I stand corrected. There's someone else who cares.

EXTRA CHEESE ON THAT SAMMICH, BEAAAAATCH!

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

I've recently begun wellbutrin, not for quitting smoking, but for the antidepressant effects.

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That's what I was taking it for too at the time. I had one of those psychiatrists who didn't believe a word I'd say. So I went in saying, "I'm having problems concentrating." And he says, "Sounds like depression." I say, "No, I've had depression before, know what that feels like, this ain't it." But he didn't believe me, gave me the Wellbutrin and I took it, didn't find my concentration improve, so took the opportunity to help me quit smoking. Can't complain I guess.

If it helps any, they say that event depression usually takes the least amount of time to subside.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

No, it doesn't help any. :P

I have clinical, chemical, cyclical depression. I had a really bad bout of it several years ago that went without being treated until my mom told me to see someone about it on my own or she'd have me admitted whether I wanted it or not. That worked, and I was a gajillion times better after a few months of antidepressants, but it screwed with my sexual function, causing additional stress to the long term co-habitational relationship I was in at the time.

I was fine for a couple of years until I had a minor bout, which I suppose resolved itself.

When I felt the most recent depressive cycle start, I took it upon myself to find a psychologist before it reached a point where I wouldn't care enough to take action to help myself. It was a good thing I did, because this one feels like it would have been the worst bout yet, if left untreated.

So after realizing that talk alone wasn't helping, they had their psychiatrist do a med consult with me and he prescribed a med that he said was among a handful of drugs that have the fewest reports of sexual side effects. *shrug* I had them anyway. A couple of months later, we changed my meds, and now I'm doing a lot better, and I'm back to being a hornball.

...but I'm also no longer in a relationship. :/

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I am a delicate fucking flower. https://beacons.ai/jesskent

Been there, done that, bought the degree and became a shrink, then went there and did it again. Sucks to be us, don't it? What I never could understand when they talked about the chemistry of depression is that they have at least 4 competing theories of it-- serotonergic, cholinergic, dopaminergic, and Harpoergic, if I recall. Something like that. Anyway, I always wanted to ask, which do I have, Doc? Which does my client have? And it comes down to: They don't know. Watch those commercials carefully and you'll see they say things like "your condition may be caused by" etc. So here, let's try a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Didn't work? Fine, let's try a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Still no results? Here's a cholinesterase inhibitor. Oops, that's bug spray. But you get the point. I found it damn frustrating. Now I just self-medicate, which will probably take me to my grave.

Ah, cheer! Maybe we're all just having a bad day.

Glad the stuff is working for you, and all the best to you in your love life. Don't get me started on love...

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What others say about boorite!

I suffered from chronic depression starting in my mid-teens and it gradually turned into clinical depression by 1990 (when I was 22). At the bottom, I spent all day alternating between sleeping, crying, and thinking of various inventive ways to off myself. My friends finally convinced me to get help, so I went to a shrink.

The shrink prescribed Prozac and therapy. The therapy felt like going to the dentist but the Prozac seemed to help. What finally flipped the switch for me was when I decided to take a trip to San Francisco (for the first time) to visit a friend who had moved there. I thought the change of scenery might do some good (my therapist agreed but was concerned that I would miss my scheduled therapy), but I had no idea how significant that trip was going to be. I don't know how to describe it but the feeling of belonging I felt in San Francisco changed me. That vortex of negative thought disappeared and I felt wonderful.

I'm not sure how much of it was the change of scenery or the Prozac or some combination of both. I also was determined that my mental state not be controlled by medecine (this was true before I started therapy and Prozac), so I quit therapy, stopped taking the Prozac, and moved to San Francisco. I'm fairly sure that my depression was chemical in nature, so I'm not sure exactly why I have been able to avoid depression since then. (I have had a few episodes since then, but they have all been brief and quickly overcome.)

One of the lasting things that came out of those dark days and my "rebirth" was my recognition of the pattern of thoughts that lead into that "vortex." I have largely been able to avoid recurrences by noticing when that pattern is occurring and derailing it. (I know that's easier said than done but it becomes easier with practice.)

This may sound crazy but one method I use to derail the negativity train is to visualize a rush of neurotransmitters (whichever one I am lacking isn't important---I just think of a surge of tiny molecules being released) that flow in and lock into whatever receptors are sitting there wanting. It's completely unscientific but it works for me. There are times when I have done this and felt a wave of euphoria. AT any rate, this visualization stops the vortex from sucking me in.

