Depression [Aware Helpline 1890 303 302] (1 Viewer)

[La La]

Re: Depression

Also, I'm very 'up' in general and people who don't know me too well are really surprised that I do get bouts of depression. That's just my personality - very up, very down.
.

is that like manic depression?
or is it what you said, just bouts?

 

[rampz]

Re: Depression

apologies to squack, juno, goff and everyone else. i was a little hasty and unfair with my last comments.

i got angry reading this thread and i couldnt figure out why. this i think isnt because of your experiences per se. more about the general tone of this entire forum. where people appear to fickley flit around serious issues making fun of some and appearing to take others seriously. initially, i thought that after squacks initial post, there was a certain amount of kudos seeking bandwagon jumping. i was wrong. you may not believe this but i take my job very seriously and really care about my patients.

i suppose i shouldnt really read or contribute to this forum if it makes me so angry.

 

[brianoak]

Re: Depression

apologies to squack, juno, goff and everyone else. i was a little hasty and unfair with my last comments.

i got angry reading this thread and i couldnt figure out why. this i think isnt because of your experiences per se. more about the general tone of this entire forum. where people appear to fickley flit around serious issues making fun of some and appearing to take others seriously. initially, i thought that after squacks initial post, there was a certain amount of kudos seeking bandwagon jumping. i was wrong. you may not believe this but i take my job very seriously and really care about my patients.

i suppose i shouldnt really read or contribute to this forum if it makes me so angry.

you can join me on the seanc thread in subscribers forum for a white wine spritzer if you want to chill

 

[MDR]

Re: Depression

This has been a dealy thread for people to share their experiences. I'm really glad it hasn't descended into piss-taking. I've been really impressed that thumped heads have a fairly good idea of when and where to have a larf, and when to hold back.

 

[krystal]

Re: Depression

nah, just bouts every now and then. I am mostly a very cheery person (i.e. up) and I'm generally pretty even, mood wise- I mean I don't go into mad sulks or huffs and I don't lose it very often. But I do get periods of months when I go down and it happens maybe every 3 years or so.

is that like manic depression?
or is it what you said, just bouts?

 

[Goff]

Re: Depression

Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere near A&E, especially at the moment when even the Minister of Health calls it a National Emergency. It would depress me more. I've gone down that route so many times over the past couple of years for various reasons. The Mater in particular has become a doss house for the usual crowd of unfortunates who can't get a bed for the night. And unless you're seriously considering suicide at that point in time, you aren't going to get much help from the over-stressed, under-staffed/paid/suppported nurses (who I have every patience and sympathy with. That they retain their dignity through so much shit should be applauded), as a result of their Triage system which works great on a battlefield, but not so much in A&E.

Saying Mental Illness is being used as a way of being "cool": I don't know anyone over the age of fourteen who would do that. If you've gone through the pain I have and have lost what I've lost as a result of it, you wouldn't be talking like that. I'm not cool and have never been cool. I didn't ask to get sick, but I did. All I wanted was a nice happy care-free life. As was also mentionned, a professional might think that the illness is "minor", but the person themselves think it's the end of the world. The thing is, One prefessional thought mine was minor; another thought it was serious. The latter was the one who "saved my life".

If you need help, get help. From anyone you can. If that's A&E, fine. If it's the Aware Helpline, great. It doesn't matter, so long as it works. Saying that helplines are no use when you're in an emergency situation is of no benefit, is just wrong.

I've had some pretty miserable, bad and totally unprofessional experiences with the health board system. BUT I've had some really good, positive, excellent experiences too. The fact that I'm still here may or may not be a testament to that help. I have to take some credit for it too. And sometimes you need to keep at them for the treatment you need. But it's available and pnce they have you in the system properly, it's a whole different ball game.

And I'm sure ramps is a great nurse. Because it's so obvious that he gives a damn. So kudos. And lots of it.

Reading this thread has anoyed me at times. But it's also enlightened me. And it's made me see just how far I've come "back to reality". I understand why Squack asked should she have bothered.

Well, I for one am glad you did. And I'm sure there are others who feel the same way.

