Depression

[Tank]

3) However, all my experience is that confronting the most offensive, the most painful, the most fearful, the most cruel, the most callous things were exactly what I needed.  The things that increased the pain of depression were exactly the things that I had to face head-on.  The drugs gave me some temporary boost to tackle those things, but I needed to tackle them, not just sit with my thumb up my butt and imagine that the drugs would make me feel better forever.

I got depressed because of external forces that went away, so I'm not depressed anymore. So it's not the situation you fought your way through. But I can understand this part of your post because in the end I had to stand up to what was causing my depression and the medication helped me do that, which in the end allowed me to overcome what was causing the depression.

[epepke]

3) However, all my experience is that confronting the most offensive, the most painful, the most fearful, the most cruel, the most callous things were exactly what I needed.  The things that increased the pain of depression were exactly the things that I had to face head-on.  The drugs gave me some temporary boost to tackle those things, but I needed to tackle them, not just sit with my thumb up my butt and imagine that the drugs would make me feel better forever.

I got depressed because of external forces that went away, so I'm not depressed anymore. So it's not the situation you fought your way through. But I can understand this part of your post because in the end I had to stand up to what was causing my depression and the medication helped me do that, which in the end allowed me to overcome what was causing the depression.

How long were those external forces there?  It's very difficult, I think, when one is depressed to distinguish between external forces, trained responses to external forces, and something innate.

Anyway, you have the process down right.  The drugs should be viewed like the starter motor on a car.  They make the engine go for a bit, but while it's cranking, it has to catch.

But you have reminded me of something that belongs here; thanks.  People have the tendency to think of depression as an unusual condition, a departure from what for want of a better word we'll call "happiness."  However, happiness is an active, not a passive thing.  One must work at it every day.

Of course, that's why this forum appeals to me.

[Intercourseman72]

~how does it make you feel? this is a sensitive and emotional topic for me. when i was around 14,15,16 (i'm 19 now) i went through a very long bout of severe depression that kept getting worse as time went on. it got to the point where i didn't even know what happy was and i could barely even experience pleasant feelings. i was sort of a mean kid to others and didn't like people much. i was angry and had a lot of contempt how pretentious everything was around me and i also felt there were too few people like me. i didn't even get along with my parents for a long time and felt a lot of friction with everyone close to me except for my little brother, or my son. i didn't want to kill myself, but i certainly didn't rule it out. i had complete apathy and felt indifference whether i lived or died. i had friends and still kept close with my family, but i acted withdrawn, detached, and reclused around everyone and uninterested in what they had to say and was pretty negative all the time. i wanted to be left alone by others and reciprocated this feeling to others. for a while, i didn't want help or anything because i thought that's just how i was and it wouldn't matter anyway because i thought (still do) society was so fucked up. but i got so miserable that i just wanted it to end. i didn't make any attempts to kill myself, i saw a counselor and then was referred to a psychiatrist and eventually a psychologist. the drugs made me feel good b/c zoloft is a fucking amphetamine so what do you expect? but i didn't really solve my problems with depression until i started analyzing my thoughts with a psychologist. i looked at myself more introspectively and sort of discovered an egoist/individualist way of thinking. and no it wasn't from reading max stirner. i kept my depression to myself for a long time, but now i feel much more free to talk about it because it is a very serious issue that i feel much more aware of.

having said all of that, i have sympathy for people in emotional pain and i often wonder that if they approached treatment the way i did, then they would have gotten better. i'm glad i went through this early in my life because i think i have a much steadier philosophy about life and how i will live the rest of it. if i were older, i may have felt time was closing in rather than opening up, and maybe that's why suicide rates are lowest among teens and highest among old people.~

I posted that on another forum just over a year ago on a topic about suicide. There is more I wrote on the subject but it's not relevant here.

I am 20 now and am farther removed from my years of depression (which did not really end until i was 18) and farther from my years at public school. To be perfectly honest, I seriously doubt I would have ever been depressed if not for the constant malaise and monotony of passively accepting orders from uni-lateral authority figures I could easily tell were incompetent, manipulative, masochistic, internally frustrated, emotionally unstable, etc and absolutely garrulous non-sense the other students would endlessly converse about that compelled me to think I was rummaging from class to stupid fucking worthless boring as fuck fucking class with a bunch of degenerative neanderthals capable of only the most rudimentary thought. My depression peaked at the end of my junior year in high school and very early that summer when I just turned 17. I had a little bit of counseling with a really ditzy quack of a horse shit therapist before then and was later recommended by her to a very reputable psychiatrist where my parents were ripped off into paying for an EEG which said i was deficient in histamine. So they gave me what was supposed to be a happy pill that would do something with histamine (the manufacturers and developers of the drugs don't even know how they work) but it didn't do a goddamn thing. So I went back to this guy and he was probably offended that his prescription didn't work and the non-science of psychiatric medicine is obviously just really shitty guess work, so he gave me some zoloft obviously because it's a psychiatrist's dream to have a one-size-"cures"-all pill that you don't have to know shit about and it will still get you results and a whole lot of money.

