Depression

[johntheironsmith]

For me, I had no clue for years, until about a year ago, when I sought some help for academics, with a university councellor, and was told to see a psychologist, and started therapy. But once I was told about the symptoms and certain behaviours and habits were pointed out to me, things started making sense. I alway kinda knew I wasn't happy. But for your first post (havn't bothered reading all the replies) Lee_M, I would say it would have to be for a slightly prolonged period of time. If you can't snap out of it, and start noticing more and more symptoms, then you might be. Although beware of the self-fulfilling prophecy. I'd say if you're feeling down, try to force yourself to go out, and socialize, and do other things, and see if you can occupy yourself completely, without feeling down. If not, seek help. Good luck.

 

[simcha]

This is my own story. Take it for what it's worth. Take what you like and leave the rest. Your mileage may and most likely will vary.

I was sexually abused by a neighbor who was a man of about 30 when I was only 4 years old. From the time I was 4 I remember having such vivid sexual memory and visions that could only come from having a sexual experience. I could never integrate the images and I never knew their meaning. It made me an easy target as I grew up for more sexual predators closer to my age...

I always "knew" there was something "different" about me. I didn't think or play like other children. I never really felt part of any particular group. Much of the time I was zoned out in my own fantasy world. Oh there were times where I played with the other kids and joined in the fun. But generally I remember always feeling separate and alone in my own world.

Yes, my Father spanked me with a belt, which I have come to realize is physical child abuse. I spent most of my childhood being terribly afraid of him and the jingling of his belt. I would often wish he would die on the way home from work so I'd never have to see him again.

My Mother reports that there were times where I'd start to get dressed, getting ready for school, and she'd come into my room only to find me staring off into space with one leg in a pair of underwear sitting on my bed. I remember ALWAYS hating mornings. Often my brother would have to hold the bus for me while I scrambled to get the last of my clothes on and my book bag to get out to the bus.

I remember being absolutely so miserable at times that I actually got sick quite a bit as a child. I had pneumonia 4 winters in a row. Yes, my parents smoked all the time around us so that might have had something to do with it.

As I grew into adolescence I remember feeling like there was a dark pit opening before me that I couldn't avoid. That pit was despair. I hated myself. I felt weird, out of place in this world, and I didn't know how to change it. I saw school counselors who were only mildly helpful at best or completely incompetent at the worst.

During college I remember at least two distinct periods where I would have terrible insomnia and I'd wander the campus in the dark at odd hours wishing I were dead. Somehow I always managed to be functional enough to finish school assignments and I received a bachelors and moved onto seminary because that is where I thought I belonged.

I always felt better praying and doing ritual. Doing ritual with others made me feel better at times, enough that I was willing to deny my sexuality in order to become a priest in a religion I didn't really completely believe in even then...

When I was in seminary, a spiritual director sent me to my first psychotherapist. He was fantastic. He helped me to realize many things about myself and started me on a healing journey. After leaving seminary I found other therapists and I continued therapy. It was good for me and I was making some progress.

However, I had some more issues to deal with. I entered 12-Step work through Al-Anon after my grandfather shot himself in the head while my Mom (his daughter) was on her way with my Dad to visit him. My Mom found her own father in his house dead with a torn up note in a garbage can. My grandfather had been sober in AA for seven years. He never got treatment for his depression. I was so angry at him.

Also at the same time my brother was drinking and driving. There was no one in the family who would acknowledge that my brother was becoming an alcoholic in a big way (drinking every day). I'd find empty beer cans behind book shelves and under couches, enough for many cases whenever I'd care to look.

I got into Al-Anon because I thought the problem was my grandfather and my brother. I found out that the problem was me. I worked on myself and worked the 12-Steps going to as many as 5 meetings per week. And I discovered that I had an addiction myself. I spent an inordinate amount of time in adult bookstores, bath houses, parks, lakeshore at night, back rooms at bars, adult theaters, alleys, rooftops, public bathrooms, etc., pursuing and having sex. And I found that I was obsessed with sex and that I couldn't turn the images off at all. It took over my life. I was drained all the time and I lived at least two lives. One life I let my family and friends know about and I was this mild-mannered and principled person. The other life was completely devoted to the pursuit of and the procurement of and the acts of sex.

