I thought this was going to be an OP I could agree with but it lost me about halfway. I started several posts talking about my own issues but I can’t. The “it’s all in your head, you don’t need drugs, idiotic Tom Cruise knows more than professionals” attitude pisses me off.
OP your opinion is dangerous, I think you may need to research the subject a bit more and try actual mental health websites, not Scientology. It’s not an easy fix, drugs and psychiatric help may not be the whole answer but it’s also not as easy as “get off the couch, eat less, budget better, etc.”.
Op, everyone makes decisions that they regret later, and some of those decisions have had or will have a major impact on their lives. Your unhappiness stems from the fact that you’re living in the past and wallowing in regrets rather than taking positive steps to improve your life. You are pooh poohing and dismissing people that are trying to help you because you’re unwilling to let go of your regrets from the past and they’re poisoning your future.
Or that’s my take on it anyway. I would tell you to seek professional help, but you probably won’t do it unless and until you are willing to admit that you have some problems dealing with your past mistakes and recognize that you need to let go of them to move forward. That baggage gets heavy to be dragging around with you all the time.
Good luck
The chemical changes in ones brain are caused by ones situation. When one is in love or in pain or tired or excited different chemicals are released to make one aware of it.
I’ve not only had the opportunity to meet a lot of people who are depressed but I am depressed myself. I am not 15 years old but closer to twice that and I am seriously contemplating suicide.
You aren’t born with depression and I have never heard of a case of depression developing without any reason, in someone who is doing well, has a great relationship, feels happy and content with their lives. Have any of you?
One of the problems is that people don’t do this. They don’t consider the impact of their actions too much, and that is why we have a shitty world. People are constantly fucking others over or even themselves. Often unintentionally so.
Also the concept of having honour or pride is starting to wane. What ever you do it’s “fineeeeee” as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.
What bollox. Loads of people have tried to explain to me a multitude of times that what I have done or not done is in no way important. They point to many worse examples, even within our own point of reference. But I counter with that this does not mean that I should not waste my self but that those other people seriously should.
This in itself is a vicious circle, where it becomes harder and harder for all fair people to maintain a sensible and righteous life because the person next to them is not.
Part of my depression has to do with my phislophical views on humanity and thus on myself. Part of it is about my actions or the actions of others.
But I can clearly trace it and I can clearly understand it. I do not want to eliminate the feelings of regret for they are real.
You really have no concept of the difference between exogenous and endogenous depression, do you? I have suffered from dysthymia for my entire conscious life, basically. This has been true during great, problem-free periods in my life, as well as during catastrophic, traumatic periods in which I was also burdened by major situational depression on top of my usual low state. You really need to educate yourself.
If you’re depressed for a long time you probably get stuck and need to de-depress yourself using drugs to get better faster but the risk with that is that the body adjusts to the drugs and you never get well. So I’d rather not do that.
The thing is, you say you’ve been depressed furing great, problem free periods in your life?
How long were they and how did you feel depressed if they were great, problem free periods of your life?
What triggered your depression or did it just selfmanifest out of thin air while you were on a rollercoaster?
Oh common. So all is well in your life but you’re still depressed?
Are you on drugs and feel depressed when you go off them?
That should be obvious, your body will take time to get off them now that you’ve “fixed” your life.
If you’re not, then fuck me, write a book.
The closest I’ve come to that is a friend of mine who is relatively constantly depressed because she feels the world is evil and when ever confronted with troublesome things she just doesn’t know how to deal with it because she can’t help everyone so she gets depressed instead.
But I’ve never, never met someone who after talking to them couldn’t pinpoint their reason.
The external situations in my life had no bearing on the internal feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness and sadness that I’d struggle with. NO BEARING. Can you understand this?
ETA: That doesn’t mean they don’t ever intersect. Sometimes the external situations DO have a bearing on those internal feelings I have. But those external factors only exacerbate my original depression, they don’t create it.
This is medically incorrect. Most people have a “resting” state, and spikes of joy or despair do not affect overall mood over time. As Ambivalid describes.
Those where it does–big waves of manic, energetic thought or drained depression–this is a medical disorder.
You seem to be feeling hopelessness, alienation, disconnect from the universe (not buying into the lie). I mean, have you even talked to a doctor about how you feel?
Cause and effect, bro. You have those philosophical thoughts because you are depressed and ill, not the other way around–they’re not making you so, they’re manifesting because so.
Another thing that might help is meditation. If you can feel more connected to the universe, and the present, you won’t feel so philosophically downtrodden, and your sense of panic will also subside.
