quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Whichever way it is phrased, the idea implies depression is a misperception of reality. A misperception that sucks out joy as Patdys said.

No?

I find that idea curious.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
What are you, Data?

---

Yes.

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:

what the fuck do you think depression is?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

And Evensong, fuck yourself, and stop being a sanctimonious arse. If you have nothing useful to contribute here, piss of and return to pleasuring yourself.

---

quote:

---

sanc·ti·mo·ni·ous
/ˌsaNG(k)təˈmōnēəs/
Adjective
derogatory. Making a show of being morally superior to other people.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

I'm feeling rather low myself at the mo.
<<snip>>
We all deal with difficulty in different ways.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

I'm feeling rather low myself at the mo.
<<snip>>
We all deal with difficulty in different ways.

---

Evensong, please shut up before you do further damage.

Clinical depression is not a low mood. Neither is it a temporary "difficulty."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

And Evensong, fuck yourself, and stop being a sanctimonious arse. If you have nothing useful to contribute here, piss of and return to pleasuring yourself.

---

Evensong's contributions are at least as valuable as yours which seem consist of lots of nasty, juvenile insults. Thanks to her questions, we have some descriptions of depression that are enlightening and worthy of the quotes file. Neither do I think that because she just understated her pain, she isn't feeling it.
-------

My husband's aunt married a man who suffers from this horrible disease and after he killed himself, five of her eight children followed. I don't know how she manages to get through a single day.

Besides depression being a major cause of suicide. Suicide in a family, for any reason, very much ups the likelihood that other family members will follow. It makes the unthinkable more thinkable and prompts a feeling of solidarity with those who have gone before.

 

---

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patdys:
Depression. The disease. It lies. It eats goodness and joy and hope and health. And like all diseases, sometimes it wins.

And it shouldn't.
It really just shouldn't.

---

You're right, Patdys. And maybe the worst lie depression tells us is that it has won, when there is still some hope.

Having said that, 'hope' sounds like a dirty word at such times.
 

---

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
Black dog ?

Stare the fucker down . That's what I say.
 

---

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Whichever way it is phrased, the idea implies depression is a misperception of reality. A misperception that sucks out joy as Patdys said.

No?

I find that idea curious.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
... Present me with a completely fucked up issue (Patdy's OP) and I usually automatically go into "Data" mode. ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:
Black dog ?

Stare the fucker down . That's what I say.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:
Black dog ?

Stare the fucker down . That's what I say.

---

Where do you find the energy to do that when you're depressed?

---

What worked for me - and that's all I'm saying - is realizing that depression wants me to do things that are bad for me and will keep me depressed. I fight my depression by doing the exact opposite of what it tells me to do. So if it tells me to lie in bed all day, I get up, no matter how awful I feels, and that's a win. It's the Homer Simpson rule: do the opposite of what Bart says.

And it's really hard, and it takes a long time, and I got a lot of help from friends, my sister, my employer, and many, many health professionals. And I am incredibly grateful to be living in Canada, because if I lived anywhere else, I'd be homeless or dead.
 

---

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I found that therapy worked for me, but it doesn't for everyone. I used to exist under layers of guilt and depression, but somehow I got out from it, but I could not have done it alone.
 

---

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:
Black dog ?

Stare the fucker down . That's what I say.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Porridge:
If I catch myself early enough on the trip down, I can sometimes stop or at least slow the descent by finding a single small finishable task, and doing it. Then another (though it may take a week or month or whatever) another, and so on.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:
You're right, Patdys. And maybe the worst lie depression tells us is that it has won, when there is still some hope.

Having said that, 'hope' sounds like a dirty word at such times.

---

quote:

---

I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:
Seems like it would be a bad idea for either of us to offer advice to others.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Soror Magna:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
... Present me with a completely fucked up issue (Patdy's OP) and I usually automatically go into "Data" mode. ...

---

Nobody wants your fucking data mode when they're depressed. Got it? Your "automatic data mode" means you're not thinking about the other person, you're thinking about your awesomely incredible ability to solve other people's problems with your amazing "data mode".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by roybart:
All of these posts are making me think right now of the role of severe depression in my own family -- especially the instances, long, long ago, when I was a child and became aware of stories whispered, explanations never given. A great uncle, who had "something" wrong with him, who disappeared and was not heard of until his body was discovered in a flop house in a distant city. A great aunt who I knew only as the end-product of years of incarceration in a state mental institution. When she was released, she was unable to leave her bedroom. The few times we visited, she ventured as far as to stand at the doorway of her darkened room. She smiled sadly. I can still hear her saying my name gently, drawing out one syllable into two or three, before she vanished back into the room. I was about 6 at the time.

All of this was, as I say, whispered about in a "not in front of the children" way. Only as a grownup was I able to piece the stories together and come to an understanding of what had actually occurred, as well as its impact on family members who came afterwards.

My anger is not so much aimed at the disease of depression itself as at the system which imposed so much secrecy and ignorance in the past, and practices so much avoidance in the present. This is especially striking when one lives in a "rich" country whose grasp of mental health issues sometimes seems minimal -- or of benefit only to those with incomes or benefits large enough to purchase the best of care -- and which systematically under-funds mental health education and treatment.

Sincere thanks to all who are posting here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by churchgeek:
But the other signs were there: not enjoying anything, feeling bored and listless with everything, having no energy or motivation, feeling irritable, getting angry quickly...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:

---

Originally posted by churchgeek:
But the other signs were there: not enjoying anything, feeling bored and listless with everything, having no energy or motivation, feeling irritable, getting angry quickly...

---

That's depression? Bugger.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Soror Magna:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
... Present me with a completely fucked up issue (Patdy's OP) and I usually automatically go into "Data" mode. ...

---

Nobody wants your fucking data mode when they're depressed. Got it? Your "automatic data mode" means you're not thinking about the other person, you're thinking about your awesomely incredible ability to solve other people's problems with your amazing "data mode".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

[whispers]
Do you call that stick "clenchy"?
Fight clenchy. He's not doing you any favours.
[/whispers]

---

quote:

---

I'm one of the ones that runs to the toilet in the morning after my coffee and cigarette.
Sometimes it catches me in the middle of the Morning Office.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
I think my black dog is beaten.

I think.

He still follows me around all the time. It's been over ten years now since he did any real damage but he still keeps on following me. He seems to think that one day he'll be able to catch me again. Maybe he's right. He does keep plodding along behind me expectantly. He's got closer recently than for a long time, but not too close. Not yet.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
And the worst part is anhedonia because most of the time I can stay ok by distraction anhedonia makes distraction impossible

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
You're a terrible judge of character.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
You're a terrible judge of character.

---

I think I've got a new title.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:
Oh what a pile of tedious bullshit. Evensong is very obviously a quite lovely human being in real life, and if you cannot get a sense of that because or despite what she posts on this discussion forum, and if you're so terribly fond of your cynical opinion of her character that you'll slag her off publicly, well then you're a bit of a cunt, frankly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by George Spigot:
I'm my case as in many others depression is cause by a chemical imbalance.

---

quote:

---

So I agree completely with the OP and others that it's a lie. A distortion of reality.

---

quote:

---

Depression can also be brought on by true things. If instead of sticking your head in the sand you actualy take a proper look at the world you will notice how very fucked it is right now. It's very insidious in this light to be patted on the head by Dr's and politicians and told that everythings just fine, it's all in your head, just keep taking your pills.

So some forms of depression can in fact be truth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

---

I'm one of the ones that runs to the toilet in the morning after my coffee and cigarette.
Sometimes it catches me in the middle of the Morning Office.

---

That could be a perfectly legitimate psychosomatic reaction to your the smashing together of the holiness of the office, common sense and the ever present knowledge of your “I am as crazy as a squirrel on LSD” ways.

Fly Safe Dude, Pyx_e

---

LSD? You're totally showing your age. I never got past buying a bundle of pot (aged 17) and not being able to smoke it all.

And you called me Dude.

Does that mean we're biffles now?
 

---

Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
LSD? You're totally showing your age. I never got past buying a bundle of pot (aged 17) and not being able to smoke it all.

And you called me Dude.

Does that mean we're biffles now?

---

I think you're showing your age. At least around here LSD and modern derivatives have made a comeback over the past five years.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
True dat.
 

---

Posted by The Riv (# 3553) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:
I do so love to please.

Look, I don’t know what she’s like any more than anyone else, but it’s my opinion that she’s lovely. The difference between me and the person who thinks she isn’t is that, being a bit of a cunt, they choose to think badly of her on the same basis that I think well of her, and they’re so proud of their judgement that they’ll publicly defame her character and thus vilify her in this community, in which she is deeply invested. All of which proves, rather neatly I think, that they’re a bit of a cunt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Riv:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:
I do so love to please.

Look, I don’t know what she’s like any more than anyone else, but it’s my opinion that she’s lovely. The difference between me and the person who thinks she isn’t is that, being a bit of a cunt, they choose to think badly of her on the same basis that I think well of her, and they’re so proud of their judgement that they’ll publicly defame her character and thus vilify her in this community, in which she is deeply invested. All of which proves, rather neatly I think, that they’re a bit of a cunt.

---

Erm, it's Hell, idn't it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by daronmedway:
A couple of months away from the ship and what do I find upon my return? A perfectly good thread about depression turd-balling into a ground-hog of abuse because of someone's annoying but clearly accidental insensitivity. You guys should really get out more. Blimey.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by daronmedway:
A couple of months away from the ship and what do I find upon my return? A perfectly good thread about depression turd-balling into a ground-hog of abuse because of someone's annoying but clearly accidental insensitivity. You guys should really get out more. Blimey.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by daronmedway:
A couple of months away from the ship and what do I find upon my return? A perfectly good thread about depression turd-balling into a ground-hog of abuse because of someone's annoying but clearly accidental insensitivity. You guys should really get out more. Blimey.

---

Well, I guess that makes you the guy who goes along poking turds with his stick, yelling 'Turd!'.

Or did you have something useful to say here apropos your own criticism of the thread?
 

---

Posted by The Riv (# 3553) on :
 
LOL

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

---

Originally posted by daronmedway:
A couple of months away from the ship and what do I find upon my return? A perfectly good thread about depression turd-balling into a ground-hog of abuse because of someone's annoying but clearly accidental insensitivity. You guys should really get out more. Blimey.

---

Two hours away from the ship and what do I find on my return ........

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:
Well, I guess that makes you the guy who goes along poking turds with his stick, yelling 'Turd!'.

---

You have those in Ireland too?

 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

(Awaits RooKian shaft aimed at huge cunt reference.Lays self out on altar of humor.)


(Fully aware of pun.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AberVicar:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:
Well, I guess that makes you the guy who goes along poking turds with his stick, yelling 'Turd!'.

---

You have those in Ireland too?

---

It's a fairly international occupation! Everyone's got to have a job of some sort, I suppose.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
IM personal O, these crossover threads are beginning to confuse people. One minute they hear "Take your crybaby shit to AS, cupcake; this is not the place for compassion": and the next they are being screamed at for insensitivity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
IM personal O, these crossover threads are beginning to confuse people. One minute they hear "Take your crybaby shit to AS, cupcake; this is not the place for compassion": and the next they are being screamed at for insensitivity.

---

True story.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:
Like most dogs, he's loyal and likes to stick close to his old master. Just in case he gets thrown another bone. And out of habit, sometimes we can't help ourselves.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by passer:
I think it’s very unkind to have a go at Evensong when one of her protectors is away. Remember – if you get too close to forcing her to actually engage on her interesting interpersonal skills, one of her personal support team will get shouty and then the thread will be closed and deleted (rather than archived) like last time.

---

I don’t follow Evensong closely enough to know which protectors you are talking about. From what I have seen so far, Evensong seems perfectly capable of defending herself on these boards. She has a big girl panty and wears it pretty well, me finks.

[tangent]
You seem to think that a (Evensong) thread being deleted (rather than archived) is a bad thing. As someone who has witlessly made a dogmeat of a thread on this board not that long ago, I can only say that I am deeply grateful to the hosts and admin on this board for their kind consideration in deleting the thread rather than archiving it. I think it’s a kindness that has often gone unnoticed and under-appreciated by Shipmates. Perhaps it’s because I am not as smart as many of you that I value this kindness more. But can anyone on these boards (especially in Hell) be sure that he or she will never need a little kind consideration from the hosts someday? [/tangent]
 

---

Posted by The Riv (# 3553) on :
 
So, you're saying Evensong is fat?
 