I couldn't sustain it. I ended up in 12-Step recovery for sexual compulsion. I worked the 12-Steps around sexual compulsion for years before I found anything like sobriety. And no, sobriety in sexual recovery is not abstinence. It's about learning my own authentic sexuality and living it out. It's about being a whole and healthy sexual being. That wasn't me before recovery.

Well, after about ten years of therapy and 6 years of 12-step work I found I was still wanting to die periodically and I'd have weeks and weeks where I didn't leave my bed except for meetings and psychotherapy. It got so bad that I had no job, I was starting to go into debt, I couldn't leave my apartment except for therapy and meetings, and I had no motivation to change anything. I did pray. I meditated. I was writing in journals. I was doing 12-step work. I was doing as much work as possible to silence my ego (because in 12-Step Ego means "edging God out"). I was at the core of who I am and I found that I was depressed to the core.

My psychotherapist at the time, who was very anti-medication, suggested, or rather demanded that I go to see a doctor, if not for medication, at least for a check-up in case I was having some sort of physical illness that was causing my depression.

My doctor had recommended that I take anti-depressants a year before that but I told him that I wouldn't because I had it covered. I was in recovery, I went to psychotherapy, I meditated, I prayed, I exercised, I ate well, I didn't use caffeine anymore, and I had quit smoking years ago. I was clean... Boy was I wrong...

When I came to see him after the psychotherapist sent me, he didn't gloat. He didn't say, "See I was right." He smiled and we had a great conversation about the medical side of depression. He prescribed Effexor XR.

Three weeks on Effexor XR at the full therapeutic dose I woke up one morning and it was like a veil had lifted. I was awake and I wanted to be awake. I was alive and I wanted to be alive. No, I was not euphoric. No, all my problems weren't solved. Yet I finally saw the Sun and I had the motivation to start to put my life back together.

I did have anorgasmia. It's the side-effect Mr. Hardcock described above. I could stay hard for hours but I'd never cum. You know what? I didn't care. My depression was so bad and painful that I didn't care whether or not I ever had an orgasm again. The damn pills worked! I had never felt like I felt that morning. Once I finally made my way to a psychiatrist he evaluated me and explained to me that I had chronic depression and that I had recurring episodes most of my life. He agreed with me that perhaps without the medication I had never felt euthymic (the state of not being depressed or manic). He found me a more suitable mix of medication so that I could orgasm again. I began to enjoy sex again and masturbation, without the old obsession or compulsion.

Medication was the final piece in the puzzle that helped to push me over the edge into recovery from a lifetime of horrible depression. I still do most of the other things for my recovery like psychotherapy, meditation, prayer, writing in my journal, exercise, etc. I don't go to 12-Step meetings for now. I find I don't need them right now.

I've been on anti-depressants for over 8 years now. I've been mostly in remission with brief periods of relapse where my meds have had to be adjusted or changed. As far as any psychiatrist I've seen has told me and from what I know, I'll most likely be on medication for the balance of my life until something better comes along to take care of the neurotransmitter balance.

And the medication alone won't work. Medication works best with psychotherapy and all of the other things I do to stay in touch with my true self and to get my ego out of the way. It was my ego that kept me from taking medication because of the stigma associated with taking medication, because I felt that it meant that I was truly "sick in the head." I was too proud to seek medical help because I had my answers in self-help and psychotherapy. Well, I found out that I am also body as well as mind as well as soul as well as spirit. I have to seek answers for the whole of who I am in order to remain in remission. I have come to accept that this is the way it is. Do I like spending so much money on meds every month (copayments only seem to go up)? No, I don't. I will tell you that the alternative is far worse. I'll never go back to that dark pit I was in before I finally allowed myself the opportunity to be helped by my doctors.

 

[D_Kay_Sarah_Sarah]

thanks everyone. I really did ask just out of curiostiy not a concern for myself. Like anyone i go through times when i feel like pure shit and think maybe something is wrong, but then i just remind myself that im being necrotic and try and find a way snap myself out of it. Nothing different to anyone else i guess.

