Antidepressant round-up

[Undertoad]

I remember the moment I realized I had clinical depression. I was driving down the street and I felt this heavy weight on my body. I didn't feel sad so much as I felt that nothing mattered. I could drive down the road or I could drive off the embankment and it didn't matter which choice I made.

I remember the moment I realized the drug was bringing me out of it. I was looking up at the sky and admiring the awesome gradient of blue it created. Every day a gradient with billions of colors no Photoshop will ever be able to reproduce. And I realized: I'm seeing colors again. I'm hearing birds again. I wasn't hearing them before.

[Shawnee123]

Wow, yeah UT, I know what you mean. I remember thinking "one sharp pull to the steering wheel, just one..."

Also, I really get ya, Dana. Sometimes I swear I think I am all that, on top of the world, kiss my sweet bippy if you don't like me...but it doesn't last. Then again, neither does the depression. I HAVE learned, as you pointed to, to recognize that it WON'T last, and that does help me get through it.

This year I got an additional diagnosis of anxiety attacks, after some pretty hairy moments seemingly related to pms/perimenopause. I think it's more than that, though. I wonder if bipolar isn't a better diagnosis: but I don't experience extreme mania, just some freak out moments.

At any rate, I wish it weren't a part of me, but I guess I wouldn't be me if it weren't? Or something.

[DanaC]

The doesn't matter thing I recognise from a few really bad bouts. But a long time ago. The ones that give me a slight chill to recall.

Y'know somebody in here or the other thread (not scouring to find out :P) said the Cellar was part of their self-therapy. Can't recall if it was a serious or flippant point being made; but I kind of concur to a degree. The last time I really felt I was totally losing control, was somewhere around the time I joined the Cellar. Ether just prior to or just after. I've had maybe two or three slides since then, but I seem to have become aware of them faster, and able to talk myself (and write) out of it quicker. I don't know to what extent that is due to more general lifestyle changes giving me more room to deal with things my own way, and to what extent it was having a place to express where I was at, but the Cellar definately played a part.

If only by providing a visible neon sign to myself that i was reacting to things and people differently.

[skysidhe]

Foot asked what worked or what we did to feel better. Although, I appreciate my approach there are those times when an individual needs medical intervention, as in the case of my sister, who I encouraged to go that route, even though she leans toward the natural approach too. Somethings are just too deep and prolonged to ignore or find relief in natural methods.

My methods would be a good supplement in those serious situations but are in no way, I feel the in all to the cure for serious depression. This is how my son deals with anxiety, but antidepressants don't work out for him. They make him feel suicidal. So this is what works here.

It was in no way, an implied attempt to tell anyone to pull up their boot straps. Least of all foot, who I hope is at the doctor right now getting that RX.

[footfootfoot]

Back from doc with scrip. More later.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Hint: if you can control it, subdue it, kick it, push it back, hide it, cajole it, humor it, play with it, languish in it, and stab it, then it is NOT clinical depression.

What if ya just live with it?

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

Back from doc with scrip.

Well, don't hide 'em, divide 'em!

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

What if ya just live with it?

Wow, I hadn't thought of that.

Oh yeah, I mentioned that living might not have been an option without help.

I thought about this the other day, my conversation with Dana, and I think what I failed to mention is that there is guilt involved with "why can't you just live with it" which is a lot like the bootstraps comments. Do you suppose that those who are finding a way to live with it haven't tried, time after time, to do it without meds, to just keep putting one foot in front of the other? Years of that guilt, that "what the fuck is wrong with my sorry ass" is what makes me touchy on the subject.

I also have genetics against me: a grandparent was most certainly bipolar, though I won't get into details. A wonderful man, really, but looking back on his behaviors, on his life...maybe an old-timey diagnosis would have helped him.

There is still the social stigma, the misunderstanding. For example, Grav, the joke to foot "don't hide 'em, divide 'em" while clever, belies ignorance about how modern anti-depressants work. I could send you half of mine, but all it will do is make you very sick for a while. If you get used to them, you'll just get very very sick upon withdrawal. But you can pick up my prescription, when you realize you're a day out of them and you're about to get very very ill.

You wouldn't ask for this, let alone impose this diagnosis on yourself, unless you like to be sick for attention. I do not.

[/soapbox]

[Pete Zicato]

As a grade school teacher, Mrs. Z has seen a number of parents who wanted to put their kid on meds that didn't need them.

But more commonly she saw parents of kids who clearly needed the meds and didn't want to go that route. Her comment to them was, "If your kid had an infection and needed antibiotics, would you hesitate for even a minute to give them the drugs they needed? This should be no different."

Some listened. Some didn't.

[Undertoad]

And if you have diabetes, don't take drugs for it, that's "unnatural". Just live with it!