---

Posted by Organ Builder (# 12478) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pooks:
Perhaps it’s because I am not as smart as many of you that I value this kindness more.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by passer:
I think it’s very unkind to have a go at Evensong when one of her protectors is away. Remember – if you get too close to forcing her to actually engage on her interesting interpersonal skills, one of her personal support team will get shouty and then the thread will be closed and deleted (rather than archived) like last time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patdys:
Could the tangent please stop.

---

Good luck with that (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but I can't find a way to say it that doesn't look that way on an internet bulletin board).

Patdys, I've been here long enough to know what p-a-t-d-y-s stands for--not just your moniker, but a bit about what you stand for as a person. There have been times I stalked your posts--because you (like Pyx_e and a few others) have a way of saying something that makes me go "Hmmm...I hadn't thought of that." When I saw the OP, though, I wasn't sure what your intent was--nor did it really become clearer when others began to post (no real surprise there, I suppose).

Did you intend to call depression to Hell because it had destroyed the family of which you spoke? Did you mean to call depression to Hell because of your own fight, which was made harder by the grief of this funeral? Did you mean this to be a depression equivalent of the cancer thread? Did you just mean to rail against the dying of the light?

The answer to any one of those questions could have directed the thread on very different pathways. None of them, it seems to me, would be unworthy of your Hell call--but if I was a bit confused (being pre-disposed to take your contributions seriously) it's no surprise that other shipmates took the thread in its own meandering direction.

...which brings me back to my first observation, the one I can't seem to get the seeming-snarkiness out of. You've been here longer than I have, and you don't need me to remind you that it is rare for an OPer to get a second chance to direct a thread's discussion...especially in Hell...especially on page 2. If you clarify your original intent a bit, though, I for one will respect it.

I doubt everyone will, but I don't expect to be the only one who does.
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
FYBD for what you do to my team leader and friend D. He's been recovering pretty well from a combination of depression, anxiety, guilt underpinned by PTSD, and last night he went over the top and down again.

Get off him, evil damned dog and give him his life back.
 

---

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :
 
what is depressing me these days is that my current treatment isn't working anymore. I've tried every anti-depressant known to humankind and none of them work... well, I've been on Zoloft off and on for years and years but at 200 mg/daily, the stuff just doesn't do anything anymore.

Here is some advice, though, for anyone who might benefit. I did a medical research study last year for a medication that is in extremely limited use at the moment. It's not 100% Ketamine, but it is, as the doctors told me, "a cousin of Ketamine". This medicine worked so damn well that it completely stopped the depression for the three months I was in the study!! And, I'm still feeling some of the effects, just not as well as I did when I was getting weekly infusions of it.

If any of you are really in a bad way, this "cousin of Ketamine" has been shown to completely reverse moderate to severe depression symptoms in less than twenty-four hours! Unfortunately, I was enrolled in the 2nd Tier of the study and it has to go through one more tier and then on to the F.D.A. for approval and whatever equivalent government body in other countries. The side effects were minimal for me and the suppression/reversal of depression far outweighed the slight negatives. It's an infusion and the needles aren't small but it was well worth it. I'm now trying to get into a new study that uses just straight Ketamine, no "cousins" involved!
 

---

Posted by Hugal (# 2734) on :
 
Are Evensong or Rook the Black Dog? No. Can we, as has been mentioned, get back to the subject? I have just found out I have depression and can't believe the way this has gone. Could we get back to the OP please.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
I've been quiet for three days dickhead.

Eat your fuckin heart out.
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hugal:
Are Evensong or Rook the Black Dog? No. Can we, as has been mentioned, get back to the subject? I have just found out I have depression and can't believe the way this has gone. Could we get back to the OP please.

---

and FYBD on your behalf, Hugal.


 

---

Posted by Hugal (# 2734) on :
 
I did not say you had Evensong. I was just trying to get the thread back on track. I thought I made that clear.
Thanks Sioni Sais
 

---

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
The Black Dog seems to be a good breeder. I sometimes think the conditions under which we live create a good breeding ground for the cur. It's impossible sometimes not to feel trapped. Hugal, for what it's worth, you're not alone - even though it feels like it.
 

---

Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hugal:
I did not say you had Evensong. I was just trying to get the thread back on track. I thought I made that clear.
Thanks Sioni Sais

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hugal:
I did not say you had Evensong. I was just trying to get the thread back on track. I thought I made that clear.

---

Sorry. Misread your post.

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

It's not about you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

But, you know what, people's instinctive responses can be quite revealing... When someone starts a thread entitled 'Fuck you black dog' anyone knowing the Churchill reference who actually cares about the people Jesus died for (everybody) ought to maybe reach inside themselves and respond in the same way they would to the 'Fuck you cancer' thread.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

When a seventeen year old classmate of my son topped himself a few months ago and I was driving my son and his friends to the funeral they were all sitting quietly and speaking in hushed voice. Know what I felt? Rage. Pure fucking rage at the total, horrific injustice of the situation that was so so wrong.

After the funeral I spent a couple of hours online researching teenage suicide - trying to understand causes, trying to understand why such a young person could be driven to such despair.

Was this a wrong response? No. It's my way of getting some kind of a handle on a situation that is totally insane.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Rage all you need to, but weeping winds up being a lot more efficient. IME.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AberVicar:
... the comments you're making on this thread risk making people's depression worse rather than better.

---

quote:

---

On the first point, the great analyst Bion said to the therapist - begin the session 'without desire or memory or understanding'. This is maybe a bit too strong, but it's a helpful corrective.

---

quote:

---

Because the comments you're making on this thread risk making people's depression worse rather than better.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
In your opinion. My opinion is Hell is great for ranting but if you want help go to All Saints.

*snip*

Call ES for her ideas but some here seem to be implying she should shut up in case we scare the kittens.

Fly Safe, Pyx_e

---

quote:

---

And I'm told that after suicide is the worst possible time to talk about causes.

But guess what? We never talk about them otherwise.

---

You can't shoot the dog if you spend forever running away from it.

Get a grip, you bunch of babies.
 

---

Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
So go and be rude and callous and pissy in the mirror, because you know what?

Sometimes the crap you're peddling ends up in a place of no return.

BTW your nether garments seem to be very seriously contorted...
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by AberVicar:
So go and be rude and callous and pissy in the mirror, because you know what?

Sometimes the crap you're peddling ends up in a place of no return.

BTW your nether garments seem to be very seriously contorted...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AberVicar:
Do you really think that qualifies you to find answers? Because the comments you're making on this thread risk making people's depression worse rather than better.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
there's too much fucking handholding going on where this shit is concerned. I'm not saying the boot straps method works, but not many folks are implying that. The reality is, tiptoeing around a depressive isn't going to help.

---

quote:

---

People have come here to rant against one of the most destructive experiences a person can suffer from. That's fine until she (or you, or anyone else) pushes them over the edge with the sort of voyeurism that would end you up with a black eye in RL. And just because it's Hell let me point out that if you can't see that you deserve a black eye yourself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
When a seventeen year old classmate of my son topped himself a few months ago and I was driving my son and his friends to the funeral they were all sitting quietly and speaking in hushed voice. Know what I felt? Rage. Pure fucking rage at the total, horrific injustice of the situation that was so so wrong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
I strongly suspect that Dogwonderer's (sorry, Yorick's) defence is (at least) partly self-serving. Yorick has known the collective ire of the enraged Hell-collective.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
]You can't be a voyeur to something done in public

---

quote:

---

before someone shuts it for you

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Fuck off.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amorya:

quote:

---

Originally posted by AberVicar:
Do you really think that qualifies you to find answers? Because the comments you're making on this thread risk making people's depression worse rather than better.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
there's too much fucking handholding going on where this shit is concerned. I'm not saying the boot straps method works, but not many folks are implying that. The reality is, tiptoeing around a depressive isn't going to help.

---

I'm with Comet here.

I suffer from depression. I'm a member of the Waving Not Drowning private board, and if I want a safespace I'll post there.) Were I not a member of it, I'd post in All Saints.) But I'm glad Hell isn't one. Sometimes I find a place where people say what they honestly think is really helpful, because I know other people struggle too. Any safespace leads to the worry at the back of my mind that people are censoring their opinions because my poor little depressed brain can't cope with the truth.

Amorya

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
Otherwise butt out.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
Otherwise butt out.

---

And the point is, you can express your desire for someone to do that, but this is the wrong place to demand it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Fair enough. (Cross post, BTW)

Any thoughts on the second part of my post?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Yeah. I wasn't suggesting anything policy wise when I said that last. I was just noting the human tendency to bemoan lack of compassion in situations that effect them, but to be blind when they are withholding it themselves.

---

quote:

---

I'm easy either way.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
So. Am I allowed to respond or do we leave the thread to follow Sioni's example in attempting to make it a FYBD thread cos Patydy's failed to provide a direction (on the request of Organ Builder)?

I'm easy either way.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
So. Am I allowed to respond or do we leave the thread to follow Sioni's example in attempting to make it a FYBD thread cos Patydy's failed to provide a direction

---

That's right, blame the victim!
 

---

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
I do find it interesting that, while shipmates are getting upset about a lack of compassion being shown in Hell , the Black Dog thread in All Saints is languishing on page 2, having not had a single post since this thread started. Obviously nobody feels the need for sympathy and support...
 

---

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
So the OPer should've posted in All Saints, not here? And those others who have talked about their depression here? Not sure what you mean, JoannaP.
 

---

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
I do find it interesting that, while shipmates are getting upset about a lack of compassion being shown in Hell , the Black Dog thread in All Saints is languishing on page 2, having not had a single post since this thread started. Obviously nobody feels the need for sympathy and support...

---

quote:

---

Sometimes, you just have to scream at it, whether it's your own or someone elses.

---

 

---

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
And sometimes managing to work up the energy to scream at the bugger would be progress.
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
And sometimes managing to work up the energy to scream at the bugger would be progress.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Why is it wrong to rant in AS? At least there you don't have to worry about interference.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Why is it wrong to rant in AS?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Why is it wrong to rant in AS?

---

Because we all think true saints are so polite.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
People who spend much of their time in AS may not have the same view of the Ship's etiquette that I do.

---

I agree about the "Ship's etiquette" thing, but I think Kelly's point was more that it's not an official position. There's no reason in Ship Law why someone couldn't post an FYBD thread in AS.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
I suspect it's much more fun to secretly rail at the peanut gallery.*

*(Or wait....maybe that's the omphalospkeptics gallery).
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
I suspect it's much more fun to secretly rail at the peanut gallery.*

*(Or wait....maybe that's the omphalospkeptics gallery).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
In ways that are liable to short out your monitor, apparently.

---

You want a baby sling for that grudge you're carrying?
 

---

Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
Kelly

quote:

---

and also with you

---

Firenze . Although if that was cryptically hidden, I would love to see you open a child proof bottle...
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
In ways that are liable to short out your monitor, apparently.

---

You want a baby sling for that grudge you're carrying?

---

Grudge? Honour, more like.
 

---

Posted by Zoey (# 11152) on :
 
The problem isn't depression. The problem is life.

You're born, you suffer, you get hurt and hurt other people, you die.

What's not to be depressed about?
 

---

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :
 
I do sometimes think that it's only the people with depression who are seeing things properly. The rest are sitting around picking blackberries with their eyes closed.
 

---

Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
...or picking their noses to scratch the itch in their brain...
 

---

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoey:
The problem isn't depression. The problem is life.

You're born, you suffer, you get hurt and hurt other people, you die.

What's not to be depressed about?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:
I do sometimes think that it's only the people with depression who are seeing things properly. The rest are sitting around picking blackberries with their eyes closed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Works for me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I'm sure "Not giving a fuck" is a recognised coping mechanism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoey:
The problem isn't depression. The problem is life.

You're born, you suffer, you get hurt and hurt other people, you die.

What's not to be depressed about?

---

I agree . Yet I might add , given life is as it is, what's the freakin point in even bothering to get depressed about it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoey:
The problem isn't depression. The problem is life.

You're born, you suffer, you get hurt and hurt other people, you die.

What's not to be depressed about?

---

I agree . Yet I might add , given life is as it is, what's the freakin point in even bothering to get depressed about it.

---

You have a choice?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:
I do sometimes think that it's only the people with depression who are seeing things properly. The rest are sitting around picking blackberries with their eyes closed.

---

Well perhaps I am the delusional one but I will persist in my belief that the world is a better place with my husband in it and that I would miss him like hell if he were to get too friendly with the kitchen knives.

---

I really don't think I suggested anything like this.
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:
I do sometimes think that it's only the people with depression who are seeing things properly. The rest are sitting around picking blackberries with their eyes closed.

---

Well perhaps I am the delusional one but I will persist in my belief that the world is a better place with my husband in it and that I would miss him like hell if he were to get too friendly with the kitchen knives.

