Depression and what it's really like

lol - that is quite strongly evocative of satan/hell

there was a point where cooking was helping me keep on an even keel and trips to the local Asian supermarket are good for me, because obv they don't sell alcohol and it's amazing how much good stuff you can get for 5-6 quid. But I keep breaking my daytime drinking rule when cooking recently. Drinking and cooking can be so pleasurable, but very problematic when start doing it 3-4 times a week and in the daytime.

I went to an organised diet group for a while and everyone else swore by planning all their meals a week in advance and I was just like ???

I cannot even imagine knowing all the variables that far in advance: what do I feel like? what do I have time and energy to prepare? what does the shop actually have? oh, I forgot this thing that's about to go off so I'll have that instead, etc. and going through a cookbook even for 1 meal provokes such indecision and anxiety, the thought of picking several in advance and sticking to them, argh

plus at the time I was living with someone who would often frustrate my dinner plans by not "feeling like" whatever I'd bought, announcing that he was tired of a former staple or that he'd never liked something he'd been enthusiastic about previously, etc, and the timetable thing might have started some kind of war

re hardcore dilettante's post yesterday, I wish bupropion was prescribed for mental health issues in this country (UK) as I'd be curious to try it. I have a lot of ADHDish traits but the NHS doesn't really recognise adult ADHD and the doctors I've asked just say, "your record says you have 'chronic depression' so even if your mood is fine any difficulties you are having must be due to depression," so something which is used to treat both in the USA would interest me.

My depression is definitely comorbid with ADHD (primarily inattentive), so yeah, it's a nice synergy. I augment the bupropion with very small doses of vyvanse - some kind of amphetamine, I think, too lazy to look it up - as required, especially when I've had all the coffee I can take. Helps militate against the self-flagellation triggered by not being as productive as I'd like, but has tradeoffs too - end-of-day irritability and exhaustion, feeling like my blood vessels are about to burst Ebola-style, so I keep it as-needed & very low doses.

Space cadet, can you blag your way into trying bupropion for "smoking cessation" purposes? I only know a small handful of people that it's helped, honestly, but for those few it's a lifesaver. Shows that one-size-fits-all solutions to mental health problems are bullshit. I think the current method of classifying depression & its cohorts by how symptoms present isn't very useful at all; anecdotal evidence and intuition suggest that we probably need ways of measuring neurotransmitter levels & stack that data against symptoms, personal history, (& I dunno what else: neural mapping? Tasseography?) in a much more nuanced way than we're probably currently capable of in order to determine effective individual solutions.

Hmm, I'm not sure - they've asked if I smoke a few times in the past and I've said no but they may not have recorded that, plus I suppose I could claim I've started and want to stop, though I'm not a very convincing liar...

Any idea if the irritability is the Bupropion or the Vyvanse? I am p. irritable and easily tired (and with high blood pressure) anyway so maybe not such a great daydream after all!

I often like choosing stuff on the day but I might buy ingredients in advance, like I dunno, a piece of meat on a Sunday or something, then decide what to do with it on the day I use it.

yeah, that's my m.o. too

just eat the same thing all the time, then it doesn't matter

Sorry if not clear - if I'm just on the 'prop I'm fine, mostly. Any side effects I described above were vyvanse-related.

Getting pretty worried tbh. My wife and I both suffer from depression, live in a shithole with junkies overrunning the building (and I can't even complain about that on ILX without some cunt calling me a shrill neighbourhood watcher), my wife has cancer so we can't easily move even if we can get out of our contract. I'd just tell the landlord to go fuck themselves and sue us if they want any more rent if we can't get out of it, which seems to be the case, but then how do I get a new place to live without a reference? We're just completely fucked. I have no motivation at work so I'm falling behind there. I guess at least if I lose my job we'd qualify for some help. Don't think I've ever been closer to just offing myself. This year has been one thing after another. Shitty housing, bereavement, cancer cancer cancer. What is the point of being alive anyway.

