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Depression is real
- Thread starter Mayne
- Start date
Lost_in_the_HTTP
Lifer
Two years?
Try thirty.
Once you accept that life totally sucks and people are the root of all evil and cut as many of them out of your realm as possible, tolerance begins to become less difficult.
The 'legal' Pusherman with all the sheepskins on the wall is a crock too.
Try thirty.
Once you accept that life totally sucks and people are the root of all evil and cut as many of them out of your realm as possible, tolerance begins to become less difficult.
The 'legal' Pusherman with all the sheepskins on the wall is a crock too.
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
I've wrestled with depression for most of my life; it's a very misunderstood condition by the general public. It's not simply about "being sad"; it's a chronic condition that touches every aspect of your life in a negative way. It boils down to 2 things:
1. Worldview
2. Energy
How you see things & how you feel determine your level of depression:
The 3 levels of depression
Same with anxiety: imagine a deer jumps in front of your car on the highway & you miss it, but your adrenaline is going non-stop for the next twenty minutes, your heart is racing, your hands are shaking, etc. Anxiety is like a branding iron that follows you around & randomly pokes you for fun. I've found that people generally one have of 3 responses to specific PEM energy (physical, emotional, mental) health situations:
1. Empathy (they've been there & understand)
2. Sympathy (they haven't been there, but they're willing to be there for you by listening & validating)
3. Not caring (apathy or even being mean-spirited about it)
I think one of the reasons we go through hard times is to learn how to become sympathetic people. For me, I get into a really weird emotional state when I don't feel good, where my ability to self-validate & feel good is like an empty bucket. I get overly-sensitive to the point where other people can fill my bucket, either by lifting me up by pouring helium in there or tearing me down by pouring acid in there.
It's a weird place to be in because logically, I should be able to fill my own self-confidence bucket by choice, but emotionally, I just don't have the capacity to do it, so I've learned that words matter because WE have that same power to lift or crush other people through our careless words & actions. That, and the content & the people that we choose to expose ourselves to also affects how we feel & how we perceive things.
That's a big reason I do things like macros: my energy from depression is garbage, so I have to be VERY careful about working to maintain a high-energy lifestyle, because I fall off the podium of having the energy to do things so easily. You just end up feeling like Sisyphus, rolling the same dumb boulder up the same dumb hill day after day. Feels like a total slog! It's weird too because I also have high-energy friends who hit the gym every day, eat right, get lots of sleep, and still struggle with clinical depression, so it affects people across the board, even people who you wouldn't think would have it!
Hang in there man!
Lost_in_the_HTTP
Lifer
Three levels my *** There are about 80 below that. When you get past level 50, maybe we'll talk.
Red Squirrel
No Lifer
I've been through it before and it really does suck. It's hard to describe to someone that's never been through it. All I can say is take all the help you can get, and try to figure out something in your life you can change, like a routine or something. In my case it was working too many night shifts, I liked working nights, but I got caught in an unhealthy routine of always sleeping in and not getting enough day light. Even on my off days I was just sleeping in because I felt there was no sense trying to revert to day mode if I was going back on nights. But that meant I never saw the sun and it caught up. This time of year until about May is bad because it's just so dark out and the days are so short.
That's the other thing, try to get as much daylight as you can. Go for walks etc. Though guess that's harder to do where you live but if you have to drive to a more quiet place that has trails or something do it. SSRIs (anti depressants) can also help, but you still need to figure out something in your life that you can change so it does not come back. This is easier said than done though and every person's circumstance is different.
That's the other thing, try to get as much daylight as you can. Go for walks etc. Though guess that's harder to do where you live but if you have to drive to a more quiet place that has trails or something do it. SSRIs (anti depressants) can also help, but you still need to figure out something in your life that you can change so it does not come back. This is easier said than done though and every person's circumstance is different.