---

I really don't think I suggested anything like this.

---

quote:

---

I do sometimes think that it's only the people with depression who are seeing things properly. The rest are sitting around picking blackberries with their eyes closed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:
Hmm. To clarify:

quote:

---

I do sometimes think that it's only the people with depression who are seeing things properly. The rest are sitting around picking blackberries with their eyes closed.

---

This means that I sometimes think those with depression are the ones who have most properly recognised the futility and hopelessness of the world.

It does not mean that the solutions that depression may suggest are in any way good or appropriate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
I have no idea how typical or otherwise he is but when my husband is depressed, he believes that the world would be a better place without him and that, were he to kill himself, nobody would miss him.
ISTM that he does not recognise "the futility and hopelessness of the world"; it is more that he perceives his own life to be futile and hopeless.

I believe that that is false. I do not agree that that is seeing things "properly" at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoey:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
I have no idea how typical or otherwise he is but when my husband is depressed, he believes that the world would be a better place without him and that, were he to kill himself, nobody would miss him.
ISTM that he does not recognise "the futility and hopelessness of the world"; it is more that he perceives his own life to be futile and hopeless.

I believe that that is false. I do not agree that that is seeing things "properly" at all.

---

Bully for you.

The following points are true whether or not I am displaying symptoms of clinical depression:

* It is objectively unlikely that I will ever get married.

* If I were to die tomorrow, a reasonable number of people would attend my funeral and one or two people would experience significant grief about my death. Nobody would lose their soulmate or best friend. The grief which some people might experience if I were to die, does not mean they have a right to demand that I continue to live regardless of how shit my life might be.

* Tonight more people will go to bed affected by war, poverty, abuse, pain, despair and manifold other forms of soul-destroying suffering than will not.

* It is not at all difficult to come up with evidence about how fucked-up the world is and how much suffering exists in the world.

But somehow, if I point these things out whilst displaying symptoms of clinical depression, it's because depression is lying to me about the world? I think not.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
Fair enough. From my experience that is total bollocks but, obviously, YMMV.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
Where exactly did I say anything about you or anybody else? I was talking solely about my experience with my husband. If you choose to read it as relating to you, that is entirely your issue.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:
As I've just said, I sometimes think that those with depression "have most properly recognised" (note the past tense) the futility and hopelessness of the world. I am not saying that depression gives people a clear outlook onto the world.

I can't think of a clearer way of saying it. It's about the cause of depression not the result of it.

---

quote:

---

Life is joy and sorrow combined. Depression-- and I speak subjectively, as one who has suffered it-- "tells" you that the joy is illusion, or fleeting, and that the sorrow/ struggle/ failure is the only predictable reality.

I fully understand that it is a complex alignment of biochemicals that "tell" the depressive this, but the "lie" is the thought-stream those chemicals generate. It feels real, though. That's the seductive part.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoey:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
Fair enough. From my experience that is total bollocks but, obviously, YMMV.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
Where exactly did I say anything about you or anybody else? I was talking solely about my experience with my husband. If you choose to read it as relating to you, that is entirely your issue.

---

So other people's mileages may vary, but you don't want to hear about it if they do. You can call bollocks on the idea that depression is a reasonable response to how shit the world is, but other posters can't call bollocks on the idea that any negative thoughts which a depressed person has are entirely unreasonable and caused only by depression, rather than by the state of the world and of the life of the depressed person in question.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by churchgeek:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:
As I've just said, I sometimes think that those with depression "have most properly recognised" (note the past tense) the futility and hopelessness of the world. I am not saying that depression gives people a clear outlook onto the world.

I can't think of a clearer way of saying it. It's about the cause of depression not the result of it.

---

That is not the cause. The cause appears to be genetic and biochemical. In my case, something to do with seratonin.

Saying that those with depression "have most properly recognised the futility and hopelessness of the world" kinda sounds like something a depressed person might say, but I'm not about to try to diagnose you. As a depressed person who takes her meds, I don't think the world actually is futile and hopeless. Sometimes my illness lies to me and says that it is. Sometimes I manage to see through the lie.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
And dammit, I'm ANGRY. I'm angry at what my brain does to me, and how awfully it affects this house. I'm continuing to be angry as I clean up the first bedside drawer and find material that largely dates between 2002 and 2006. Most of it now completely fucking useless if it was ever useful.

I want my house back, I want my brain back.

---

This actually lifted my spirits. Sorry, but it did. The fucking internet crapping out for the fifth time in four days was the last straw for me today, and I pounded a pencil tip so aggressively into a bit of scratch paper I was working with that I turned it into powder. The tendancy of electronic equipment to center their shenanigans around crucial scholastic moments is uncanny.So it's nice to know I had a partner in meltdown somewhere.

And last night neph got it working, giving me a poisonous, insidious dose of hope that I could get things done, but as is usualy when I feel hope, or calm, or joy, or anything good, I paid for it. Computer worked all night for everybody else in the house, minute everybody walked out an I took my turn, it crapped out. Because (depression tells me) it's me. My stupidity (depression tells me) is ever trying in the first place.

This morning I had myself believing-- really believing-- that my dead stepfather was comspiring with God to put my uppity ass in place about this higher education nonsense, and it wasn't until I shared this thought at meeting, and saw the "yeah, been there" nods all around, that I figured out where that came from-- my stepdad actually did, when he was alive, sabatoge electronic equipment so that my sis and I could not use it. He tore our phones apart, messed with my typewriter,broke our radios, jammed the tapedecks, hid extension cords to things like the microwave and the TV when they went on vacation.

So fuck you, depression, but also fuck you, Dad Alves, because you were absolutely horrible in every way you could dream up to your two daughters and everyone treated you like a fucking king, and we get stuck with all the judgement and criticism and sneering, abusive self-talk. Your fucking poisonous endlessly jeering voice, in other words. With the accompanying mental image of that disgusting smirk you wore whenever we failed, or cried, or when you found something you could taunt us about. And it's not fair. Maybe there's nothing I can't do about the fact it's unfair, but I can fucking well say it.

But then--you're dead, and I'm alive, so fuck you altogether. And stay fucked.

[ 27. January 2013, 19:15: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 


You go girl!!
 

---

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
The bastard dog is in my ear again. I'm trying to remember times when I was happy, and valued, and all I get are memories of how - even there - I fucked things up and caused problems. I hate this.

[ 28. January 2013, 09:31: Message edited by: Robert Armin ]
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Getting through that bedside drawer did me no end of good, by the way. About 80% of it thrown out. Meaning there's room in the drawer to put other things that have been lying on the floor for years.

One step at a time.

And I think I'm going to become quite fond of an app called Wunderlist...

EDIT: Anger = drive = getting something done = feeling considerably less useless. Which is pretty much why I think saying a big loud 'fuck you' is a good tactic.

[ 28. January 2013, 11:30: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:

EDIT: Anger = drive = getting something done = feeling considerably less useless. Which is pretty much why I think saying a big loud 'fuck you' is a good tactic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Getting through that bedside drawer did me no end of good, by the way. About 80% of it thrown out. Meaning there's room in the drawer to put other things that have been lying on the floor for years.

One step at a time.

And I think I'm going to become quite fond of an app called Wunderlist...

EDIT: Anger = drive = getting something done = feeling considerably less useless. Which is pretty much why I think saying a big loud 'fuck you' is a good tactic.

---

Goddamn it, St Anthony, help a brother out!

(Swearing at saints is quite therapeutic as well.)

(Pours one out for jlg.
)

(oh and thanks, ES. )

[ 29. January 2013, 04:03: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

---

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
And dammit, I'm ANGRY. I'm angry at what my brain does to me, and how awfully it affects this house. I'm continuing to be angry as I clean up the first bedside drawer and find material that largely dates between 2002 and 2006. Most of it now completely fucking useless if it was ever useful.

I want my house back, I want my brain back.

---

This actually lifted my spirits. Sorry, but it did. The fucking internet crapping out for the fifth time in four days was the last straw for me today, and I pounded a pencil tip so aggressively into a bit of scratch paper I was working with that I turned it into powder. The tendancy of electronic equipment to center their shenanigans around crucial scholastic moments is uncanny.So it's nice to know I had a partner in meltdown somewhere.

And last night neph got it working, giving me a poisonous, insidious dose of hope that I could get things done, but as is usualy when I feel hope, or calm, or joy, or anything good, I paid for it. Computer worked all night for everybody else in the house, minute everybody walked out an I took my turn, it crapped out. Because (depression tells me) it's me. My stupidity (depression tells me) is ever trying in the first place.

This morning I had myself believing-- really believing-- that my dead stepfather was comspiring with God to put my uppity ass in place about this higher education nonsense, and it wasn't until I shared this thought at meeting, and saw the "yeah, been there" nods all around, that I figured out where that came from-- my stepdad actually did, when he was alive, sabatoge electronic equipment so that my sis and I could not use it. He tore our phones apart, messed with my typewriter,broke our radios, jammed the tapedecks, hid extension cords to things like the microwave and the TV when they went on vacation.

So fuck you, depression, but also fuck you, Dad Alves, because you were absolutely horrible in every way you could dream up to your two daughters and everyone treated you like a fucking king, and we get stuck with all the judgement and criticism and sneering, abusive self-talk. Your fucking poisonous endlessly jeering voice, in other words. With the accompanying mental image of that disgusting smirk you wore whenever we failed, or cried, or when you found something you could taunt us about. And it's not fair. Maybe there's nothing I can't do about the fact it's unfair, but I can fucking well say it.

But then--you're dead, and I'm alive, so fuck you altogether. And stay fucked.

---

Yeah, fuck 'im.

If anything your computer swooned when you approached.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 


(churchgeek loves me, this I know...)
 

---

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:
You have a choice?

---

quote:

---

Fuck you black dog .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:


Evensong: Depression isn't either logical or reasonable so trying to apply either logic or reason doesn't help - however kindly-meant.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
It works for about 70% of people.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sophs:

Oh, and for those who want a laugh, my diagnosis went from Borderline Personality Disorder under the care of the primary mental health team to Mild Depression under the care of the severe and enduring mh team. But all the mh professionals I deal with think the Mild bit of the depression is rubbish.

---

Sophs, you are a true warrior.
Much respect.
 

---

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
Personality disorder diagnoses are sometimes a diagnostic way of blaming the patient for not getting better.

About CBT, it is the form of therapy with the most research because it is more systemized and best described. It is harder to study other therapeutic models, particularly the interpersonal models. Also CBT + medication studies have been funded well, sometimes by the drug companies, so they can make the happy conclusion that you need both. I believe the research is difficult to make firm conclusions about.

And about diagnosis, there are diagnoses applied because of an office visit (that 10 minute appt with a doc), those assigned because it is what is being worked on in therapy, those assigned so the patient doesn't have to be treated, and those that have been really well established.

I heard the new DSM-V described as "an expanded list of 5 digit billing codes". That a label has been applied to you may not mean more than that was needed to send in a bill.

(I worked in provincial health as a policy advisor and program developer in mental health for a goodly period in the past.)
 

---

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
I would have said its unlikely to be the billing issue in the NHS - but now the commissioning system has changed, I am not so sure

[ 11. April 2013, 21:27: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 

---

Posted by Nunc Dimittis (# 848) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by sophs:

Oh, and for those who want a laugh, my diagnosis went from Borderline Personality Disorder under the care of the primary mental health team to Mild Depression under the care of the severe and enduring mh team. But all the mh professionals I deal with think the Mild bit of the depression is rubbish.

---

Sophs, you are a true warrior.
Much respect.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nunc Dimittis:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by sophs:

Oh, and for those who want a laugh, my diagnosis went from Borderline Personality Disorder under the care of the primary mental health team to Mild Depression under the care of the severe and enduring mh team. But all the mh professionals I deal with think the Mild bit of the depression is rubbish.

---

Sophs, you are a true warrior.
Much respect.

---

Knowing some of your story, sophs, WAY TO GO, GIRL! Keep slugging that black dog in its muzzle.

---

Thanks guys coming from you two that means a LOT. It's kinda weird being physically screwed but mentally ok. If it comes down to a choice of good mental health/bad physical health I'd take that any time. It's much easier to deal with, even walking with a stick or using a chair. Invisible disabilities suck.
 

---

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
1. CBT may be of value for some but can also make a bad situation worse.

2. Best mis-diagnosis I've ever heard? "Depression" became "menopausal paranoia" became "personality disorder" became "attention seeking/menopausal hysteria". Oh, and an inabiity to face up to persistent alcohol misuse.

Through pure luck and getting in the wrong queue at a clinic the hapless person concerned ended up being given an ECG.