[footfootfoot]

I really don't think it is possible to explain depression to someone who hasn't personally experienced it. I think a lot of people hear the beginning of the description and say "Oh yeah, I've had that feeling and I find if I just go out for a walk I feel better." or some such equivalent.

I imagine it would rather be like trying to explain to someone the feeling of an orgasm. It's funny to hear someone say they think they've had an orgasm. Sort of like saying, I think I just sneezed.

Sure, there are different types of depression and different degrees of severity and I've seen people who are medicated that probably don't need it, and vice versa.

I think the armchair therapist opinions about treatment, especially coming from the undepressed, are generally not welcomed.

Here might be a tip that you don't really suffer from depression: If you find yourself offering advice to a depressed person about how to "get better" then you probably don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

<--- Not directed at anyone in general.

[Juniper]

But, as Dana pointed out, not everyone who is depressed is also suicidal.

Lots of people just live with it, because the guilt, shame, and sheer paralysis of depression won't let them get help. They feel like they aren't worthy of help. Getting help requires money to be spent that could be spent on other things, even if those other things are just their kid's video games. Getting help requires time that could be spent on other things, even if it's mostly other people's time that matters and not your own.

I've dealt with depression's spectrum all of my life, really, but it wasn't diagnosed till I was about 20 and spent a week in the mental hospital. They said I was depressed, but also gave me another "tag" -- Borderline Personality Disorder, which probably says volumes about me. I always thought BPD was just a clinical, fancy way of saying "Antisocial, Selfish Bitch."

I don't think that's true, though, I don't have BPD. Some of the stuff fits but I'm a nice person most of the time. At least I think so.

My dad was depressed too. He took anxiety meds for a long time. So was my mom, but she was one of those "deal with it" types. I come by it honestly.

But if you do find things that really help you "live with it" and maybe put off going onto the whole med thing for a while, isn't that good? Can't we be happy about that without everyone who is on meds getting offended?

[Shawnee123]

What foot said.

I AM happy for people who can 'live with it' without meds. I also think it's not even the same thing as what some of us are talking about.

I can boo-hoo about feeling badly, and take my meds, and not kill myself. It's that simple. I'm sorry that those with severe depression don't understand those of you who can just 'live with it' but as I said, you're comparing apples and oranges. I'm sorry, but you just are. This is not to say (retracting a bit of what I said in an earlier post) that you don't have some sort of clinical depression, but what we are talking about you don't just 'live with it' or walk it off. To imply that it can be so seems a smug viewpoint to those of us who just can't walk it off.

Could it be possible too, then, that you are not experiencing what foot's OP was about? More just a chance to jump in about how you can live with it?
That might be what it feels like to some of us, true or not, it seems presumptuous and condescending.

This is all in lieu of saying "goody for you." Yes, that can be the reaction too.

Now I'm going to walk off my fibromyalgia. Do you have that? I don't. I don't think it exists. I could be wrong, but when that thread starts I doubt I'll pop in to tell everyone "tally-ho and a boo hoo hoo, I had that but I took a salt bath and a long walk."

Oh, and I might 'live with it' if I could spend days in bed, not leaving the house. I have to function in this society and not drive off a cliff. No choices there.

Unless one of all y'all wanna be a sugar daddy to a depressive mess.

[footfootfoot]

Deciding to "live with it" implies that you recognize "it" exists. My comments are directed more at depression deniers, those who think having "it" is a choice, not those just deciding to live with "it".

I think for most depressed people, they do choose to live with it, because if they were in a position to do something about it, they probably wouldn't be depressed.

I chose to take action when I saw the early warning signs. I knew where this was headed and I wasn't willing to go there without a fight.

[Sundae]

When I was living in London with Steve he believed he could help me because he'd had depression.
Self diagnosed and unmedicated. But he talked about it so confidently I had always believed him.
Turns out he was "cured" by having a couple of therapy sessions, and therefore thought that this was the only viable way of "curing" depression.
I started to have my suspicions when he advised me to just start by doing something I enjoy - that's he he started getting his life back again.
It was tricky to explain that I did not enjoy anything when I was at my worst. Not eating, drinking, reading, sleeping, talking, watching television, taking a shower etc etc. All far too ambitious to even attempt.

Of course once the medication started to kick in I did treat myself to things I had previously enjoyed. And I did get to the point where I started to take pleasure in them again. My meds have finally brought me back to where I should be - a thrill on a frosty morning, enjoying a bumpy train ride, fascinated by a mosiac glass candle holder. But I won't forget that there was a time when I couldn't summon the willpower to go the toilet even when I was in physical pain from needing to go. That's not a walk-it-off level of being.