Depression and what it's really like

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

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.

― university of, drunk off your butt, etc. (u s steel), Thursday, January 27, 2011 7:38 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

truth bomb. I have really good insurance but the one time I had my major panic attack that I thought was a heart attack at the time, the hospital shrink started asking me questions that made me realize they were considering whether to rule out that option, so at that moment I answered very carefully.

gave me a xanax and sent me on my way tho luckily

Pretty depressed these days, pretty lonely and bitter. The best times of my life are behind me, and while I've been good at forgetting the past, cos it doesnt exists, it still upsets me somehow. Now there's like a big hole of pointless years. I suppose that shouldnt matter either tho.

The idea of even getting together w friends in a room and drinking and having fun makes me nervous. Mostly really nervous and manic around female friends, i think my sex drive is out of whack. Kinda think it always has been. Just dont have the social tools to hook up with any ladies. Feel pretty defeated, i mean whats the use anyways. Probably be good if i didnt pass on these dumb moody genes. Maybe its natural selection or something, for the better of humanity that i just die off.

All that said, there is very little of physical reality that genuinely pleases me anymore, which i kind of dont mind on some level because religiously ive come to accept alot of things about the universe and reality and i think there are many other realms, some of them eternal, that are completely unaffected by anything that happens through my lifetime. Realms that are fundamentally a part of me and are so glorious and graceful that they transcend whether i have a shitty day or a good one, or a thousand of either in a row.

Even in my darkest days, when i was like "Absolutely nothing about life matters", there was something (you might call it optimism, but i dont think thats the right word) that made me realize that that fact in itself didn't matter either. Instantly everything reveals itself to be in some harmonic flux and the idea that nothing matters is a key to a fundamental, unlimited potential in everything.

"Just dont have the social tools to hook up with any ladies."

Talk to these female friends imo, me female friends love nothing more than hooking up their sensitive boy-friends and to try and make them happy.

ime*

The best times of my life are behind me

This is bullshit. My old self was an idiot and this is proof.

The old self of about...ten hours ago?

I'm glad you're feeling better.

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljodo8Z7MW1qisuj3o1_500.png

i've come to the conclusion that numbness >>>>>> being overwhelmed by feelings. that place in the middle where you feel nothing but can actually get out of bed and DEAL -- underrated.

i have friends with depression its not fun

I wonder if it's wrong to expect depression or "blue" periods to return. Y'know, as some sort of defense mechanism.

i've been a little depressed lately, but i think it's situational, tied to something fairly specific. it's been said before, but antidepressants don't "cure" depression.

My anti-anxiety medication has *settled* somehow. Thankfully I don't have full blown anxiety anymore. I guess it's the same here with me. That said, I am not going to therapy anymore. It didn't help much.

Nah they don't cure depression and any decent doctor will tell you so. In my case, my ADs just help me put depression on the back burner. So instead of spending my whole day going mental, which is not helping anything, I can spend most of my day trying to sort shit out like finding a better job, not having panic attacks at random (that said, i had a pretty fucking huge one last weekend, but that would have happened no matter what due to circumstances of :(.), not digging myself away in a hole when i could be out socialising and enjoying life which leads to less anxiety and loneliness etc.

^^^this. It's a slow climb. I think I've found a path out of the void (thanks to the meds) but I can see that it's going to take years of "doing the next right thing," failing, trying again, getting it right, ad nauseum.

I gave up after trying Lexapro and then Zoloft. "Not digging myself away in a hole when i could be out socialising and enjoying life which leads to less anxiety and loneliness" is pretty much the benefit I've been looking for. Heard to many bad things about Paxil and Prozac. Haven't kept up with the latest and greatest meds.

I take sertraline, which I think I've discussed on this thread before - I believe its just like an updated version of Zoloft?

Sertraline is the active ingredient of Zoloft and so that's its generic name. UK prescriptions specify the generic name, not the brand name, so that pharmacies can substitute cheaper generic versions rather than buy the Pfizer version - though Pfizer calls it Lustral rather than Zoloft in Europe anyway, but I believe they're effectively the same.

...I think. (They use the generic active ingredient name even when there is only one brand on the market, e.g. for new drugs which are still under patent to the original pharmaceutical company.)

Oh, well then don't listen to me.

Did you say something?

