Depression and what it's really like

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2008/10/lg_copy.jpg

More like LolG

:) (interesting discussions above btw, I'll chip in after my dinner...)

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=136&q=211

spot on for cognitive therapy?

depression sux. everything in my life is objectively good right now ... did a twisty turn in my career and landed on my feet, paid off debt, new car, the potential for a truly new life. yet everything feels so friggin DOWN BEAT. hopeless, man, like i'm stuck in a tar pit and i go down to lift my leg out but my head gets stuck and i sink even deeper ... and there's nobody there to pull me to safety. things have always felt like this, but now it's uhhhh, worse, despite life being objectively better than ever.

is it really possible to get out of this, for real?? i feel pretty damn whiney about it all. at least i know there's a name for it now.

"career and landed on my feet, paid off debt, new car, the potential for a truly new life."

many people I think are successful , wealthy but still depressed

that is not meant to be a downer, just saying tehse things do nto bring happiness necessarily - self-love does more

is it really possible to get out of this, for real??

heh, don't beat yourself up, humans have been asking this question w/o good answer for thousands of years, doesn't make you whiney at all

calling anyone a whiner is just name-calling and does not reflect any real state of being

It does but there's a long waiting list (if you can convince your GP to refer you at all), you tend to get offered 6 or 12 sessions instead of anything longer-term, and (here's the reason why I stopped going) they're always within office hours, so good luck convincing your boss of your sudden urgent need for weekly absences without admitting to anything you don't want them knowing.

However these are not insurmountable and it's def. an avenue worth pursuing, especially if you feel yourself slipping back, but those are some reasons for wanting to spend money on speeding the process up.

LG, it seems from earlier posts you've had 12 sessions which have come to an end, so could you go back to your GP or get in touch with whoever you saw last time and ask if there are any options for continuing things or if they can suggest somewhere else to try? IME even if they're not able to offer something they've been willing to take 5 minutes to suggest other avenues to a former patient. (At least, that is my understanding: I have not asked personally but I have seen them help the receptionist respond to other people's requests.)

i was on a waiting list for about 9 or 10 months cos of the only daytime appointments thing, but they do have a 6pm meeting at the place i went to. i got this slot for 12 weeks and i could manage to get there by leaving work at about 5ish, which was fine, i just told my boss i had a medical appointment that was important, let him think it's physio or let him guess, didn't really bother me.

when it ended they were talking about more, but, and i feel bad about this, i got the times wrong for an acting thing i was doing and had to miss my last session. felt bad as the counsellor was really helpful and i didn't really get to say thanks.

he had recommended i go private, there didn't seem to be a cheap/free alternative. people say shit like "what price to put on your mental health?" etc but you could spend £50 a session and get nothing out of it.

also i still wonder if other things can help in different ways. by total coincidence i did my acting class for 12 weeks after 11 weeks of counselling, same night of the week, same time. and my feeling better the last 2/3 months was thanks to both. this might just be cos acting is v introspective and peaceful and stuff though, and a good emotional release. was funny doing negatively toned improv and the teacher being all "i really... FELT that."

just having hobbies and doing new shit can be a great cure for depression.

i think not a total cure, but it obviously helps. i prob have more hobbies than i've ever had and am physically way fitter etc, but i never did anything back in the day, before i had depression probs!

there's only one cure, and all know it

right, a palliative, not a cure

the cure is MDMA

funny, taking mdma a few years back was the first time i realized something was up. it was like, "wooaahh ... I used to enjoy doing lots of things! I used to love, maaan!" it broke through years of numbness that lasted so long it seemed like the only reality.

i was j/k btw

waiting for fda to approve ketamine for depression

Garda, there's orgs like the westminster pastoral foundation that provide counselling/therapy at a reduced fee.

I think that MDMA experience might be quite common.

From the classic Nick Saunders pioneering book 'E for Ecstasy':

When we got off the train I took deep breaths and the air felt wonderful. It was good to be alive. But the intellectual part of myself asked "What is different to normal? Why isn't life always like this?" I deduced that I was simply allowing myself to enjoy what had always been there. I realised that I had got into the habit of restraining myself. It was not this drug-induced state that was distorted - it was what I had come to accept as my normal state that was perverse. I then realised that over the past few years I had been mildly depressed. And, what's more, I could see why: some years before I had felt cheated in a business deal, and had carried a resentment like a burden ever since: instead of hurting the person involved, I had been grimly taking it out on myself. This realisation and the experience of a few hours 'freedom' was just the tonic I needed; I let go of the resentment and started afresh with new enthusiasm.