By the way, if someone comes here and says, "Yeah, I know what you mean, I was feeling bummed the other day," I am going to reach through your monitor and punch you. People who have not suffered clinical depression do not know what it feels like. It's a completely different animal than run-of-the-mill depression.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

I feel you, holmes. The other morning my goldfish died, and it just about ruined my day.

(runs away)

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What others say about boorite!

quote:

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I feel you, holmes. The other morning my goldfish died, and it just about ruined my day.

(runs away)

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That's OK, you don't need to run away. It was me that killed your goldfish, so I think we're square.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

I suffered from minor bouts of depression in my teens (first considered suicide at about twelve, which can't be normal) but I don't remember them being really serious at the time. After moving interstate and moving in with Bec, my first ever full-time job was pushing papers at the Department of Defence. The boss, and her boss, hated me, and drove me into what I believe was a serious emotional breakdown from which I have never really recovered.

The thing is, logically I figure it has to be emotional and behavioural in nature, since it was an emotionally-triggered event, but mt brain chemistry seems to have been completely fucked ever since. After inally being fired from that job, I spent several months in a deep, black despair, and many more months after that in a state of near-depression, that dropped into depression at the slightest trigger. None of the jobs I got afterward lasted, leaving the job would leave me down for ages, being broke because of me not earning any money got me even more down...

What do you guys think? I have been improving ever since I stopped working and went back to university full time doing a course I love, but it is still there - life's little challenges tend to enrage or depress me. Is this behavioural or chemical? Can I just "change my ways" or would I be best served by some happy-happy pills?

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

...and yes, I am quite aware that asking these questions to a bunch of online whackjobs rather than a trained professional is probably not the best option. Thanks for noticing. :)

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

This is actually a common behavioral technique (though what's visualized varies). One of the biggest hurdles in treating depression (and a lot of other mental illnesses) is getting the patient to recognize that their feelings are just a product of some bad brain behavior. Picturing your malfunctioning brain repairing itself works nicely.

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www.bradsucks.net

I, ahem, used to feel very, er, bad all the time about two years ago. I was unhappy most of the time but not really crying my eyes out. More angry or something. Since then I've just developed my current personality, which is I'm negative and usualy pissed about things that irritiate me, but I don't spiral into constant depression. I guess you could say I'm cynicly chipper.

What am I saying? I'm happily negitive.

I have "suffered" from various bouts of depression, however, in my opinion it's easier to be American and in touch with your feelings. I always felt that telling other people about what upsets me or telling my parents that I've fantasised about killing myself every night for months was wrong, and I put this down to being Scottish. It could just be my upbringing, but it led to me bottling up a lot of anguish and releasing it at completely innapropriate times to people who don't deserve it.

3 times in the past year I've just exploded emotionally, full of anger and sadness, crying but throwing punches and screaming at people who I consider good friends. I generally try to avoid doctors and would feel weird telling someone how I feel all the time, plus, I always thought it was just generally teenage angst, but it's went on longer than that now.

I've found that the best way to deal with it is to just hang out with my friends. I don't even need to talk to them, just hang out and occupy my mind with someone elses voice instead of my own. Putting music on to help me go to sleep also helps. The WORST thing I can do, is sit alone in a quiet room and just think.

Plus, I smoke a LOT of cannabis. I mean, anyone who has ever had a small bout of smoking "da herb", even thought they had a large habit, trust me, it wasn't close to the amount I smoke, and have been smoking for the past 4 years. I would rather not smoke, from a health point of view, but it helps to numb my brain, I find alchohol makes things worse, however I still drink myself into a coma twice weekly. ;-)

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Dad was flammable

I've never been clinically depressed. In fact, I don't really get depressed, period.

I think I'm at the other end of the spectrum. I feel like I'm in a continually hopped up sort of stage; like I've been popping uppers.

It could just be the five pound bag of sugar I eat every morning, though.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

Choclate Frosted Sugar Bombs?

Far as I know, there's no straight answer, and I'd be suspicious of anyone who tells you otherwise. For one thing, it seems that changes in circumstances bring about changes in brain chemistry. For example, if a dominant male monkey is overthrown by another male and suffers a loss in status, there's a measurable decrease in levels of serotonin (or is it just serotonergic activity?), and the loser monkey acts depressed. Is this to say that the monkey's depression is imagined or that it has no basis in brain chemistry? Not at all-- but it does challenge the idea of depression as a primary disease caused by a neurotransmitter deficiency. In short, what we have here is a chicken-and-egg question.

Another difficulty is that "depression" does not really seem to be a single clinical entity like smallpox or bubonic plague. This tends to play all kinds of hell with any disease model of depression.

