depression

[Guest fiznuthian]

quality animal fat.

What is this? Butter? Lard? Where do you get it?

 

 

I had been in state of depression for most of my life.. social phobia and depression ruled my life pretty much. I can honestly say i did fucking nothing for 20 odd years.. video games, drugs, and being a recluse. Narrowing in on diet changed how I felt entirely.. Exercise had a role to play too, but the desire to exercise is lost eating a poor diet. I would and still do become lethargic and moody eating poorly.. so I do what I do and it makes me happy. I found from lots of self-experimentation what works for me. Basically any diet model that is metabolically efficient keeps me strong, healthy, and I never slow down.. I can keep active constantly.

 

I don't think ive changed much socially though, still very recluse like. But somehow I never get depressed anymore, my mood is the same every single day, and I find it very difficult to sit still for too long.. exercise comes naturally when you aren't shitting all over your mitochondria day in day out

 

But I can't say it would work for any of you.. Diet profoundly changed the way I feel about myself and the way I function. I've considered the possibility of placebo affect but it's been over a year, closer to two now, and not once since I started this way of life (eating really) have I felt depressed at all.

[Guest fiznuthian]

Those are all completely fair points. What 'kind' of depression someone has is at least partly a factor of their past history. I refuse to believe that most depressed people are born with it, even if people can be born with a predisposition toward it. So I am thinking of depressed people who can 'function' (in the way that a 'functional alcoholic' can), but who simply stop trying and get comfortable with the idea that they are 'a depressed person,' as if that excuses them from their obligations to others as a parent, friend, husband, son, or whatever else.

 

I'm with you and what you said.. What you described was so similar to the way i used to feel and have seen others act the same way.

It helped to change the way I talk to myself, though it took time.. Instead of "I am depressed" I would re-frame it as "I am experiencing depression" because acknowledging that "I am" felt like giving up.. Would that classify as learned helplessness? I'm probably off the mark here..

On some level depression felt narcissistic at times.. trying so hard to convince yourself that you're incapable of changing and that nothing will work, and that any attempts to change anything are futile.

 

It's so common to hear people say real depression is chemical imbalance (even heard this phrase from a psychiatrist I visited once!) yet I can't find any verification in scientific literature that this is actually true. In particular, serotonin is not a very well understood hormone, yet popular anti-depressants often act on serotonin receptors. There are review papers in well known journals disputing the pharmaceutical industry's stance on this. The "chemical imbalance" theory was mostly marketing it seems.

On some level though, almost anyone could acknowledge that depression and anxiety are abnormal neural states, but our brains are far more complex than just one or two neurotransmitters.

 

Interestingly, 90% of serotonin is found located in the gut.. Our intestines have a nervous system of their own, and it is in constant communication with our central nervous system. Neurons here tend to be motor, sensory, or relay neurons but is it possible they have an affect on our emotional states?

 

Just things to think about..

[Guest Franklin]

[drunk[ My dad has depression. It's vanity. It's an unwillingness to take your own shortcomings, and the inevitable shortcomings and imperfections of life -- their failure to live up to the perfectionistic image of it in your head -- as the truth. It's an unwillingness to accept that you don't live a perfect life and that people are going to have problems with you, and to see this as okay. It's an 'if I am not 100% loved by everyone else, then I quit' mentality. It's a cop-out. It's selfish. It's pathetic. It's embarrassing. It's a cheap-shot at life. It's being scared to go out of your comfort zone and catch poison ivy on your dick cause you're a pussy. But it's both your fault and not your fault. Because you know it's your problem, but you also can't help it and you're just stuck with it and you're fucked. But you're also a fucking asshole because get over yourself. But it also sucks for you and it's a shame. It sucks for everyone.

 

first, I'm sorry you've been having to deal with your dad in that condition encey. it truly sucks the life out of families sometimes.

 

I want you to try to think about depression a different way...

 

My professional specialty is anxiety disorders which kinda-sorta affects individuals in a similar way. My clients perceive the world much more threatening than normal individuals. When you ask them about the world they will usually confirm that they are frequently in danger and believe they need to constantly protect themselves. It is easy to see their disorder on an FMRI... the mid-brain is hyper-active and in a sense is taking normal perceptual information and attaching danger messages to it so that the rest of the body prepares for fleeing or fighting. The front part of our brain gets this information after all of this perception has taken place and then we are able to express it in a "rational way" and base decisions on it in the frontal lobe. They exclaim to me "but that car was coming AT me" where I know that it wasn't and that their mid-brain had essentially exaggerated the distance and threat the vehicle posed to us. The client expresses this belief AFTER having been in a way deceived by their own perceptual system.