The first bit does perhaps lend itself to parody: '...I took deep breaths and the air felt wonderful. It was good to be alive. I wondered why anyone could possibly feel they need drugs, then I remembered: I was on drugs' (I think I heard a Simon Munnery/League Against Tedium routine along these lines]

http://www.panicaway.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/David-Burns.jpg

god just looking at dr david burns cheers me up

finally got feelin' good! in the mail, need to get on this. never realized how much depression twists your thoughts: a few months ago i went on an interview at a cool industrial design firm ... i was a total jittery, chain-smoking, patchy haired wreck at the interview ... thought i bombed that shit because i was a total losar and beat myself up for a good two weeks after it (and added it to my Things to Beat Myself Up For list and Things to Defeat to Not Be a Loser Anymore). they just called me back for a second interview. depressed reality is some real bullshit.

Cool industrial design firms and jittery wrecks kind of go together.

I think the most cheering thought of all is this - most depression results from illogical thoughts. Depression is not inevitable

Hey, congrats on 2nd interview!!! And Latham otm.

Thanks. Realizing it's just thoughts, memories, and conditioning, and not how things really are, is pretty liberating and I'm starting to feel authentic hope. The emotional stuff is what gets ya, family shit and all that, but I'm coming to terms with it all ... life's too short, and if living a good life requires making difficult decisions, so be it.

write it down and put it somewhere you can read it next time you're feeling depressed

cripes, after doing some soul searching i'm starting to realize depression runs pretty strongly on my mom's side of the family. i wonder if there's some genetic thing going on here ... and what that means for recovery. i share a lot in common with the depressed/dead people on that side, a lot of it good, except for this. don't want to go hemmingway style, doubly cuz i have jack squatto to show for it.

maybe not for you, but yes it def runs in families

I didn't think depression ran in my family until I realised denial of depression does.

My maternal grandmother was a substance abuser who was constantly in RX induced near catatonic state and eventually committed suicide
My mother has extreme anxiety/depression and is at heavily medicated 24/7
I consider myself pretty lucky to "only" have come away with GAD.

I didn't think depression ran in my family until I realised denial of depression does.

Suuuuper OTM.

needed a snare drum at the end!

and the sound of a bomb going off

just cos i'm irish no need to bring terrorism into it.

come on man i'm iranian, i gotta bring terrorism into it

you can't spell iranian without ira, so i think we're grand here.

omg

to be honest, this thing just never ever goes away. it never will. but at this point I think that if you are lucky enough to survive the are-you-sick-are-you-not psychiatrists and find correct medication that doesn't kill you, you can keep it under relative control (as if it were a debilitating disease) by treating yourself like a soldier with all the fucking exercise, stupid healthy food and endlessly annoying new age therapy. remove alcohol, drugs, bad company too ie. most fun and then you got a chance, maybe ...

treating yourself like a soldier with all the fucking exercise, stupid healthy food and endlessly annoying new age therapy cutty

come on it's not that bad!

my psychiatrist actually told me yesterday i should forget about finding a job, live on disability, and concentrate this month on getting back up to a few miles a day on the bike! she said it would be better for me than any sort of meds or whatnot she could prescribe

uh... wow

but yes, wolves has got it down

Dad committed suicide, Granddad had...something wrong with him. PTSD, schizophrenia..not sure. Seems to be some alcoholism, anxiety, and pretty intense trait of volubility on mom's side. That's mountain-folk for you. Don't really know how deep or far back it all goes, but prefer not to know.

It's all over my family. More the rule than the exception. There isn't one of us (on my mom's side, which is the only side I have any contact with) in the last three generations that hasn't been treated for depression. I suppose, if you were so inclined, you could find this comforting. I do not, for some strange reason.

have been having the most shittiest week, logged in, read this thread, realized i'm not alone, now feel a smidgen better, thank you guys so much for being honest and real. love y'all like the worthwhile, beautiful human beings you all are. xo

i'm also of the opinion that depression is a symptom of an unhealthy society/planet. the reason why it's so difficult for so many people to overcome is because we can change ourselves as much as we want but the fact is we're still living in an unhealthy environment. how exactly does a person maintain sanity when they're surrounded by insanity? you need to be, like, some superhuman zennn master or something, to block out the world around you and focus exclusively on inner peace.

i do think depression is completely curable. 100%. but in order to cure depression we need to cure the world. yada yada.

anyway, i'd take hug therapy, laugh therapy, and love therapy any day over talk therapy. cuz really, at least in my case, i'd say 99% of my issues stem from a lack of love and affection, not just in my own life but from observing the lives of others.

and yeah, i don't watch the news anymore. don't read the paper. don't take part in protests. avoid all angry, depressing, violent news or conflicts to the best of my abilities. last thing i need is a bunch of bullshit bad news to push me over the edge.

do you, uh, love yourself? talk therapy was important for me in that regard

can't sleep, endless parade of past fuckups plays when I close my eyes