Depression and what it's really like

xp

that's where the habit and repetition comes in, no? part of why i mistrusted the idea of CBT was because i cdn't see the route to internalization but now i feel like worrying about how stuff happens is counterproductive, for me.

which is perfectly sensical if you believe that you didn't acquire your self-destructive thinking habits in a couple of days

otm

TS: therapists that tell you to pull yourself together vs. therapists that tell you to accept yourself as you are.

accept who you want to be and work toward it imo

I'm going back to therapy starting this saturday and I am going to try to take the CBT exercises really seriously this time. I think tangibly changing my habits would be empowering, and is necessary for me to actually accept myself.

Thanks for this conversation. It's been really helpful for me, both in terms of solidifying my understanding of why CBT didn't work for me, and also the basis of my mistrust of the use of it as an NHS panacea.

Any time a person, or a method starts disregarding the variety of human beings, and starts insisting "This method will work for everyone, if the method doesn't work, it is the fault of the person not working hard enough, not the fault of the method" - that is not science, that is cult-like thinking.

And that analogy - it's like a diet and exercise regime - that was the moment that the realisation snapped into my head. I have heard this *exact* argument before. Many, many times. "Diet and exercise regimes work for everyone, and if you are not losing weight, you're just not working hard enough!" Thank goodness there are movements like HAES and Body Acceptance that have said, quietly compared to prevailing culture, but often enough for the message to reach me: "that is bullshit." It's empowering to stop blaming myself for failure which is not my fault, and look for something that just helps me be more healthy.

Even in the realm of more physical medicine, after the advent of "wonder drugs" which really did save the lives of billions of people, penicillin and the like, there was the slow realisation that 1) some people (including myself) have penicillin allergies, and the drugs will harm them more than help them and 2) that there are such things as penicillin-resistant strains of disease.

I'm putting CBT firmly into the category of "penicillin" - works great for many people, not so great for others. But I'm putting people who continue to advocate CBT as the "best treatment" in the face of the many people it does not help, into the realm of "dangerous, cult-like thinkers" to be avoided the same way I avoid the "OMG death-fatties" crowd.

Thanks for the reassurances upthread BB. :)

I agree with BB, but also see how people who think they are benefiting from CBT would get defensive at the suggestion that it's not 100% effective for 100% of people. Having faith in whatever therapeutic model you are using is probably an important factor in whether or not that model is effective. This connects to a larger issue I have where I think my skepticism -- or "objectivity" -- about things can be self-defeating. To get results in anything, I am slowly realizing, you have to look down and follow some sort of plan while blocking out distractions and uncertainties. This is hard for me, and I don't even find it appealing as a personality trait or whatever, but I think it's necessary sometimes, and a thing CBT tries to help people do with its emphasis on "productive" rather than "open-ended, infinitely regressive" thinking. People who are fitness fanatics, or really defensive about whatever habits they've cultivated, are probably just scared of looking up, recognizing they don't know everything, and losing the motivation to keep doing the thing that's working for them.

I'm not excusing people who have close minded, prescriptive attitudes about mental health and certainly not excusing the NHS, obviously. Again, BB otm, and people should learn to separate what's best for them from what's best for other people.

wtf is this talk about fitness fanatics?

doing a thing you find helpful is great and it makes sense you'd be a believer and evangelist for it, but it's not everyone's path

is wtf this talk is about, i think.

yeah okay but i've hardly been an evangelist for it, nor have i tried to push it on anybody

Talking like people who decide to follow a regimen are blinkered, self-deluding cultists is a pretty high level of condescending, we could probably have more or less the same conversation by allowing that sometimes you have to focus your efforts in order to fulfill your expectations for a thing.

fair point!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qld7WvHa5kc&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dqld7WvHa5kc

I never said that people who decide to follow a regimen are blinkered self-deluding cultists.

I said that people who decide that *their* regimen is the *only* answer, and is applicable to everyone, regardless of other people's self-reported evidence that it is not, are blinkered self-deluding cultists.

If no one in the thread has said the latter, then we do not have an argument on this thread. But both of these things have been said to me, in many contexts, and I do not find it a stretch to equate the two attitudes.

And condescension is in the eye of the beholder. I mean that in many different senses, all of them applicable.

Are you taking an ilx break or not taking an ilx break, BB?

I took a break from ILX last night, because I had just come from a difficult therapy session. It was good to take time and rethink and get a clear head for the evening. Sorry if you didn't catch that.

spost I mean duh clearly not, but when people say they are going to go away in an effort to support their mental health, and then do not, well. . . oh well never mind what CBT may have to say about that, right?

Here's the thing: I have long valued this thread for its honest insights as to what it is like to suffer from depression; from its sincere support for those who are suffering; and for providing a thoughtful place to consider all of the issues surrounding depression.

Your heavy-handed, bull-in-china-shop presence here is not one I, for one, find valuable.

