Depression and what it's really like

Like, I have good and potentially life-changing news and I'm mostly just wondering what exactly is going to transpire so that it blows up in my face. That's kinda fucked, right?

feel better garda

that familiar sense of "don't kid yourself" that i get when I'm high on life might have some purpose, like the slave whispering in the ear of a Roman general during a triumph: "remember you're mortal". but at the same time it's kind of the outlier of yr depressive thinking, a little shadow of the lies we tell ourselves that we're not worthy, we shouldn't be happy, everything falls apart. in short, what emilys said, revel in yr happiness when it's there. there's nothing foolish about enjoying the simple joy of feeling good about the world, and maybe if we try hard enough we could make those feelings push their shadows into the dark times.

I do think in general depression is like diabetes type I - a chronic illness that need to manage not really cure, but you can manage it and feel good. It is also a very serious disease because it can be fatal (suicide)- in this sense it would be good if society made bigger strides to support depression management for people (not just a bumper sticker that says depression awareness)

Garda, just a random suggestion to play with: what if there was one person that you told when you weren't feeling good? Not to unload on them, just to tell the fact of it, like, "FYI, I'm in that place again, so if other people ask I'm going to say "Fine" for the sake of not having to explain, but just so someone knows, I'm not." I wonder if it would feel less like you were keeping a secret or "faking it" and more like a boundary that you chose but can break when you also choose to?

I obviously can't speak for Garda specifically, but the biggest problem with that (and one of the biggest obstacles to overcome, more generally, in making depression less of a stigma) is that so many people just shut down or pull out when they know you're going through a rough time (which, naturally, just makes it that much rougher). They don't want to hear about it, and they treat it like it's contagious. Which it may be, to an extent, as I feel like a lot of those people have a really tenuous grasp on their own mental health and don't want to expose themselves to anything but cheery lightness lest their grasp slip. Luckily, I have a handful of confidants who have been through rough shit themselves and w're all reliable sounding boards for one another when it's needed. It makes me sad to know that not everyone has that.

Garda, just a random suggestion to play with: what if there was one person that you told when you weren't feeling good? Not to unload on them, just to tell the fact of it, like, "FYI, I'm in that place again, so if other people ask I'm going to say "Fine" for the sake of not having to explain, but just so someone knows, I'm not." I wonder if it would feel less like you were keeping a secret or "faking it" and more like a boundary that you chose but can break when you also choose to?

lol... hello ex-gf now living with another dude and hence in touch less often.

it's a good idea though, it does help.

They don't want to hear about it, and they treat it like it's contagious.

Speaking as a not-depressed person who has several quite-depressed people in my orbit (friends, family), all I can say is that I'm always glad when people are candid about their struggles. The "but" is, it can be very hard to have a useful dialogue about it. I'm happy to listen, but I'm wary of offering too much feel-good advice ("You should exercise more/play music more/set some goals for yourself," etc), which I know can seem glib on the receiving end. So once you get past the initial exchange -- "I'm having a hard time" "Oh, dude, sympathies" -- it can feel a little stuck. The natural thing on the listener's end is to want to somehow help to make things better, but there's not always or often a clear path to that.

I said, not to unload. Just to tell someone. Maybe pre-agree w that person that you're not telling them so they can put you on suicide watch for the love of cheese, it's just part of your strategy to have someone know.

tipsy otm about the rest.

I did this very thing to/at/with (?) my bff recently and she was like "Do you want advice or someone to talk to?" (which I thought was a good initial question) and I replied that I didn't want either, I just wanted someone to know I was feeling low since usually I keep it pretty well disguised. I mean, I do that on purpose so I don't have to talk to anyone about it, but I wanted her to know because she understands that about me. Also I already do everything that anyone could possibly recommend, so there's really no sense in telling me to get some exercise or work on my sleep routine. It (the low feeling) just needs to wash over and through and out. Afterwards I told a few more people and it was easier.

garda i don't know the situation so well but i don't know that ex-gf is a good choice for that role

i say this as someone who regularly commiserates with not one but two exes but they are in the 10+ years of being split category

nah it's a pretty positive situation, at least i think so. there's no residual need to get back together or whatever, on either of our parts. we just have stayed really close friends, in a really positive way, since breaking up. i totally respect also that now she is living with someone it's natural we don't im as much or that kind of thing. we broke up sort of in a v organic way where we just couldn't go further as a couple, no real falling out.

that's good, i tried to do this with a recent ex of less than a year and, well, it was a disaster

"The "but" is, it can be very hard to have a useful dialogue about it. I'm happy to listen, but I'm wary of offering too much feel-good advice ("You should exercise more/play music more/set some goals for yourself," etc), which I know can seem glib on the receiving end"

This is why sometimes its better to consult a third party therapist type I think - there is only so much listening you can do - its hard to know what to say

i would go back to therapy in a sec but it costs a fortune. i could afford it but i don't want to pay that much. i might start going monthly tho.

that is really too bad. Its so important but as a society we cannot find money for it so people dont have to worry about that. We do not haev the will. We woudl rather subsidize football stadiums

does your national health care not cover therapy?

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.)

this was through university health care, iirc i had to go back and talk to the GP and they had to evaluate me and decide how bad i needed therapy.

so i *think* the answer to your question (i haven't had coffee yet and i'm having trouble reading clearly) is YES.

how bad i needed *more* therapy

which at the time turned out to be not much at all, since school was ending and i'd gotten a teaching contract and things were looking up

so we just spaced out our last 4 sessions more

in the future there will be AI therapists and it will be free

Whoa there are 3 LGs on this thread, sorry for confusion. I was talking to L. Garda, as I thought you were too with your health service post, Late Great, but if not then please ignore my totally irrelevant post. Also hi to the other LG Latham Green.

LG's reprasent in 3G from our LG phone

Haha also LG are my irl initials so my brain waves spike whenever someone uses them on ilx.

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.