This brings me into the subject of anti-depressant drugs. Zoloft is an SSRI (not an amphetamine as I mistook it for last year). A selective-serotonin-reuptake- inhibitor is a drug that basically prevents your brain from recycling neurotransmitters, namely serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, etc. It absolutely does not make your body create more serotonin or whatever. It makes your body keep more of it in your brain and this is why it takes several before you feel its effects and they come about very gradually. Serotonin and other neurotransmitters are naturally made in the gut. If you eat things like turkey, the tryptophan will synthesize into serotonin and you will have more of it. By increasing neurotransmitters this way, you are actually getting to the root of your body's problems (if you actually believe that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance) without poisoning your body with drugs and going through side effects. Side effects of SSRIs tend to be what they are supposed to cure. E.g. anxiety, insomnia, depression, and suicidality. The side effects for me were I felt really cold yet my skin felt like it was on fire, i was shaking, i couldn't sleep, i couldn't eat, i was always extremely charged and manic (even came close to getting arrested several during that glorious, summer-long amphetamine trip). Overall, I loved the drug and basically being high. Zoloft has a half-life of about 26 hours and lasts all day, therefore, I constantly felt that way. Of course, it was like that for the summer.
                                                                                         ~now for the real problem/solution~
I still had to go back to high school for my senior year. Within 2 weeks, I was just as miserable as ever except now i had serious self-control issues because of the zoloft and really pissed off a couple of my teachers but was also appreciated by most surprisingly. It was even worse than before because now it was like being a caged tiger on methamphetamine. So after about 5 weeks, I decided to GTFO and graduate early which is what I should have done when I was about 15 or so. With that story out of the way, it should be clear what the problem was. The zoloft by no means cured my depression. Humans are not simply a compilation of chemicals. Our thoughts and philosophies also make us who we are. I needed to re-evaluate how I saw the world around me and introspectively research myself. That, and get the goddamn sodomy cunting nigger hell out of public school. That's what I needed at least. During my first semester of college, I got some counseling from what I now realize is quite rare and abnormal: a decent psychologist who ask good questions but allowed me to ponder them myself and arrive at my own conclusions. It wasn't long before I think I really came alive and it was so real this time. I was independent from the world around me and didn't care about the things that used to frustrate me and bring me down. It's like I used to get personally offended by how vacuous and pretentious and void of meaningful thought I thought most people were before, but afterward I was much more at peace and was more vibrant as a result. It wasn't through studying Lysander Spooner or Max Stirner. I simply realized that what makes me feel comfortable and what feels right to me is being able to be truly emotionally detached from things that repulsed me (classmates, teachers, religious delusions, etc) and simply be content with everything around me. It no longer angered me that people weren't up to my standards because I could just focus on myself and the people closest to me and so-to-speak "learn to love failure" when it came with everything else. I am explaining this in a pretty shitty way because it's a really visceral thing and I can't explain it intellectually, but somehow I flipped a switch somewhere along the line. I don't mind seeing people be philosophically inept or speak of politics in an irrational, emotional way, people speaking on social issues while being economic ignoramuses nor find the westboro baptist church abhorrent(except how much they indoctrinate kids. that's a real shitter but not even close to what public schools do and i don't really concern myself too much with that because at least for me, I can secede from such an institution). Being at ease with the idea of emotionally abandoning things around me, I think, is why I am over depression.

I don't know any of you here, but it seems lots of us have quite a bit of experience with depression. I don't know anyone here enough at all or enough about your lives to give any advice at all particularly.  But in general, I would suggest a few things that have at least some potential to help and little possiblity to harm.

1. If you are suicidal or have suicidal thoughts, STAY AWAY FROM PHARMACEUTICALS. Anti-depressants in particular are notorious for escalating suicidality in people and have never not once even one time ever nor will ever even one time "cure" depression or make you and your body healthier. Drugs by definition are toxins that your body works to get ride of. Do not put these things into your body if you are already extremely mentally unhealthy. I understand how it feels to not even know what happiness feels like for years at a time, but the risks involved with these drugs are not worth it. If you need a pick me up for a couple of days or a week, try to find something that is non-addictive and has no history of escalating suicidal behavior or exacerbating depression.

2. If you want professional help, start off with a nutritionist. It's fallacious to say "you are what you eat" but it's not that far off. I don't know a whole lot of people who have depression and eat organic, well-balanced diets and get most if not all their necessary nutrients and avoid junk food, soda, starbucks, energy drinks, etc. Try to get your blood-sugar level balanced, enough ATP to the cells etc.

