Depression and what it's really like

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.

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.