Depression and stuff

[cpxbrex]

I suffer from pretty serious depression and anxiety. I used to think that, y'know, I would get seriously depressed about the same as other people. But recently something happened. I started to take something for anxiety and depression and . . . for a while I felt a little weird, and then I felt better. Indeed, the change was so profound that

Comments

Taking something for it.

[nevynn]

Recognition of a problem, first step.
Taking a medication to help smooth it out a bit so you can cope, next step.
Seeking out some sort of long term coping mechanism, next step to perminant solution.

Good luck amigo. In comparison.. you're doing alright.

Re: Taking something for it.

[cpxbrex]

It's actually that I do have it so well that made me look at the possibility that it was a chemical imbalance. I was sitting there thinking awful horrible black thoughts and I said to Adrienne, "There's something wrong with me. There's no reason I should be like this. I'm with a wonderful life partner, I have meaningful work, good friends, we're not rich but we're also not particularly worrying about money, I eat well, blah, blah, blah

Re: Taking something for it.

[cpxbrex]

*snickers* And to be less of a narcissist, thank you for the sentiment. :)

Re: Taking something for it.

[nevynn]

wow. and all this time I thought it realy was all about you.. thanks for the revelation.
*grinz*

[mastersantiago]

I've never particularly noticed you being depressed, but I have noticed a certain apathy from time to time which I ascribed to, well, apathy.

In the time I've known you you have talked about the apathy/lethergy which comes over you when you finish a writing project, and how things can get you down enough that you aren't willing to be social. All perfectly understandable.

Here's hoping that things improve now that you've got some help in combating this.

[cpxbrex]

Like many people with moderate depression, I mean, you learn to cope. And I *don't* know how other people feel. Maybe this feeling, if it could be extracted and put into someone else's head, might not be so big a deal for someone else. For me it was pretty bad. But I get the impression that many people who suffer this sort of illness learn to hide it.

I mean, I've tried to address it before. I've tried going to my friends and saying, "Guys, I'm really, really depressed. As in thinking of killing myself depressed." While some of them have been very supportive, others have said stuff like - and I'm not making this up! - "You need to get a better job. Your problem is that you don't make enough money to be happy." Or, as my family would and did say, "If you open your heart to Jesus it'll be alright." You joked, but I've had that happen to me, hehe. It doesn't take too much of that before a person will just hide when they're feeling depressed and make up excuses that are general ("I'm not feeling well") because they're

[mastersantiago]

*evil grin*

You know, if you would just accept Jesus as your personal savior he would cure all your ills......

[nevynn]

Cruel... just cruel. lol

[cpxbrex]

Ooooh. I'll believe that the second he cures some amputees. ;)

[athelind]

...and, at least equally important, I know that this sickness is a sickness and not some personal or moral failing...

That's the most important thing, IMHO. I've had temper control issues all my life, but a decade or so back, a conversation with my mother raised the possibility that they might be due to the amphetamines her doctor prescribed to keep her from gaining too much weight during pregnancy. (Ahhh, the mid-'60s.)

I have no idea how plausible that hypothesis really is, but, honestly, it doesn't matter. The idea that those surges of screaming rage might be entirely physiological rather than, as you said, a personal or moral failure allowed me to set them apart as "other" -- and suddenly, I didn't have to accept them anymore.

I still lose it occasionally, but nothing like what I used to.

[cpxbrex]

The road of medical science certainly has been rocky. They have your mom meth during pregnancy? A very rocky road.

I've been pretty successful in setting aside my own temper as being destructive to my life and my relationships. Oh, yeesh, I am so much calmer than I was from Back in the Day when we were living in Monterey. Todd was, like, "You're the same as always, but happier." I suspect the suppression of my own rage, while not actually doing anything to resolve why I was so angry, is part of the reason I started becoming depressed. I think that anger, for me, for many years, was a way to get me out of being depressed. Rather than be depressed, I'd be angry. Which wasn't really an improvement in my life.

I'm glad that you've managed your own temper. Knowing does help - that you don't have to be that person. Equally important, for me at least, is being surrounded by people who support you, who don't assume that all your problems are moral weakness. Who let a person grow in the knowledge that attributing these failings to

[athelind]

Equally important, for me at least, is being surrounded by people who support you, who don't assume that all your problems are moral weakness.

Indeed.

Terry's reaction to my temper outbursts early in our marriage were "I worry about you; that's not physically healthy" -- but that statement suggests an implicit awareness that this was a problem FOR me, not WITH me.

[cpxbrex]

I thought that "going through the motions" was normal. I just told myself that everyone does things they don't like. I didn't even realize it wasn't "normal".

But, TOTALLY. I'm looking back at my past life and I am seeing how this has just messed with me for . . . pretty much all of my life. It's weird. And a little cool, hehe. One of the things I have repeated to myself about this is that it'll make me a better writer. ;)