marf Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 you'll know if you are clinically depressed. its like being dead. do you know? I know from experience that my friend had committed suicide. I remember talking to him a few months before about depression...he said he was depressed but "everyone else was..so whats the point of bitching".....sounds like he was clinically depressed but was not self-aware about his situation...I must respectfully disagree with a clinically depressed person "knowing" how serious it is. Sounds like he knew. Im sorry about your friend. im sorry you couldn't help. I think it takes family members to really help. friends can only do so much. It gets messy. Friends tend to keep a distance. even the best ones. Family is what has been there for me in the really bad times But some people dont have family. Or a good one. Its important to know who to turn to. I made the mistake of telling my doctor I was suicidal and she had me carted off to a state run mental ward full of criminals trying to get out of prison. It was a fucking nightmare. I had to get the strength to fake my way out of that situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boo Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 also, he might have been saying what he wanted to think (but didn't). but yeah, i agree with what you're saying. denial is part of depression. in a way, you kind of agree with Marf, he seems to be bothered that The Pod is so aware of his depression, or isn't trying to ignore it (er, i don't think that means the pod isn't actually depressed though). i know he said "you'll know if you are clinically depressed".. but i reckon he meant you won't say "i'm pretty sure i'm depressed" if you're depressed. edit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oyster Posted December 11, 2011 Author Share Posted December 11, 2011 I'm very uninterested in debating who's more depressed than who, or how legitimate my depression is. I'd say I'm in a general state of moderate depression. However the very low lows do come, often, and when they do, I can't imagine how a person could ever feel worse. Call it hyperbole or what you will, but that's a very genuine sentiment Since I obviously can't share the experience with you, I guess you'll just have to take me at my word. Well this is a good start for that stand up comedy career. Funnily enough, my sense of humor has been fairly intact throughout this thing. I still find humor from time to time, and I do find temporary relief in joking with others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SR4 Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 im certainly not seeking proof, Pod. If someone says they are depressed, I take it at face value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boo Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 i reckon the pod is depressed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest abusivegeorge Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Hey Pod, I was on anti-depressants for about 3 years. They worked very well, I was prescribed Amitriptyline. I started off on 30mg a night and pushed it up to 50 after about one year. What they done for me was they gave me the ability to sleep at night, and I'm being 100% serious when I say that pretty much solved my depression. For some reason the ability to get a good nights sleep alowed me to see everything much clearer. Previously, I could not sleep with depression, everything just seemed so down, even when I was in the good and I knew it I would find some way to look at the negatives, I was never satisfied. When taking the tablet before bed, I would be so drowsy two hours later that I would start to fall asleep in the front of the computer so I had only one choice, to get into bed and pass out. Alleviating the next 8 hours of worry and thought, thus waking up with a clear and fresh head. Fantastic, would definetly recommend them, good luck mate. I had other processes to help me throughout the day, so perhaps wasn't just as simple as poping the tab and sleeping but it definetly helped me more than anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marf Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 http://psychcentral.com/depquiz.htm Do your research. Its important to know what meds are out there. What you think might help you so you can have a dialog with a doctor. I did reading and knew that benzos would help me get off drinking cause I was trying to suppress anxiety. They worked. Just use the meds to get the strength to get better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 I started having suicidal thoughts both times I took anti-depressants. So be weary. Yeah, this, plus sweaty palms, plus it completely decimated my already rather-lethargic sex drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
essines Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Coming to terms with depression isn't easy. took a lot of time and people telling me/helping me along to finally reach out. And support structure is fucking amazing. you need it. dealing with severe anxiety/depression i felt so very alone until i talked about it with folks. also kaen is a sage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J3FF3R00 Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Hey pod. I'm sorry to hear your feeling down. When I was 18, I felt hopelessly depressed. Utterly alone, isolated and mistrusting of just about everything. I was also paranoid. At the time, anti-depressants weren't as widely used as they are now. I just wanted to let you know that I was in your shoes and I made it through an that I'm glad I did. I had a couple friends that took their own lives. I've missed them a lot. They were great people who never really knew how much people cared about them. Life can be really hard at times, but I'm glad I made it through my teens (I never thought I would) to see a lot of the things I've seen in my life, since. I can't say anything about antidepressants, unfortunately. I just wanted to give you a virtual high five. On a side note, sometimes when I feel depressed these days, exercise actually makes a big difference in my mood. Recent studies show it can make a huge difference for depressed people to exercise to improve their mood. Im not saying it is ultimately a solution, but you might want to go for a good long jog, hike or bike ride once a day, of you don't do that sort of thing already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boo Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 you're a cool old dufe, jefferoo *dude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCM Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 don't want to get all sledgehammer, but you're 18 - don't fucking start on anti-depressants, you don't need them at such a young age. you've got so much time to grow and do things with your life pod....you will feel better in time. plus, maybe you're just realising that life pretty much sucks to a large degree - welcome to the real world mate...lol only gets worse from here. (null) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAXIMUS MISCHIEF Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 hey pod come on buddy dont be sad its ok :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marf Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 i never had the energy to exercise when i was depressed. i could hardly put on a shirt you've got so much time to grow and do things with your life pod....you will feel better in time. plus, maybe you're just realising that life pretty much sucks to a large degree - that should cheer him up (even though, i agree, other people's lives look pretty good. so maybe there is hope) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugene Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 http://psychcentral.com/depquiz.htm Do your research. Its important to know what meds are out there. What you think might help you so you can have a dialog with a doctor. I did reading and knew that benzos would help me get off drinking cause I was trying to suppress anxiety. They worked. Just use the meds to get the strength to get better. so i scored 32 on this thing - "Mild to moderate depression". does it mean i need to seek professional help ? because it doesn't seem so to me, i can sort of track the roots of my mood. i don't feel like i should be gobbling meds for that, though it does inhibit me in some ways. am i in denial ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCM Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 he doesn't need cheering up for fuck's sake. he's an adolescent - you're supposed to be all moody and depressed and hate everything. sheesh, everyone's so keen to reach straight for the pills and declare they have some kind of "problem" these days. nothing wrong with you pod, just beat off more and start smoking weed again, you'll be fine. (null) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foresense Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 depression can be a good thing if you realise you are not to blame.. just the state of the world that is thoroughly depressing, having some sort of grip on the situation is aliviating to me. to have an idea what is going on. read some interesting books, most notably Ishmael series by Daniel Quinn.. not everyone will like that stuff, but it's an interesting point of view that rhymes well with how I feel about it. suicidaly depressed people are so common place in all layers of society, and we still blame ourselves for all the little thing.. all these mental illnesses, I dont know where to begin... I had myself diagnosed with teh adhd shortly after my move to the city, even though I am a calm man.. just had a rough period for a while and when I started looking into what it could be I started seeing the patterns of my own failing in these mental profiles.. for a short while I took ritalin, which was incredibly dull... made me into a robot... most depressing period in my life. having lived through that, I am pretty much a calm dude again, I'm working to get out of life what I want to get out of it, not feeling like I am being lived so much anymore... also, I agree, hikes are great, do them almost daily, making money.. and get away from that computer/tv for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goDel Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Been reading up on an interesting book lately: The Emperor's New Drug. It's basically about research about the (non)effectiveness of anti-depressants. Conclusion: anti-depressants are as effective as active placebo's (active in the sense that they have the same/similar side-effects as anti-depressants. The most fucked up thing is that the most important theory behind the effectiveness of anti-depressants is completely unfounded. The theory is supposed to be that depression is 'caused' by a lack of certain chemicals in your brain. Well, if that were the case, one could argue that headaches are caused by a lack of paracetamol as well. A large part of the book is about how it could be that although medical research is heavily regulated, it is still possible to be potentially completely rubbish. Face it. If they work, it's a placebo thing. So you might want to consider some cheaper alternatives. http://www.amazon.co...23563382&sr=8-1 Not so fast. This has become a popular conclusion but most of the studies have methodological errors. It's important to look at meta-analyses. This is where many studies that may be studying different independent and dependent variables are aggregated statistically to find larger trends or findings. A really good meta-analysis of antidepressants (sorry chen, can't find it at the mo) found that drugs alone account for between 21-24% of the variance in outcomes of depressed participants. This is well beyond placebo effect and seems to square with most anecdotal evidence that "drugs helped, but not enough". The remaining (huge) portion of the variance had to be chalked up to basically "other" so it really comes back to Lumpenprol. Do anything--talk to someone, exercise, engage socially even if you're not feeling it, etc--in conjunction with medicine and you will see greater improvement. But, this leads me to: You're pointing to meta-analyses which is just what the author of the book had been doing for years. This is not anecdotal. The meta-analyses clearly show that the added effect of antidepressants has been consistently the result of either using non-active placebo's as a control group, or cherry picking results. It is quite common to not publish the undesired results in the medical research community. You might want to read up on the book (and the research behind it) first before you put it aside as just another study. Here, you might want to read up on this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irving-kirsch-phd/antidepressants-the-emper_b_442205.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chim Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 maybe you're just realising that life pretty much sucks to a large degree - welcome to the real world mate...lol only gets worse from here. Maybe that's what all this is about. I have been through a few periods with talking to the docs and trying to figure out what the fuck my problem is, but it never really amounted to much because a big chunk of these things are incommunicable, and the beast of institutionalized psychiatry is difficult to deal with, there's a lot of pressure in those halls. Mostly because of the weird paradox of seeking help/treatment, in that you feel like the world is wrong but the world is telling you you are wrong. You can't really figure it out yourself, and you're right there, and you're expected to accept others have a clearer view of you than you? Anyway, when I did that route at times I felt like it was a joke and I didn't need help, other times I felt I was so wrong that I didn't deserve help. Surely enough they diagnosed me with GAD and depression, this only really meant there were phrases for that weird thing my breathing did sometimes and the pressure in my chest, I tried a few cocktails but nothing worked, and I was too afraid to start demanding stronger drugs. The way I see it is that too many are too drugged by the elusive pursuits of living, pursuing the highs that nature gave us, to truly understand the consequences and nature of their actions, be it taking advantage of the less fortunate to sustain your lifestyle or willfully ignoring the rather twisted