What had obviously been a long-standing and acute heart condition was diagnosed, the patient kept in there and then until appropriate treatment could be given and an ongoing plan formulated

So, get a thorough physical check - all this person needed was for a medic to apply a stethoscope for 2 minutes... and it took 15 years.
 

---

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
For all I know, the soul who composed this touching story is on the Ship, or even on this thread (note, there is some strong language).

Other than that, I don't know what I could contribute to this thread, but prayers. I can't say for sure if I've ever been clinically depressed, so no sense talking about myself. (Though I can understand the character in that linked post... hmmm.)

Blessings to you all,

Tom
 

---

Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :
 
That blogpost is the most accurate description I've read of how my depressive episodes feel
 

---

Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
Erroneous Monk:

Then I hope you keep finding your own "dried up kernels of corn" under your refrigerator!

I do have to wonder about myself. "Surviving" sounds a lot like my life, but I can still laugh, still find joy, and still have hope. But last winter was pretty rough.
 

---

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Having had personally experienced two very different forms of depression and being aware that there are others, can I just sound a warning about that one.

It is an accurate representation of what some people experience in depression.

It does not mean that is what all people experience during depression.

If anyone tries to make all people who say they have depression fit that picture, then the cartoon misleads as much as it informs.

Jengie

[ 10. May 2013, 14:26: Message edited by: Jengie Jon ]
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

---

The beginning of my depression had been nothing but feelings, so the emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief. I had always wanted to not give a fuck about anything. I viewed feelings as a weakness — annoying obstacles on my quest for total power over myself. And I finally didn't have to feel them anymore.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

The beginning of my depression had been nothing but feelings, so the emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief. I had always wanted to not give a fuck about anything. I viewed feelings as a weakness — annoying obstacles on my quest for total power over myself. And I finally didn't have to feel them anymore.

---

Sounds like s/he starts with emotional re-pression that leads leads to emotional de-pression.

Is that part of the normal definition? Is there an etymological as well as psychological link?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
There were lots of things in the situation that I could reasonably blame other people for. So I did. At times quite noisily. Because the alternative was to think it was all my fault, that I was incompetent, that I should be able to cope with the shitty situation and I was failure if I didn't cope with it stoically. And that lay depression would have lain.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I try to walk round the building before doing anything,......

....I don't claim this is a coping strategy; perhaps my reaction to anything that could become a black dog is to give it a good shoeing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Please to re-echo my previous post. Just because it is true for some with the diagnosis of depression does not mean it is true for all!

Depression is mental health diagnosis like the common cold, it covers an awful wide range of symptoms and forms (well actually it goes right through flu to pleurisy and pnuemonia).It also has multiple causes. Anger repressed or other wise may be a cause or a symptom. Or it may not be present at all.


Jengie

---

quote:

---

not enough angry or enough me to take it on.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Theophania:
I can see dimly through the fog of Don't Care that I should be jolly angry and fighting to get back. But I can't be bothered. Stupid fogapathydon'tcare. Too big to care about, not enough angry or enough me to take it on.

Somewhere deep down I have all the expletives and rage and fighting back. I hope.

---

At this point I pretend to be a cork in a storm at sea. The waves are too big to fight, so I just let them take me down, and stop fighting it. Corks can be completely overwhelmed, and go a long way down, but they always come back up again in time.

I do as St Isaac the Syrian recommends. He says when life becomes too much to face, that we should wrap our head in our cloak, go to bed and stay there until we feel better.

I do that a lot.
 

---

Posted by Anglo Catholic Relict (# 17213) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

quote:

---

not enough angry or enough me to take it on.

---

Now I know that Dr Sapolski (nice name, nice beard, apparently nice man - thanks, Mere Nick) calls this "psychomotor retardation". I think I'm pleased it has a name, but I don't know what else.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

quote:

---

not enough angry or enough me to take it on.

---

Now I know that Dr Sapolski (nice name, nice beard, apparently nice man - thanks, Mere Nick) calls this "psychomotor retardation". I think I'm pleased it has a name, but I don't know what else.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
Thanks ACR, that's helpful.

Sapolski seems to suggest that it is now thought stress hormones (Cortisol) play a role in low dopamine / seratonin etc for some of us in the ranks of the depressed.

---

quote:

---

So let's try delaying the cashing-in of my SSRI script yet further, by refusing my habitual stress and anger. More 'kindly desist, black dog.' And if I can do that without a drink, I'll really be making some progress.

---

Tea is good.
 

---

Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

So let's try delaying the cashing-in of my SSRI script yet further, by refusing my habitual stress and anger. More 'kindly desist, black dog.'

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by luvanddaisies:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

So let's try delaying the cashing-in of my SSRI script yet further, by refusing my habitual stress and anger. More 'kindly desist, black dog.'

---

I'm delaying getting mine because I can't afford the prescription charge. If they let me claim jobseeker's allowance I think I don't have to pay for it. Unfortunately, even a tin of Spam would be treated as a less processed, less useless and less pointless object than one feels wading through the system, so it's not ideal, really.
Fuck it all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Although Mere Nick is in another country s/he has a good point there. Cultivate a friendly pharmacist. There may indeed be a generic equivalent and they may be able to supply that as an alternative. It could involve calling the Dr who prescribed the item, but it might be worth a try, especially at nearly eight quid an item.

(says Sioni, grateful to be exempt from prescription charges)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Cat:
For bleak lolz, and also because they're true:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/comics-that-capture-the-frustrations-of-depression

---

Those are so spot on.
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Well, bugger me, I have had a bout recently, old age, illness, friends dying, guilt about everything, the usual. Fortunately, as often happens, a bout of overpowering and incandescent rage came to my rescue. And it's free (at the moment).
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
FUck it. Fuck it fuck it fuck it.
Fuck.
It.
Fuck it all.
Why won't it fuck off.
i want to ask somebody to help me, but I can't ever do the words and asking thing.don't want to bother them.
(so i'll leave a pointless post here instead. Sorry.)
 

---

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
I do feel for you, luvndaisies.
Never pointless... try for the rage, as Suggested..

And have a cyber hug to be going on with
 

---

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :
 
Oh bugger, I spilled all saints on a hell thread. Sorry people. Rage on. Please.
 

---

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :
 
that's why we keep the mops and buckets handy. *sigh*
 

---

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :
 
Not a dry seat in the house.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
guilt about everything

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
guilt about everything

---

A bizarre emotion.

Where does it come from?

I hates it my precious, I hates it with a passion.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
guilt about everything

---

A bizarre emotion.

Where does it come from?

I hates it my precious, I hates it with a passion.

---

quote:

---

Benedict Cumberbatch, in a tweed skirt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

---

Benedict Cumberbatch, in a tweed skirt.

---

I get that, a lot.

Fly Safe,

Pyx_e

---

Again I'm glad Cabin Pressure is a radio show.
 

---

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
I got a call from a friend last night saying that he was poorly, did the Knotweed and I fancy popping round for a cuppa? I've known him, worked with him for a while, I knew what he meant, went round and had a long chat - about the bad, the good. He's handling it, just about keeping the dog from tearing him apart, but the safety net is desperately stretched, and a bunch of other stuff is stacked against him at the moment as well. I've rounded up a mutual friend this morning, who'll round up some more, and hopefully keep the net there.

Meanwhile my boss thankfully has stepped back from this time last week when it was a question of who would have a breakdown first from stress. Roll on the finished CV and LinkedIn profile so I can start looking for a new one!

I'm exhausted today, a stressful weekend ahead - and I'm just dealing with others. I've only ever paddled in the black waters - thank God - and I just can't imagine how anyone copes who goes deeper.

I'm sorry that's an inchoate blart, but I needed to get it out.

AG
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
A colleague shared a status on Facebook. It said this:

Charles Spurgeon - The Prince of Preachers
Public Figure · 109,838 likes

"The worst forms of depression are cured when Holy Scripture is believed."

I didn't have the wherewithal to tell my colleague the bastard has an over-realised eschatology.



By the way, I have a scrapbook blog and ya'll maybe interested to learn this post by Martin Luther on depression is by far the most popular page. It just keeps getting hits and hits and more hits very regularly.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
The word "depression" only acquired its current medicalised range of meaning gradually in the 19th century. In Spurgeon's time it could well mean something like what we might call disillusionment, or defeatism, or apathy. It was a more general and less medical term.

Up to the 19th century if someone wanted to talk about what we call depression they might have called it accidie (or even sloth), melancholy, or hypochondria. Just yesterday I read a Charlotte Bronte novel, written in the late 1840s, in which a character has a severe attack of hypochondria in the night - and it seems to be a mixture of nightmares, low self-worth, and fear of death, nothing like what we'd mean by the word. By the second half of the century whe Spurgeon was preaching "depression" and "hypochondria" had mostly acquired their current meaning but not entirely.

Also if you read what Spurgeon actually wrote about depression its a lot more sensible than that wooly Facebook soundbite. For one thing, he insists that all Christians, however faithful they are, can and do get depressed. It's not a mark of spiritual weakness. Its just something that happens.

(I rather like Spurgeon. How many other strict Calvinist Baptist preachers would recommend taking a glass of brandy-and-water into the pulpit?)

[linky think edited by host]

[ 24. October 2013, 21:45: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
 

---

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Disembodied spirits might have been sent to proclaim the Word; but they could not have entered into the feeling of those who, being in this body, do groan, being burdened.

Angels might have been ordained evangelists, but their celestial attributes would have disqualified them from having compassion on the ignorant.

Men of marble might have been fashioned, but their impassive natures would have been a sarcasm upon our feebleness and a mockery of our wants.

[...]
As to mental maladies, is any man altogether sane? Are we not all a little off the balance?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
In my grandmother's time, what would now be called 'depression' was called 'feeling sorry for yourself' and treated with harshness. I think much of this was due to the war years and having to keep going in the face of widespread danger and death, for the sake of your family. Other members of the family would drag the sufferers up by their bootstraps and made to 'pull themselves together'. In a strange way, this tough love worked to some extent, although little was understood about post traumatic stress and similar afflictions, so it was by no means a cure.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But in your grandmother's time we also had huge asylums / mental hospitals filled with people who hadn't coped in some way for some time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
Instead there was complete lack of understanding of depression, it was treated as a lack of moral fibre, stigmatized, and people suffered in silence, committed suicide, or were incarcerated.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Her behavior was accepted

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But in your grandmother's time we also had huge asylums / mental hospitals filled with people who hadn't coped in some way for some time.

---

That's the point. Sophisticated medication wasn't available, so families moved heaven and earth to try to stop their relatives ending up in straitjackets at the funny farm. Some of those methods look very harsh to us now, but they were different times.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Her behavior was accepted

---

Well fantastic. Better than a poke in the eye with a dirty stick, but still not really a treatment that one could turn to in the absence of antidepressants or more formal psychotherapy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
She lived with a family who loved and accepted her; this did not heal her, but I'm fairly sure it made her life more bearable.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Given the absence of anti-depressants and more formal psychotherapy, which did not exist in those days, what treatment would have been better?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:


And my argument with Chorister was the idea that being told you were just feeling sorry for yourself and needed to pull yourself was a helpful thing one's family could do in the absence of anti-depressants/psychotherapy, which is just plain wrong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
But then, many would not call that "depression" would they?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Something a change of lifestyle or a change of attitude cannot fix?

Is that now the only accepted definition of depression?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

Everybody comparing their "depression" to "clinical depression" sounds a fucking clueless as a person "sick" from food poisoning likening their experience as those who are "sick" from stage-4 pancreatic cancer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

No, you don't get it. But I suspect that not getting things shouldn't be a particularly new experience for you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:


And my argument with Chorister was the idea that being told you were just feeling sorry for yourself and needed to pull yourself was a helpful thing one's family could do in the absence of anti-depressants/psychotherapy, which is just plain wrong.

---

It seems to me that "depression" is far too wide an umbrella term these days to countenance generic "treatments".

Sometimes you can be depressed and really is because you're feeling sorry for yourself and being told to pull yourself together and stop being such a navel gazer is precisely the right thing to say.

I used to struggle with what I would call "depression" and my husband used to tell me precisely the above.

It helped. It worked. It still works when I feel myself descending into cynicism and nihilism.

But then, many would not call that "depression" would they?

---

It's an interesting point all right, as therapists are not supposed to say 'pull your socks up' and so on, as these are traditional ways of denying that someone is actually depressed.

But you do meet people who have made a kind of career of it, and cultivate a kind of melodramatic or hysterical cult of being depressed.

However, it would take a long time spent with a client, before most therapists would risk saying 'just stop this', to someone. But it does happen.