3. Self-fulfilling hobbies never hurt, but they probably won't cure depression either. They may make you feel better, but depression takes place in the mind. You need to address your own thoughts, demons, etc. Introspectively analyze you thought patterns, your responsive tendencies to certain stimuli and situations and try to trace them back to a cause whatever this cause may be. This is a hard one for two reasons. It's difficult to do this accurately completely on your own, and it's probably just as hard to find someone who is competent at asking you probing but helpful questions. Psychologists often are no good because they are among the most socialized people in society. They have Ph.D's, have succeeded tremendously, and had to conform to a lot of social norms in order to get to where they are. Many cannot relate to people who are alienated by society and among the most alienated are their patients. A good psychologist may not be common, but there are some out there. Try to find out the methods of a psychologist before hand and avoid any Freudian horse shit.

4. Never count on anyone's advice to work. No one in the world can tell you how to get over depression or suicidal thoughts. Cures to depression can only be coaxed by others. You have to cure yourself.

This is my first post here, and i can't wait to get to know all better. You seem like an interesting lot of perceptive people, which is probably why depression plagues so many of you. Being explorative with ideas, concepts, philosophy and the world while trying to honestly and intellectually figure it out comes at a price. For me, it's more than well worth it and it's always a great fortune I think people with depression should count.

[PoopShoot]

This is my first post here, and i can't wait to get to know all better.

With that avatar and worldview, I can imagine that you'll be here for ages to come.  

[Intercourseman72]

This is my first post here, and i can't wait to get to know all better.

With that avatar and worldview, I can imagine that you'll be here for ages to come.  

You know? I didn't even realize the tandem my avatar and worldview created. Perhaps I need to go and make my positions very clear at the ground zero mosque topic.

[PoopShoot]

This is my first post here, and i can't wait to get to know all better.

With that avatar and worldview, I can imagine that you'll be here for ages to come.  

You know? I didn't even realize the tandem my avatar and worldview created. Perhaps I need to go and make my positions very clear at the ground zero mosque topic.

Perhaps.  It might also be wise to change "I hate the Jews" to something a little less inflammatory.  Not that I'm not to talk about being inflammatory, just that the resident Jews might appreciate it.

[Intercourseman72]

Actually, I don't want to change it. I put that there for a reason, and yes, it is meant to be ironic. I'll explain it on another post.

But as for now, perhaps it would be wise for you to start posting about things a little less irrelevant? Like... something that has to do with depression? Just a suggestion you know?

[philosoraptor]

Actually, I don't want to change it. I put that there for a reason, and yes, it is meant to be ironic. I'll explain it on another post.

But as for now, perhaps it would be wise for you to start posting about things a little less irrelevant? Like... something that has to do with depression? Just a suggestion you know?

Just a suggestion, you might want to avoid making your first post to a forum a TLDR with the phrase "cunting nigger" in it.

[PoopShoot]

But as for now, perhaps it would be wise for you to start posting about things a little less irrelevant?

You can feel free to report me.  I had thought mentioning a possible point of contention that will piss a few people off (including a banhammer happy mod and an overly sensitive person of Jewish descent, among others) was relevant.  It's cool, enjoy your ban.

Like... something that has to do with depression? Just a suggestion you know?

If you had read the thread, you'd know I've been fairly involved already.

[epepke]

having said all of that, i have sympathy for people in emotional pain and i often wonder that if they approached treatment the way i did, then they would have gotten better.

Some of them might.  Some of them might not.  I am very much in favor, when facing a problem of any kind, having as wide a variety of tools to try out as possible.  So talk therapy, dreamwork, CET, careful use of psychotropic drugs, and Jungian and other analyses, just to name a few, can be tried.  Having more tools increases the chance that one or more can work, given that cases are different and nobody knows beforehand what exactly will work.  We seem to be in agreement on this one.

Where having many options can be a problem in the use of psychotropics, however.  Common practice seems to be to prescribe a drug and then, if it doesn't work, to add something else.  So maybe they start you out with an SSRI.  Then they add a benzodiazepine.  Then they add an antipsychotic, but only a mild one.  Before you know it, you're taking so many drugs that you don't know what's going on.

With respect to drugs, I've not found SSRIs to do any good, and they messed up my sexuality, which I think is probably why male teenagers kill themselves when they are put on it.  The things I have found useful are as follows:

1) The non-benzodiazepine anxiolytic Buspar.  As I think I mentioned, this worked on me for about a year and a half.  Fortunately, within a couple of months of being prescribed this, I was able to get laid.  It was only my fifth lover.  That helped a lot.

