Antidepressant round-up

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Weed.

One of my favorite nurses at the hospital suggested I try weed. Not sure what to make of that.

[Griff]

It seems like you should have an observer or journal or something. It is so easy to lose yourself self-medicating.

[Pico and ME]

Juniper, I have the same effin problem. My get up and go has got up and went. And I cant get it back. However, I just started cheating a little. When I need to get a lot done in a little time, I take a little bit of Adderall (left over from my stepson). Not a whole pill...way to many bad side effects - getting seriously irritable for one and totally losing my appetite for another. It is simply speed after all and speed was my preferred drug when I was in high school and college.

[Juniper]

Pseudoephedrine works for me too, but with high blood pressure I can't take it anymore

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

One of my favorite nurses at the hospital suggested I try weed. Not sure what to make of that.

I don't do weed anymore but it was like ultra caffeine for me, I would get a tremendous amount of things done just not very focused, and then the let down on the back side was three or four days of zombie-like inability to motivate.

I haven't had the luxury of having four days where I could be completely non-functioning in decades.

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by Juniper

Pseudoephedrine works for me too, but with high blood pressure I can't take it anymore

Yea, I get somewhat the same effect, which is why I am sol when I have a sinus headache at night. The pseudoephedrine in Advil Sinus is the only thing that kicks it.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

...and then the let down on the back side was three or four days of zombie-like inability to motivate.

Shit dude...

[Shawnee123]

Depression as choice: you knew some bozo would imply that.

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.

Big difference. Just sayin'.

[DanaC]

Alternatively it means someone suffers varying degrees of depression and sometimes feel as if they are making a choice not to sink deeper, because in that instance the bout of depression they are feeling is a more manageable one.


I do somewhat subscribe to an element of choice in depression. But I also know that in my own case, I am not capable of making that choice until i get to a certain point with it. Usually, I have already been depressed for some time when I have an epiphany moment ("Ohhh...I'm depressed, that's what it is.") and this epiphany moment usually occurs in the early hours of the morning, having thoroughly harangued myself mentally, with my mind on fast and looping rails, for several hours. Usually this happens after several nights, or more rarely weeks, of the same shit.

Once I have that epiphany moment, everything clicks into place: it explains this about the last few days/weeks, and that. It explains where that tears at the back of my eyes and tight throat feeling is coming from. It explains why I haven;t been able to make myself work, or function properly in the world. Why I've been ignoring the phone, avoiding people, feeling old, feeling ill, feeling whatever negative shit I've been feeling. It explains why the pots have piled up in the kitchen and are discussing forming their own commune. It explains why I haven't been enjoying Pilau's walk, or seeing friends, or anything else that takes me out of my cocoon. It explains why I have ceased being kind to myself and am mentally raking over shit I long ago deemed settled. It explains why I can't interact within any of my family, without having some part of my mind preparing for future bereavement. And why the far future looks so dark.

Once I have realised it's depression, I am on the way up. I am suddenly capable of switching off the thought-rail. Yes it turns itself back on again, but I quickly spot it and turn it back off. I still don't want to go out, but I am more able to force myself through that. Work is still an effort, as is writing on an envelope and posting a letter, but I am usually able then to make myself do one or two small tasks. Ok, so posting back a form, and phoning the vet isn't exactly a day's work, but coming up, it feels like an achievement and another step back.

Over the years I seem to be able to spot that trend sooner. Before I sink to the real depths. Whether it's an illusion or not, I feel more able to intervene and exert control at certain points in the process. My memories of those depths scare the shit out of me, and I am kind of always vigilant for signs that I am losing a grip on my control, my optimism, my peace of mind. I have developed strategies. Things I tell myself, things I do. That allow me to feel more in control of it.

There is a price though. This is part of the reason I have chosen both a single, and a childless life. I am happy with that choice. I have learned to be happy more generally with my choices. A trick taught me both by some very shitty experiences and a very wise Mum.

