No Depression

[Must...resist...mentioning...Foucault...or...anti-psychiatry...]

I was also thinking marketing campaigns by pharmaceutical companies here in North America. "Are you feeling blue? ask your doctor about..."; "Uncomfortable in social situations? ask your doctor about...".

I think it's mostly the crass direct-to-consumer advertising that makes it clear that the pharmaceutical companies prey on people's fears to get them medicated. One of the big drug companies (Glaxo?) took a full page ad in the NYT a few days after Sept 11 that read something like, "We don't make a pill that can turn back time, but we do have pills that can help you face tomorrow."

Sexual problems are unfortunately common side-effects with SSRIs like Prozac, Paxil, etc. As Geeta mentioned, Wellbutrin (A.K.A. Bupropion) is one possible alternative. So far, there's been one study (that's it, to my knowledge) conducted that suggests Wellbutrin reduces depression symptoms comparable to SSRIs with less sexual side- effects, see:

www.drmirkin.com/archive/7123.html

The caveat is that the one study conducted had a lot of limitations methodologically, which makes it hard to conclude anything definitively:

www.infopoems.com/POEMs/JC089707.htm

I think if you are experiencing side-effects that are significant to you, discussing it with your doctor is probably the best thing to do.

Sexual problems are unfortunately common side-effects with SSRIs like Prozac, Paxil, etc. As Geeta mentioned, Wellbutrin (A.K.A. Bupropion) is one possible alternative. So far, there's been one study (that's it, to my knowledge) conducted that suggests Wellbutrin reduces depression symptoms comparable to SSRIs with less sexual side- effects, see:

www.drmirkin.com/archive/7123.html

The caveat is that the one study conducted had a lot of limitations methodologically, which makes it hard to conclude anything definitively:

www.infopoems.com/POEMs/JC089707.htm

I think if you are experiencing side-effects that are significant to you, discussing it with your doctor is the best thing to do...

-I agree with (was it Emma or Fritz?) people who really aren't needing help probably don't seek medical help.

-if the person you saw just gave you a scrip maybe you were seeking the wrong kind of help. Pyschatrists (MDs) really only deal with medicine mgmt. this is all they're going to do for you. IF you want talk therapy you see a therpaist (typically a MSW). If you are really ill you *do* see both.

-My understanding of the pharmacology is that anti-depressants won't do anything for those who aren't truely clincally depressed. So if someone else benefits from the placebo effect what's wrong with that?

-every doctor i've ever seen (and i've had more of these than lovers) has prescribed not only medication but talk therapy, exercise, stress reduction. I've *never* had one just hand me a scrip and say "here you go, now you'll be happy!" It isn't that easy and these are professionals who understand that.

-If there *is* a medical solution to this problem, THEN WHY NOT THE FUCK USE IT? Do NOT get caught up in the romantic elements of melancholy/depression. There is nothing romantic about being suicidal. The danger of trying to place depression as a state of being or character is that someone's going to not seek help and end up dead.

With this disease it's hard to distingush b/c the chemical imbalances effect and what are ultimately emotional and subjective states. But what else are emotions and thoughts but electro-chemical functions of the brain? If your's are faulty then why not use available medical knowledge to repair them?

Despite my intense pharmacological therapy (and believe me I take a LOT of meds) my realization of my depressive states is not dulled. I am not happy all the time. In fact I am rarely happy. I just do not try to kill myself and I don't go around trying to kick everyone else's ass.

this, in itself, allows me to sit back and reflect on the more romantic and tragic elements of the human life.

In the UK, I think depression is overdiagnosed. This may be because of pressure placed on medical practitioners by pharmaceutical firms, and it may be that this trend forms part of the 'pathologizing of sadness'.

However, Ellie describes depression as a gradual slide down a scale from normal emotion to abnormal emotion. I think this description reinforces negative stereotypes about the mentally ill.

There are 2 types of depression: reactive and heriditary depression. Where as reactive depesssion - a response to life events that are not 'worked through' can lead to this kind of slide, heriditary depression can often be characterized by sudden severe 'lows' in an otherwise happy life.

A good friend of mine who suffers from depression (which runs in her family) has described to me her symptoms. They result in her feeling more than simply sad or low. Depression shuts down her brain to the point where simple tasks such as reading, having a conversation or making a meal become impossible. Her ability to concentrate on the smallest of tasks is taken away, whilst at the same time she suffers from incredibly strong headaches. When not suffering from depression she is a very happy and extremely positive human being.

As reactive types of depression get overdiagnosed, this results in further misunderstanding of those who suffer from the genetic strain of depression.

bert prolly is, too.