2) Bezodiazepines, but purely PRN and not daily.  I discovered that 2mg Ativan sublingual was able to knock out a mixed state with no other effects if I used it within 20 minutes of feeling one coming on.  To those who do not know what this is, I liken it to running an engine at 6000 RPM without any oil.  It is depression, but with a rapid flight of thoughts about the depression so severe and numerous that it's almost like a seizure disorder, only without physical manifestations.  It's one of the most unpleasant states to be in.

3) Neurontin (gabapentin), which is really a neuroleptic for seizure disorders.

4) Opiates, in a pinch, to stop the mixed states.  This came in handy when I was in England, as products containing a small amount of codeine are available OTC.

5) Protein.  In all seriousness, if I ate a Porterhouse steak or, on a budget, several cans of tuna fish or even some reconstituted egg whites in a shake, I could get out of a chronic depression.

If I had known about it back then, and if it had been legal in my state, I would probably have used Salvia to induce a dream state for dream work.  I've tried it once in the past two years, and it seems to do quickly what self-hypnosis only does slowly and unreliably.

[Intercourseman72]

@epepke
I think this brings me back to the overall theme of getting at the root. Do you want to just stop feeling miserable or do you want to fully get over depression? Someone with chronic migraine problems isn't aspirin deficient. Aspirin, advil, tylenol, motrin, etc just alleviate pain. They don't even out hormonal imbalances or correct what is causing the headache.

With depression, not all of it simply chemical. Although, if it was completely chemical, anti-depressants and other drugs don't really correct the imbalance anyway. Much of it is psychological and thoughts need to be addressed. I suppose that if you have more tools to work with at your disposal, you are more likely to stumble upon something that works for you, but you are also more likely to use something that sets you back. You obviously did find things that worked for you and you did address discomforting and painful parts of the depression rather than just using drugs and know what you are talking about. I suppose every approach should be unique to the individual with depression, but I would not rule out ruling out alleviating pain with drugs for long periods of time. It's too risky if you ask me. I have seen some research that shows that when people use psychiatric drugs along with psychological counseling, improvement is more likely than when it's just one or the other or through some other means. Despite this study of work, one has to ask "exactly how are their conditions improving and how long-term are the results?"

But anyway, I would say that drugs should be either or both a very temporary thing and/or a last resort. Either use (non-addictive) drugs at the start for a short amount of time or use them after you've thrown the kitchen sink as well as the kitchen sink as well as the bath tub.

[epepke]

@epepke
I think this brings me back to the overall theme of getting at the root. Do you want to just stop feeling miserable or do you want to fully get over depression? Someone with chronic migraine problems isn't aspirin deficient. Aspirin, advil, tylenol, motrin, etc just alleviate pain. They don't even out hormonal imbalances or correct what is causing the headache.

Hah! That's exactly the metaphor that I have used on many occasions.

With depression, not all of it simply chemical.

I would say something stronger and that it isn't chemical at all, except in the relatively banal sense that everything that happens in the body is chemical in some sense.  So there are chemicals involved.

Still, I've adressed that, so it would help if you went back and read what I wrote.

[Intercourseman72]

Great. I must be so cliche and pathetically unoriginal.

Anyway, I have read every post you made on this topic and have been thoroughly impressed with you knowledge on this subject. It's just that the list you provided most recently comprised of ways to feel better while depressed rather than actually getting rid of it completely. I do not think that is something you advocate by any means though.

Yeah, with any though or concept, chemicals and chemical reactions are involved. But the actual meanings are not chemical. They are abstract and mean things beyond their chemical constructs. Anyway, a better way of putting it is that depression is not purely psychiatric, but much more psychological. Psychology is physiology combined with philosophy by definition. The philosophical parts are what need to be focused on but are often neglected in mainstream medicine.

[i_am_i]

Psychology is physiology combined with philosophy by definition. The philosophical parts are what need to be focused on but are often neglected in mainstream medicine.

I'm quite certain that this just isn't true, anyway I don't see it in any definition of psychology that I've been able to find, but I'm looking forward to seeing any evidence you have that shows clearly and without a doubt that psychology is "physiology combined with philosophy."

[Intercourseman72]

Ok, here is some overview about the emergence of psychology that is fairly consistent with most schools of thought about psychology. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/brief-hi ... ology.html

The idea that psychology combines philosophy and physiology is fairly mainstream and conclusive in the field of psychology. It's they preface the subject in both psychology classes I have taken. Psychology as a study began with the ancient Greeks with the root word psyche meaning "soul", then Descartes, and blah blah blah. It, however differs from philosophy in the ways that it incorporates physiology.

If you would request more evidence, then go ahead. But beyond that, I would really prefer if we could stick to the topic at hand and the major issues presented instead of nitpick.