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Oh, there's definitely a spectrum! But for me, those are the 3 basic levels, or "containers":
1. Apathy (don't care)
2. Resistance (don't want to)
3. "Can't" (can't do it)
Some days I just feel meh. Some days I experience various levels of resistance. And some days, I just can't. Can't get myself to do stuff. It's irrational, but that's how it works for me! I had a really hard time understanding why I had such a struggle with things. Later on, I learned about depression, anxiety, ADHD, sleep apnea, etc. I see it as a 6-lane highway:
Positive:
1. Great
2. Good
3. Fine
Negative:
4. Apathy
5. Resistance
6. Can't
The splitting point is between fine & apathy. Fine is "meh, sure" & apathy is "meh, nah". I read a quote online some time ago that I really liked:
"I don't want to be a bystander in my own life anymore"
I've struggled with health issues, memory issues, etc. for the bulk of my life. I never really clearly understood why I had such difficult self-motivation issues growing up until I started getting a handle on how my brain & body worked. For example, I struggle with executive function disorder. Within the "resistance" bucket, I have 3 levels of pushback to doing things that I deal with:
1. Silent resistance (can't really explain why, just not in the mood, don't want to, and don't feel like doing it)
2. Palpable tension (frustration, tension headaches, fatigue, brain fog, etc.)
3. Access pain (accessing task execution causes headaches, migraines, "brain strain", etc.)
Armed with this perspective, it's now a lot easier for me to audit how much dopamine I have available, because I'll go to do something & get a tension headache, the brain fog will kick in, my body will get tired, etc., which are all really ridiculous somatic responses, and yet...they exist! Over time, I realized our bodies are designed to do 2 very specific things:
1. Be happy for no reason, just sitting around doing nothing
2. Have a motor of energy inside of us, pushing us forward all day long
I usually either felt apathetic or experienced resistance to some extent (profound sadness, fatigue, pain, etc.), and occasionally would slip into "can't" mode, where it was like my body was an R/C car but there were no batteries in my transmitter controller. As I learned about my health issues & how to either eliminate them or manage them, and as I adopted things like a better sleep schedule, macros, daily exercise, etc. & started to learn how to foster an environment where I gave my body access to things like human growth hormone from sleep, dopamine from food, endorphins from exercise, etc., things started to "click" for me!
Realizing that there were people out there who just felt happy all the time & had a motor of energy pushing them along was pretty mind-blowing for me, because everything always took so much effort for me growing up! Turns out, I simply had some invisible barriers that weren't identified & thus weren't being dealt with properly.
It took me awhile to also recognizing that positive feelings also had a spectrum! Without a proactive plan to foster natural, internal motivation & energy in my life through consistent daily actions, I just sort of fall into "fine" mode, which is the other side of the coin to apathy...it's really easy to be content in life & just feel fine & say "meh, whatever", to have no plan, no goals, nothing to pull us into daily motivation through planning, nothing to work towards or better ourselves in. Likewise, it's easy to feel good & get through life merely being content, but to me, feeling great typically requires a pretty hefty commitment to doing so, because it means sacrificing other things in favor of making sure we eat well, sleep well, exercise, and manage our stress.
The tricky part is, we don't have 100% control over our lives. You can do everything right & still get cancer! You can see all of the specialists in the world & still not find a cure for what ails you. The best we can do is the best we can do. For me, knowing what the levels are & what the "ideal operation" is (feeling great as often as possible, by choice! assuming we have a handle on the other things in our lives that act as internal barriers to feeling that way) has really helped me set some goals & create some boundaries about how I want to live, despite the barriers I live with.
A book that really opened my eyes was "Man's search for meaning" by Viktor Frankl TL;DR is he was in a Nazi prison camp, watched everyone he loved died, and decided that he didn't have to have a bad attitude about it. Obviously, you can't put lipstick on a pig, but as the saying goes, "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional". So in light of that, given my diagnosed & undiagnosed health conditions, I realized that I had an awful lot of choice about how to manage the consequences of the hand I was dealt, which is pretty much when I started to deep-dive into learning more about things like how depression & anxiety worked and how to manage them in order to still live a fulfilling life to the best extent that I could.