[Shawnee123]

Times when I've thought I could 'manage' my depression, and went off my meds: well, I'm lucky I'm not dead and can still hold a job.

I think this is why so many people seem to be on anti-depressents: for relief from the 'blues.' I have no problem with that. Getting through rough spots, not a problem. SSRIs don't turn you into a zombie, it seems a fair treatment.

I just get concerned with lackadaisical attitudes towards true clinical (chemical) depression by blues sufferers who pick themselves up by the bootstraps and ride off into the sunset like some western hero. It's great that they can do that: but it doesn't mean they're awful darn special and stronger than everyone else or something.

[DanaC]

With respect Shawnee: that is your experience of clinical depression. Not everybody's experience of clinical depression is the same. Not everybody with depression would be suicidal without meds.

Different people experience different kinds of depression and they are debilitated in different ways and to different extents. What you look at from a distance and see as 'blues' might be depression. What looks like depression from a distance, might be the blues.

Someone who has never experienced depression telling someone with clinical depression to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is annoying yes. It's not at all helpful, and shows an ignorance on their part as to what depression is. But it's not helpful either to mark out some competetive sliding scale that ranks 'proper' depressives as people who are completely incapacitated by depression if untreated, and anything else as a not really depression.

How do you know whether that person is truly depressed or just has the blues? You only get a fraction of what other people experience, and what you get is skewed by their own understanding of themselves, and their own ability to express.

[Shawnee123]

OK, I get that. But I can only draw from my experience. And there are those who like to dabble in illness, who want something wrong with them, who want to say "Yabbut, look what I did...what YOU could not." That is what I'm addressing, and it's hardly an arguable point. The munchhausens always want to find something wrong, must have diagnosis...otherwise it just makes so little sense.

I think I'm superior because my depression is more than just the blues? Yeah, no. I really wouldn't choose this for my own worst enemy. I'd give anything to kick it, to not be 'me' but I can't.

I'd like to not be thoroughly hurt, once again, that my expressed opinion has met with, once again, the whole "you are out of order and misguided" thing. But that is also just a part of "me" I'd rather not live with, that over-sensitivity, but have to.

Right now I'm going to choose to try to get some work done, one foot in front of the other, keep the job, make everyone happy...everybody smile now. Here we go.

Please to forgive if my talk of depression in a depression thread was not correct.

[DanaC]

Consider that maybe I read your post as a dig at me, since I felt able to bring myself back from the brink.

Apols :P

[Shawnee123]

No no no, not at all at you.

In general, mostly, but there was a tone that offended me, but it wasn't you.

My apologies as well. I'm feeling a bit down. <-----winky smilie seems out of place, but I wanted to convey some sort of irony.

[DanaC]

Good good, glad we got that cleared up aheh. yeah. I'm a little tetchy at the moment. Or rather, slightly more easily riled than usual.


On a slight aside: I don't actually think of myself as a depressive now. It's something that swooshes into my life every so often, regardless seemingly of general happiness or circumstance, and then swooshes out again. There's always a kind of low lying darkness in there somewhere more generally. But I doubt that's different to most people. I get sad, too, obviously. But not to any greater extent than anybody else. Mostly I'm happy, as in I am reasonably satisfied with who I am, relatively forgiving of who I've been and pretty much comfortable with where I am heading.

One of the most powerful realisations I had about depression (as I experience it), was that it didn't in any way seem to correspond with periods of more general unhappiness. That is to say: I had a long period of being generally unhappy, and during that time I also experienced depression. I always kind of assumed the two went together, until i discovered some happiness and peace of mind and still had those same bouts of depression. Same with the sudden feelings of something almost euphoric. I'd categorised that as sheer relief that the whole thing (whatever thing it was at each time) was over. But I still get it from time to time. Like I've dropped speed or something, for hours, or days at a time. Sometimes for a very short spell, followed by a bit of a crash.

It's the bizarrest thing, to feel happiness at one level and depression at another, with both kind of coexisting for a while, at the start and end of a spell.