That sounds awful, col, and you don't need to be defensive. I think in this thread at least, if not ilx as a whole, you can talk about the things getting you down without too much judgement. Would you say a lot of the problem is material in nature? Obviously there's not much any of us can do about the harshness of modern capitalism, which depression compounds massively; I can only advocate faith that things get better, which isn't much, especially when depressed. Even knowing that in the last these times have got better doesn't really help because the hopelessness is a sensation, not a calculation. I think you have to grab a hold of some irrational faith to keep going.

I don't know if you've talked to Citizen's Advice about how to get a reference/find a new place to live without a reference? that seems to me to be maybe the concrete problem that you might be able to address amongst all that horribleness. not trying to be glib, just offering massive sympathy. if you can't feel comfortable in your then it's very hard to be remotely optimistic, I know.

Citizen's Advice told me it was my own tough shit for moving there.

jesus christ. sorry.

Quite like to burn down Citizens Advice tbh. Worse than useless. I've been to them 3 times in my life and every time the advice is "you're fucked".

And living with/near addicts is no fun at all - no matter the substance. While I was put in a shared flat with someone who was meant to be recovering, but was an active heroin user. So needles were left all over the shop, people coming day and night, stealing my mail, breaking into my room - it was a lot to cope with on top of depression and the worry of being homeless. I have a lot of sympathy for addicts, but I don't take the harm they cause lightly.

They haven't broken into our flat, yet. But other than that, that's exactly the situation we are in. When my wife starts chemo next week a discarded needle could potentially kill her (bit overdramatic maybe but the risk is there). We keep missing letters from the hospital because they get stolen.

Last week someone on the ground floor was dragged into a flat by 6 men and beaten shitless. The police told my wife off yesterday for calling 999 because nobody came when we called 101. It's just a fucked up situation with no solution.

Instead of citizens advice, what about contacting Shelter? They helped a friend out who was nearly made homeless with advice and support

tbf I only tried Shelter once but got annoyed with them because they don't have a queue for calls, there's 5 minutes of prerecordings then it just says "all lines are busy" and hangs up. I was already in a bad mood so I didn't feel like sitting through that repeatedly until I get through. I think I called them just after CAB though which was so disheartening I'd just run out of energy for it. Maybe I'll give them another go.

Been thinking I might be getting very unwell. I keep having these long, vaguely hallucinatory, déjà vu trances, and the TV just told me to kill myself. Well, it was an advert that said "why not do it yourself?" And I say, clearly, "why not kill yourself". I don't feel suicidal, but it's not a good sign.

When's your next chance to speak to a professional about this?

Well, I have an appointment the start of december - I can get one quicker, though I don't relish the thought. Getting locked up again goes against my 'new start' idea.

At least you're aware of this? Like, it's ideation rather than hallucination at this point, hopefully you could talk it through?

Yeah, insight is still good. It might not be a problem, or it might be the start of something more. Just going to keep taking my meds and hope I even out.

If it helps I wouldn't even really interpret that as "hallucination", just some weird kind of confirmation bias. When I'm feeling suicidal everything I encounter seems to be about suicide too. I'm still perfectly aware that Prince or whoever didn't actually write that song to encourage me to kill myself.

Yeah, totally.

Oh, I also had moment where I got confused and thought I was waking up after having fallen asleep watching the election results, and the BBC said 'Clinton Wins Presidency'. My prophecies come true but are usually 50-50 - like predicting the sex of my brother's kid. Which is arguably worse than useless.

Anyway, warm wishes, hope you feel better soon.

ditto that, and do take care!

Take care, bro

Hope you are doing OK dowd.