 

[george mcfly]

Re: Depression

have been reluctant to post on this thread..i'm not mad on divulging personal details to a public forum..it's not really fair to give people shit though, or make judgements on the severity of their depression because of what they post..seriously i don't think anyone who actually suffers with any type of mental illness be it depression/anxiety/eating disorder would ever consider it as fucking cool

the advice that i would give is see your GP first..be very informed about any medication you're given..anti-depressents work for some people and don't work for others..your GP can help you decide if you need to see a
counselor or a psychiatrist depending on how serious things are.. don't put off seeing a counselor it's probably the most helpful thing you can do..in my limited experience, councelors work better.. they actually talk to you where a psychiatrist will just sit and listen to you
above all, lay of the fucking booze..it's a depressent and it will only end up with you getting more upset..if it means you never drink again well then, fuck it..you get used to not drinking very quickly..and it beats being in the horrors..
what you're eating really affects you're well being too.. when people get depressed they generally don't eat and if you end up with no strength or energy you're going to feel even worse..so make sure that you eat reguarly and healthy
final thing that helps is getting out and getting exercise..if you're body is healthy you're better able to handle shit..so go cycling, jogging, walking.. whatever..even if you have to force yourself to do it..

this is all easy to say..hard to put into practice if you're feeling shit..
it's worth the struggle at the start and once you get into a routine of taking care of yourself things will slowly start to turn around

 

[Buzzo]

Re: Depression

Goff and Georgie- aye... from what I've seen, people who suffer with mental illness themselves don't think its cool.

However, I think that bored teenagers look at the attention their friend with mental illness might get and want it for themselves, just like people who fantasise about a death of someone close so they'd get that kind of attention too.

It's shallow but it happens.

Also people might crave the label of depression to excuse the way they are handling a personal situation. Also very shallow, also quite common though, as far as I know.

I've been fortunate enough never to have been seriously depressed so I don't know but I imagine the phenomenon undermines the suffering a person with depression endures.

 

[Goff]

Re: Depression

However, I think that bored teenagers look at the attention their friend with mental illness might get and want it for themselves, just like people who fantasise about a death of someone close so they'd get that kind of attention too.

It's shallow but it happens.

Ah yeah. That's teenagers for you. Every time a teen kills themselves, the authorities are worried about copycats. It's a definite. But it's because they're confused about everything. And then there's survivor's guilt, etc.

Don't like the sound of that fantasising about someone close dying? Christ, I hope that's not popular. Like yer wan in America who pretended her young one was dying of cancer for years. That's scary.

From today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1743846,00.html


[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]When we turn the current on, the patients report the emptiness suddenly disappears'[/FONT]

[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]· Operation offers hope to the previously untreatable
· Hair-thin electrodes used to stimulate parts of brain[/FONT]

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif] Alok Jha, science correspondent
Friday March 31, 2006
The Guardian

