven’t suffered much from depression, but I know all about anxiety.

About six years ago, I was hit with it hard. I guess it’s hard for people who haven’t had clinical anxiety or depression to tell the difference between anxiety or sadness and ANXIETY and DEPRESSION.

For me, the anxiety wasn’t even in the same league as the kind you feel when you’ve got a presentation to give and you’re not prepared or have to take a test you haven’t studied for. That’s all normal, human anxiety.

My anxiety was light years more than that. Think of the feelings you’d have if a Mach truck was bearing down on you at 100 mph on slippery roads and only 5 feet away. That’s how I felt much of the time.

It’s easy when you’re not having clinical anxiety to think “well, I’d know it was irrational and just struggle through it.” I thought that way before I got hit with anxiety. The problem is, the rationale part of your brain goes away most of the time. Even when it doesn’t (and you know you’re being irrational), some primitive adrenaline response kicks in and all you know is flight, fight, or die. It’s a normal, human response to panic. When you’re in a life or death situation, most of the time, instinct take over. You don’t think “hmmm, Mack truck bearing down on me–I’d better jump to the left.” If you do, then I’m pleased to meet you Mr. Spock. Most of us react on instinct alone while the rationale brain goes away.

The problem is, with anxiety, there’s no real threat so there’s nowhere to flee and nothing to fight. Sure, if I were at home I could run around the block or beat up on a punching bag (that helped). However, you can’t really do that in an elevator, it tends to damage your career to do so in the middle of a meeting, and the folks at the Food Mart tend to frown on you going all Tai Bow on the Swanson frozen dinners.

Meds helped for me. A lot. The anxiety went away. I was able to come off the meds with no recurrence of the anxiety. I don’t think that means it wasn’t a chemical issue. Perhaps my serotonin levels were off temporarily. Perhaps the anxiety is only in remission and may come back. However, I feel no shame in taking meds to help with an unbearable situation.

Talk therapy helped a lot. I don’t think the meds alone could have done the trick. However, they allowed me to remain functional (and keep my career) while working out the problems. There’s no shame in that. They didn’t affect my cognitive abilities, didn’t give me any high or intoxicate me. All they did was alleviate the panic and give me a bit of dry mouth. So what if it was “better living through chemistry?” They helped me remain a functional member of society.

38

I’m so sorry you went through that, lorene. Perhaps you could simply tell your daughter that the scars were from a time when Mommy was very sick, but that she got help (or got better)?

39

Oh Gods, someone that understands. I went through a mental breakdown, and then decided I needed a summer job. Being a teen, a cashier was one of my only options.

The two weeks I worked I needed tranquilizers to even make it through a shift. I broke into tears several times, so I quit. My parents couldn’t understand. They just thought it was new job anxiety. I felt like such a failure. Almost a year later, I went back out into the workforce again, this time as a cashier at a small restaurant. Same shit, different pile. My brother came to pick me up after I broke down on my last shift. I was lectured by him for an hour. He told me I needed to suck it up, that it was all my fault. My parents did the same - I got yelled at so much.

A few months after that, I landed a great summer job at a school. Proofreading, some tech stuff, basically stuff I could do in front of a computer all day, and only talking to my boss and occasionally a few co-workers. Not having to deal with customers, or having the pressure of retail n my introverted self. I loved it, it was heaven, I never had a panic attack.

I still have the fear that any job I get I’ll be bombarded by the anxiety attacks. But I know that I could do it once, as long as it wasn’t dealing with customers constantly.

People just don’t understand that you can’t always work through it. Sometimes it isn’t even directly related to the situation at hand - it was just triggered by being somewhere at some time. You are not rational in a panic attack. You can try rationalizing things to yourself, but saying ‘you’re off work in an hour, calm down’ doesn’t work now. I avoid my former places of employment like the plague, but sometimes I have to go to them, and the anxiety will flare up. Sometimes I’ll simply see something that reminds me of one of those former jobs, and the panic will come.

40

I’d lie to her instead. Make up a background story (“I spent one summer in high school working in an X and the Y scratched up my wrists”) and stick with it.