Hi all,
I’m a long-cycling clinical depressive, medicated twice, but currently med-free for 3 years.
I’d love to hear stories about how others have learned to deal with it. As I have become more aware of the warning signs of a downward swing, I have been more able to head it off with various techniques-vigorous physical exercise is important for me-and have become more adept at “surfing” it.
I sometimes find myself having theoretical conversations and displaying various facial expressions. This isn’t due so much to having voices in my head as to being prepared for various scenarios that might arise. Sounds odd to some of you, I know, but I like to be prepared for various things that might present themselves, such as an attractive, single female etc.
I’ve learned how to get rid of anger, frutration etc since playing baseball. I have a football and various soccer balls to use now. And a yard to run in.
I sound like a pet . . .
Hi. I was diagnosed as Asperger’s syndrome autistic, but I think it’s a crock of shit. Also, I may be depressive but I haven’t had it officialized yet because I think they would just try to medicate me. However, I’ve made an appointment for therapy.
No meds for two years, been lurking at SD since March
Hi! ::waves enthusiastically at natural constituency::
Paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur here. Not doing any psych drugs either, this is the real, unmodified me.
I used to have a t-shirt: “The world is held together by nuts under tension / Mental Patients’ Liberation Front”
Of course I am not really “mentally ill” because mental illness doesn’t exist. It is a plot, a conspiracy between the psychiatric establishment and the pharmaceutical industry in conjunction with Big Brotherly attempts to label and control any inconvenient or disruptive feeling, thought or behavior. They are out to get us. They are coming to take us away.
Oh, lookit, that guy over there thinks I’m kidding, that I’m having some flavor of fun at your expense! Nope…entirely serious and I even have my own webby site:
http://members.aol.com/ahunter3
On a less, um, manic and more empathic note…please accept my best wishes for the strength and perseverance to get through whatever you have to get through, internal or external. It sounds cute to say that the world is held together by nuts under tension but more accurate to say that the world is in a crisis state, perhaps an in-between state in the midst of changing from what used to fit to what may again fit but currently doesn’t fit its human inhabitants very well. Do not blame yourself. I don’t really think it is fit for human habitation. I think you have sensed how maybe it could be better and different, and the pain and evil startled and surprised you.
Give yourself credit for the ways in which you are functional and pragmatic and efficient within your environment. Laugh a little at the discovery that sometimes, maybe often enough, you are actually FUNCTIONAL. And at the same time, don’t overrate the category. Functional enough to get by is enough. Considering where your head is at, you do well to have your feet on the ground often enough to be on the path part of the time, yes??
Feel things, but be fallible. You can never know that you are not crazy. They can’t either, really, even the ones without different thoughts and experiences. But always be brave enough to know you could be. And feel anyway. Sometimes that which is odd and peculiar and unlikely withstands very nicely the question of “are you crazy”.
And don’t be alone with it; there’s not only a movement, there are pluralities of movements of mental patients and madfolk and mental health service consumers and psychiatric inmate liberationists and schizzy libbers and whatnot. And you’ll never feel the same about it after you’ve gone to your first NARPA convention, trust me!!!
tiggeril here, a former depressive/sufferer of anorexia nervosa and bulimia.
Never had meds, but doing a lot better now.
I’m a bit, well, off. I’m usually as stable as the average, but sometimes I get depressed. Kind of like being stuck in a slow, waking nightmare. Just…can’t…get…up. Can’t get excited over anything, can’t really feel anything, either. I (rarely) get suicidal during those periods, but I’ve never been able to do anything about those thougts other than staring at the gun case and feeling like crap. Other times, I can be in a mood I can’t really describe as up, just hyper. I feel everything too much. Like there was some ‘cushion’ between me and reality that isn’t there now, and now I’m feeling things as they really are. It isn’t a good feeling. It makes me so hyper I can barely manage simple reading. I’m usually a very good reader, with enough attention span to read for hours on end. In my hyper mood, however, I’m so energetic I can barely sit still and focus long enough to read a few paragraphs. I’m like a hummingbird, but a hummingbird oddly obsessed with mechanical processes. I might sit and just vibrate with odd semi-controlled muscle twitches at the thought of something complex and mechanical’s workings. Can’t keep my mind on anything else. I end up with headaches during an up mood, and photophobia because of those headaches, and a very high sensitvity to everything. I’m normally sensitive to touch, loud sound, and certain noises. During an up mood, I’m sensitive times ten. I either go outside for a long walk or I explode with anger and energy. Speaking of anger, I can either laugh you off or display a pathologically short fuse. I’ve been known to work up some very awful physical tantrums over relatively minor things. I have not been that bad in a while, though. The downs have all but stopped, and the ups have gotten more manageable. My anger isn’t as bad as it was, but I’m still hypersensitive over some things. And most of the time I’m completely fine.
