Is Something Wrong With Me?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Yep, concur it sounds just like depression. I had a wee bout (maybe a year or so) with it junior year of college, and a little relapse about seven or eight years ago, and your description fits it to a tee. What I personally did to get out of it was to force myself to go out, be social, and do things that I didn’t really feel like doing. For whatever reason, that helped.

Another thing, since you mention wanting to travel and work abroad, the first time depression happened to me (and the most significant time–the bottom fell out of my grades and I got put on academic probation), I somehow knew that a complete change of scenery for me was going to do the trick. I darted off to work and volunteer in Europe for nine months, and came back a completely reenergized man. For some reason, being completely independent in a foreign country where I knew no one and having to rely on myself to travel, find work, etc., totally re-energized me and imbued me with confidence.

But that’s what worked for me. It may not work for you but, since you mention it in the OP, I do want to extend to you my experience. I probably should have seen a psychiatrist, but it never occurred to me that I was depressed. I just thought I was bored. Looking back at it, it was certainly some form of depression. I went to a psychiatrist a few months after I returned, because I feared slipping back (I had a romantic set-back and I couldn’t afford to spiral in to the same pattern as last time). She put me on Prozac for two months, confirmed my suspicions about my previous depression, but I eventually just weaned myself of the meds (with her approval.) Seems like either it was a false alarm the second time around, or the minimal amount of Prozac did the trick.

22

It may be that you weren’t feeling as great as you once did even before things started going sideways and the emotional toll of various hardships brought a lot of things to the surface.

While depression is one possibility, there is also a less severe form called dysthymia. That’s one of the problems I have and it is a bitch since I have been on every antidepressant in the pharmacopoeia, and they have all done precisely squat. In some cases, they have actually made the lack of energy and motivation much, much worse.

Nutritional supplements seem to help, but I have still not been able to pin down exactly which combination will work consistently. I would start by trying a good multivitamin together with a B-complex supplement. Try to find one that is balanced and doesn’t just toss in 50 or 100mg of every b-vitamin. I can recommend a few if you’re interested.

Exercise will also help as long as you have at least some desire to do it. That means picking something that you will enjoy to at least some extent.

If none of that helps, I would see a psychiatrist, not a GP/PCP. They can make a much more accurate diagnosis and will be more likely to pick a med or combination of meds that will actually help.

Good luck. I know how it feels.

23

I really don’t think taking the medical approach first is a good idea. It’s been proven that, although there is a chemical imbalance in the brain for depression, non-medical treatments can treat that imbalance if it’s not too bad. And studies show that antidepressants actually barely (if at all) work better than placebo on lower levels of depression (and dysthymia).

Furthermore, it doesn’t help that most doctors are really slow to realize that the serotonin deficiency paradigm is not accurate for depression. For one thing, the second you absorb the antidepressants, your serotonin levels go up. But it takes weeks if not months for it to work on the depression. Furthermore, drugs that actually decrease serotonin levels have been shown to work on depression, and to work faster. One hypothesis is that SSRIs and serotonergic drugs give you too much serotonin, so your body down regulates the receptors until you are using a lower amount. Another is that the Noradrenaline and Dopamine effects, while small, are more significant.

In other words, I’d suggest going to a psychologist, who can try to treat you. If you need medicine, they’ll recommend you to a psychiatrist. If you aren’t really depressed, they can recommend a lower level therapist.

24

Well… speaking from personal experience.

If you are a mainly (though not exclusively) solitary type personality it’s easy to get to place where you are comfortable in a relatively lethargic minimum energy state. This works on one level because it enables you to avoid stressors, but is extremely dysfunctional on another level in that stressors are often necessary to keep people functioning in a civilized fashion, and to maintain their health, and also to keep their finances in order.

A hermit like collapse to this “just getting by” state is very common if you do not have friends, family or other people regularly depending on you for critical necessities.

In the end the only way to really get out of it is (to be honest) an act of pure will. You must decide that spending the majority of your free time sitting on your ass in relative social isolation is not where you want to be. If you cannot bolt this determination on the frontal lobe of your brain as something you want to achieve, and be willing to engage stressors to achieve that goal, no amount of medicine or therapy is going to save you.

Exercise works so well in helping people to achieve this end because it is an accessible ladder of structure and accomplishment you can build on. Being fit does change your brain chemistry for the better, but the operational task structure that regular exercise provides is just as important.

25

The thing about therapy is that it’s something you can usually motivate yourself to do once, and then have someone help you figure out how to motivate yourself to continue to get better. It is true that an insufficiently motivated person will not do well in therapy.

One thing that helps is separating out the fact that although you don’t feel like doing anything, you do want to be happy.

And, yes, if excercizing will get you more motivation and is easier to try, then of course do that. For me, therapy was the easier to motivate myself towards.

26

This may help,
But talk to a GP.

27

Ryan_Liam, don’t you know that exercise solves all of life’s problems? :rolleyes:

I have diagnosed clinical depression, and am seeing a psychiatrist and a therapist. My mood can change on an hourly basis. Yesterday, I wanted to kill myself (but didn’t because I would hurt my parents and girlfriend, and I’m a coward), but by the time I went to bed, I just felt bored with life. Lately, I have been feeling like you’re feeling for at least 10 hours of every day.

I’ve been exercising 3x per week for about 8 months now. I’ve tried walking, jogging, basketball, racquetball, treadmill, weights, elliptical, stairmaster, BodyPump, cycling, etc. I hate them all. I actually feel physically worse after exercising, because it adds to my profound pall of guilt about not working on something 24/7. Having said that, I am thinner than I used to be, which sometimes makes me feel better about myself.

Let me also say that I envy you a bit, Ryan_Liam. Actually, I envy everyone who hasn’t chosen the academic path. Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but it seems like you have one of those jobs that you can leave behind at work when you go home. You can say “I’ve done this, this, and this. There is nothing more I need to do. I’m going home.” Academics don’t get to feel that way, as far as I can tell. Even when you’ve worked on everything that day, there is always pressure to start another paper. Why not two others? Why not 10? And, as a top researcher in the field at my school just told me two days ago, “One of the benefits of the academic lifestyle is that you work from home.” Another one said, “People say I don’t have a life. Well, this [academics] *is *my life.”

Every moment you’re not working on papers, this pall of guilt beats you down about it. “You’re wasting time helping that student. You should be working on papers.” “Don’t go out tonight. You should be working on papers.” “Teach that class? No, you need time to work on papers.” The prospect of living another 60 years with this voice has led me to question continued existence many times.

I don’t know the whole of your situation, but if my assessment is right, I would love to have your “rut” job with no guilt attached to it.