Of course, in itself, it is a problem, a kind of addiction to negativity, rather similar to hypochondria. And many hypochondriacs seem to be quite controlling and angry people - oh fuck, stop with the generalizations, Mister. The end.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Oh how terribly politically incorrect of you quetzal.


 

---

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Oh how terribly politically incorrect of you quetzal.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Depressed people can be (but not all are) manipulative as hell. Any extreme suffering can make an otherwise reasonable person manipulative.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
I'll have a think about that. I'd certainly agree that suffering doesn't make every single person manipulative. I do think that it can flip a switch and bring out otherwise dormant personality traits, particularly if the person is inclined towards self pity anyway.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fineline:
Do you see a link between self pity and manipulation?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
There's a further element to this, to my mind. I find depression manipulates me enormously, to serve its purposes and ignore my own interests. It then recruits me to manipulate others into doing the same. I would hope I'm not otherwise describe myself as manipulative, but have become aware of this effect. For example, it convinces me that I am utterly useless by destroying my confidence in myself to the point where I can indeed achieve little or nothing. Thus, other people are drawn into making judgements of me which serve the depression's purposes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fineline:
Do you see a link between self pity and manipulation?

---

Yes. Big time. In my experience depressed people who are prone to being manipulative take the line that "my life is already so awful that nobody else is allowed to do anything that might displease me in case it makes it worse." So this turns into "you can't leave me - I'm depressed!" or "it's not my fault that I did that horrible thing - I'm depressed!" or "you have to do what I want otherwise you'll make me feel even worse!"

---

The manipulation can also involve explicit threats of suicide.
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
But it's damned hard to tell the difference. Which is why i didn't say anything when i was suicidal last--i was certain i'd be accused of manipulating, and that might have pushed me over the final edge. It's tough when the only way to prove your sincerity is to go ahead and do it.
 

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Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
Not been around much, but I do know Hell is not the place to come to for sympathy. But the black dog has its teeth firmly planted in me right now. Why is life such a fuckin mess?
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Not been around much, but I do know Hell is not the place to come to for sympathy. But the black dog has its teeth firmly planted in me right now. Why is life such a fuckin mess?

---

Hell is the right place to give that dog a really good shoeing.
 

---

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But it's damned hard to tell the difference.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
...When I was a teenager though, my self-pity was truly epic...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
Depression is an unwelcome asshole. There's all this shit to be done, all this living to do, opportunities popping out all over. and I'm frozen. going on a year and a half of being frozen in place. I'm numb. can't even get any motivation to get truly angry.

and of course I'm pissing people off left, right, and center because I'm not as productive as your average head of cabbage, not to mention how I used to be.

I HATE this. I want it to go the fuck away. I have so much I want to do!

---

I recognize this in my own life so badly. I mean this in the best way I can: may you get your anger back soon, Comet, in its fullest and most terrifying degree.


 

---

Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 
I want to have a moan about something tangentially related, and was wondering whether there was any point in starting a thread on a specific little whinge, and then the Black Dog pops back up (fuck him), and this looks like the right place...

Short overview: After my first child was born, I developed Post-Natal Depression. I refused drugs, because I was breast-feeding (even though I hated it), and clenched my teeth and carried on, telling myself I would cope. Eventually I had to acknowledge that I was not coping, and I had some therapy - quite a bit of therapy. After a while this paid some dividends, and I felt... ?emboldened? enough to join a more loosely structured support group, in which experiences were shared not just with a therapist, but with other struggling mothers. Then I went back to work and largely couldn't make it along anymore, but I continue to get the updates and emails from the group.

That's the background. Here's the thing which bothers me - these folk call themselves the 'Post Natal Distress Support Network' - and I really wonder at the word distress, in this context. To me, it trivialises the all-consuming enormity of the experience. Both because when I hear 'distress', I think of some Austen-esque heroine frantically fanning her face with her hands and saying 'Oh, pray don't say such a thing, Mr Knightley', etc., and because 'distress' seems an inherently passing phenomenon to me. You can't be distressed for months and months on end - you'd expire from the effort involved. Why can't they say 'depression', with all the great grey sludge associated with that word, the slag heaps that form and keep forming over the previously green fields of your life?

I feel better than I did five and a half years ago when all this started - quite a bit better, but I don't feel the same and I believe I never will. That is not a trivial thing. Back then, I felt terrified, guilty, angry, trapped, ashamed, and angry, on some kind of auto-loop. Now I mostly feel like I (and my child) were cheated in the worst possible way, and we just have to muddle along and try and fill in that two-year void in other ways. And every day that goes by I mourn the loss of my short-term memory. It is really, actually, broken, dating from giving birth. I have to write things on my hands continually, to remember them, but if there is not a pen in the same room as I'm in when I have the thought, it's often gone - flown - by the time I can lay my hands on one...
 

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Posted by Zoey (# 11152) on :
 
May be an issue of different people interpreting a word somewhat differently from each other?

I quite often use the word 'distress' when I'm writing reports about children's welfare, particularly their emotional well-being. Where possible I expand on what I mean by this, e.g. Jenny seemed to be distressed when I asked her this question, because her facial expression became angry and she started ripping up the picture she'd being drawing for me; Bobby showed great distress, sobbing heavily and screaming for a number of minutes, but dad was not able to comfort him. When I use the word 'distress' in these kind of contexts, it translates roughly as 'significant and often major emotional pain'.
 

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Posted by Surfing Madness (# 11087) on :
 
Just here to vent that depression is robbing me of the energy to spend time with those I love, particularly my good friends children who I'm missing part of their growing up.
 

---

Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
RIP Robin Williams.

Fuck you black dog.
 

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Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
Yup. Gutted.
 

---

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :
 
this is such complete BULLSHIT! What the ever loving FUCK is wrong with our society that such a treasure with access to people and doctors and gurus and whatever could get to that same horrible evil place that he couldn't find his way out of? When will we find a fucking system to deal with this? I can't even wrap my brain around this bullshit.

I'm not a movie fan, but I'm a RW fan and I think I've seen every thing he's done. He's one of the few (only?) who I seek out like that. and the thing is, he GOT people. yeah, he was a funny comedian, but the GOLD was when he was being genuine. He was REAL. when that guy, in whatever role he was in, spoke from the heart it was fucking REAL. I keep hearing his voice as Mrs. Doubtfire, at the end of the movie, on her little kids program, telling the children that their mommy and daddy still love them. I can NEVER get through that scene. and now?

GODDAMN IT! You bastard what kind of message are you giving those children now? you mother fucker how dare you leave us. How dare you skip out. how dare you not call someone. anyone. FUCK, anyone in the world. We would all have rescued you if you had let us.

How dare you
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Ditto. Fuck you black dog for taking one of the funniest and most humane people to grace our TV and movie screens.

EDIT: And radios. On one visit to Australia he visited a drive-time afternoon radio show that was hosted by 2 local comedians. The most insanely hilarious thing I've ever heard as the 3 of them just fired off each other for an hour. Drive-time? It's dangerous driving when you're laughing so hard you can scarcely breathe.

[ 12. August 2014, 03:05: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

---

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :
 
Shazbat.
 

---

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
this is such complete BULLSHIT! What the ever loving FUCK is wrong with our society that such a treasure with access to people and doctors and gurus and whatever could get to that same horrible evil place that he couldn't find his way out of? When will we find a fucking system to deal with this? I can't even wrap my brain around this bullshit.

I'm not a movie fan, but I'm a RW fan and I think I've seen every thing he's done. He's one of the few (only?) who I seek out like that. and the thing is, he GOT people. yeah, he was a funny comedian, but the GOLD was when he was being genuine. He was REAL. when that guy, in whatever role he was in, spoke from the heart it was fucking REAL. I keep hearing his voice as Mrs. Doubtfire, at the end of the movie, on her little kids program, telling the children that their mommy and daddy still love them. I can NEVER get through that scene. and now?

GODDAMN IT! You bastard what kind of message are you giving those children now? you mother fucker how dare you leave us. How dare you skip out. how dare you not call someone. anyone. FUCK, anyone in the world. We would all have rescued you if you had let us.

How dare you

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Ditto. Fuck you black dog for taking one of the funniest and most humane people to grace our TV and movie screens.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
Ditto. Fuck you black dog for taking one of the funniest and most humane people to grace our TV and movie screens.

---

I wonder if there is any truth to the idea that comedians and very jovial people are often the most serious people?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
"Serious" probably isn't the right word but I think that often people who've fought wars against their own brains can develop a very strong sense of humour as a defence mechanism. In the middle of a severe episode of depression, nothing is funny, but between them and during milder episodes I certainly become very intensely aware of how ridiculous everything is and it helps.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
Cancer has a ribbon. AIDS has a ribbon and a quilt. What does mental illness get?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by no prophet:
Cancer has a ribbon. AIDS has a ribbon and a quilt. What does mental illness get?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChastMastr:
Wikipedia claims it's green for Mental Health Awareness. Alas, there just are too damn many ribbon colors to keep track of.

I'd suggest a black ribbon for depression.

---

quote:

---

Williams had a brain disease. It wasn’t a demon or a devil. In fact, I strongly object to people referring to those with psychiatric illnesses as "struggling with inner demons." That only promotes a primitive and stigmatizing sense of these conditions. We don’t say someone is struggling with an inner demon when they have a tumor somewhere -- although there was a time when we did! And we have not relinquished these backwards notions when we refer to disorders of the brain.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Williams appeared to be a very upbeat person, and that probably means he didn't feel free to talk about the downside. In other words, he didn't feel free to be himself. That must have been terribly stressful.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Robin was bipolar.
Some of the meds used to manage bipolar are reported to have an effect on creative endeavours. So some bipolar creatives will self medicate or self manage their prescriptions. In other words, stop using the prescription when trying to be creative.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Celtic Knotweed:

It's just that all we can do is be there and listen; invite him over to go have a drink and chat in one of the local pubs; go over to his and watch TV; stay in touch and hope he knows we care. Always feels like there ought to be something else...

---

It's the last sentence, the something else I know I couldn't do any more than you are doing - hell- I couldn't do that much, but it's something I feel around other people when they are depressed (and I live with depression myself). Doing what you are sounds like a lifeline to me.

Huia
 

---

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
To echo Huia

Almost half my lifetime ago, I was suicidal. What stopped me was a friend who gave me a lift home every evening that week. He probably thought he was doing "nothing" at the time except what a friend should. He was, however, saving a life.

Jengie
 

---

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
Thanks, folks, it helps to know that we are doing something useful. We saw him again today - in fact, he came to ours to get a lift to cricket. He's still struggling - his meds have changed again (largely, I think, because the lithium really helps, but sooner or later screws hideously with his stomach), but is in so much a better place than last weekend it's not true. Cricket really helps (and he gave an interview to a cricket mag this year to that effect), and he took four wickets today to pretty much nail down his claim to top wicket taker for the team this year.

I worked with him for eighteen months or so when I was having a particularly shit time* and I think it was actually a help to both of us having someone we could talk to who had an insight. I certainly hope it helped him as much as it did me!

AG

*I've paddled in the black waters, that's bad enough thank you, he's been up to his eyeballs more times than I care to think.
 

---

Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
A shreddie on the Tube floor had me fighting back tears today.

pathetic bint.

A fucking shreddy.

Now it's making me giggle at myself, which is better.

It seemed all pointless and ugly and lonely and having failed to do anything useful with its existence, and it's just going to wind up in the bin having not achieved anything.
fuck-it-all -
my brain is identifying me with discarded breakfast cereal remnants.



Fucking birthday yesterday didn't help.

Nearly everyone I know is bobbing around on the oggin, so at the moment, and for the forseeable, I go to work, I come home, repeat. Lonely.

Fuck's sake. "I wandered lonely as a shreddie..." how's that going to pan out?

Fucking useless.

Stupid shreddie.
Stupid me.
 

---

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by luvanddaisies:
It seemed all pointless and ugly and lonely and having failed to do anything useful with its existence, and it's just going to wind up in the bin having not achieved anything.
fuck-it-all -
my brain is identifying me with discarded breakfast cereal remnants.

---

quote:

---

At some point during this phase, I was crying on the kitchen floor for no reason. As was common practice during bouts of floor-crying, I was staring straight ahead at nothing in particular and feeling sort of weird about myself. Then, through the film of tears and nothingness, I spotted a tiny, shriveled piece of corn under the refrigerator.

I don't claim to know why this happened, but when I saw the piece of corn, something snapped. And then that thing twisted through a few permutations of logic that I don't understand, and produced the most confusing bout of uncontrollable, debilitating laughter that I have ever experienced.