But all you people who have been brave enough to get help, or to accept it when someone said you need help i commend you. I imagine it must be a huge deal to be admit to yourself and others that things are getting to you and that you aren't quiet coping

 

[D_Bob_Crotchitch]

Caused by an event yes, but an injury to the brain no doubt causes chemical changes within it. My synapses were not connecting, and you know what, they still aren't. What I am suggesting will not cause synapses to all of a sudden reconnect and for brain chemicals to go back to normal. What it does it not let it matter so much, and allows you to become at peace with your situation, regardless of what it is. Whether you are "chemically" depressed or not, whether you are dying on your deathbed or not, you can benefit.

Too often people seek a cure that will never be found, when in fact the most healing they will ever achieve from what they are suffering from can only come from within. Only when you become at peace with whatever it is you are suffering from can you heal, medication or not.

That is not what I was writing about. I was specifically speaking about chemical imbalance. I tell people all the time that they need to work on their issues. There are people that have been in the grave for decades who are still controlling the lives of people who are walking around wounded.

 

[Skull Mason]

Um no people have not banged their heads and then became schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is a mental illness. Hallucinating, having disorganized thought, experiencing delusions, and physical mental deficit due to head injury (banging your head on a wall) is just that... It's a head injury that now has many effects on the body. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is very mysterious in origin. They believe a part of it is genetic and a part of it is environmental. The brain physically changes for no apparent reason. You end up with the symptoms of hallucinating, having disorganized thought, having delusional thinking, and mental deficit, but not from a direct self-caused physical brain injury.

Just thought I'd clear that up...

Simcha, mi amor, people have banged their heads and became schizophrenic. People have had TBIs and developed all types of mental illnesses and disorders.

"Schizophrenia Related to Brain Injury in Patients

Scientists have established that psychiatric conditions such as bipolar and anxiety disorders are more common in patients who have suffered from traumatic brain injuries. Schizophrenia itself has been associated with individuals who have previously suffered brain damage regardless of family history. But it is only since the early 1990s that researchers have begun to explore in depth that connection between brain damage caused by traumatic brain injury and schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia and Brain Injury: Recent Studies

. Among the findings of those studies:

. TBI-associated schizophrenia is true schizophrenia, not another disorder with similar symptoms, according to a 2001 study by Columbia University. Schizophrenia and TBI are now being associated as hand-in-hand illnesses, one usually occurs in the victim of the other."

TBI and Mental Illness Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind
www.braininjury.org.au - Mental Illness and Brain Injury - Fact Sheet

Just thought I would clear that up.

 

[Skull Mason]

However, the chemical imbalance caused by my immune system is physically real. No amount of self-help can cure that. Some of these people are suffering the same.
It's kind of like Tom Cruise dispensing medical advice about depression. The cause needs to be determined before the cure can begin.

You should delve further into that statement. The human body is a powerful machine and does have the power to cure lots of things we tend to believe it can't. We are very quick to just get a doctor and some medication and hope for the best, but it does not always work that way. If you can cause your immune system to weaken by being angry, jealous, and depressed all the time, you can also strengthen it using "self-help" as well. How much of your brain do you actually use? Do you find it that hard to believe that the body possesses healing powers not tapped in to by most people?

And while the majority of us probably do think Tom Tom is off his rocker, did you ever stop to think that maybe the man has a reached a state of enlightenment that most of us have not? While scientology maybe considered "out there" compared to our traditionally held beliefs, in reality, it is no more crazy than the more commonly accepted beliefs in religions across the world. Maybe they are on to something, Tom does not seem all that depressed to me...

 

[simcha]

Simcha, mi amor, people have banged their heads and became schizophrenic. People have had TBIs and developed all types of mental illnesses and disorders.

"Schizophrenia Related to Brain Injury in Patients

Scientists have established that psychiatric conditions such as bipolar and anxiety disorders are more common in patients who have suffered from traumatic brain injuries. Schizophrenia itself has been associated with individuals who have previously suffered brain damage regardless of family history. But it is only since the early 1990s that researchers have begun to explore in depth that connection between brain damage caused by traumatic brain injury and schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia and Brain Injury: Recent Studies

. Among the findings of those studies:

. TBI-associated schizophrenia is true schizophrenia, not another disorder with similar symptoms, according to a 2001 study by Columbia University. Schizophrenia and TBI are now being associated as hand-in-hand illnesses, one usually occurs in the victim of the other."