Over the years, I came to realize that there's not really anyone out there who isn't going through a hard time. Maybe it's different from my particular brand of trials, but it seems like everyone has their own pile of garbage on their plate to deal with, and that an awful lot of people are suffering from some sort of depression, whether it's being apathetic or experiencing the various levels of "resistance" or just being flat-out unable to do certain things.
I wish that I could magically feel good & energetic & happy all the time, but my body & my brain simply have some limitations on them that prevent that from being the norm for me. The categories above help me to remember that (1) it's not for lack of trying on my part, and (2) when I do run into issues on a daily basis, I can get reminded of where I'm at so that I'm not just sitting in the dark struggling! Sometimes the periods last for a long time, but at least I know they're temporary, even if I'm just shifting upwards from a "can't" day (or week) to a highly-resistive period of time on up to apathy.
I wish there was just a magic switch I could flick on to feel amazing all the time, but as it stands, I just kind of deal with things as they come & try to plow through & not let it tank my attitude! The lesson that I've learned most recently is that 0 + 0 = 0. So basically, even when I have crappy days, if I do nothing, I get nothing, but if I'm willing to push through the apathy & resistance, I can still make progress on my projects & commitments in order to get stuff done regardless, which means that on my good days, I'm able to enjoy more benefits because I was willing to push through the hard times! This is probably one of the most difficult things for me to do haha!
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
MrSquished
Lifer
Depression is indeed very very real. A lot of people don't get it and just go with the old just pull yourself up with your bootstraps attitude (which is a phrase that doesn't even mean what they think it means)
It's very real and very debilitating and destructive.
Battled it myself for quite some time. Luckily I had a great support system, though many mental health professionals made mistakes that prevented me from being helped properly. And also when I was young and dumb I resisted taking meds.
Hope you have some good people around you. For me Prozac has been life changing this year. It's amazing
It's very real and very debilitating and destructive.
Battled it myself for quite some time. Luckily I had a great support system, though many mental health professionals made mistakes that prevented me from being helped properly. And also when I was young and dumb I resisted taking meds.
Hope you have some good people around you. For me Prozac has been life changing this year. It's amazing
Charmonium
Lifer
I highly recommend fluvoxamine especially if you have any vestiges of OCD.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that SSRIs can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks to "kick in." Plus, some of those drugs (like Luvox/fluvoxamine - for some folks) can make your depression a great deal worse before it gets better.
Unfortunately, that means adding another couple months as you titrate up to a therapeutic dose.
More good news - if you've survived 2 years like that, it probably won't make you want to kill yourself unless you decide to ramp up/shorten that titration period. And there's a good chance that at some point along that "curve," you will probably start to feel vaguely better.
Psych drugs are very sneaky. The changes are so gradual that you don't really notice them until you do something and think 'shit, I haven't done anything like that in over a decade.'
That's the good news.
The bad news is that SSRIs can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks to "kick in." Plus, some of those drugs (like Luvox/fluvoxamine - for some folks) can make your depression a great deal worse before it gets better.
Unfortunately, that means adding another couple months as you titrate up to a therapeutic dose.
More good news - if you've survived 2 years like that, it probably won't make you want to kill yourself unless you decide to ramp up/shorten that titration period. And there's a good chance that at some point along that "curve," you will probably start to feel vaguely better.
Psych drugs are very sneaky. The changes are so gradual that you don't really notice them until you do something and think 'shit, I haven't done anything like that in over a decade.'
Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
I've seen this a lot in the "boomer" generation, i.e. "just grit your teeth & man up!" As I've had more family get older & need more care, I've seen more & more of this attitude displayed, where they think it's a personal moral failure to not just "be a man" & deal with it, when really, they're just shortchanging their own happiness. I think that because of that, there's a large stigma about seeking mental healthcare. We don't blink twice to take an iron supplement if we're iron deficient, but getting on ADHD meds when we're dopamine deficient is really no different, or depression meds if we don't make enough serotonin!
