(Just a nitpick…clinical depression is any depression that requires a doctor’s intervention…biological or otherwise – though I think most/all true depressions are biological to some degree).
I agree with you. I think some people get so wrapped up in the “me! me! me!” of depression that they don’t realize they’re their own worst enemy. Getting your mind off of yourself can do wonders for your general well-being. You can get a feeling of accomplishment and self-worth by focusing on someone/something that isn’t YOU or your ILLNESS. I realize this is hard for deeply depressed people, but many people can benefit from pushing themselves (or having a family member help with the pushing) into motion.
This has been so true for me; from age 15 to 22 I use to swing from very High to very low like a classic Manic Depressive or what they now seem to call Bi-polar.
I learned to recognize both swings and I learned to decrease them. I guess I was just lucky but I was able to learn to catch myself before the peaks happened and eventually the cycle became very mild. Now after a day of feeling low, I notice and I head down to my workshop and build something for my kids. It knocks me out of the downhill slide so well.
I do miss the highs, but I know that the highs were always followed by lows.
So I guess I hit upon what Kimera was saying without reading into it or really knowing what I was doing.
I get what you’re saying, but not going to a doctor because of a fear that he MIGHT be a quack and he MIGHT do something wrong isn’t very good logic. I believe I already said it would be like avoiding have a lump in your breast checked out on the off chance the doctor would immediately call for a masectomy.
IF one goes to a crappy doctor, and IF he immediately starts pushing pills and making you feel uncomfortable, like he’s not listening, you get a second opinion. The first shrink I visited was terrible. Then I found my therapist-who, btw, wasn’t a psychiatrist or even a psychologist. She was a licensed counselor. I saw a psychiatrist she reccomended (REALLY nice and wonderful doctor, btw), but I mostly talked to her.
Part of what I learned was-don’t start worrying “what if”. Take it one step at a time. Yes, change things in your life. But don’t be afraid to talk to your own physician.
kimera-indeed it has worked. And actually, my life has taken a turn for the better lately. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re definitely improving and getting better and better. It may not be where it quite should be, but it’s getting there.
As for the meds, like I said, it’s not so much depression as an anxiety disorder. The depression was caused by my untreated anxiety disorder. I had had bad episodes previously, but this was a full on breakdown.
For an example of how bad it can get-and this was years before I was diagnosed-when I was about ten years old, I caught a bad case of stomach flu, and threw up nine times within about 8 hours. After that, for months, every time I felt the slightest bit of pain in my stomach, I’d panic and think I was going to vomit. I started drinking glass after glass after glass of water at night, thinking that if I did so, I’d belch and then I’d feel better. Makes no sense, right? Well, that didn’t matter. I’d wake up every night at 1 am and I thought if I could just make it until oh, 4:30 (when I first got sick the last time), I’d be okay. If I heard someone had stomach flu, I’d freak out. It was awful. And of course, my stomach would be upset-from NERVES.
Eventually, I got over it (strangely enough, after I got stomach flu a SECOND time and realized I was making myself feel even worse by obsessing.)
OCD cannot be reasoned away by telling oneself that your fears are ridiculous. In fact, trying to do so only feeds the obsessing, so you make it even worse. Trying to reason with it is the last thing you want to do. In my case, what worked best was total distraction. I started buying tons of Star Wars novels and reading them. Yes, it sounds hopelessly lame, but that was a HUGE help-I could get lost in a novel, and forget everything. Another was breathing exercises to help myself calm down.
The thing about OCD, as Guin said, is that knowing you have it isn’t enough. With many mental disorders, once people accept that they have those problems (often difficult in itself), they’re able to consciously “fight” those impulses or behaviours. A person with OCD can’t do this - we know we have OCD, we know we’re acting illogically, and yet the compulsion for whatever behaviour remains. The mental “fight” against that compulsion leaves us stressed even if we are able to temporarily beat that urge.
Distraction is my method of dealing with it as well - if i’m on autopilot, then new, obsessive thoughts don’t tend to enter as frequently.
Look, I don’t know anything about OCD beyond the little I can glean from a few epsiodes of Monk. I thought we were talking about Depression. I think Kimera, Kalhoun, myself and others were all talking about depression. Kytheria was posting about depression. Where did OCD suddnely come from, did I miss something?
Sorry, just thought i’d back up Guin on a couple of points. I apologise for the hijacking.
Re: Depression, I sort of agree with kimera. Drugs can make you worse, but at their very best effect only help with the symptoms of depression - they don’t have any effect on the actual cause, whatever that may be. A better, more permanent solution would be to change whatever the cause of your depression is - and if it’s source is, as kimera says, that a region of the brain is relatively unstimulated, then therapy or forced mental training/forced distraction could indeed be of benefit. If that’s not the source, it won’t be as helpful. Drugs are effective no matter what the cause of depression is.
