Depression and what it's really like

^^ this!

I think cognitive behavior therapy has been shown effective for that, but I don't have any first hand experience. Seems like the kind of thing medication in and of itself will not fix.

"behavioral", not "behavior", maybe? Goes by CBT for sure.

cbt comes up short when addressing a lot of the real life external-to-self things. it teaches you to turn negative thoughts into positive ones but it doesn't show you what to do when those positives may not exist.

(xp i've taken a cbt course.)

xposts yeah, she's on medication (venalfaxine), although the bad part there is that it's the third thing she's been tried on without much success. it's a pretty tough balance because before medication she felt terrible both emotionally and physically virtually all of the time, and now she feels pretty neutral all of the time, although in the former state she still managed to get things done and in the present state she's now working on a six month dissertation extension because she just hasn't been able to get anything out. hm. well she can at least be satisfied that it is indeed a 'thing', and hopefully bring up more medication modifications in her next doctor's visit.

It's not just a "thing" it's got a name, anhedonia. It is one of the principle symptoms of depression.

It being also one of the common side effects of anti-depressants, is something I find completely weird. It seems to me a poor medication that duplicates symptoms of exactly the same illness it purports to treat.

As I was looking for information on anhedonia as a symptom of depression (doctors sometimes use other related terms such as "flat affect": not displaying any emotions) I found some really useful factsheets from MIND. This is about the symptoms of depression:

http://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/depression#symptoms

And this one is about the synergetic effects of food and mood, something I always, *always* forget, when I get those terrible, out of nowhere "headache depression" type moods. For me, they're sometimes caused by blood sugar spike and troughs - I was at a birthday party on Friday afternoon and stuck a whole bunch of highly processed highly sugared birthday cake down my gob. Combine that with physical pain and a trigger and bang - filthy headache depression seemingly coming out of nowhere.

http://www.mind.org.uk/foodandmood/food_and_mood-the_mind_guide

(Phil, I just thought there might be something in there you'd find helpful, since environmental things can cause those out-of-nowhere depressions.)

And having read that second link a little closer, yeah, yeah, I know the idea of food-based treatment type stuff has got a lot of bad press on account of irresponsible quacks like Gillian McKeith but that doesn't mean that there aren't necessarily some genuine effects you can have from certain foods or the lack of them.

thanks k. i knew about anhedonia but not that it was associated with the kind of strictly physical things i was talking about (she actually gets headaches a lot too, ranging from the tolerable to the crippling 24-hour migraine), although it does make intuitive sense.

Antidepressants cured my anhedonia.

On another note, anyone here tend to mistake the symptoms of coming down with something with a bout of depression? It happens to me all the time, and it just happened to me a few days ago (I'm recovering from the cold or whatever it was now).

just sort of feel like if all i have to look foward to is working my shitty job or being on the dole, being lonely, gormless, boring and unattractive, getting drunk and consuming garbage media... then i'm already dead right? what's the fucking point? when do i actually get to feel like a fucking human being in my pathetic life?

Have you talked to a therapist yet?

lol i just spent ten weeks in therapy and it felt good at the time but any benefit seems to have just evaporated.

it's not like i'm nihilistic or i think life per se is shit... i just wish i was somebody else. somebody who had something to contribute, somebody other people actually liked, somebody with a future.

i think life can be beautiful and amazing, there are times in my past when i was so happy and optimistic. but i can't even think how i would ever feel like that again.

It's a vicious cycle--you feel like shit because of depression, so your life rots away, which makes you feel even more like shit. Are you still following your therapist's suggestions for improving your life?

This will help maybe not at all, but: IT WILL PASS. Everything passes, included the horrible bleak times. Just hang in there as best you can. Be gentle with yourself. You've already contributed and continue too contribute. You are liked, you have a future, a meaningful one. Hang in.

there are various ways of thinking more rationally about things, not being too worked up. but this doesn't really help when my depression is very stoic and british. "oh well. i'm shit, my life's shit... may as well just get on with things." i dunno if it's depression or just realism. i DON'T have anything to look forward to, and i'm a bit of a joke, end of.

this is ok as some sort of mantra, but it doesn't ring true or add up in a society where most people are taking more than they contribute and there really isn't any future for most people.

x-post

i think life can be beautiful and amazing, there are times in my past when i was so happy and optimistic. but i can't even think how i would ever feel like that again.

This is a pretty good alternate way to say the thread title, actually. The thing is, when you feel this fucked up and lousy, it's hard to remember how feeling good works. It's like if you had the flu for three weeks – you just kind of lose touch of a direct connection to how feeling hungry and energetic feels. That doesn't mean you are no longer capable of experiencing it, it's just too far away from your current experience to feel like a real possibility. But it is a real possibility. Someday you will feel less unhappy. I know it's hard to keep track of that or believe in it sometimes. This is the reason why I like when Charles Schulz said he takes his despair one day at a time.

xp

Maybe for most people life is more shitty overall than it is good overall. I believe that. I also think it is the best idea to stick around anyway. How I got there, I don't know. I think the other option (death) leads to more net shittiness, basically.

yeah... i dunno. just feeling low this weekend, thanks for the responses.

you need to come up with more invented demographic groups for ilx to analyse

hahaha ^^^ actually cheered me up

srsly tho

i've been on the look out for SSB signifiers but inner london is thin on the ground with SSBs (the city excepted, maybe)

i've missed this, can i get a pointer?

ps max, i don't want to ignore thread premise etc, but don't know what to say that wouldn't sound trite. all the best.