 

Normal individuals might hear a fire alarm in a classroom and think "sweet, class will be short!" and keep processing information normally as they exit the building while an individual with an anxiety disorder may immediately start panicking and perceiving the world to be incredibly threatening--- other sounds they hear after the alarm may be perceived as breaking glass, crashing walls. Groups of other students exiting may be perceived to be crushing their way to get out of a building, hallways that used to appear short may suddenly look like long narrow dark passages. Basically the mid-brain can change the way the world appears to us.

 

Depression changes our perception of the world so it can seem more desperate, purposeless, cold, hard, and meaningless. It affects the way we rationalize the world and talk about it with our friends and family but these rationalizations are informed by deficient automatic processes in the mid-brain. Our expression of how we feel about the world is informed by deeper processes that are deficient in some way.

 

Vanity as we normally refer to it is a condition in which a normal individual holds vain beliefs. These beliefs are not informed by deep processes in the mid-brain but are basically surface levels ways we interpret the world--like philosophies basically but tinted of course by past experiences and reinforcing patterns. When these individuals talk about the way they look at the world in an FMRI machine we see normal patterns of brain activity in the limbic system, not what we would see in a major depressive individual.

 

Part of the problem with depressed people is that they are stuck with this dark, self-obsessed world-view due to biochemical abnormalities and sometimes no matter how much you reason with them you can't change them. That's because reasoning takes place in the frontal lobe and has little effect mid-brain processing. After a while these depressed people start to accept their abnormal view of the world and it becomes easy to think of them as lazy or pathetic or selfish or whatever. But we forget of course that the way they talk, think and remember things is affected by the way their mid-brain processes information. Over time they forget that they might have seen the world as a normal person does and basically stop fighting. This is perhaps where your frustration with your father comes in.

 

Has he tried depression meds? they are well-supported for treatment of severe depression and the results can be amazing. It's hard to express just how amazing the change can be but having gone through it myself it was a life-changing experience. I remember it hitting me one day after a few months on effexor that I was actually happy maybe since I was a kid or something. I dont even remember being that happy. My outlook changed, I was more outgoing. gone was the flat affect, and the self-obsession and persistent fatigue. And the weird thing was I felt more like myself... even though I was arguable somebody I had not known in a long long time.

 

anyway. hope this helps. and I hope you can maybe forgive him a bit for perhaps not being in as much control as you're positing he is/has been.

[Guest Glass Plate]

exercise was the cure for me.

[sweepstakes]

 

I had been in state of depression for most of my life.. social phobia and depression ruled my life pretty much. I can honestly say i did fucking nothing for 20 odd years.. video games, drugs, and being a recluse. Narrowing in on diet changed how I felt entirely.. Exercise had a role to play too, but the desire to exercise is lost eating a poor diet. I would and still do become lethargic and moody eating poorly.. so I do what I do and it makes me happy. I found from lots of self-experimentation what works for me. Basically any diet model that is metabolically efficient keeps me strong, healthy, and I never slow down.. I can keep active constantly.

 

I don't think ive changed much socially though, still very recluse like. But somehow I never get depressed anymore, my mood is the same every single day, and I find it very difficult to sit still for too long.. exercise comes naturally when you aren't shitting all over your mitochondria day in day out

 

But I can't say it would work for any of you.. Diet profoundly changed the way I feel about myself and the way I function. I've considered the possibility of placebo affect but it's been over a year, closer to two now, and not once since I started this way of life (eating really) have I felt depressed at all.

 

See, I think there is a lot of merit to this, and I can relate a lot to your previous situation, but I don't know what to do, really. When I was vegan 8 years ago I had a lot more energy and I felt great. The paleo idea is interesting to me, maybe it is healthier, but I feel like I need basically a list of stuff that is OK to eat and some ideas on where the F to find it, preferably some recipes. At least some really in-depth websites/forums that will spell it out for me. I guess that is a stupid thing to expect and that is probably coming from the impatience aspect of lethargy/anxiety/depression/etc. It does seem to require a lot of experimentation.

 

Anyway thanks for the tip on the Kerrygold. I've seen that in stores. Also I've got some grass-fed ground beef in my freezer that I bought yesterday... baby steps, right? Or not... lol. Who am I kidding, I don't know wtf I'm doing.