Meditation’s affects on brainwaves is a measurable, scientific thing, whereas you’re right, medication’s not as easily understood.
But here’s the thing. Do you want to feel better? Then ask for help to get better. You sound like you feel pretty rotten right now. Are your ego and your certain dismissal of avenues available to you aiding your enjoyment of life?
Never mind all of the decades of medical science and research that have gone into figuring out the underlying causes of clinical depression - we have some guy who just popped up on the internet here to tell us that it’s just caused by having a few bad days! Happy day! Boy, do we feel silly for wasting all of those millions of dollars!
No. No I can’t. Unless you were born with the condition.
I guess something can trigger a condition that doesn’t go away too.
The way something triggers schizophrenia in people and so on.
But since this isn’t a psychosis but indeed a chemical imbalance I can’t see how it should or could be “triggered” permanently.
Does not compute.
Again, I’m asking you. Are you on drugs and how did you start getting depressed? Can you remember the point of time in your life when you did?
That’s exactly what I’m saying bro!
It’s like when millions of dollars were spent on radioactive quackery for coughing or lobotomy for mental illness.
I’m also pissed about the millions of dollars, euroes and yens wasted on this bollox when they could have given housing to the poor, gym memberships to the unhealthy, career advice to the lost and so on. It’s all fucking ridiculous.
I’ve taken a maintenance dose of an SSRI for more than a decade. And while it’s not a cure for my depression, it absolutely is something that allows me to function. And like I’ve said, the depression has been with me for as long as I can remember being able to think for myself. It’s just a part of who I am; the dysthymia. You don’t understand how a person’s chemical balance may be “naturally” off-kilter and in need of medical intervention?
There are a few people who have it since a very young age and thus it may be a simple defect that can be “fixed”. But it’s an extreme rarity to meet or speak to someone who has had it since they can remember.
Teens tend to develop it when social anxiety gets the better off them and then it’s often the sense of financial destitution, broken relationships (and the lack of time or energy to make new ones), a lack of purpose, a death of someone whom they loved, their physique, etc.
You are misinformed and all the medical evidence points against you. Unless you have some evidence to back up what you’re saying, you’re just spreading misinformation. In short, you have no idea what you are talking about.
For me, my depression was a symptom of me denying my emotions. A lot of traumatic things happened to me and I couldn’t face them, and my mind made me depressed instead. Once I got into therapy, the depression mostly lifted. It comes back, but it is mostly gone now.
NOt that I’m better. Honestly, melancholy is better than PTSD most of the time. I traded one illness for another. PTSD therapy doesn’t work too well. I am wanting to try propranolol therapy, maybe that might work. But the other half dozen therapies I’ve tried haven’t worked much either. Well one kindof worked, but not a whole lot. Maybe 30%.
@Fear itself
Ever heard of it? Probably the subclass of effects that I experiencing. Completely logical considering the situation in my life though.
Hear, I’ll bare my heart out:
I sleep irregularly - because I have few obligations and the obligations I do have I can manage at any time of my choosing unless someone demands my attention and thus forces me to have a schedule.
I lack energy and feel tired all the time - since I’ve gone from someone who often exercised to someone who barely leaves their home. Obviously my body is suffering from this and both it and my psyche feels worse. I even feel this when playing games and one of the many things pro gamers are encouraged to do is exercise. Healthy body, healthy mind.
Social Isolation - Completely ruined my social life by turning off my normal phone and not replying to my social network messages or social emails. This stems from a disinterest in life in general and thus a disinterest in social life.
Changes in apetit - I eat a bit more since I’m bored, but no that much.
Suicidal thoughts - obviously lol, life is shit. What else should someone think but to commit suicide.
All this stems from the things previously mentioned in the thread. Logical conclusions. All of this is perhaps made worse by the chemical imbalance it itself causes. Creating a vicious circle. But it’s all real and all something you can touch.
If you’ve been lied to long enough to brainwash yourself into thinking that you do not have any reasons for your depression you WILL NEVER get out of it.
And frankly I’d rather blow my brains out than live a lie.
Again I will make a reservation for people actually born with depression if such people are indeed real.
In fact depression is a collection of symptoms, as mentioned Endogenous Depression: Symptoms & Treatment .
But it’s very easy for me to track each and every one of those symptoms to the reality of my life.
The most laughable one is the one about suicidal thoughts. As if that would be wrong to have or as if that is something one should attempt not to have when ones is full of self doubt about ones life.
Heck, in Japanese society when a noble man felt he had failed himself, his family or his master he would naturally commit suicide. Not bug about for 6 months like I am doing and be a weakling.