Misunderstanding of depression riles me. It hope it goes without saying that depression is more than simply feeling low. I also hope that the medical profession goes on prescribing drugs, as they often save lives.

I wonder if it's been sort of kicked off again by the relationship I'd mentioned several times here, with an Italian woman, coming to an unhappy end. I honestly don't know how much that has to do with it - it doesn't really feel like it's about that at all, and that is preying on my mind far less than I'd have expected, given my high hopes for it. Maybe it's just chemistry again, as all the doctors and psychiatrists I've seen have always said, and maybe I was due for a low.

It's not terribly bad, so far: no serious suicidal thoughts or impulses, no taking weeks off sick. A good thing too, as much time off sick, with my history, will lose me my job (I am less than a fortnight's illness in the next three months from sacking), and I won't get another (43 and with a terrible sickness record!), and consequently I will lose my house. Given how badly I've sometimes coped with things like going down the shops, at the bad times, I can't see myself surviving that.

This isn't a plea for help, as I can't imagine what help anyone can give me. I need to find the strength and discipline I'd found since my wife left, to survive. If I can, at least now there's a carrot at work as well as the aforementioned stick - good performance will get me a promotion, with more money and better work.

Ah, enough. Sorry to do that, but I sort of needed to unburden myself all at once to stop myself just hinting at bits of it all over the place, which I was starting to do.

I'm a little down on the psychiatrists themselves, though, because I have had a few of the 'pusher' types who just pat you on the head and don't want to talk to you. One of these kept me in a hospital for 8 days when I was simply suffering from exhaustion. I could have just as easily spent the 8 days at home. Then I got 2 prescriptions for conditions I didn't have, and they cost $600. I took them for a month and decided I didn't need them. It's the stress from my life that's causing all of this. I don't need more stress by racking up medical bills.

My best mate at uni had been on prozac before I met him, and he said that it had "stopped [him] thinking", and he'd come off it for that reason, even though it had made him more functional, because he didn't like the idea of not having the thoughts which had caused him to seek help, because somehow they seemed to define his understanding of his self. This gets me thinkign of the whole duality thing again, the idea that body and soul are seperate, the way we might refer to "my body" or "your body" just like you might refer to "my shoes" or "your hat", when as far as I see it, your body IS you just as much as your thoughts are. That whole christian/judaism/muslim thing about "the point inside you that is YOU", I remember that from primary school and people pointing at their heads of hearts or whatever (I think i pointed at my stomach which reveals a lot) and I couldn't really understand how or why except for the fact that your eyes and ears and nose are in your head so the confluence of sense data in that area might make you think that's where your 'soul' is. But I much prefer Heidegger's term , 'dasein', to soul, because dasein suggests that it's all of you rather than just some weird metaphysical whispy thing that goes up when you die. Plus the idea of a soul encourages you to not enjoy now but rather to look forward to the future (heaven) and thus never be satisfied.

I bought a book called Undoing Depression for my girlfriend, who suffers (and I say suffers because the people I know who suffer all describe it as a definite illness rather than just a 'state of mind', as does all the literature I've read [including aforementioend book]), and the guy in there suggested a three-fold approach to healing depression, consisting of medication, counselling, and also a definite conscious effort to alter your reactiosn to situations in everyday life in order to prevent finding yourself in recurrent 'depression traps', ie; situations where your instinctive reaction is likely to cause negative alteration to your mood. The idea of almost training yourself to react in ways to avoid this seemed to me to make a lot of sense. But then again, I don't suffer from depression, it's just somethign that interests and concerns me greatly for obvious reasons.

There are two root causes of my current depression; one is the death of Laura, the other a much longer-standing dissatisfaction with my professional "career." The continuing need to maintain the latter (in order to live, eat, etc.) has obstructed me in coming to terms with the former. I have not grieved properly. Things were forced upon me very rapidly after L's death (having to move house, financial entanglements, L's family closing the door on me etc.) and the need to have to keep dealing with banal shit on a 9-5 basis has not helped at all. I had to act and move very quickly and could not afford to stop and take stock. Hence my present situation.

I have tried both medication and psychiatric counselling, neither of which was much use to me or told me things I didn't already know. The option of training yourself to avoid "depression traps" is a good one in theory, but you have to be in the right fundamental frame of mind to achieve it. Otherwise, with me it just takes some dumb moron coming into my office and telling me (with no authority) how I should be organising it to plunge me back into despair. Or stupid remarks in the street. Or stupid emails. Or everything-going-wrong-at-once days (see the Friday before Xmas for a prime example of that for me).