---

Reminded me of that

Amy
 

---

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
You ain't big enough to be a dog - possibly a gerbil - but nonetheless would you kindly fuck right off, thank you. Right now I don't need distracting, my energy sapped, etc...

I can sympathise with the hysterical laughter bit. Many moons ago I nutted a locker in a stairwell at work - all the lights flickered, and I nearly widdled myself at the melodrama of it all. Turned out the light switch was behind the locker.

Erroneous Monk - you have seen that the new album is out October 20th?

AG
 

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Posted by Mad Cat (# 9104) on :
 
Yeah, leaky eye day today.

My temporary filling fell out last night and in my distraction around sticking the banjo back in with denture glue, I forgot to take my meds. This usually leads to weird dreams. Last night it was horrible nightmares. I think this is a combination of the Scottish referendum, missing family and watching too much of The Walking Dead on catch-up.

Anyhoo, tonight I'm going to remember the meds and watch the Great British Bake Off.
 

---

Posted by AmyBo (# 15040) on :
 
Aaaand fuck the coworkers with some sort of depression-sonar that tells them when I'm on edge so they can come on over and try to push me right off. Fortunately one was so obviously asshole behavior that I could push back, but these people just need to crawl back under their rocks.
 

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Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
God help me trying to post something vaguely serious during H&A but there.

* realised - it's not a mammal at all, it's a Death Watch beetle - just sits there silently until you think it's gone, then *tap tap tap tap*, silence again... until you think it's gone, and *tap tap tap tap*, so you end up listening for it instead of getting on with ignoring it.

Pesticide time...

AG
 

---

Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
If I could, I would grind that fucker into the ground with my boot. I heard. I care. We heard. We care.
 

---

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 

 

---

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Dammit! I thought I was dealing better than this. Fucking chemicals in my brain, PTSD, childhood issues or what ever the fuck you are fuck off and die .

Being vulnerable sucks fetid mongoose balls.

And that deathwatch beetle can do the same.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Amen to that.
 

---

Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.

and fuck again.

Dear fucking brain,
Fuck you.
Fucking sincerely,
Fucked.

(and this morning my typing ran ahead of my brain and I've admitted to someone at work that I'm just about holding it together and hoping I'm hiding it well enough - in a fucking FB message about something else. He's a good guy, hopefully he'll not think I'm a fucking lunatic. Fuck.)
 

---

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Feeling shit myself recently. My self-esteem problems have come back with avengance, something that's plagued me for most of my adult life. Feel like lying in bed and doing nothing but can't. Got to put on the pretence of being mildly ok so I can go to work etc.
 

---

Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Got to put on the pretence of being mildly ok so I can go to work etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
some asshole come along and points out the " you must be this cool to be happy / belong / be part of things" sign.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
It's hard when the person is in a position to actually, physically make sure you are not a part of things.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by AmyBo:
Aaaand fuck the coworkers with some sort of depression-sonar that tells them when I'm on edge so they can come on over and try to push me right off. Fortunately one was so obviously asshole behavior that I could push back, but these people just need to crawl back under their rocks.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Is depression less problematic if something specific triggered it?

---

I suppose we tend to measure life from our own experience. What I'm talking about could be a joyless moroseness as opposed to the, clearly more serious, condition set out by Patdys in OP.
I do find the coping mechanism aided if somewhere in my mind lies a specific explanation, no matter how distant, for a bout of joylessness. Or even a deeper, more general explanation for the person I am, (or have become).

As for AmyBo's point about co-workers being a pain-in-the-arse? Well yeah, the joys of the workplace, although that does sound a little sinister.

The is in life a subtle --you ain't allowed to be miserable- pressure. A God-given thing maybe? I believe we're all equipped with a mechanism that automatically leads us to try and cheer-up others who look miserable.
OtoH some of us can't bear to be near ridiculously OTT cheerful individuals.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
At which point I am going to step back and leave the very articulate users of this thread to repeat the various things they have said about what they think of cheerful- on- demand


But I understand you were trying to be helpful. My point, though, in quoting AmyBo's post is that nobody required her to provide an apologia for not liking how people seemed to hone in on her weak moments-- so why should I have to? .

And I just answered my own question- I don't have to, so I won't. Let thise who gwt it, get it.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
AndI'm not gonna fix that typo either, goddamn it.
 

---

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I think Rolyn's point about cheering other people up relates to being defensive. I mean, that people who do this, don't want to see misery in others, as it's too close to home, so they push it away. If you are more comfortable with your own misery, you will do it less, and you can let people be. But work can be hell in this regard, as the 'false self' syndrome is particularly prevalent.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Ah, ok that makes sense.

A trip to That Other Thread will allow you to see my grumbles about other people trying to lecture me out of my feelings, so perhaps I was uneccesarily testy.

[ 07. December 2014, 15:02: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Wherever I worked, there always seemed to be some very brittle person, who just screamed 'false self', who couldn't bear anyone being at all down. It just seemed obvious that they were hiding a ton of gloom, but had to maintain this front, and therefore could not tolerate others being authentic. Outside work, I would have a go at them, but in most jobs, you just can't. So they just carry on, wrecking other people, in total denial. Some of them are even Christians.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Huh.

For my part, everytime someone has randomly unloaded on me, then labeled my reaction as oversensitive, there has usually been a followup conversation about how their dog is striken with canker sores or something, and they are agonizing about it, and therefore I need to be compassionate and spare them the natural consequences of their behavior, because they are having feely feelings that natually deserve way more repect than anyone else's. False self can manifest itself a lot of ways.

[ 07. December 2014, 15:40: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
"Comfortable with your own misery "
Perhaps I am misunderstanding what that is supposed to mean, but on the face of it, I disagree. Comfort/familiarity can be a reason for not attempting to change whatever part of our circumstance that we might, not looking for the path forward.
I am not suggesting it is that easy, but no effort means no progress, no change.
 

---

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Is depression less problematic if something specific triggered it?

---

In my experience (and comparing my depression with MrP's), yes. One of the problems this time around is that it took me a couple of months to work out what the root cause was. Having my arsehole of a boss demanding that I tell him that the cause was not work-related when I had no idea what it was did not help.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
"Comfortable with your own misery "
Perhaps I am misunderstanding what that is supposed to mean, but on the face of it, I disagree. Comfort/familiarity can be a reason for not attempting to change whatever part of our circumstance that we might, not looking for the path forward.
I am not suggesting it is that easy, but no effort means no progress, no change.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

You'll agree that admitting you are miserable is the first step in changing that, right?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
That's it, then. People who are taught that depression is shameful are going to be doubly fucked when they suffer depression. And I think Quetzalcoatl was saying, these are the folk who tend to get panicky/ hostile when they see other people are depressed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Is depression less problematic if something specific triggered it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Joanna, I see your point about practical issues, but what I was asking was, "Is my reemergence of chronic depression a less serious form of depression than others because I can articulate what triggered it?"

---

Kelly,

Apologies for not being clear but I was intending to be more general. I can generally articulate what caused a particular bout of depression and mine is less severe than MrP's, for whom it just seems to be a reaction to his childhood. But then, mine is very clearly reactive and his is clinical (if that is the correct term). However I am not sure if any of that is relevant to your experience.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
OK. Maybe I wasn't clear enough that this isn't an isolated incident. This is perhaps the second time I showed up on this thread, so maybe I should have started there.
 

---

Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :
 
I think part of the problem is that the term depression is colloqueally used to cover a number of conditions, and whilst each individual's experience is going to be unique, broadly speaking those conditions have different long term likely patterns and will respond better to different kinds of approaches. People offer advice from their own experience and sometimes that will grate for another person because their experience arises from a different kind of problem in the first place.

FWIW I think the most important thing for almost everyone, is to be compassionate towards themselves.

[crosspost]

[ 07. December 2014, 18:25: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Agreed, and IME people who are compassionate with themselves re slightly better at being compassionate to others. Back to Q's point.
 

---

Posted by Paul. (# 37) on :
 
On somewhat the same theme I do wish people wouldn't use "How are you?" as the equivalent of "Hello". The pedantic is strong in me and I feel dishonest in mumbling some weak half-truth platitude ("surviving", "up and down"). And most of the time I don't really want to talk about my feelings, and don't, but I'm forced to think about it because of this social convention.

But it's more than that. It's the fact that I feel trapped in the polite persona I inhabit because as far as I can tell normal social interaction relies on the fiction that we're all basically OK. And if you step outside that all that happens is that you embarrass people and whilst they might be sympathetic, you're no nearer to honest communication because you've just created a different kind of barrier.


 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
me too. I have this embarrassing habit of answering the question as asked, rather than as meant, and I usually realize a couple beats too late that they really didn't want to hear about [fill in the blank]. By which point it's too late to redirect without major awkwardness.
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
A more senior person at work felt the need to lecture me recently about how, in our culture, "how are you?" is not supposed to be answered.

We're in a fucking drafting office. Half of our work is devoted to not creating ambiguities. Don't ask a question you don't want answered.
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
me too. I have this embarrassing habit of answering the question as asked, rather than as meant, and I usually realize a couple beats too late that they really didn't want to hear about [fill in the blank]. By which point it's too late to redirect without major awkwardness.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paul.:
On somewhat the same theme I do wish people wouldn't use "How are you?" as the equivalent of "Hello". The pedantic is strong in me and I feel dishonest in mumbling some weak half-truth platitude ("surviving", "up and down"). And most of the time I don't really want to talk about my feelings, and don't, but I'm forced to think about it because of this social convention.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paul.:
On somewhat the same theme I do wish people wouldn't use "How are you?" as the equivalent of "Hello". The pedantic is strong in me and I feel dishonest in mumbling some weak half-truth platitude ("surviving", "up and down"). And most of the time I don't really want to talk about my feelings, and don't, but I'm forced to think about it because of this social convention.

But it's more than that. It's the fact that I feel trapped in the polite persona I inhabit because as far as I can tell normal social interaction relies on the fiction that we're all basically OK. And if you step outside that all that happens is that you embarrass people and whilst they might be sympathetic, you're no nearer to honest communication because you've just created a different kind of barrier.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Great post. There is a kind of tyranny of being alright. But work is an artificial environment, not designed for personal intimacy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I've both been in groups where there is stated rules against tissue- thrusting, and huge peer pressure to tissue thrust.

In one of the latter groups, there is one woman who rushes to beat everyone to it, then gives everyone else the stink eye as if we all failed some sort of compassion test. Strange bedfellows.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:
I am though pretty certain that if I went to a doctor with claims of sleeplessness and feeling down then Ad's would be duly provided. I've always vowed not to go down that road unless that frigging Mutt drags me right onto the floor.
A view no doubt commendable in the 50s but possibly regarded as somewhat reckless these days. Sobeit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:


Q was correct in his clarification of what I was trying to say earlier. You were also right K that my intentions meant as helpful ,(in an off-the-wall kind of way), you were however entitled to tell me to f-off if you wanted as this is the Hot Place. If I don't like heat etc. etc. (appreciate the fact you didn't).

---

Ok let me rectify that-- fuck off.

But allow me to return to what originally brought me here, which AmyBo originally expressed. It's not anything that is happening to me personally right now, but the holidays brings out the crazy in everyone, it seems, and one form of crazy is absolutely fucking kicking people when they are down. (Cover your eyes, rolyn, this ain't for you.)

Or, I should rephrase, kicking people when YOU are down. Kicking people when you don't like your own life circumstances, or your single status, or the fights you've been having with your family, or the fact that you are just a sad, bitter human being with nothing but spite to keep you warm at night, but there really are people who seem to define themselves by what people they can pick on and get away with it. As such, they go looking for people at this time of year for people who are too beaten down to hit back. Those people suck, as Amy pointed out, and if they are inclined to believe in God, they better be expecting a special little talk to happen when they finally meet Him.

[ 21. December 2014, 23:29: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Oh, and once again, this shit:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Huh.

For my part, everytime someone has randomly unloaded on me, then labeled my reaction as oversensitive, there has usually been a followup conversation about how their dog is striken with canker sores or something, and they are agonizing about it, and therefore I need to be compassionate and spare them the natural consequences of their behavior, because they are having feely feelings that natually deserve way more repect than anyone else's. False self can manifest itself a lot of ways.

---

Sometimes I just want to say, "Are you aware of how transparently you are taking your shit out on everyone else? That whatever adjectives and judgments you are flinging around can be traced directly back to what you think of yourself? Or do you really think your proclaiming this-or-that person a loser or a whiner or a waste of space flings them in front of you like a human shield, and nobody can see how close to a nervous breakdown YOU are?"

Like I said, I am currently not in a downswing, but I am up enough to be really angry at people who like to keep people down.
 