TBI and Mental Illness Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind
www.braininjury.org.au - Mental Illness and Brain Injury - Fact Sheet

Just thought I would clear that up.

Skull Mason, darling...

The articles you referenced made conclusions that were not made by the scientists who conducted the study. Here is the link to the actual study.

Traumatic Brain Injury and Schizophrenia in Members of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Pedigrees

Here is the conclusion the actual scientists who wrote the study made:

CONCLUSIONS: Members of the schizophrenia pedigrees, even those without a schizophrenia diagnosis, had greater exposure to traumatic brain injury compared to members of the bipolar disorder pedigrees. Within the schizophrenia pedigrees, traumatic brain injury was associated with a greater risk of schizophrenia, consistent with synergistic effects between genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury. Posttraumatic-brain-injury schizophrenia in multiplex schizophrenia pedigrees does not appear to be a phenocopy of the genetic disorder.

So basically what this says is that the study was done with almost 600 people who had a genetic predisposition to developing Schizophrenia because they had a first degree relative who had Schizophrenia. Here are the results:

RESULTS: Rates of traumatic brain injury were significantly higher for those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression than for those with no mental illness. However, multivariate analysis of within-pedigree data showed that mental illness was related to traumatic brain injury only in the schizophrenia pedigrees. Independent of diagnoses, family members of those with schizophrenia were more likely to have had traumatic brain injury than were members of the bipolar disorder pedigrees. The members of the schizophrenia pedigrees also failed to show the gender difference for traumatic brain injury (more common in men than in women) that was expected and was present in the bipolar disorder pedigrees. Subjects with a schizophrenia diagnosis who were members of the bipolar disorder pedigrees (and thus had less genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia) were less likely to have had traumatic brain injury (4.5%) than were subjects with schizophrenia who were members of the schizophrenia pedigrees (and who had greater genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia) (19.6%).


Last Paragraph of the discussion:

One might hypothesize that the severity of traumatic brain injury would be associated with greater risk for disease. However, research in this area has not generally found outcome after brain injury to be explained by severity of the injury (9, 12). For this study as well, the use of alternate definitions of traumatic brain injury exposure based on the presence or duration of loss of consciousness did not alter the association of traumatic brain injury with the psychiatric conditions. We did not categorize the severity of the psychiatric conditions of individual subjects, so it is possible that the severity of head injury is related to course, treatment response, or functional outcome among those with particular diagnoses, rather than the development of the illness per se.

So the conclusions one can draw from this study is that in those with a genetic predisposition to Schizophrenia show a greater risk of having a brain injury. From this study one cannot draw the conclusion that brain injury was the cause of the Schizophrenia. They did show that those with genetic predisposition to Bipolar Disorder had a lower incidence of brain injury. This can suggest that those who have genetic markers for Schizophrenia may have an increased risk of experiencing head trauma resulting in brain injury. Therefore one could argue just as easily that the genetic predisposition to develop Schizophrenia caused an increase in risk of head trauma leading to brain injury.

The study cannot claim that brain injury alone causes Schizophrenia of even Bipolar Disorder. The study shows that brain injury may possibly be a contributing factor.

 

[D_Bob_Crotchitch]

Thinking positive thoughts isn't going to release sulfuric acid and heavy metals from my body. My immune system stays in over-drive trying to rid my body of the toxins I absorbed. I have undergone natural care to rid my body of them, and it helped some. The damage from the poisoning was great.

You should delve further into that statement. The human body is a powerful machine and does have the power to cure lots of things we tend to believe it can't. We are very quick to just get a doctor and some medication and hope for the best, but it does not always work that way. If you can cause your immune system to weaken by being angry, jealous, and depressed all the time, you can also strengthen it using "self-help" as well. How much of your brain do you actually use? Do you find it that hard to believe that the body possesses healing powers not tapped in to by most people?