The strange thing is that while I was in Glasgow, for the first time in ages I felt settled, free of pressure, actually free to do anything I wanted. I should just go back there really, shouldn't I? Nothing and no one to keep me here...even Paul Lester told me yesterday I should consider it. CDs can still be sent to me and I'll still have my PC.

Anyway, about the body and soul thing - I was thinking about Heidegger's "dasein" concept when I read Houellebecq's "Atomised;" the latter's idea of final decay is pretty total. But I cannot bring myself to believe it. I cannot accept the possibility that some "soul" of Laura, however abstract, however metaphysical, does not exist somehow or somewhere, even if it's within me. The Laura I knew and loved is not buried in Headington Cemetery. I couldn't go on if I thought that was the case. So my means of dealing with it are that Laura exists within me. Like Spike says in Buffy The Musical: "You have to keep on living...so one of us is living."

"We're finding that other molecules control other receptors, so I think this may open up quite a major new area of approach to developing therapeutic drugs," Greengard said.

trevor sharp: swinging london superhero, BABY

I have friends who have their battles with depression, and they have said to me that when a person says they are depressed, you expect them to be depressed about something in particular. But they don't feel that way, they just feel awful all the time.

I don't have any practical help or suggestions for you - I presume you already try and manage your depression with the usual things like taking regular exercise, eating properly etc etc - but I just wanted to send you good wishes and hope you find some answers. I can't see what's wrong with speaking to your GP about this - if you had constant nagging stomach pains you'd consult a doctor for some help, so why should it be any different just because it's another part of your body that's hurting? If you feel that you need some help, go and get some :)

When it's off I feel solipsistic for considering seeking NHS help when others have much rawer deals than me. But when it is on it's terrible, and the more it happens the more it leaves a residue which makes the better times taste bitter.

If it is bad, it's bad. Don't compare it to anyone else. It took me YEARS to even think about getting help. I acted like a total idiot and almost lost every friend I had in the process. I didn't realise what the hell was wrong with me, what I was doing, what an imposition I was being on the people who loved and cared for me. And when I didn't feel like that, I couldn't "get" what mindset I had been in when I did. I thought I was past whatever it was and didn't seek help. Why should I have done? I just had bad spells. They went away, didn't they? See, nothing really wrong, not like properly depressed people, eh? Don't make that mistake. It took a great big bloody fright for me to seek help, and I'm glad I did, but I wish I'd done it sooner rather than blanking it since it was nothing, relative to what I perceived as the problems of others. I still have days when I feel like there's a great big nothingness around me, or I wish that there was, but I've learned to get through it. I'm not on medication, but I've learned coping techniques.

A doctor really has to be the one to make the final decision as to whether what you're feeling is something that will pass, or something that requires attention, but I feel that the wish to lose consciousness (um, in a non-Buddhist context, I guess) is enough of a sign that you should see someone about it. The fact that other people are, yes, in much worse condition shouldn't stop you. To use an analogy: if you have (or have had) persistent chest pains or a cough, you shouldn't refrain from going to the doctor just because you're not in a coma. I don't mean to belittle your hesitation by saying this, though: feelings of ridiculousness and one's unworthiness of treatment aren't unusual at all.

Anyway, one particular day I just decided to blurt it all out to my mum, who I suppose is the closest person to me, in a single phone call. About everything I felt or rather, not feeling. And it helped A LOT.

I don't remember much of what was said, but I think that being reassured about who you care about and having someone to talk to really helps. I do remember that she also said that rather than focus on myself, I should focus on things that I used to like - reading my favourite books, taking dance lessons, pulling out old favourite CDS I used to play to help remind me of good things, things that interest me. She also said to change my routine which is something I haven't tried.

I know that I couldn't have possibly talked about this to anyone else I knew except my mum (and ilx now, I guess cause I don't really know anyone here personally). Anyway, that's just my experience and it seems quite frighteningly similar to yours. I'm 21 if that helps.

There's nothing selfish about your post. You talk about yourself /= selfishness.

That's why I didn't talk to anyone about it for a long time because it did feel like needless complaining - I wasn't unhappy or sad. On the contrary, everything in my life seemed to be going really well. But I suppose I wasn't happy or content either.

So yeah, i can empathize. All i can say is just to go talk to somebody about this, somebody with the training. it will improve.

Totally OTM. Everyone has their own experience. If you've gotten to the stage where you feel you need to seek help, then you need help.

My advice would be to not retreat into your shell (if that's your coping mechanism of choice) - it's what I used to do and it's a mistake.