"Hipster" as pejorative.

and the next few pages of that

max u gotta disparage yrself less

especially if you do it irl as a defensive strategy to pre-empt the expected criticisms of others

but in general you probably do yourself a disservice

hahaha ^^^ actually cheered me up

Right. Distracting yourself with something can really do wonders for a mild case of depression.

I don't know exactly how or when things snapped back into place, but I've been living without depression for over a year now. I've described what it was like to a friend, with the assurance that it isn't like that right now, but it seems so minor of an occurrence.

I used to expect to kill myself and/or others and spent my days waiting until I didn't have to do any of it any longer. Now I move through days interacting and accomplishing. All bare minimum, but real.

Hospitalizations, over-medications, therapy, employment, stopping treatment, making decisions on violence. Some combinations of success and failure leaving me ready to go, on the verge of getting it on as soon as I'm ready.

Ominous specters always over the horizon. Maybe something comes along and I go dark. I can't dwell on the possibility.

It's like a rain cloud that comes around every once in a while and envelopes you totally within it, you can't see out beyond it, you can't remember what it was like before it came. You have a really distorted perception of yourself too.

Yesterday I started full on crying like a big girl for no reason at work. Luckily no-one was around and I just let it out but damn, I thought I'd got past this (says the guy who has already told ilb that he cried on the train this week).

The random crying is just the worst. It feels like some sort of sadness seizure.

It's like a rain cloud that comes around every once in a while and envelopes you totally within it, you can't see out beyond it, you can't remember what it was like before it came. You have a really distorted perception of yourself too.

^^^

Acknowledging your depression can, in and of it self, be very depressing. For instance, when I'm dating, how long can I wait before disclosing that I have this often debilitating mental illness? Should I really even be dating when I'm perfectly aware of what I'll be putting someone through if things get serious?

I mean, I know that admitting and dealing with it head on is an important step, but I can't help but think that I'd be much less depressed if I didn't have depression to think about all the fucking time.

Well the one girl I am madly in love with will never get with me because she also knows that I'm mr. crazy baggage. Also that she's on another continent.

think you meant to post that under the acoleuthic login

there is a picture that proves im not an lj sockpuppet and yet people still dont believe!

Oh man, it's clear you're not LJ because you are posting in this thread, not starting some new thread with a little line break novella about how broke your heart is, and also a cricket loss doesn't factor into your depression.

Stay away from the Wengerball thread then :)

(tbf i've not gone as crazy on that thread as i could, waiting for the annual shawcrossing to explode.)

I am several years off medication. Wow, do I feel great. Licking depression can be done!!! Take matters into your own hands and GOOD LUCK!

is there sarcasm in that? i have lost my prescription again and working the whole week my doctors is open in a totally different fucking place means i've gone 2 weeks without any meds. and its things like just being text that my place to stay for the night has to bail on me but won't tell me why that is easing me back into stable mental health.

Could you maybe go to the emergency room and explain your situation? You may be able to get a few days worth of meds there. (I was once told that that was a last resort option.)

xp - that sounds very not-ok, like i think you can go a few days and still be fine, because they stay in your system for a while, but two weeks sounds risky. Like you're dealing with depression + withdrawal

sorry to hear that a hoy hoy? what is it that you're taking? like sarahel, I'm concerned about withdrawal, which I know can put you in places that feel unfamiliar, mentally :(.

hoping for the best for you, let us know if we can help, even if just by giving moral support.

tbf this happens to me with like every other prescription so i'm used to it now. I'm doing surprisingly well compared to when I went without it in the summer, when I had a full on mental breakdown. Now it has just been downgraded to the usual occasional panic attack. helps that my life is in a totally better place in almost every respect. if everything goes to plan, my doctor (or before she went on meternaty (sp?) leave, was thinking of lowering my dosage by about April with a look at withdrawal over the summer. But as she's not around and I'm hopefully moving soon, I'll guess i'll have to discuss it with another doctor. i'm taking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sertraline and as thats the first time i've read its wiki, it explains a lot.

also you guys are awesome, fyi.

If you live in the US (I realize many of you don't) and go to the emergency room, you will not see a doctor or even get emergency meds, you'll probably end up staying the night in the emergency room with the bright lights and nurses and then they will commit you, you have no say in that.

I don't but yeah, I've seen One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest enough times to be freaked out by the possibilities of opening up to the wrong people.

after years of being all wtf, it's strange to realize that i now really do have good reasons to be depressed

"brain not wired quite right" is all the reason one needs imo