I am hoping that my plunge into suicidal thinking (as opposed to my regular suicide ideation that I can usually ignore or at least not get to me quite so bad) is due to a combination of shitty circumstances and changing medication and it will maybe get better soon. I've been on amitriptyline for a week now which isn't really long enough for it to work (2 weeks I was told) but I seem to have regained some ability to concentrate. I have frequent mild headaches/feel weird which I'm putting down to prozac withdrawal/amitriptyline kicking in but at least I'm getting some more sleep now. World events aren't exactly helping but I've got more pressing matters at the moment, I need to keep myself together to be strong for my wife. In some ways that pressure may be a vicious circle adding to feeling hopeless because I'm struggling to deal with it and she needs me to keep it together which makes me hate myself for being so pathetic, & so on. It doesn't help that I lost my uncle to cancer a month before my wife was diagnosed. I barely got a chance to grieve for him and don't think I've really dealt with that at all.

Colonel, the mere fact that you are talking about it the way you are talking about it and framing it that way is a good sign IMO

My therapist called me this morning to make sure I was doing OK. That was really thoughtful of her.

I wish I could get a prescription for an anti anx today. I'm in a pretty bad place. I have a pretty high caliber chamomile + linden + catnip tea which helped a little bit last night.

Last night's circumstances launched me into my full suite of panic/suicidal ideation/catstrophizing/dissociating for a couple solid hours, my partner bravely kept me company through it and dialed a support hotline for me. I've got just one pill of my prn lorazepam left but I'm gonna try to get more from my doctor asap.

I've been googling up articles to share on burning thru amped levels of cortisol & adrenaline

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax

This one seems decent.

Going to hibernate for a couple of days. Glad I have Dillon for company, though he stole my bed when I went to the toilet. http://i.imgur.com/BwYiJmb.jpg

dillon otm

My husbands boss gave everyone the day off to deal with the election results so he went hiking to try and calm down bc he's totally freaking out, but the dog ended up covered in ticks so now he's freaking about that as well :(

Physical distance from the US this week is making it easier for me to not let the election fuck with my head but hugs to everyone on this thread <3

P.s. Svend, I talked to my dr and she doesn't seem very willing to refer me for TMS unless I do classes and therapy first. Kaiser is getting their own TMS setup next year.

don't think i'm depressed, just wake up every day, spend an hour and a half thinking "why am i even alive?", then trudge thru work and repeat

like, i don't even know any more, anybody i ask i tell them this is as good as i've ever been, cos at least i'm going to work, right?

wish i had some kind of opiate pill that wd just soma me thru the days

yeah the tvs gone to fuck hasnt it

Anybody on Vitamin D? Dr wrote a rx for me, says it could give me more energy (my D levels are low-ish)

Starting to get some insight as to how anxiety -> depression -> anxiety into a vicious loop. Just can't imagine any alternative way of being besides swinging back and forth from totally stressed and scared to totally despondent and tired... starting to learn that it's not normal

I got tested for it a few years back. Mine were very low.

feels like a bit of a fad to me - my gp told me i had low vit d levels a year or two ago when my chronic illness was bad - recommended trying supplements. more than one friend got told the exact same thing. i'm not saying the vit d levels weren't low, but the supplement changed nothing for me and it seems a bit strange it's a sudden piece of advice.

maybe for mental health it's different or more valuable - dunno.

it was something that the doctor said, "could help, couldn't hurt"

i've heard all that too. always a placebo hope, right?

Vitamin D supplements have to be large enough to move your levels in blood testing, the usual recommendations don't do that. Most people with low levels require something like 2000iu to 5000iu/day for a while to raise their levels into the normal range.

Not depression-related for me but since getting my levels in the normal range I've definitely seen fewer minor illnesses if nothing else.

yeah, the doc prescribed supplements, because outside + regular food wouldn't have elevated them. I never took them. I also haven't had a cold/flu/anything in about 2 years, so idk.

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2016/07July/Pages/The-new-guidelines-on-vitamin-D-what-you-need-to-know.aspx

The NHS recommended D supplements, and my GP mentioned it when I was talking to him last (I was asking if I needed supplements now that I'm vegetarian, he said my bloods were fine). I should probably give it a go.

i think i'm going to go to the dr next month and ask about that. i had such a bad winter last year. i don't know what it had to do with being seasonally affected vs. having a bad time at work/life but if there's something i can do this time it would be good.