nature of your wants. But for some people there's a sensitiveness or awareness in their personality and the highs stop working and there's supposedly something wrong with you. Maybe it's a bit narcissistic to describe oneself in that way? Like someone else in this thread demonstrated, there is a common reaction during depression that maybe you're just a bit too sober, more aware than your animal brain is designed for, in the same way that one may be grossed out by the workings of the human body, anatomical pictures etc - the true picture is really not that good for you. But that is maybe the greatest taboo of all, and you tell yourself you're wrong and desperately cling on to the ride of life as it should be because of the sad fact that maybe that's all we have. I've always worshipped philosophy, understanding and nature as bigger and more important than myself, so when I saw that abyss I was naturally too fascinated to let go, simply for its power, and like nietzsche wrote the abyss stares back quite intently and consumes you in the process. So to me it's like, even though existing itself is at times unbearable, it is a natural reaction given human nature and not a clinical state to be treated. Life becomes vastly surreal when you lose that sense of order or meaning, but it only makes it painfully obvious that it always was that way - your perception is the only part of the equation that has changed. I've always felt like I was a little less depressed than one should be to deserve help, a little less insane to warrant talking about it. But the last year I realized not only was there something wrong with me when the simplest things trigger a storm of panicky reactions, but I feel like that terror has always been there, I've just lived a drugged, crazed state of looking at it in another way which is far less truthful in its perspective. It's natural for depressed people to recluse themselves, but sometimes I can't even watch TV or the computer, or even face the fact that there is an up and down. The heavy weight in my chest transmogrifies into an exaggerated parody of itself and I can't quite imagine why I should be expected to live with this. There's also a sense of self-disgust; why must I react this way and demand so much of myself and life? However, lately I've found Zen Meditation and it has helped me a lot. Something powerful happens when you run out of fucks to give and take yourself less seriously. I mean in that I can be in that terrible place but also function, because my awareness is not only somewhere else, it's something else and it's okay. So there's something interesting in that maybe you can go through that abyss and come out the other side, without having to resort to pitiful forms of self-chastizing therapy and drugs to bring you back to what Thoreau called a life of quiet desperation. I have always been afraid of making the wrong decisions, and this is aggravated when I realize that due to my newly developing outlook I'm not being cautious enough, but maybe through going through a period of existential crisis you can realize that all decisions are absolutely senseless and there is no need to be that hard on yourself. So in a roundabout kind of way that can help cure indecisiveness and fear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SR4 Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 wow i actually agree with chimera! nietzsche helped me through some dark times. there's a reason he's so well known. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chim Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 yeah. I would also recommend alan watts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kinski Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 Have you ever been put on Anti Depressants by a doctor? I've been rather depressed for at least 9 months now. I have essentially all the symptoms of major depression. I have been trying many things, several supplements (st johns wort, 5-HTP, Ginkgo Biloba, omega 3 fish oil ) , meditating , and exercising daily. They seems to be doing little to no good. Oddly enough, I notice directly after exercising my depressive symptoms and anxiety become noticeably exasperated. I have always been prone to extremes of mood, yes I am in my teen years so perhaps that is the explanation for that. However I have never been "depressed" before, meaning I have never been so down consistently for an extended period. I mean I guess I have felt shitty about shitty things but that's different. Today I finally confided in my pop about this depression. He is a kind old man and even told me about a time in his life where he was depressed. Of course he recommended I see a doctor. However , I know the only thing a doctor could do for me that I can't already do myself is prescribe me an antidepressant. had the same thing. by 21 i had such serious problems with everything that i had to quit any kind of school because i was so extremely afraid of everything. i got seroxat and fevarin, both helped my chemical ballance and imrpoved me greatly, but had a major con - i was unable to have sex. with is kinda ironic because it was prolly the only thing i had no problem doing. but yeah, doctors help, usually. i quit meds after the money ran out. but it kinda stays with you, like a skeleton in the closet. i'm a lot better now (im 24) but still very awkward and insecure. i go through phases when my low mood gives me literal physical pain and i'm unable to move without forcing myself to, sometimes for weeks. i quit drinking, drugs and meat for a few months earlier this year and it improved my mental state greatly, everyone should try that. but then i fell into it again and been drunk or stoned for my 6th month now, self-medicating myself in the worst way. don't be like me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sneaksta303 Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 If you had been doing lots of drugs previous to your depression, keep in mind that you need MONTHS of drug free behavior in order for your brain chemistry to level out a bit. If you were HEAVY into something (other than weed), it sometimes takes years for some to get back to "normal". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marf Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 he just needs to take a good shit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marf Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 the way i conquered my depression and anxiety was using mental chess on my brain. what ever was bothering me I had to check mate that shit. oh, this is bothering me? well, im going to have this reaction to it now. Im going to let it go and accept it. whatever it is. devise a coping strategy. meds just stabilize you to get on with this cognitive therapy. which i did all by myself without knowing what cog therapy was. too expensive. gen practitioners want to dole out meds and make you feel like a whiny pussy cause they are science geeks and can't relate to humans. id say going through the fire of depression has made me a stronger. more centered empathetic person. it opened my eyes more than any drug trip. although it was awful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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