Hey that fine, I just have to admit total ignorance about OCD. If that’s where this thread heads next I will gladly bow out. Depression I understand. Thankfully I did get over it with just a little help from my friends.
Another point on depression and OCD: certain drugs prescribed for depression will also relieve the symptoms of OCD, as I discovered with Zoloft. Maintaining myself on the smallest therapeutic dose has made a significant change in my moods and functioning, with no apparent side effects. Worked for me. May or may not work as well for anyone else.
As Guin pointed out, OCD is one form of diseased thinking that benefits from not thinking about it.
After a while, there’s nothing your friends can do, and I for one feel guilty for burdening them with it when things get bad. For some of us, going to the doctor and getting on meds IS helping ourselves. Don’t you think we’d “modify our brain waves” if we could? It would certainly save me some money.
Suffice it to say, everyone handles depression differently. I’m not going to subscribe to an anti-psychiatry stance and I wouldn’t try to convince anyone to go on meds. I also don’t think it’s wrong to suggest someone go to a doctor, so sorry.
But that’s the nature of the disease-it IS selfish. You can’t see beyond the pain, and in fact, telling people they’re being selfish only makes it worse. They KNOW that, and that just feeds into it.
People who have long-term depression often have trouble maintaining relationships because we are, by the nature of the illness, very self-absorbed and moody. We can also be sleepy, confused, forgetful and isolated.
The same article in Mother Jones goes on to explain that these studies may be flawed:
There’s still more. A full reading of the article gives a more complete picture. (The blurb at the beginning is really an overstatement.)
I have been on continuous medications since October of 1989. I had my first diagnosis of depression in the early 1960’s, but I didn’t even know really what that meant except that I was “down and out.” I continued to have low grade depression with bouts of heavier depression. I went through lots of kinds of treatments.
Nothing had a lasting effect for me until 1989 when my physician asked my current psychiatrist to see me. I have been seeing him every 4-6 weeks, but that has just recently changed to every 8 weeks. We talk only for about 20 to 30 minutes. We focus on the present and not on the past. We’ve adjusted my medications over time several times and I take quite a bit. Only once have I had to be hospitalized and that was at my request and lasted about five weeks. That was over ten years ago.
I have memory problems and trouble with concentration and sleepiness. But I feel centered and strong – not weak and vulnerable like I did for all those years. Two years ago I overcame a thirty year phobia of flying and without any special phobia training or classes, calmly got on a plane and took my granddaughter to Paris.
Life is good.
I’m not sure if that’s a sarcastic “thanks” or not, but my point was that if you can’t push yourself, someone else might be able to help you put the focus outside yourself. Once you take a step, it can open the way for another. And another. And another. I’m not saying this is true for all people, but for mild depression, it can certainly help. Laying around stewing in depressive thoughts isn’t going to be good for you, no matter how many pills you take.
No, you’re right, I didn’t - drugs are of course not always effective, but when they are, they will aid in reducing the symptoms of depression no matter what the underlying cause is. I apologise for not being clear.
I think there’s no denying that antidepressant drugs work some of the time — we’ve got plenty of anecdotal evidence here on this board. But there are also people for whom the meds are not effective, and there are also still a third group of people for whom the meds are actively harmful — some in a direct fashion (paradoxical effects, other bad medicinal side effects), others in an indirect fashion (internalizing a sense of self as “mentally ill” can, for some people, really put them on a self-defeatist path, as several people in this thread have noted; and having other people, in your family or otherwise, begin thinking of you as “mentally ill” can still be a handicap, even in these days where “depression” isn’t thought of the same way as “schizophrenia”).
I would not say that. If the symptoms of depression are due, for example, to hypothyroidism, antidepressants aren’t going to put much of a dent in them.
It sounds like you’ve found the winning combination. If it’s not too personal, may I ask what meds you take? I took a wide array of meds before I settled with Prozac. I took it for about a year and then for about 6 months a few years later. I had a horrible time on Welbutrin, Desiprimine and Imiprimine. The side effects were awful. Luckily, I am medication-free now (for many years) and I’m able to spot the signs before crisis mode kicks in. Life is indeed good!
Good point. I’ll take back all and replace it with more. Your post sort of shows what I meant - if your depression is caused by hypothyroidism, then there’s a specific set of treatments that can help you with that. Antidepressants are useful in that the don’t have to be (as) specific - there’s a wider range of possible causes that can cause depression that antidepressants could help with.
