I don’t know if it is good or bad that only 30% of people who responded have never been treated for depression. I don’t know if that means they’ve never been seriously depressed or if means they have but never got treated.
Martin Seligman said in one of his books that at any given time about 25% of people are going through mild/moderate depression (as opposed to more severe clinical depression). So who knows. Maybe it is far more common than I thought. Part of me always wondered if 85% of people were mentally healthy and people like me were just the genetically vulnerable.
Then again people who’ve never been depressed probably didn’t reply to the poll or open the thread.
I love living in Japan, but mental health services here bite. I’ve gone through 4 or 5 Western therapists here in Tokyo, from the one who insisted that having been raped as a 5yo counted as merely “one rape; other people had repeated sexual abuse, and they came through it fine” to the one who insisted that getting things done was “a matter of willpower” and that I really didn’t need to be on anti-depressants at all.
To be fair, the obnoxious rape commenter guy above was the one who got me to try anti-depressants in the first place (and inadvertently diagnosed my ADD) and they did lift the fog. Thing is, the AD kinda pooped out and I’ve tried most of the ones approved here in Japan without success.
I’m one of those people who is very thankful for some of the quality depression boards and info sites on the web.
Just as an aside, depression is finally being seen as a real problem for people here (due in no small part to Japan’s high suicide rate), and the old “pick yerself up by yer bootstraps, by cracky!” attitude is losing traction. It’s still pretty entrenched, though.
Although it would appear as if I’m trying to collect them like postage stamps, depression is the one major psychiatric diagnosis I’ve never been officially tagged with. So no, never been treated or mistreated for depression.
ETA: If the Lenox Hill emergency room that the transit cops hauled me off to for walking the service walkway between two elevated train stops circa 1994 had had their way, (cops had written up that I had been walking on the tracks, hello?) this might be a different story.
Currently being treated for depression and anxiety with meds.
You know what isn’t fun? Having both at the same time. When you’re depressed, you just want to laze around and not think. But then the anxiety kicks in, and you can’t sit still, and you’re pacing the floor for hours at a time while feeling so negative that the situation can ever be fixed.
IAMNAP, but I agree that I was using the vernacular, yes. However, I know multiple people who are depressed but not Depressed and who still get medicated.
You know when people say “treated for depression” in my case at least I just don’t know what they are talking about. I am depressed for reasons, things that make me tremendously sad and full of despair I just can’t see how drugs or therapy can change that. I wish they could go into my mind and flip the little switches so I stop caring about the things that make my life sad.
Drugs or therapy can’t take away the things you are sad about. Drugs and therapy might be able to help you gain some control over your thoughts and find some joy in life despite the sad things.
Sadness about real situations can be useful if it inspires you to do something about them. Sadness about situations you can’t change – the death of a loved one, for example – is completely normal.
The kind of depression I’ve experienced is quite different. It’s going outside on a beautiful sunny day and seeing a fawn browsing in the grass surrounded by bluebirds and rainbows and you have no reaction. Then you remember that this sort of thing used to make you happy, knowing intellectually that it is beautiful, and still not caring. Then you go inside and pull the covers over your head and weep.
Even people with endogenous depression (non-situational) can think their sadness is rational. Physical flaws that never bothered them before suddenly seem monstrous. Normal feelings of loneliness become magnified and sources of utter hopelessness. Or they’ll ruminate over war and death and crime and aborted fetuses and homelessness and the missing children on the milk cartons. These are all emotionally provocative and it’s normal to feel sadness about them, but when thinking about these things blots out the good things in life, then there’s a problem. And that’s when treatment can step in and help.
Personally, at my lowest point of depression, I had a pretty damn good reason for feeling hopeless. Treatment hasn’t made me forget anything and sometimes the hopeless feeling comes back. But at least now I have some strategies for handling that feeling and redirecting my thoughts to other things. It is possible to think, “Yeah, that sure does suck!” and then, in the next breath, think, “Wonder what’s good on TV?”
I was prescribed Elavil a few years ago. I took it for three months and felt much better. What was happening was all the terrible memories started flowing through my mind, I was waking up in horror. I would hit a certain spot on the road and tears would flood down - I would realize my face was wet. I was telling people I had a cold. A lot of things I thought I’d dealt with reared their ugly heads and things I’d never remembered before came at me like videos, playing over and over.
The doctor said I wasn’t depressed exactly, more PTSD and although Elavil can be used for depression what it does is block the nerve endings and stops the bad stuff from clattering through. It took the edge of it. I felt so much better and if that crap ever starts again I’m going back for more.
I’ve felt depressed in the normal way - sad event, feel sad, get over it and I remember thinking it’s a lucky thing I’ve got something to feel sad about, how terrible is depression for people who have to fight that shit all the time.
I’ve been in and out of what I call an “Emo Teen Deep Blue Funk Phase” since about my senior year of college (where I found myself semi-seriously considering death if not outright suicide, wanted to quit school for at least a year if not forever, and calling home to my parents crying about how I couldn’t handle the pressure and etcetera). I briefly talked to a therapist back then, but in addition to the general stigma against talking to psychiatrists I was also very influenced by well-meaning but not very bright folks who advised me to just pray my little heart out.
Right now I’m hoping to see a counselor who was recommended by my youth pastor, but said counselor isn’t available until January.
Anybody know any good Christian counseling people? Not that I think all secular psychiatrists are worthless, but since I’m so used to couching all of my statements with regard to my relationship with God, I’d like to be able to talk to someone of the same general wavelength. I’m also open to other suggestions, but I’d much rather prefer to be able to discuss finer theological points with someone.
I have never been treated for depression of any sort. I get depressed as i’m sure most people do but i’m quite good at figuring out why I am depressed and what I can do about it. Depressed about being overweight - start dieting and exercising (an ongoing project). Depressed about money - consider changing jobs/career path. In my case the causes of my depression are usually things that I can actively control so it’s easy to snap myself out of it by thinking ‘you have no right to be depressed over something you can change but choose not to’. Of course this doesn’t work for everyone, other people have far worse problems than I do and aren’t able to improve the situation themselves, in these cases I think it is a positive thing to realise you have a problem and to seek help for it.
I am currently being treated for depression that has been severely inflamed by my late diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome (or at least something autistic-related).
I have been on bunches of SSRI type drugs, along with some more bipolar focused things, all without much benefit. In the past year though I have found significant improvement with Adderall. I’m quite dependent on it now: I generally don’t want to get out of bed until after at least an hour has passed from taking my morning dose and I feel much worse when I forget to take my afternoon dose. It is, however, quite an improvement compared to staying in bed 12 or more hours and feeling consistently awful. Before I was on it I also ate practically nothing, never feeling hungry, and lost a non-trivial amount of weight. Given that amphetamines are sometimes used as weight-loss aids, the hunger I feel says to me that the medication is working in clearing up the depression. I’ll probably have to take it the rest of my life though, or at least a very long time.
I have weekly appointments with a therapist which mainly involves figuring out ways to deal with my Asperger’s. Significant time is spent analyzing memories throughout my life of situations where I felt completely confused about how to act socially, and learning what to do if those situations return. My therapist says I have been making great progress, but I really don’t feel it; depression really leaves one blind to any non-mood improvements in condition.