It's hard because social pressure, expectations, and anxiety rule the day. But really, everyone deserves to feel happy & energetic, and if you don't feel like that all day every day as your default, then something is blocking you & needs to be identified and then either eliminated or managed! I grew up with low energy & chronic low-key pain for most of my life & it's taken me a really long time to get to the point where I just feel absolutely fine all day, rather than anxious, depressed, etc.
It's nice to see the world changing to be more sympathetic & supportive to people's universal needs to feel better. Oddly enough, I think TikTok has contributed to that quite a bit, because anyone is free to make a one-minute video about their struggles & I think it's waking a lot of people up to the fact that there are tools out there to help them live a happier, more energetic life!
MrSquished
Lifer
Besides the taking time to kick in, if it's the right drug for you, and getting the dosage right, a lot have side effects, the main ones being sexual drive, ability to have sex and/or weight gain. Those are the two big whammies. Sometimes it works but people feel the side effects are not worth it. But you gotta keep going and tweaking and trying others.
Charmonium
Lifer
Yup. And that's all I'm gonna say. Sex is kinda boring anyway.
edit: pot is a pretty good antidote though.
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MrSquished
Lifer
Depends on who you are having sex with 😛
Prozac has been perfect. My sex drive is reduced, as in now I don't watch pr0n everyday, but when I'm with someone I'm attracted to, my sex drive is back to normal. Pretty nice balance actually. I have more brain energy to use now at work and in my day to day stuff.
Charmonium
Lifer
I've actually been on Prozac a couple of times. I put off giving Luvox a chance because my first experience with it was so abysmal. You know those warnings about SSRIs and adolescents? Well, it's not just for them I'm sad to say. I was able to titrate up on Prozac w/o much effort. But Luvox was a completely different can of worms. It also seems to be a more potent sexual suppressor. For now, I can't complain tho since I'm not involved with anyone. The downside is that I'm not especially motivated to change that.
Red Squirrel
No Lifer
I found the trick for me with SSRIs (excitalopram in my case) is to ease in over the course of weeks between dose adjustments. Then ease out the same way. I always assume that whatever change I make I will only see the effect in like a month. When I weaned off the weirdest part was the electric shock sensations. The big side effect I had when I was on them was excessive arm pit sweating, it was super annoying. That stopped once I got off the meds and I had been off for a while.
I had to make some life style changes to not go back in depression but the meds helped me get back on my feet.
I had to make some life style changes to not go back in depression but the meds helped me get back on my feet.
Muse
Lifer
It's true. When I'm depressed I don't always know how to get out of it. Even if something I try doesn't work it usually resolves pretty quickly kind of naturally. Sometimes has something to do with something that happened, usually something that shouldn't have precipitated bad feelings but somehow did anyway.
I don't laugh off people being depressed. Hey, most people are kind of depressed. Like Joan Baez said once, "most people strike you as being only 1/2 alive."
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Muse
Lifer
Working out has been a BIG part of my arsenal against depression for many years. I can have anxiety in my life but after a decent workout the endorphins kick in and NOTHING can compete with that to make me feel terrible. Things that were bothering me before aren't necessarily gone or anything but I am not bothered by them. I was a serious gym rat during the 1990's, would roller skate to the gym, work out in the weight room for 1.5 hours, then swim 2 miles (50-55 minutes, taking splits with my wrist watch). I did this 7 days a week, kept a meticulous diary of my weight room and pool workouts. I was the YMCA's most dedicated swimmer, so said a guy I met later. I had to stop swimming because I sustained a shoulder injury (eventually had surgery for that, but wouldn't dare try to swim like I used to, I was really gung ho).
I haven't been in my new gym since the pandemic hit, but figure to go back really soon, maybe this week. Meantime I've been quad skating a smooth street near me 6 days a week, 10 miles each day, and wearing a heart rate monitor. It's a real workout. I figure I've lost muscle mass being out of the gym, but I feel great, basically.
Charmonium
Lifer
As you age, it gets harder to either develop or maintain muscle mass. I think the medical term is sarcopenia. From google:
You might want to try some HMB - hydroxymethylbutyrate. I think that was outlawed for a while back in the 90's but Nirvana brand water has a "flavor" that includes 600mg of HMB
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