Matt, contrary to what some people in the Pit think, the modern medication for depression is not “happy pills” and shouldn’t leave you doped up (pause for a disappointed “Awwww” from the “just say yes” generation).
Have you ever had a TV or radio that needed contact cleaner
sprayed on its tuner so you could tune in stations better? In a way, that’s how the new stuff works, whether it is Paxil or Prozac or any of the others. It improves the connection between your brain cells. Chemical signals, which are how the electrical signals pass from cell to cell, go through more completely so there is less degradation of the signal. It does not change your personality. Your real personality comes through because you can think clearer. These are truly miracle drugs.
Conventional therapy helps, too. I found, however, that I quickly got too boring for my therapist once I had my Prozac level close to correct. Many of my problems just vanished because they had only existed in my head. Others vanished because I was a more reasonable person to live or work with. I went from being an paranoid, anti-social psycho with a short fuse to the paranoid, anti-social psycho with a somewhat-longer fuse you now know. Honestly, people have started to come to me as a resource of patience and understanding. From our conversations you can grasp just how screwed up THEY are!
Please be ope-minded about medication. If it’s right for you it can be an enormous help. And remember that a side effect of Prozac is “unusual orgasms.” For me these turned out to be incredibly intense. And a side effect of the other pill I take (Trazedone, to help me sleep) is “prolonged and painful erections.” I have experienced the prolonged part, and isn’t pain in the mind of the person experiencing it? (heheheh)
I do not want to alter my moods with any chemicals other than coffee, tea, chocolate, and marijuana. If I’m depressed, I insist on getting to the emotional roots of that depression, rather than masking it with drugs.
Depression, in my experience, is a sign that I am doing something in my life that’s not right for me. The last time it had to do with my relationship with my roommate; the time before that, with my relationship with my boyfriend; and previous times, with my relationship with my parents. If I had tried to get rid of the depression with medication, I would probably still be relying on it now to hide unresolved troubles, rather than have changed my life as required by removing the stressors.
For me, and I’m convinced for a good deal of the staggering number of people who are now taking antidepressants, dealing with depression with drugs rather than emotional work would be like realizing you are suffering from fatigue, but trying to combat it by constantly drinking coffee without ever going to sleep.
Ayesha the lovely here,
I’ve been on meds for depression and angity (sp wrong I know, sorry) disorder for two years.
I like me much better on the meds. So does everyone else.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder here, usually pretty mild. Occassionally life gets the better of me and stress/anxiety will make me physically ill, but most of the time, it just makes me feel like a bow-string that’s been stretched farther than maybe it should…but not yet ready to snap. Tried Celexa, but it had a few side-effects I didn’t like. Currently taking Serzone. (Both are SSRI’s for those of you who know what I’m talking about. I’m avoiding MAOI’s like the plague.)
:waving to everyone:
Hey all, I suddenly don’t feel so alone. That is a great thing.
Clinical depression here, still on meds, but trying to get off. Former anorexic. (nice to be able to say former now)
Finally finding people in my life who understand and am feeling so much better.
hugs to everyone
realidad
Chalk me up to the depressives. Been this way since I was about 13. We’re the life of the party!
Mega, have you gone to a neurologist? Temporal brain seizures can cause sufferors to hear different noises and have visions. I mention this only because there may be a correlation between temporal seizures and migranes. Oliver Sack’s “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat,” is a good, readable book that deals a lot with temporal wierdness. If you get migranes, it may be worth it to get that checked out.
matt_mcl, I totally agree with you about overmedication. But clinical depression is an organic disorder, not one caused by situtations. The situation can aggrivate the depression, but it doesn’t cause it. EVERYONE gets depressed sometimes, breakups, deaths and the like. For a clinically depressive person, they just don’t get better without help, and they fall into a deep depression without any real reason. It’s not that you listen to a lot of Alanis Morrisette, it’s that you don’t get out of bed. You don’t eat. You don’t DO anything. And you stay that way. That’s the difference between clinical and situational. And the chemicals you mentioned are pretty intense as far as neurochemicals go, caffeine can have WAY more negative effects than prescribed drugs.
Derleth, have you talked to your doctor about your symptoms? It doesn’t have to be like that.
Alright, I’m stopping now. Way to come out, kids! 
Does Satyrism count?
If not, chalk me up for Manic Depressive tendencies. Hooray! Boo Hoo!
Silver_Fire and Ahunter3 I will be watching both of you from now on. 
heheheheh
I go back and forth with bouts of depression and also like the secret cutting thing. 
I haven’t done it too recently.
HUGS!
Sqrl
I’m sure that many cases of clinical depression emerge without cause. Then again, it could be argued that ALL cases of depression - or indeed, all moods - are “organic disorders”, since they are all associated with the presence or absence of certain chemicals in the brain. If we discovered a drug that could reduce phenylethylamine levels in the brain, would love become an organic disorder? It’s certainly a disruption in the normal cycle of things in the brain.