 

That is really cool that it's working so well for you, though. I hope to be at that level someday.

Edited September 24, 2012 by sweepstakes

[encey]

Thanks for the thoughtful posts, especially Franklin.

 

My dad has tried many many therapeutic and pharmacological approaches, to no avail. It's much easier in the therapy case to read it as someone not wanting to hear what they need to hear, and changing therapists when the fire gets too hot. I don't know what to think about the drugs. But knowing that he is someone who craves love, reinforcement, encouragement, attention, out of an unreasonable sense of insecurity and inferiority -- and I know this not only from being his son, but from being the same way myself, at least for most of my childhood and still deep in the fabric of my personality -- it makes it all to easy to see the 'depressed person' tag as another way to put oneself forward as someone deserving of special concern.

 

I recognize that this could be wrong and is unfair to many depressed people. And I'm probably being unclassy by airing my dirty laundry here. -- Don't drink and type! The other thing I should say is that a took a whole host of issues that range beyond depression problems and crammed them all into a rant with a single target, which is why I am coming off so unreasonably harsh and single-minded.

 

But the FMRI claims you make are definitely interesting and considerable. Questions that come to mind are: For the vain folks with normal mid-brain activity, couldn't their false beliefs result from some other kind of 'off' brain processing? And is the mid-brain functioning of depressed or anxious people simply a neurological given, or is this a pattern or habit of brain activity that can be reinforced and strengthened by constant thoughts of that very same type? It makes the direction of causation obscure to me. But this is not to deny that people's perceptions can be seriously distorted by underlying neurochemical processes.

 

 

<3, encey

[chim]

There will always be people who piggyback on their symptoms and blame it on their "depression", just as some people try to blame everything on their "schizophrenia" or "poverty".

 

What is incredibly frustrating is to keep seeing folks lump every person with a mental illness into that category of being weak and unwilling to face the facts. I have a friend who doesn't understand people who shut themselves in because of their depression, because you're supposed to fight it, right? What do you say to something like that? Someone who hasn't truly been thrown into the abyss of their own mind doesn't seem to have any real understanding of it.

 

Because here's the deal with depression as far as I'm concerned: it is completely without mercy. There is no sense of respect for the necessary clarity of perception to understand where and when you're going wrong; it just blinds you to such matters. There are few warning signs and they are mostly realized far too late. It's your own brain kicking you when you're down. And yes, it's pathetic. It's completely pointless. That's what's so fucked up about it. I've had periods where I've been completely unable to leave my apartment, and the idea of there being "collateral benefit" to something like that is a fucking joke.

 

Anyway, that's been a fun part of my adult life. What was important to realize was that I had this idea that my condition was an aberration, something unique, a one-off random thing. Then I looked back in my family tree and found out that most of the males in the back catalogue have killed themselves.

 

I have, like posdit, found a way out through shikantaza zazen meditation, which I have practiced daily for a little over a year now. I will probably practice it until the day I die. Medicine didn't work. And this shit did. The crazy thing is, I would've been happy if I just got a little serenity and balance out of it, the strength to deal with important matters. But then you experience stuff like being unable to sit up straight from laughing at yourself out of pure joy for a full hour. It made me let go of so many issues and learn to love life like a little kid. It does something to my mind that is pure healing.

 

So what's happened is that I've gotten a real perspective on the dark periods that I thought would consume me. I'm just incredibly grateful for that. While I agree with some points on how you have to familiarize yourself with your own tendencies for errors in judgment & perception, I find it utterly pointless to debate it - All I know is I wouldn't wish that kind of stuff on my worst enemy.

[Guest fiznuthian]

I had been in state of depression for most of my life.. social phobia and depression ruled my life pretty much. I can honestly say i did fucking nothing for 20 odd years.. video games, drugs, and being a recluse. Narrowing in on diet changed how I felt entirely.. Exercise had a role to play too, but the desire to exercise is lost eating a poor diet. I would and still do become lethargic and moody eating poorly.. so I do what I do and it makes me happy. I found from lots of self-experimentation what works for me. Basically any diet model that is metabolically efficient keeps me strong, healthy, and I never slow down.. I can keep active constantly.