And while the majority of us probably do think Tom Tom is off his rocker, did you ever stop to think that maybe the man has a reached a state of enlightenment that most of us have not? While scientology maybe considered "out there" compared to our traditionally held beliefs, in reality, it is no more crazy than the more commonly accepted beliefs in religions across the world. Maybe they are on to something, Tom does not seem all that depressed to me...

 

[Skull Mason]

So the conclusions one can draw from this study is that in those with a genetic predisposition to Schizophrenia show a greater risk of having a brain injury. From this study one cannot draw the conclusion that brain injury was the cause of the Schizophrenia. They did show that those with genetic predisposition to Bipolar Disorder had a lower incidence of brain injury. This can suggest that those who have genetic markers for Schizophrenia may have an increased risk of experiencing head trauma resulting in brain injury. Therefore one could argue just as easily that the genetic predisposition to develop Schizophrenia caused an increase in risk of head trauma leading to brain injury.

The study cannot claim that brain injury alone causes Schizophrenia of even Bipolar Disorder. The study shows that brain injury may possibly be a contributing factor.

I though about not answering for a while because I am not sure if this is turning into a battle of the egos or a true debate on the subject matter, but the only thing that I see you can conclude from your study high lighted above is that yes, you can bump your head and develop schizophrenia, which is exactly what I posted before.

Do you really mean that people who have a predisposed condition in their brain for schizophrenia are more likely to crash their car into a tree, or go smash their head against the wall and cause a brain injury? So using that logic do you think that those people who have a predisposition towards lung cancer are more likely to smoke cigarettes habitually?

There may be underlying factors and a previous disposition for it somewhere in the brain which is exacerbated through TBI, or there may not be. But that is with all diseases as well. Some people smoke cigarettes and develop cancer, some don't. Want to guess what group was more predisposed to it? But do you think if that group never smoked a cigarette that some of them may never have developed cancer?

Regardless of if it is the trigger for, or the mechanism driving the onset of the disease, makes no difference; TBI can somehow be related to the onset of many mental illnesses. And whether those illnesses are brought about "naturally" or through a traumatic brain injury, they are still the same; a mental illness.

When I was in college at Johns Hopkins studying brain injuries, it was pretty much accepted belief there that brain injuries could lead to mental illness. In fact, it was very widely accepted. I just did a quick google search and found a couple links. I am sure if I continued to dig further I could find plenty more, but I did all that in college. The bottom line is, you can not rule it out, which is what you did in your initial response.

Um no people have not banged their heads and then became schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is a mental illness.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

Of course depression exists, no doubt about it BUT when do you draw the line between having a shitty day and needing professional help before letting things go to far?

That question I'm often struggling with. How much is too much?

 

[Principessa]

That question I'm often struggling with. How much is too much?

I would say that if you haven't had some major life altering event or death of a loved one, then if the sad/bad/depressed feeling doesn't go away within 6-8 weeks you should seek professional help.

 

[naughty]

I would say that if you haven't had some major life altering event or death of a loved one, then if the sad/bad/depressed feeling doesn't go away within 6-8 weeks you should seek professional help.

Sometimes the life altering event can kick in a condition to which the individuals is predisposed.

 

[simcha]

Sometimes the life altering event can kick in a condition to which the individuals is predisposed.

Yes Naughty, that's very true. And they've done studies comparing people who have clinical depression and who are grieving a loss. What they have found is that both sets of subjects present very similarly. What this means is that there is a natural process that goes with depression that is common to all of us. What makes a person different who experiences clinical depression? The theory goes that the person with clinical depression has the predisposition to develop the mental illness of depression when an external stimulus (a death, physical trauma, emotional trauma, etc.) causes a change in the body, mind, soul, spirit... Or sometimes there is no external stimulus, and it's endogenous.

Mental illness's roots and causes is still shrouded in mystery for the most part. We can point to factors that seem to be common in people who develop certain mental illnesses. We can't definitively with 100% certainty always determine the root cause of mental illness.

I think going back to the OP, because that's who is important here in this thread, if you feel you might be depressed it is always best to be evaluated by a professional who is experienced in working with people who have suffered from depression.