---

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
Just go ahead and say it, Kelly! I think it would do them good -- well it would do me good if you come back and tell us about it.

Every year at about this time, I look up the date of Ash Wednesday, (February 18, 2015.) It helps me to know that, after slightly forcing this mood elevation through the Christmas season, I can look forward to a definite day when I can release the weight and sink back to my natural state.
 

---

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
Every year at about this time, I look up the date of Ash Wednesday, (February 18, 2015.) It helps me to know that, after slightly forcing this mood elevation through the Christmas season, I can look forward to a definite day when I can release the weight and sink back to my natural state.

---

Twilight, that's inspirational.

On the other hand maybe I'll just hibernate until the middle of January.
 

---

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
O bugger. It's been a while, but Black Dog has had me in its claws for the past week or so. WTF? I'm sitting here crying, for God's sake, for no bloody apparent reason at all.

Church has been stressful over Christmas, so I've taken a few days out, but it really was NOT helpful to have the Vicar describe depression as 'what the Devil wants'.................



for all those weeping today.....

Ian J.
 

---

Posted by Lia (# 7396) on :
 
(....maybe I am stil so new I can offer hugs even in Hell?)

And as for me, fuck hope when it dies yet again and takes with it my first attempt at a relationship in many years.

So now that I don't even know why he changed his mind, I feel lonlier than ever and am raking around in endless heartbreak.

Fuck this dispair which literally takes my breath away and engulfs my days. No idea how will manage at work tomorrow - am supposed to manage people and can't even control my emotions!
 

---

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
Fuck this being Hell... but...

((Lia))

Been there....

Ian J.
 

---

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
Church has been stressful over Christmas, so I've taken a few days out, but it really was NOT helpful to have the Vicar describe depression as 'what the Devil wants'.................



for all those weeping today.....

Ian J.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:

quote:

---

Originally posted by rolyn:
I am though pretty certain that if I went to a doctor with claims of sleeplessness and feeling down then Ad's would be duly provided. I've always vowed not to go down that road unless that frigging Mutt drags me right onto the floor.
A view no doubt commendable in the 50s but possibly regarded as somewhat reckless these days. Sobeit.

---

If you think you will get a extra shiny harp as a reward for stoically enduring, knock yourself out but please do not inflict this attitude on anybody else. If you thought you might have diabetes, would you refuse to discuss it with your doctor?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
O bugger. It's been a while, but Black Dog has had me in its claws for the past week or so. WTF? I'm sitting here crying, for God's sake, for no bloody apparent reason at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:
Depression caused me to leave this lovely Ship, and this 'lovely' board several years ago very suddenly when I was in the middle of hosting it. It's been one of the only times in my life when I had something serious to do and just abandoned it. I'm very sorry.

Depression has hit me several times since, and I'm just recovering from an especially painful bout.

Fuck depression right in the ear.

Solidarity with all of you posting here.

t

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:
Solidarity with all of you posting here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Were you being treated for it when it would come back?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kittyville:
Bloody hell, Teufelchen - that's awful. The attitude of your employer is a particular low point (from an outsider's point of view). I hope you get better support soon (but I'm not hopeful of that, given what you've said).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:
NHS cuts have meant I've run up against some fairly appalling gatekeeping.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mere Nick:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:
NHS cuts have meant I've run up against some fairly appalling gatekeeping.

---

Are there not generic drugs there? I get mine from a pharmacy in a grocery store and it costs $9 for a 90 day supply. A small price to pay to keep the black dog away.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink.:
It would be unusual for talking therapy appointments, or psychiatry appointments, to be offered outside normal working hours, except by crisis teams.

---

Here in California, some talk therapists and psychiatrists have evening hours once or twice a week.


Teufelchen--Good to see you back! IANAD, but maybe a supervised support group could help? And here, some therapists, psychiatrists, clinics, and charities offer a sliding fee scale. Here, you usually can go straight to a therapist/psychiatrist, without getting your GP's approval, unless your insurance requires it. FWIW, YMMV.
 

---

Posted by Teufelchen (# 10158) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Golden Key:
Teufelchen--Good to see you back! IANAD, but maybe a supervised support group could help? And here, some therapists, psychiatrists, clinics, and charities offer a sliding fee scale. Here, you usually can go straight to a therapist/psychiatrist, without getting your GP's approval, unless your insurance requires it. FWIW, YMMV.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:
I am not a happy imp.

t

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mere Nick:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:
NHS cuts have meant I've run up against some fairly appalling gatekeeping.

---

Are there not generic drugs there? I get mine from a pharmacy in a grocery store and it costs $9 for a 90 day supply. A small price to pay to keep the black dog away.

---

We have plenty of generic drugs, but psychoactives are not available over the counter. If I were prescribed (say) Prozac, I'd pay the standard prescription charge for it, rather than the alleged market rate. And I wouldn't get any specific brand - I'd be given whatever the pharmacist had in, as long as it was the right preparation of the right quantity of the right active ingredient.

t

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Mine are not over the counter, either. When I'm about out I call the Dr's office and they call the pharmacy and tell them to work up another supply. At $3 for thirty, we normally buy 3 months worth. Is it really that more difficult where you live to get your prescription?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Teufelchen:

You seem to know nothing about mental health care on the NHS.

---

quote:

---

Which bit of my protracted rant about gatekeeping wasn't clear?

---

quote:

---

I've been fucked around by the people whose job it is to help me.

---

quote:

---

It's good and wise that GPs don't hand out prozac like [S]candy[/S] sweets. It's not so good or wise that the people whose job it is to determine who gets the prozac are underfunded and mired in bureaucracy. If this isn't clear, please re-read.

---

quote:

---

Do you know one thing that depresses me? People not taking my experience of depression seriously when I report it.

---

quote:

---

PS: 'Where I am' is London, UK. It says so under each of my posts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by orfeo:
How about 'crying with pitchforks'? Do you think that'll take off?

---

It would if members could take those pitchforks out and...present...them to the appropriate people!
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
and so it begins again, that which never really ended
it returns which has never left, never goes away
shouldn't feel this way, not so bad compared to others
'course, this just makes it worse
shit to feel shit for feeling shit
to complain of wading through what others must swim
to complain at all, to need to complain
can't keep eyes open, shutter the windows, crawl into bed can't sleep
need to tell someone, can't tell anyone
write it here? post? so many times writing and not clicking
whiny, little bitch, godamn whiny little bitch
post? don't post? so fuckimg melodramatic
damndamndamn
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
The whiny little bitch is a delight in God's eyes and a valued and enjoyed member of the ship.

Be comforted little bitch. I for one wish you well and the strength to carry on in the darkness.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Sometimes I want to hug you, Evensong.

I'm kind of having a moment where the dog has left the room, but that give me a chance to see how thoroughly it's destroyed the furniture.
 

---

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :
 
Kelly - At the risk of sounding like a refugee from AS

 

---

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
I am SO over the inability to sleep and complete lack of motivation. I really don't want to do a damn thing. And yet I feel really, mind-numbingly bored and restless. The thought of doing anything I need to do or normally want to do repulses me. But I'm not necessarily feeling sad or down (though sometimes it hits), and if I'm around people - which is rare these days - I can be cheerful and joke and laugh. Still don't want to do anything, but I do want things to get done. FYBD.
 

---

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
Churchgeek - I'm like that (on a good day ). Lately I've sometimes found if I can force myself through the treacle of the first half-hour or so of a 'thing which needs to be done', the absorption in the task overcomes the motivation failure. Now and again I start to enjoy myself. So long as I'm not distracted. Sometimes I wear ear plugs.
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by churchgeek:
I am SO over the inability to sleep and complete lack of motivation. I really don't want to do a damn thing. And yet I feel really, mind-numbingly bored and restless. The thought of doing anything I need to do or normally want to do repulses me. But I'm not necessarily feeling sad or down (though sometimes it hits), and if I'm around people - which is rare these days - I can be cheerful and joke and laugh. Still don't want to do anything, but I do want things to get done. FYBD.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
and so it begins again, that which never really ended
it returns which has never left, never goes away
shouldn't feel this way, not so bad compared to others
'course, this just makes it worse
shit to feel shit for feeling shit
to complain of wading through what others must swim
to complain at all, to need to complain
can't keep eyes open, shutter the windows, crawl into bed can't sleep
need to tell someone, can't tell anyone
write it here? post? so many times writing and not clicking
whiny, little bitch, godamn whiny little bitch
post? don't post? so fuckimg melodramatic
damndamndamn

---

Ah, man, so eloquent and so sad. LilBuddha is my favorite person to argue with on the ship because she never seems to get really mad at me even when I deserve it.

I don't usually read this thread because I seldom have real depression, and yet, I fear it and think it's a bit contagious.

I am, however, pretty darn depressed today because yesterday I got the, infrequent, but always the same, criticism that I get from family members and friends. "You have a bad temper. You complain too much, rant too much, get angry over little things and get more angry than anyone else in the whole world when you do get angry. It's not any one annoying, fixable thing that we don't like, it's you. We just don't like the person you are. You're the worst."

So today I am very subdued and even tempered.
I do not rant, neither do I sing.
 

---

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :
 
I like you, Twilight.
 

---

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
Thank you Drifting Star.
 

---

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
Join the club, Twilight.....

Why the fuck can't we just DIE and get the fuck out of it....???

Ian J.
 

---

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
[dons hostly tam o'shanter and types to the skirl of the pipes - why, yes, I am in a forest in Scotland]

Depression sucks. If you're finding it extra sucky at the moment, Real Life™ medical practitioners and mental health professionals are your first port of call.

This has been a public service announcement on behalf of the Ship.

[shoots pipes with twelve gauge, revels in the sudden silence and lowers tam o'shanter as a mark of respect]
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
LilBuddha is my favorite person to argue with on the ship because she never seems to get really mad at me even when I deserve it.

---

quote:

---

So today I am very subdued and even tempered.
I do not rant, neither do I sing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
... I got the, infrequent, but always the same, criticism that I get from family members and friends. "You have a bad temper. You complain too much, rant too much, get angry over little things and get more angry than anyone else in the whole world when you do get angry. It's not any one annoying, fixable thing that we don't like, it's you. We just don't like the person you are. You're the worst."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
I don't usually read this thread because I seldom have real depression, and yet, I fear it and think it's a bit contagious.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
... I got the, infrequent, but always the same, criticism that I get from family members and friends. "You have a bad temper. You complain too much, rant too much, get angry over little things and get more angry than anyone else in the whole world when you do get angry. It's not any one annoying, fixable thing that we don't like, it's you. We just don't like the person you are. You're the worst."

---

Tell them to go fuck themselves. (;

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
I am, however, pretty darn depressed today because yesterday I got the, infrequent, but always the same, criticism that I get from family members and friends. "You have a bad temper. You complain too much, rant too much, get angry over little things and get more angry than anyone else in the whole world when you do get angry. It's not any one annoying, fixable thing that we don't like, it's you. We just don't like the person you are. You're the worst."

---

I can't help but notice that this tells me nothing about you, but a lot about those who speak such words. It would be nice [for you] to be able to count on at least a little empathy from family and friends. Where are you supposed to turn if not to them?

quote:

---

So today I am very subdued and even tempered.
I do not rant, neither do I sing.

---

Which is far from what I believe God wants for you from them. So sorry for all that you are forced to deal with.
 

---

Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
Reading and kicking the cur.
 

---

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Twilight,
I am waiting for the news item that says an American woman with a cute little dog ran amok with a machine gun in her local mall.

Now that would be angry!

If y0u wold like a copy of the "Subversive Stitch" needlework Golden Key linked to then flick me a PM. I'd be happy to stitch it for you

[ 24. July 2015, 07:07: Message edited by: Huia ]
 

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Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :
 
Quick, Twilight. Take up the offer. Huia gets stitching therapy, you get a gift and you get the use of it when family annoy. All winners.
 

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Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
Whilst my youngest likes to make up her own designs, my eldest likes to copy Hama beads patterns to the letter. How I wish their grandfather (my father) used a smart phone - that would be Christmas sorted.
 

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Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
Can I have one as well? Having been away from Church all week with Black Dog (and a nice little migraine, just to put a bit of jam on it), NOT ONCE have I had an enquiry from my dear Vicar as to how I am........for all he knows, I could be lying dead somewhere, going a bit niffy by now.

A GFY message seems appropriate for him.