 

I don't think ive changed much socially though, still very recluse like. But somehow I never get depressed anymore, my mood is the same every single day, and I find it very difficult to sit still for too long.. exercise comes naturally when you aren't shitting all over your mitochondria day in day out

 

But I can't say it would work for any of you.. Diet profoundly changed the way I feel about myself and the way I function. I've considered the possibility of placebo affect but it's been over a year, closer to two now, and not once since I started this way of life (eating really) have I felt depressed at all.

 

See, I think there is a lot of merit to this, and I can relate a lot to your previous situation, but I don't know what to do, really. When I was vegan 8 years ago I had a lot more energy and I felt great. The paleo idea is interesting to me, maybe it is healthier, but I feel like I need basically a list of stuff that is OK to eat and some ideas on where the F to find it, preferably some recipes. At least some really in-depth websites/forums that will spell it out for me. I guess that is a stupid thing to expect and that is probably coming from the impatience aspect of lethargy/anxiety/depression/etc. It does seem to require a lot of experimentation.

 

Anyway thanks for the tip on the Kerrygold. I've seen that in stores. Also I've got some grass-fed ground beef in my freezer that I bought yesterday... baby steps, right? Or not... lol. Who am I kidding, I don't know wtf I'm doing.

 

That is really cool that it's working so well for you, though. I hope to be at that level someday.

 

Yeah it's simple I think. if you're going to eat a food, eat whole foods. Just throw everything processed away. The only exceptions are that technically butter is a processed food, and technically some bread would be a processed food. I don't eat grain personally because I would rather spend money on foods with higher nutrition densities, but most people tolerate some okay so long as they don't consume it all of the time and in large quantity. If most of what you eat is either a meat, a vegetable, a fruit or tuber, and some animal fats, you're doing quite well IMO. No tricks or gimmicks to it.

I find veganism interesting and a feasable way to eat healthy. If I was vegan, i'd make tubers a staple of my diet and my prefered source of amino acids. I prefer eating animals for the unique nutrients available from them.

 

To date I still don't know if food cured my depression or was the source of my depression, or whether food just made me very, very healthy and changed my life in that way. It makes a huge difference feeling energetic, and in a great lively mood 24/7. Having the energy to get off of work and exercise alone makes a big difference. I think we can all agree exercise is an excellent way to combat depression.

[Blir]

To date I still don't know if food cured my depression or was the source of my depression, or whether food just made me very, very healthy and changed my life in that way. It makes a huge difference feeling energetic, and in a great lively mood 24/7. Having the energy to get off of work and exercise alone makes a big difference. I think we can all agree exercise is an excellent way to combat depression.

 

I think I posted about this in June actually, but I was on a healthy living thing for about six weeks before I went off on three holidays and I hadn't felt so good in a long time. I'm a grumpy, miserly cunt by nature, which I suppress as much as possible in public but some days I haven't got time for people.

However with the exercise and eating well I felt alert, alive and... serene I guess. I went way off it while I was away and just junked out, but christ I regret it. Been in a black hole since getting back from BangFace and am back on the healthy thing, for as long as possible really. I think there's a LOT in exercise and healthy eating to assist with depression and would recommend it.

 

Not that I'm saying I'm depressed, but the mood change is noticable.

[Guest fiznuthian]

To date I still don't know if food cured my depression or was the source of my depression, or whether food just made me very, very healthy and changed my life in that way. It makes a huge difference feeling energetic, and in a great lively mood 24/7. Having the energy to get off of work and exercise alone makes a big difference. I think we can all agree exercise is an excellent way to combat depression.

 

I think I posted about this in June actually, but I was on a healthy living thing for about six weeks before I went off on three holidays and I hadn't felt so good in a long time. I'm a grumpy, miserly cunt by nature, which I suppress as much as possible in public but some days I haven't got time for people.

However with the exercise and eating well I felt alert, alive and... serene I guess. I went way off it while I was away and just junked out, but christ I regret it. Been in a black hole since getting back from BangFace and am back on the healthy thing, for as long as possible really. I think there's a LOT in exercise and healthy eating to assist with depression and would recommend it.

 

Not that I'm saying I'm depressed, but the mood change is noticable.

 

That's cool man, glad you've had a similar experience. Not many people take me very seriously about it..

The change in mood is very pronounced for me.

[marf]

I remember it hitting me one day after a few months on effexor that I was actually happy maybe since I was a kid or something. I dont even remember being that happy. My outlook changed, I was more outgoing. gone was the flat affect, and the self-obsession and persistent fatigue. And the weird thing was I felt more like myself... even though I was arguable somebody I had not known in a long long time.