 

[D_Bob_Crotchitch]

I remember that years ago an article was published on the front of USA TODAY that dealt with the brain patterns of people who had been molested as children. It said that the study showed that sexual assault was so traumatic to children that their brain wave patterns changed. Parts of their brain that were normally inactive kicked into over-drive, and they never went back to inactive. The children often developed depression, real physical illness, and never went back to normal brain patterns again.

Having been molested over 300 times, I can't help but wonder if my brain wave patterns resemble the light show on microsoft media player.

 

[earllogjam]

Can you be depressed if you feel vibrant and full of health?

Maybe that is why very few athletes are prone to depression.

I always wonder why sadness and depression are so feared and avoided in our society when the truth of the matter is that it is just another human emotion that everybody experiences to one degree to another. I don't think there is anything wrong with feeling sad and depressed when you are sad and depressed. We conditioned to think it's a bad thing or sickness when it is just human nature. I just think some people are better at dealing with it than others and coping is a learned skill. Many people just don't know themselves well enough to deal with it effectively. It is an intelligence few people cultivate.

 

[D_Bob_Crotchitch]

Can you be depressed if you feel vibrant and full of health?

Maybe that is why very few athletes are prone to depression.

I always wonder why sadness and depression are so feared and avoided in our society when the truth of the matter is that it is just another human emotion that everybody experiences to one degree to another. I don't think there is anything wrong with feeling sad and depressed when you are sad and depressed. We conditioned to think it's a bad thing or sickness when it is just human nature. I just think some people are better at dealing with it than others and coping is a learned skill. Many people just don't know themselves well enough to deal with it effectively. It is an intelligence few people cultivate.

It depends on the cause of the depression. Sometimes, life sucks a big one. That would make a person depressed. Other times, it's a health problem causing the depression, and that needs attention.

 

[Principessa]

My curiosity has gotten the better of me and now i have to wonder how you know if you have depression are just having a few shitty days that are getting you down.

Sure there are the text book stock standard symptoms like anxiety, wavering emotions, isolating yourself etc. But how long does it have to continue before one can say they have a problem and how serious do the symptoms need to be?

And then you have your different types of depression, bio polar, Psychotic depression, Atypical depression, Melancholic depression, Non-Melancholic depression, Post natal, anxiety, Dysthymia, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Postpartum Depression

Anyone would be excused for thinking they have depression just by that list alone.

anyway

Of course depression exists, no doubt about it BUT when do you draw the line between having a shitty day and needing professional help before letting things go to far?

I think the cut off is consecutive shitty days that go on for a minimum of 6 weeks. For many people after 6 weeks of those feelings they want to get back to normal but cannot on their own.

 

[nudeyorker]

I have been somewhat down tonight because I had dinner with a friend earlier and he said, "I want to be happy but I don't know how." I'm rarely at a loss for words but for the most part... I have had a happy life and I did not know how to respond to this. I've read this thread very carefully and I'm still at a loss of what to say to my friend. I simply said that sometimes the holidays bring out feelings of sadness. We made plans to meet after the New Year but I'm really at a loss to say anything that would be of any significant help.

 

[faceking]

Gadzooks.... not to go Scientology, but I think the medical profession is very quick to jump on mental irregularities (and thusly prescriptions) vs lifestyle and attitude...

A lot of the shit they throw down your gullet is a "high" vs ppl that are actually in need medically (true bi-polar, etc... One Flew Over the Cuckoo's level). There are documented and accepted symptoms like post-partem... but problem is, everyone is quick to jump on the problem, and remind the patient that it's ok, and let it continue. A LOT of the human condition is self-remediation... and mental should be no execption, sans chemical or severe/hardcore trauma.

I think meds and psycho-analysis and responsibility are in order, but nowadays, the slightest of mental skew seems to be a bit too overwraught with throwing the lifesaver and inducing remediation.

 

[D_Chocho_Lippz]

My curiosity has gotten the better of me and now i have to wonder how you know if you have depression are just having a few shitty days that are getting you down.

I've often wondered myself that if you can look at your life and analyze and debate whether you are depressed, can you really be depressed... or if you are cognitive of your "depression" then you are not truly depressed, you are just having a bad time.

As for me, I have no idea.

Keep us updated Lee...