Depression is real, of course. The suffering is real. And like any mental process, it's rooted in (or manifests in) brain chemistry, endocrine function, and so on. However, whether it is a disease caused by a specific neurotransmitter deficiency (and which one), not even the head of Psychiatry at Hopkins could tell you with any authority.

So far, 100% of us who responded say we are prone to depression. Except Gabe, who is not human. That's a lot of SC regulars who have this illness. Here's what I think: I think we're depressed because this world sucks shit through a Dixie straw. Or rather, the kind of life we're required to live is not the kind we're inclined, by evolution or Creation, to live. So we get depressed, like monkeys in a cage. Most of us seem to find enough good in this suckass world to keep us going, and others plow on ahead out of spite, if nothing else. And as you and others have noted, if you can make it suck less, you get less depressed.

Still, if you get too far down to keep going, and the pills (or religion or yoga or booze) actually help, then I say "whatever works."

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What others say about boorite!

As if I needed another reason to despise you...

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

I don't know squat about depression. I don't know if it's chemical or not. I sure think mine isn't. When I get depressed, I know why. In hi-resolution detail. I get depressed about something. And with good reason. I've examined it, thought it out, worked out the implications, and come to the conclusion with absolute certainty that circumstances have probably damned me to a miserable fate.

How's that for colossal geekhood? And what better to get depressed about?

[***Note, this in no way is meant to invalidate or make assumptions about what anyone else is going through; this is just my schtick.]

Luckily, things were going pretty well for me the last decade and a half or so, so those bouts were less frequent. Until recently, when I've been bopped with a half dozen onslaughts professionally and socially. And I thus get to see what a lousy fate is likely to await me.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

This is actually a common behavioral technique (though what's visualized varies). One of the biggest hurdles in treating depression (and a lot of other mental illnesses) is getting the patient to recognize that their feelings are just a product of some bad brain behavior. Picturing your malfunctioning brain repairing itself works nicely.

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At the time I came up with my visualization thing, I knew vaguely about positive visualization being something that was used (with marginal effectiveness) for cancer therapy. I didn't realize that it was used (professionally) for the treatment of depression. I thought I made that application of visualization up. Oy, there's yet another thing I thought was original but wasn't.

I think cognitive therapy is the best non-medical treatment for depression in the long-term (once you can see the various ways your perceptions may be skewed, you can remember that and reapply what you have already learned about yourself to readjust your perceptions), but the visualization technique works (for me) for the short-term if I happen to notice that pattern of negativity arising that could lead me back into depression.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

In my personal experience of clinical depression, there was no careful consideration of factors and outcomes. The negative thoughts would just occur and I would believe them to be true without examining them. I was incapable of examining my thought process, because my brain was already occupied with its one-track mission to convince me I was better off dead.

I don't want to imply that the kind of depression you describe is not serious, though. Often, that kind of thought pattern can lead to clinical depression and it can certainly lead to a lack of enjoyment of the world. There is truth in the idea that we think the world sucks because it does, but knowledge of that fact does not have to mean we live every day with a sense of impending doom. I'm not suggesting denial, rather I think one can detach the significance of the world's suckiness from oneself and one's own worth. This includes the opinions of others. I really don't care if people think I'm a fat dork, because I know who and what I am and I believe in myself.

Jeez, I didn't realize I had this much BS in me. (Or at least it's been a while since I unleashed such a torrent of gobbledygook.) I should write a quack psychology book, make a few bucks, and buy us all a beer (and milk for the young'ns).

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

I suggest we all write a quack psychology book, and blow the money on booze and hookers!

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Dad was flammable

I used a great deal of weed and LSD in the early- to mid-'90s to self-medicate. I found the LSD helped with the self-induced cognitive therapy and the weed helped me to appreciate the nicer aspects of the world. However, I think there is some merit to the idea that chronic use of wacky tobaccy can leave you open for chronic depression. I eventually reached a point where pot was a necessary crutch (I couldn't do anything without at least a minor buzz) and yet it was not helping any longer. Probably my lowest point between my clinical depression and now was when I gave up the weed (and speed) and had to discover how to function without chemical assistance. It took a couple of months, but I found out I could in fact function just as well and even better without the crutches. (I do miss getting high, though.)

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

I get bummed out about shit all the time. From what I can tell, it's because the world is a stunningly cold and unforgiving miasma of debilitating goo. Sometimes I'm happy. From what I can tell, it's because soemtimes the world is not a stunningly cold and unforgiving miasma of debilitating goo. I always sort of suspected that this was normal. I dunno. Maybe I'm just another internet nutjob. Taking pills for it seems like a bad idea to me. I took tons of drugs in the 70's and 80's and it didn't make me happy.