Be that as it may, as I say I’m sure that there are a lot of clinically depressed people walking around. I’m also sure that there are a lot more people than we are led to believe who are situationally depressed but treated as though it were clinical simply because they aren’t getting to the emotional roots of their condition.
In this society, if a rich computer programmer gets “clinically” depressed, she is inclined to dismiss her profession (although she may consider the facts of her actual job, such as stress) to be a factor. If what she really wanted to be was a musician, she is reinforced to believe that she made the right career choice because she never would have made as much money as a musician, which isn’t a “real job” anyway. She doesn’t consider it, it isn’t brought up, and if it should be that that is in fact what is stressing her, she may go on for a long time, taking Prozac and never dealing with her issues, cloaked behind a medicated clinical depression.
It’s pleasant to believe that psychiatrists can tell between these two types of depression, but psychiatrical assessment is an art, not a science. This is fine, but when you start drugging people on the basis of an art, you are imposing true-false answers on an essay question.
This is just one example. Our society, which is structured, corporatist, and rationalist, is devoted in large part to lying to ourselves about our needs and trying to deal with them in ways other than actually dealing with them. When the system is at fault, we are encouraged to alter ourselves individually rather than altering the system or our place in it. And so we end up with 17 million Americans (nearly 6% of the population) on Prozac, not counting other antidepressants as well.
BTW, I don’t listen to Alanis Morrisette (I prefer Tori Amos and the Pet Shop Boys when depressed), but I don’t need to be told what depression is like because I’ve been there - most recently about two weeks ago. I lost my appetite, slept for eighteen hours a day, spent the rest of the time in front of the computer playing Snood, lost my sex drive, and occasionally collapsed into a manic crying jag. And of course, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, I thought it must be clinical, I wanted to take Prozac.
And then, when I moved away from my roommate, it went away. He was stressing me out.
BTW, I don’t use caffeine, theophylline, theobromine, or cannabis when depressed; in fact, I cut all but the chocolate out so that my sleep schedules can normalize.
Depression here. After ten years of being generally unhappy and mean, and occasionally taking to bed for a few weeks, I went to the doctor (GP), who put me on Paxil. I was glad to know that the plan was to take meds for a few months, along with cognitive therapy (something I had investigated beforehand, and suggested to the doctor), and then get off them. The Paxil made me feel much better and reduced my appetite, which was nice because I spent ten years self-medicating with food, and have the body to prove it.
But I had to go off Paxil because of intolerable side effects, and let me tell you the withdrawal was hellish, and the doctor was no help at all. She wanted to switch me directly to Serzone without any “no-med” time in between - no thanks! After realizing that doctors, researchers, drug companies, and the FDA aren’t terribly sure what happens if you take the drugs long term, or what happens when you discontinue the meds, I have opted to go without and continue cognitive therapy, while monitoring my mood carefully. If I go downhill, I’ll try the Serzone, but I really want to avoid that withdrawal experience again if I can avoid it.
I also want to put in my two cents regarding depression in general. I think there should be classes in school to teach you how to recognize potential mental health problems and correct them. The human mind is a very weird thing, with a confusing mix of logical thought and emotion, and just because you’re born with one doesn’t mean you automatically know how to navigate it. I spent my whole life letting cognitive distortions and negative emotions feed each other in a Catch-22, making me ever more withdrawn, hypercritical, and joyless. Now I have to learn how to undo all that. I’m sure it would have been easier to stop it from happening in the first place, but no one ever taught me how.
Anyway, thanks for starting this thread oldscratch. It’s a small step away from the stigma of mental illness.
I have a problem with choclate syrup and sex. I can’t get enough.
No Ma’am, I have not. I don’t get headaches much, nevermind migraines, and I don’t know if this makes a difference at all, but what I hear is always the same. Has been since I was little…
But I’ll certaily keep that info in mind, much appreciated, Swiddles.
Word. matt, I agree that situations can have a contributing influence even in clinical depression. I have been a far spunkier little monkey since I failed out of school (strangely enough). Understand, though, that even by that point my head was miles away from where I’d been at my worst, and already heading back into the realm of Okay.
Speaking only for myself, I was in no shape to even begin the process of putting myself back together when I went on Prozac. After a few weeks of taking it in horse doctor’s doses, I recall distinctly that I had a good day. Not remarkable in itself, I suppose, but I had pretty much forgotten what that was like. Once I was on a reasonably even keel again, I could start relearning how to be me, and after a year and a half or so was able to go off the medication. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, there are things I don’t like about Prozac but I understand that at the time, it was necessary. Are meds seen as an easy solution by doctors, and HMOs who don’t want to pay for ongoing therapy? Maybe. Even probably. But if taking 20 milligrams of sunshine in the morning is what makes your life bearable, then that’s what you do.