Ian J.
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
You all are great. You've made me cry (in the good way) and laugh, so now like Organ Builder I'm feeling better, but back to praying for all of you after taking a dip in the black pool.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
... I got the, infrequent, but always the same, criticism that I get from family members and friends. "You have a bad temper. You complain too much, rant too much, get angry over little things and get more angry than anyone else in the whole world when you do get angry. It's not any one annoying, fixable thing that we don't like, it's you. We just don't like the person you are. You're the worst."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
<snip> family members expecting other family members to behave in accordance with some goddamn script they're inventing as they go along, often based on misperceptions, unrealistic expectations, one-off incidents from when you were 7, and sometimes even outright fantasy that flies in the face of any kind of demonstrable reality.

---

Bingo on all that. Plus, when you get older you get to add to those legends from when you were seven, all the left over anger at the deceased parent you resemble. I look and act a lot like my father and he left tons of unresolved issues behind. All the things they wish they had said to him they can still say to me.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Fucking black dog, piss off and bite someone else - preferably one of those perpetual smilers
 

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Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :
 
My Black dog has suddenly got a little persistent. He's been fine for a long time but more-than-the-usual level of melancholy has hit me this week along with the basic once-a-day existential crises...

Hmmmm....

I am so grateful that my depression has been very well controlled for so long and whilst I am no where near my worst, that old nagging fear is back that I could be.

That's how you can tell people who've known depression - the fear of it.


AFZ
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

That's how you can tell people who've known depression - the fear of it.

---

So very, very true. The only time I really had a bad, frightening case was for a few months right after I quit smoking, 20 years ago. That makes me believe a lot of it is chemical, and that's kind of depressing in itself to think that my joy had been coming from nicotine. I know that if it ever comes back, and prescribed meds don't work, I might take up smoking again.

 

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Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
Kicking and cursing the cur as I read.
 

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Posted by not entirely me (# 17637) on :
 
I hate the way the black dog hovers and waits for when you feel most vulnerable.

I call it galena mood when our metaphorical dog sits on me because the density I physically feel in my body when I am depressed reminds me of the weight of holding a piece of galena and every task becomes something to drag through.

Today is not a galena day as such but more a "Fuck off pmt" day.
 

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Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
I just bailed from a church responsibility I had been looking forward to, because I took it on during an 'up' and then found it impossible to discharge during a 'down'.

I keep doing this - it's embarrassing and loads responsibility onto others. The only way through I can think of is to take no responsibility for anything, and just make random un-anticipated contributions when mood allows it.

This sounds like a definition of a twat.

FYBD
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:


I am so grateful that my depression has been very well controlled for so long and whilst I am no where near my worst, that old nagging fear is back that I could be.

That's how you can tell people who've known depression - the fear of it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by luvanddaisies:

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:


I am so grateful that my depression has been very well controlled for so long and whilst I am no where near my worst, that old nagging fear is back that I could be.

That's how you can tell people who've known depression - the fear of it.

---

Oh, fuck, yes.

That thing of when you're coming up to something you know can be triggery or something - like, it's my birthday soon, and that's usually a time I have a big plunge of doom.

---

Better week for me, this week.

But for you:



Or, if you prefer:

BAD DOG

AFZ
 

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Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on :
 
Today is the start of two weeks off. Ideally, this will be a time of creativity and recharging. If it turns infernal, it will be a time of falling into a depressive black hole. The signs are mostly good so far, but the black dog is only ever on a temporary leash.....
 

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Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :
 
I'm hungover. My own fault. And it turns out that having had to get my sister and a solicitor in the same room to sign stuff related to probate on my dad's estate, there's one piece of paper I didn't get them to sign, so I have to arrange it all again. And my mother says that the reason my husband doesn't fancy me any more is because I've gained three dress sizes over our 17 year marriage.

And these things are all stones falling on my head as I sit at the bottom of a deep, dark well.
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
Alternatively its not that your husband doesn't fancy you any more but that he is (a) knackered and (b) suffering from low libido. Look at it this way: is he still the man you married - same size waist, number of teeth, decent personal habits, no snoring? I bet you can answer no to at least one of those.

We all change over time, some of the changes good others maybe not so much. But few, if any, of us changes from good to perfection.

I'm sorry things are looking so bleak and your mother is being unsupportive.
 

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Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
WTF?

That has to be one of the most useless and unhelpful posts on this thread.

L'organist, go fuck yourself, and then recalibrate your sympathy-O-meter (if you have one).

Ian J.
 

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Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on :
 
This isn't all saints - perhaps it should be - but its not.
 

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Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
This is Hell. Where both the Black Dog and L'Organist reside.

This thread is not a support group for those suffering from the snarling cur, and posting here still carries the 'paint a target on your chest/arse' warning as the rest of Hell.

End of PSA.

DT
HH
 

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Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
WTF?

That has to be one of the most useless and unhelpful posts on this thread.

L'organist, go fuck yourself, and then recalibrate your sympathy-O-meter (if you have one).

Ian J.

---

Notwishstanding Doc Tor's wise hostly intervention
you have a point. Although if you look back to the first two-three pages of this thread, you'll see some deeply unhelpful posting.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
And these things are all stones falling on my head as I sit at the bottom of a deep, dark well.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
This is Hell. Where both the Black Dog and L'Organist reside.

This thread is not a support group for those suffering from the snarling cur, and posting here still carries the 'paint a target on your chest/arse' warning as the rest of Hell.

End of PSA.

DT
HH

---

True.
This is where you can come and scream. As loud as you want.
You can pray by scream.
And I will read.
And I will pray.
And scream too.
 

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Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
And today I need to scream.

For friends and overdoses.
For family and their pain.
And for my compassion fatigue.

Fuck you black dog.
Fuck you too cancer.
And heart disease.
Fuck you for a flawed world, flawed relationships and a flawed fucking idea of God.

Fuck you that when I want to prepare to go overseas for the first time in twenty fucking years, I have to be prepared that some people may die while I am away.
In two fucking weeks.

And fuck me too, that I am losing sight of the woods for the NYC trees.

I am tired.
Fuck off black dog, I need a break from giving a shit.

[ 18. October 2015, 05:08: Message edited by: Patdys ]
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
Bwaaaaaaarrrrgggh.
Fuck.

And I thought it might have a spell of getting a bit better.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Wot l&d said.

Sorry to piggy-back luvanddaises but you said it so well, and I don't have the energy to find words.

Fucking Black Dog and fucking passive-aggressive people.
 

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Posted by Mad Cat (# 9104) on :
 
fuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOO!

<performs mighty double bird>

I, too, need a break form giving a shit, for I have no shits left to give. The box of shits which can be given is empty and void. I must go to the Shop of Shits and score me some more.
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huia:
Wot l&d said.

Sorry to piggy-back luvanddaises but you said it so well, and I don't have the energy to find words.

---

Your little compliment just made me quite unreasonably chuffed! Thank you.

I think I'm less "aargh" today than I was that day. Having spent today thus far binge-watching Mr Robot on Amazon Video, and not had to get up at 02:30 or go to work, or even leave the house probably helps. I should leave the house to find dinner, but i just don't want to do that.
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
The black dog has flopped itself down on my lap and I don't have the energy to tell it to get the fuck off already.

So I sit for hours and cruise the internet instead of getting off my ass to finish taking care of my late father's affairs that need some serious attention. And I can't get my mind organized enough to do the stuff anyway what with the dog drooling on it.
 

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Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
Black Dog is lurking in the background again, Goddammit - not helped by the possibility that I may have epilepsy. Jam on the bread and butter, no?

Fuckitall.....

I.
 

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Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
Cursing the cur for all who post.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Some seasonal affective disorder (SAD) kicking up, and I may have to increase my meds. Also some situational depression trying to sneak in.

{{{{{{{all of us}}}}}}}
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Family fights and a lost major freelance client. Would hide under the bed but i'do have to clean it out first.

[ 11. November 2015, 17:50: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
Is it just the depression, or should I quit my job and go back to music?

Or, to put it another way...


Which is less of a headfuck? Staying in a job whose hours are antisocial and that I'm not really enjoying, or going back to music that I ran away from and admitting that the boats chapter is properly over?


Fuck you paralysed indecision.
( and fuck you buzz feed article (about what it's like feeling both depressed and anxious at the same time) for being so recognisable , although the stupid thing is, it might be helpful if I wasn't feeling like I'm a fucking fruitloop at the moment, so maybe someone else might find it so.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Blech. Part chemical, part situational. Not good.

{Gives black dog treats and a chew toy, wraps it up in a beach towel, and sends it off to woodlands and meadow to live.}
 

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Posted by Mad Cat (# 9104) on :
 
I sometimes dream about the black dog. I really like dogs, and actually, really like black ones, so the black dogs in my dreams are usually solemn but gentle companions.

Last night, I dreamt I was cycling home with shopping and the black dog trotting alongside, thinking how beautiful Fife was over the river. It was the double decker bus crawling behind me, and the massive pothole in the road that were giving me the fear.

I am, I appreciate, very odd.
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
No.
No no no no no No.

This is meant to be the start of a new section, positive. Changes. Coming back to the old thing as a better person.

No.
Go away and leave me alone.
 

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Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :
 
Just some meandering thoughts, in case they're of use to someone else.

Lots of stress and change in my life professionally at the mo. As part of that, working away from home and hence living in temporary accommodation during the week.

I know from past experience that these things are risk factors for me. Plus it's winter, and I definitely have a degree of SADS.

So, the morbid, dark, extensional thoughts I seem to overhear myself having are not really a surprise.

How can I put this? For a long time, I have been well, but like many (all?) the Black Dog once conquered never actually goes away and he trots behind me everywhere. To the point that I wonder if I could cope if he wasn't there... I have joked to those who understand that a quiet day is one with only one existential crisis in it.

My black dog has not attacked but he is walking to heel these past couple of days. I caught a snippet of Ruby Wax on R2 today - talking about her mental health - how you never get cured as such - like diabetes. Or how you wouldn't tell someone with dementia to snap out of it and remember where the keys are. She also talked about knowing the early signs and reacting to them. I feel slightly guilty - I am really not unwell at the moment. I read this thread from time-to-time and remember the terrible, awful, unbearable times. I am not anywhere near that. And -THANK YOU LORD- I haven't been for a very long time. The oddity is how I can't quite remember properly how bad it was. Almost as though it happened to someone else. But every now and then I get a proper glimpse of how I was and then the fear comes - fear of going back to my own personal hell. That's how you can spot a person who's been depressed - the fear. We all have it I think.

I suppose I need to not feel guilty. These bad days/bad hours even are also part of the story and knowing how, by luck, and wisdom and experience and help and the grace of God to stop these becoming more that a passing episode does not change the truth of who I am and what I have.

My name is Alien and I have a Black Dog.

Please God let me never revert to how bad it was;
My name is Black Dog and I have an Alien.

And for any ship mates who need it: here are my prayers for you for healing and grace.



AFZ
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 
I am getting pulled under the surface by the old black dog at the moment - this despite the fact that it is glorious full summer here, warm and fine and so on. It is also the long school holidays, which are, frankly, a personal hell to me. Even saying that makes me feel bad, but it's true. Spending long periods of uninterrupted time in the company of my children is very, very, bad for my mental health. That makes me feel guilty, because surely that's my problem, rather than theirs? That it seems they also would rather be somewhere else is I think my problem too - I can't drag myself up out of the mire of my own existential crisis and be a continual source of entertainment. And apparently they can't entertain themselves for even 20 minutes.

What this leads to is me just feeling completely overwhelmed by the demands, the complaints, the fighting, the backchat, the noise, the noise, the noise, the endless fucking noise - I get a sort of instinctive fight-or-flight response.

On days where the first option prevails, I yell at them for fighting, complain about the complaining, or make them go outside and just ignore the noises that issue from the yard. I feel bad about this because I'm the adult here, and I shouldn't let them get to me like this - and in fact in other areas of my life I'm quite successfully level-headed - I have been praised by an employer for my ability to 'work effectively alongside some of these rather unique [read: high maintenance] characters'. Yet somehow I can't do it at home.

However, what scares me more than the days when the 'fight' option prevails and the crazy yelling lady comes to the fore, are the other days, when I feel myself curling up and going down inside myself, as a way of protecting myself and/or escaping from the present, which is just too shit to deal with. I seem more calm on these days, but in reality I am just more absent, and I am frightened of that, because I like it. It is a nicer place to be, holed up in my own head, and once I've been there for a couple of days, it gets harder and harder to come out - or there seems less of a reason to, or something. So I become absent to my husband, as well, and outward to others in concentric circles, with an ever-growing desire to simply be by myself. More solitude! More! More silence! More calm! More darkness! I know if I don't keep fighting it, it'll get out of my control. But I don't want to fight it. I want the silence and the solitude. I want the detachment. I want to want the noise and the sunshine and the little whining things with sticky hands crawling all over me WANTING yet more SOMETHING. But not today.
 

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