;)

Sorry. Didn't mean to be schoolma'amish. Maybe Lustral is an update from Zoloft - the active ingredient is the same but there may be a different release mechanism.

The generic name (e.g. sertraline) is the drug, and is 100% bioequivalent to the brand name (e.g. Zoloft/Lustral). It has to be in order to be approved for sale.

The way generic/brand name stuff works is this: When a drug is first developed by a drug company, that company has an exclusive patent on that drug for a number of years (which can vary). After that patent expires, any company can make that same drug, but cannot use that brand name.

Drug companies have (in their tricksy, techinically legal way) spread a lot of disinformation about generics. The truth is that generics are EXACTLY the same in every way as the brand name.

/pissypharmacytechnician

So I'm really looking forward to two things: This weekend I'm putting on a new DJ night with my friends playing and on Tuesday I'm off to Barcelona for Primavera Festival. But there's something obscuring my anticipation, and that's my best friend's depression.

These last few months he's become very unstable. I'm never sure when is a good time to talk to him as he can often be very aggressive. Today I texted him to ask if he was still ready and willing to play a set at the club on Friday. He replied in a very rude and confusing way. When I asked him to reiterate he was again very sarcastic and passively aggressive, making it out as if I'd insulted him for some reason.

The thing is, we're all going on holiday together - him, me our better halves and a couple more friends. Whenever they drink, which is inevitable on a holiday like this, he and his gf are likely to argue.

I'm almost certain it's depression, and he's recently started seeking professional help for it. His attitude in the meantime can be very upsetting. Just receiving a few texts has had the power to bum me out, so no wonder his (otherwise very supportive) gf finds it hard going at the best of times.

For the record, he's never violent, but he has a way of turning his perceived problems on other people - believing there's an agenda that doesn't exist and acting on it.

Needless to say I'm anticipating problems on this trip, and I don't know how my friends and I should act if things go awry. We've all been anticipating this trip as it's been years since we all went on holiday as friends - last time was 2008, and back then there were (completely separate) social issues going on, so it would be nice to have a bicker-free holiday for once.

How should I treat it if he gets like this? It always makes me quite upset being accused in this passive aggressive way, but I know I shouldn't argue back. Part of me just wants to shake my friend and say "look buddy, just because you've got problems doesn't mean you can take them out on your mates", but this would be insensitive and probably wouldn't help things. Or what? Do you ignore it and walk away? Leave things to his girlfriend (doesn't seem fair) to sort out? Try and reason with him? Somehow this never seems to work if someone is determined to be unreasonable.

ignore it and walk away.

yeah, i guess so. although it's not always possible.

Offer as much support as you can to the gf, but viz. dealing directly w/ your friend, I doubt there's much you can do. I used to have a close friend who was bipolar, and she had some of the same behaviours you mention. She would get the wrong end of hte stick about things, overreact all the time, would accuse me of being a bad friend based on stories she'd cooked up about me. I bent over backwards to prove her wrong, to reassure her, but it only got worse. In the end I *became* a bad friend, because I couldn't handle the provocation (I had some pretty big problems of my own at the time), and we no longer speak.

I regret this.

If you can zen the whole thing maybe you'll handle it better than I could, but arguing / reasoning definitely don't work, IME.

I cannot think of the last time I've woken up this depressed. It was next to impossible to drag myself out of bed and I find myself glaring at anyone actually daring to smile in public, picturing very horrible things happening to them to remind them that life is nothing but a horrifying string of cruching defeats and misery.

Also crushing defeats.

i've felt much the same way over the past week. I suffered from a major depressive episode from about 1989 to 1994 (yes that is a long time) which was seriously compounded by horrible alcohol abuse on top of all kinds of meds I was prescribed...nightmare. Finally pulled myself out of all of that and, despite having increasing anxiety over the past several years, I hadn't had this kind of depression in years. But last week it came out of nowhere: unable to concentrate, things seeming pointless, an almost overwhelming urge to weep? WTF. lasted four days then left....then came back. seems to be nipping around everywhere the second I don't keep myself occupied.

it was suggested I might look into amino acid supplements to control this since it seemed so chemical; there is no logical reason for me to be depressed like this. has anyone tried this? I don't even know where to get or who to talk to about them. not interested in doing meds again since my experience with them was horrifying (probably because I was drinking on top of them but still).