"I'm happy when life's good, and when it's bad I cry. I've got values, but I don't know how or why." - Pete Townshend

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

I've smoked weed for so long that I'm not sure wether I smoke it because I'm depressed, or I'm depressed because I smoke it. Probably neither assumption is correct, and I don't really plan on just giving it up. When I'm in my garden smoking a joint in the complete silence of the countryside, I have some great thoughts and ideas and have a really good nights sleep. I wouldn't trade those moments for anything....

well, perhaps that blonde from accounting.

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Dad was flammable

quote:

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No, it doesn't help any. :P

I have clinical, chemical, cyclical depression.

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My mistake. I assumed you had event depression because of your recent talk of breaking up with Sam. Sorry if I sounded like I was downplaying it, it's just sometimes nice to know there WILL come an end.

I've done something similar the last 9 months or so. I have a really hard time concentrating because my mind wanders so much. It's not that my mind is lagging, it's that it's always on the go. I'll be watching a tv show and a word or phrase will trigger a 4-minute tangential thinking episode that starts with the phrase and ends with an Indiana Jones movie I once saw, or a conversation I had yesterday, or sausage, or anywhere else my mind takes me. It's a GREAT mind to have as far as creativity. My mind works so fast and so non-linearly that I can often make the jump from 1 to 3, my feet never landing on 2. However, it is TERRIBLE for concentration. I can't watch a 30 minute TV episode and tell you the plot at the end. I can't hold a meaningful conversation because something you say will fire the starter pistol and my brain will be off and running.

So, like wirthling, I started working on my ideation process. And I've discovered alot not only about how my mind works, but about how everyone's mind works as far as motivation. That is, ALL decisions are based on pleasure and pain. ALL. There is no situation you can give me that I can not apply this principle to. A man buys a Whopper instead of a Big Mac. The pleasure of the Whopper (or of the relatively short lines, or of the well-air conditioned restaurant, or of the lower price, etc.) is greater than the pleasure of the Big Mac. Even seemingly altruistic behavior has its root in personal pleasure vs. pain. A man pushes a stranger out of the way of an oncoming car, putting himself in the car's path -- the pain of possibly being hit by a car is less than the pain of living with himself having watched another human die in front of him and him not doing anything. (This isn't to say that we're all selfish bastards, someone who gets pleasure out of seeing others pleasure and pain out of seeing others pain is altruistic, if functionally and not semantically.)

Realizing this is the only motivation factor I have, I suddenly know the rules of this game called life. I know that there are two subsets to this motivation - one is seeking pleasure, the other is avoiding pain. I strongly believe that depression has both a brain chemistry component and an ideation component. And I believe this ideation component, whatever its shade or form, can be completely defined by the incorrect ideation process of avoiding pain rather than seeking pleasure. For instance, we file our tax returns so we WON'T get in trouble with the IRS. We show up on time so we WON'T look bad in front of others. We buy the cheapest paper towels so we WON'T feel jipped. And on and on. If we instead made seeking pleasure our motivation, we'd be filing our tax returns to feel the pleasure of relief, be on time to have the pleasure of someone's company for longer (or show up late or not at all to have the pleasure of NOT having someone's company), and buying the paper towels that felt best on our skin. I think for the average non-depressed person, each motivational factor is in play roughly equally- they seek pleasure as much as they avoid pain. I think depressed people have the avoiding pain motivation much more than they have the seeking pleasure motivation, and in the worst cases, don't have the seeking pleasure motivation at all. I think the proper medication plus a shift in focus (easier said than done) from avoiding pain (I must, I have to, I better) to seeking pleasure (I want) can beat depression.

One of about 400 things I've learned since evaluating my thought processes. (Which is why I'd STRONGLY recommend keeping a journal to anyone struggling with depression.)

wirthling made a distinction I had forgotton about: depression vs. clinical depression. Realizing that, I also now realize I have depression (in the form of the inability to feel pleasure), just not the clinical depression I once had.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

Quack psychology book? I already have one written. About 400 pages of personal writings I've had in the last 9 months or so. Get yer asses over here and help me collate, and it will be hookers and beers till the rejection letter!

As for self-medicating, do it. If it helps, do it. I used speed for about 3 weeks when I was 17. I stopped at three weeks because I found myself with the largest drug urge I had ever had. 10 years later, and what drug am I getting prescribed for ADD? Dextro-amphetamine. Not speed, but a close cousin. And at a much lower dosage. That's the crux of my recommendation for self-medicators -- no matter what the drug, do the amount that curbs your symptoms best and no more, not the amount that gives you the best high.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.