Thanks for your opinion. I will not comment on whether I find it valuable.

If you don't find it valuable, than stfu. If you do, try to be respectful of others.

*then*

"STFU"

"respectful."

Wow. Just... wow. Good day to you, Quincie.

I'm not sure if I'm just drunk, or if you're being kind of an ass, quincie. Either way, everyone else on this thread without this horrible arguing.

say what?

"everyone else on this thread *feels terrible enough* without this horrible arguing"

ah, true

surely depression is one of the foulest demons ever to crawl into a human !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU1MAokrrUk

everyone else on this thread *feels terrible enough* without this horrible arguing

This is entirely true, of course, and I am sorry I brought it up. I'll stfu now.

I've tried to contact my therapist 5 times over the past two weeks. I've gotten his answering service, his receptionist twice, his voicemail and I've emailed him but no reply. I understand he is busy being one of the better psychologists in this part of the country

haven't read last this so maybe this has already been taken care of, but give your pharmacy a call, explain the situation, and ask them to call the prescriber's office and take a prescription over the phone. even if the prescriber is not there, a nurse or medical assistant should be able to read his/her notes, understand the situation, and authorize a refill for a month's supply in the meantime

also, is this a psychologist or psychiatrist we're talking about?

do psychologists prescribe medicine in the UK?

No, in the UK your GP prescribes the medicine, but after a few months may send you for a review by a specialised psychiatrist, who will generally tell you to keep taking whatever the GP's already given you and send you away again within 30 seconds

you usually get referred to a clinical psychologist by your GP, and the psychologist can suggest that medication might be helpful or write to your GP (with your permission?) to suggest a review of your medication, but can't prescribe any or tell you outright to take it or not take it. at least, that is my understanding

sunny isn't in the UK though. hope you got it sorted out

prescribing in the UK is sort of odd right now - the government's been shaking up the NHS and one of their moves to "reduce red tape" and "give GPs more power" was to make GPs more responsible for prescribing medicines, largely because they're now responsible for the budget for prescription costs/community services/hospital treatments/etc.

so e.g. last time i went to the hospital and was prescribed a course of medication, the specialist there could give me a prescription for one item, but for the other (which i needed to take alongside it!) I was given a letter of advice to take to my GP to ask them to do the actual prescribing.

(and so i had to make an appointment with my GP in order to get them to issue the prescription and i felt like a huge waste of their time and money but at least got to dine out on my personal 'the tories are increasing waste in the nhs and here's how' store)

(*story)

wow that's outrageous

That is a pretty terrible idea! Is that true for inpatients too? Because on your first day out after major surgery there's nothing you want to do more than make appointments, go into town, see doctors, go to the chemists, etc.

(the two things I loved most about coming out of my last hospital stay were the big bag of codeine I was sent home with and the possibility of sleeping all day in my own bed to make up for the impossibility of sleeping through the night in a hospital)

depression + having a job is a bad mix for me right now. i'm in a weird, low place right now, plus i'm quitting smoking, so i feel like anti-social and shitty right now. my job environment is really social and i just feel like doing my own thing right now ... but that's like a crime or something. GOTTA BE SOCIAL. MUST HAVE SMILE ON FACE AT ALL TIMES. like it's a crime if I don't feel chit-chatty all the time. guess it's good that people want to talk to me, i just feel overwhelmed by the whole idea. the pressure just makes it a thousand times worse.

at the team meeting we were introduced to a new guy, and new guy said to everyone that it looked like I "wanted to hide". everyone looked at me with this mixture of pity, sadness, and discomfort. i wanted to deck the guy right in the face.

you should have, imo

i don't know if it's me or this job. other team members here have called me pretentious, weird, "maiden" since I work on fashion stuff and I'm a dude, etc. definitely didn't need this today i can tell ya that much.

eh, it's probably me

that sounds like a somewhat toxic workplace

maybe it is. two people on the other team we work with completely torment this one poor dude who has low self esteem ... they tried that shit on me when i first got here, too (which i was able to avoid). now that I think about it there are actually a lot of assholes at this job. i know i've gotta take care of my social presentation and all, but this environment seems filled with nutcases. wonder if that's not helping my depression any.

tormenting a dude with low self esteem? hilarious!

yeah. i can tell they have low self-esteem, too, and they bug me to hang out with them but it's like ... i don't want to hang out with people who treat others like that.

even random people I meet here are bizarre. this attractive woman i bumped into started talking me, and she's from a country another friend I had was from, and I mentioned I might see her on vacation, and this woman said, "use her up. use her for everything she's worth." and i was like WTF!? she's nice to me, too, and I think she's attracted to me, but I don't know if I want anything to do with people who say shit like that. i'm flaying myself for being anti-social at my job, but so many people i've met here are absolutely bonkers.

o_O

do you work with cocaine junkies?