Depression and what it's really like

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.

Found out I have sleep apnea (I stop breathing every 2 minutes on average, God only knows what damage this does to my brain in the long run), so I have to use one of those bloody CPAP machines at night. Was really really hoping it would boost my mood/energy levels the way everybody said it would, but no, I'm just tired and depressed plus I now sleep with a huge fucking hissing thing strapped to my face.

Just read a month of these posts in one go, by the way, best wishes to you all; this disease fucking sucks

Hey james reading quotations from your kid on the KSTDT thread has made my day on more than one occasion

Found out I have sleep apnea (I stop breathing every 2 minutes on average, God only knows what damage this does to my brain in the long run), so I have to use one of those bloody CPAP machines at night. Was really really hoping it would boost my mood/energy levels the way everybody said it would, but no, I'm just tired and depressed plus I now sleep with a huge fucking hissing thing strapped to my face.

― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, November 19, 2016 2:37 AM

Yeah, trying to use the CPAP was the low point for me. But it actually got me to lose the 40 pounds I had put on, and when I lost the weight, the sleep apnea went away. Don't know if your apnea is weight-related...

in the same boat - if i could shift the weight off my neck, the apnoea would go away, but that means shifting the weight off all of me, and the world sucks enough without giving up food

Me too! I gather fat in my neck like a beast. The CPAP actually catapulted me into losing the weight, that's how much I hated it. Unfortunately, for me to lose weight, I had to cut out the following completely: bread/rice/pasta/potatoes/sugar/alcohol. Luckily, I'm not a drinker. 4 pounds came off every 3 weeks, but it was hell.

Well I could try living on cheese and ham I guess :/

Used the CPAP as a trial and there's just no way

Don't beat yourself up (although I think I cut out dairy too :( I never thought I'd succeed, but the inability to sleep made me freak out enough to finally do it. Do it with a nutritionist through your doctor if you can...they can work out a menu with you that isn't horrible. It helped me to have an appointment every three weeks to weigh in.

I meant to say, don't beat yourself up over CPAP, it don't work full stop

Cheers, iago., nv, i will do some more weight research, as that may well be a contributing problem here
And justin, thank you... She is a good corrective to depression

I've been humming along on a thin veneer of hope and tenuous positivity for the last several weeks but there have been a number of times over the past handful of days when the veneer became translucent and I could see the ink-black void beneath. It's starting to freak me out that most of the people around me aren't freaked out, are just continuing with their daily routine as if nothing in the world has changed and will continue happily unabated forever! Kinda feeling a strong pull to self-medicate in hopes of seeing things the same way. But still feeling hopeful that taking some regular positive action can help pull me out of this before I totally sink.

I'm mostly just venting atm. I'm not quite there yet but I've been down this sadly-familiar road before.

good wishes heading your way, man. i liked your posts about doing something positive to change things post-election - i think you were def on the right track there even although it might not feel it right now

fwiw, i've found recently that physical exercise makes a big positive difference to my mental wellbeing - worth a shot if you're not doing something along those lines already maybe?

Thanks, brother. My lifestyle definitely tends more towards the sedentary so, yeah, that's always a thing to do, I guess.

also there's always posting on ilx, a glass-bottomed boat gliding over the ink-black void

I've been humming along on a thin veneer of hope and tenuous positivity for the last several weeks but there have been a number of times over the past handful of days when the veneer became translucent and I could see the ink-black void beneath. It's starting to freak me out that most of the people around me aren't freaked out, are just continuing with their daily routine as if nothing in the world has changed and will continue happily unabated forever! Kinda feeling a strong pull to self-medicate in hopes of seeing things the same way. But still feeling hopeful that taking some regular positive action can help pull me out of this before I totally sink.

I'm mostly just venting atm. I'm not quite there yet but I've been down this sadly-familiar road before.

― The Pleasure Principal (Old Lunch)

i think something i do as a depressive is to assume that other people are doing better than they actually are. we all have ample incentives to present ourselves in an inappropriately positive light. hell i do it myself when dealing with people in person.

for me it's a struggle because the only way i can continue to be a defensible human being, i have to keep looking at the ink-blackness, but that tends to, well, sort of impair one's functionality. so many people around me in despair, and i can't give them any concrete reasons not to despair, but at the same time living in this sense of absolute refusal... i don't know what i'm saying.

all regular activities tend to end around christmastime. losing what tenuous routines i have will be tough.

I know it's hard to think it matters, but I really like you, and look forward to you getting through this. All of you, really - I've been a poster/reader here for well over a decade, and this is a curiously pleasant place of nice people. It's got me through more than one spell in hospital. And that inky blackness: it's not the truth.

true ^

the lack of sunlight has been really affecting me now. i just feel like going back to bed all day, but i can't bc i have a job. exercising consistently, at least.

wrote a humongous post and scrapped it, condensing it to (a) hope everyone above is doing okay (b) fuck having any sort of aspirations for anything (c) fuck this shit

you are otm in at least one of those brackets but its all swirling relativity isnt it

it is

current plan is to ignore the black dog for another 40 years, but i don't think that's technically a plan

ach 'plans' fuckem dyknow?

every plan i had is dead so 'fuckem' is the best course of action

yep, see what fails miserably and retrospectively trash it as unworthy imo

nb this has worked v well for me in most aspects of life as a coping mechanism

cheers, excellent advice, although i'm looking at trashing ~all of the things~ and atm have nothing to replace them with

Just found out a long-term, dear friend killed himself last November. I honestly don't feel anything about it right now. Just "Oh." A total lack of surprise.

wrote a humongous post and scrapped it, condensing it to (a) hope everyone above is doing okay (b) fuck having any sort of aspirations for anything (c) fuck this shit

― Autumn Almanac, Thursday, January 5, 2017 6:11 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

listen to the last ten minutes of this--Curtis really hits the nail on the head. Scary but clarifying
http://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-no-future-feat-adam-curtis-121216

rushomancy i'm so sorry, really hope you have some people to talk to about it. there's no correct/incorrect way to react to something like that imo.

listen to the last ten minutes of this--Curtis really hits the nail on the head. Scary but clarifying

thanks for that. my issues are generally personal in nature but australia's recent history (very similar to what america's about to go through) has certainly had a real impact on my current issues. a huge portion of my give-up-on-everything attitude is the realisation that being nice to people is a lost cause when corporations and selfish fuckheads keep twisting democracies to their own ends and away from the 99%.

And that most australians would happily see other people burned alive as long as they don't have to spend an extra minute a day in traffic or pay 1c more a year for enrrgy

otm, it really does feel like the country's turning into mad max

So, I have a cold atm, and in addition to feeling terrible I seem to be going through withdrawals from my antidepressants. I'm still taking them, but I'm familiar enough with the withdrawal symptoms to recognise it. Can anyone think of any reason why a cold might stop antidepressants working? It's impossible to google for. It sucks, whatever is happening.

are you taking any medicine for the cold?

No, not really. I took some ibuprofen last night, but I tend to ride them out.

idk maybe if you are v. dehydrated

yes, or the cold is causing you to experience double depression. the immune inflammatory response of a cold can feel v., v., similar to a chemical depression

mookieproof otm re: dehydration, that was my thought

Well, the brain zaps seem to have stopped, so I might be able to get some sleep at some point.

one of those weekends where i feel like the adults are about to find out how much homework i haven't done and throw a fit at me - i think i'm just deep down frightened of being punished for not working hard enough, at the same time as i know i don't work hard enough

oh man, i sympathise with that one :(