 

 

this is great to hear. so much anti meds propaganda out there and i think it's dangerous cause i KNOW they help (from experience) We need more people out there giving testimonies. I just think docs over prescribe off label which is wrong. Usually to avoid putting people on addictive benzos

Edited September 26, 2012 by marf

[Glunk]

[Guest disparaissant]

my day dot jpeg

 

i just got put on celexa

so far i've gotten most of the side effects but none of the benefits and it's just making everything worse

being depressed and nauseous is a bad mix

[gmanyo]

my day dot jpeg

 

i just got put on celexa

so far i've gotten most of the side effects but none of the benefits and it's just making everything worse

being depressed and nauseous is a bad mix

 

wheee druggs yeah my doc just replaced my gabapentin with seroquel wheee im tired all the time yayyy my whole life is like a dream

 

 

so fucking tired of this shit

[Guest disparaissant]

seroquel is haaaaaarsh

[gmanyo]

really? shit. I'm at 150mg a night extended release, and my life is even more dream like than it was before. Been on it for a few days, was dead tired the first, like I had jetlag again, and definitely still groggy. I don't even really think I'm bipolar, at least not to a very much. I don't know why he's giving me this stuff.

[LimpyLoo]

Depression sucks.

 

 

Just keep in mind that there is a happy exiciting life waiting for you on the other side of the it.

[LimpyLoo]

Oh god. I'm on seroquel.

 

 

I've scaled back to 25mg.

 

 

At one point I was on 400mg/day, and I slept about 14hrs/day and I'd wake up and just be useless.

 

 

Stuff is evil at higher doses.

[gmanyo]

At one point I was on 400mg/day, and I slept about 14hrs/day and I'd wake up and just be useless.

Yeah the first day for me was hell. Got a bit better at night and sort of wore off just in time for me to go to bed. Now I'm just dazed and often groggy.

[chim]

This thread keeps reminding me not to take my happiness for granted. It's barely been a year since I last considered self-termination and I keep forgetting that it's absolutely unusual for me to be super cool about things. I'm grateful and slightly weirded out. My entire being screams that the mess of hellish garbage that kept me down is something I don't ever want to touch again, but I have realized that it's of absolute importance to devote some of my time acknowledging and accepting my shadow rather than trying to forget about it, fighting it; that's just another, subtle form of that inner conflict and if left unattended, it could easily produce some form of relapse.

 

My heart goes out to you ladies and gents in the struggle.

Edited November 4, 2012 by chimera slot mom

[LimpyLoo]

What often helps me fight the darkness is getting a new perspective on the world. Like aimlessly driving around and admiring the beauty of places I've never seen before. Or just walking aimlessly. Or doing something completely uncharacterist like seeing a low-profile show at a coffee shop on an off-night. Essentially anything besides staying home staring at the internet.

 

"Pattern breaking", I think they call it.

[Berk]

Depression sucks ass. Good posts in here. Exercise helps me a lot.

 

I take St. John's wort as well, it seems to stop the fretting a bit. But jogging definitely is the key for me. I'm feeling alright now, but I haven't been making any music for about 6 months. Everything feels formulaic and soulless - maybe I need to learn an instrument or pick up another hobby for some inspiration.

 

The worst thing about this shit is losing almost all motivation to do stuff, vicious cycle etc. And the fact that I'm on edge a lot of the time, acting like a bitch, not being sympathetic, not able to concentrate, not enjoying stuff. I just don't feel like myself, sort of like the stuff Franklin was talking about, even though I think my depression is not that severe. I feel like I can do twice as well as this. The motivation is probably the last thing that comes back, I'm not sad anymore, but still not really motivated - don't really give a shit about my exams either.

 

Just don't give up, and remember it will go away eventually. Do stuff, even when it's hard to get off your ass and you don't see the point. Talk to people you love, talk with friends who understand (I have friends that are suffering from it as well, and it helps a lot talking with them, people that don't know how it feels can get you on edge even when they mean well). Perhaps you will get pissed at people saying you need to get off your ass, but you will see that it helps. If they ask you to come over or have a laugh: go! don't stay at home alone. Go outside.

 

All the best.

[BCM]

I haven't been making any music for about 6 months.

 

your music's awesome dude! hope you make some headway with it before too long, i need some new sint!

[anonymstol]

lol this thread is still going?

[Guest Social Spastic]

my doctors just signed me on the sick with depression

 

happy days :)