[/FONT] Sufferers from depression who do not respond to existing treatments could soon benefit from a new procedure in which electrodes are inserted into the core of the brain and used to alter the patient's mood.Later this year, scientists at Bristol University will conduct the first trials of the so-called deep brain stimulation method on sufferers from depression. They will use hair-thin electrodes to stimulate two different parts of the brains of eight patients who suffer from an extreme form of recurrent unipolar depression - where mood only swings in one direction.
If the trials are successful, deep brain stimulation could be extended to the estimated 50,000 people in the UK who suffer from depression but cannot be helped by drugs or electroconvulsive therapy.
"There are thousands of people in this country who have depression who are not responding, who are disabled by it," said Andrea Malizia, a consultant senior lecturer at Bristol University's psychopharmacology unit. He will lead the experiments with David Nutt, head of Bristol's psychopharmacology research unit, and Nik Patel, a surgeon at the nearby Frenchay hospital.
Deep brain stimulation is already used to treat people suffering from Parkinson's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that results in uncontrollable tremors and affects mobility. Thousands of people worldwide have benefited from the surgery, which involves implanting the electrodes several centimetres into the brain. Brain scans are used to pinpoint which parts of the brain are acting incorrectly, and the electrodes then interfere with the electrical activity there, blocking the signals and easing the symptoms.
Currently, last-resort measures to help people with intractable depression have included cutting out or lesioning parts of the brain. Deep brain stimulation would largely give the same results, without the need for such drastic surgery.
Preliminary research by neuroscientists in Canada and the Netherlands has already suggested that the treatment could prove effective. Last year, Helen Mayberg, a neurologist at Emory University's school of medicine in Atlanta, published the results of a decade of research which pinpointed a 2.5cm-wide part of the brain called the subgenual cingulate region (SCR) as playing a major role in dealing with affective information. The SCR is the lowest part of a deep band of tissue running along the central part of the brain. Dr Mayberg had noticed that this region was overactive in depressed people and that its activity correlated with their changing symptoms. When they were treated with antidepressant drugs, the activity went down.
By inserting electrodes into the brain while the patient is conscious (so that the surgeon knows if they have hit the right spot), Dr Mayberg found remarkable results. When she published her work, she said: "In the operating room, when we first turn the current on and get into the right location, the patients report that the heaviness or emptiness suddenly disappears. If they had a sense of a black cloud, they report it physically lifting."
The moment the electrodes were turned off, some of the positive effects vanished, but the overall results - four out of six patients were lifted from depression for six months - were encouraging.
The Bristol trials will, in addition, target an area of the brain called the ventral anterior capsule, identified as playing a role in determining mood by a research team in Utrecht. "This connects the orbito-frontal cortex - which is more related to emotion, assessing of certain situations - to the thalamus, which is the big relay station of the brain," Dr Malizia said. This part of the brain has already been targeted for conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder, but researchers noticed that stimulating this area also affected the mood of most of their patients.
Because of the preliminary results from both areas of the brain, Dr Malizia's team will aim to stimulate both. "The reason is that neither have a 100% success rate," he said.
Identifying suitable volunteers for the trial will be crucial. "It can either be people referring themselves or health professionals referring them," said Dr Malizia. "They must have good medical information from the past and they must be anchored to a local clinical service that will carry on looking after them."
The experiments will answer several questions, not least how long each part of the brain needs to be stimulated for the treatment to work, in which order the parts are best stimulated and for how long the treatment should be used. The first results will be available within a year of the trials.
If the technique is successful, there is no theoretical reason why it could not be adapted to improve memory or treat addiction, which some scientists see as a form of retained long-term memory.
"The answer to the generic question has to be that it is possible for a variety of conditions. Where things become difficult is specifics," said Dr Malizia. For something like Parkinson's disease, deep brain stimulation works because there is solid scientific evidence showing which parts of the brain are responsible and, therefore, can be usefully targeted.
But Dr Malizia does not rule out the possibilities, arguing that whatever technology there is, people are bound to use it if it works, for example if, in 30 years or so, someone can improve memory by deep brain stimulation.
"I never cease to be surprised by what not only people but what society finds tolerable and desirable," he said. "Would you have thought 100 years ago that people would go around having things injected in to their lips and breasts and bits cut out of their skin?"
Footnotes
Recurrent unipolar depression A state of melancholia that has become disruptive to people's lives. Being in a sad mood is colloquially referred to as being depressed but clinical depression goes much further and symptoms can last two weeks or longer.
Deep brain stimulation A technique used to disrupt the brain's electrical activity, thereby changing behaviour. Thin electrodes are inserted into the brain at a specific point and the electrical signals present there either boosted or blocked, depending on the condition being treated.
Subgenual cingulate region The lowest part of a deep band of tissue running along the central part of the brain. It has a vital role in modulating our negative moods.
Ventral anterior capsule A region of the brain that connects the frontal cortex, which deals with emotion, to the thalamus, which processes information from the senses and transmits it to the other parts of the brain.

 

[Buzzo]

Re: Depression

Like yer wan in America who pretended her young one was dying of cancer for years. That's scary.

Munchausens by Proxy isn't it? Odd, odd illness. Again it's the attention seeking through misery. It's so so common/ normal.
We all do it to some extent I guess (look for attention, not Munchausens by proxy)

 

[Goff]

Re: Depression

Munchausens by Proxy isn't it? Odd, odd illness. Again it's the attention seeking through misery. It's so so common/ normal.
We all do it to some extent I guess (look for attention, not Munchausens by proxy)

I have a friend I call Baron Munchausen for that very reason.

Okay, so he doesn't pretend his kids are dying or anything, but, by crikey, he puts it on.

Everyone seeks attention in one form or another. Everyone needs validation to some extent.

It's a part of life.

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

Re: Depression

ok massive thread,havent read it all so this may have been discussed previously but anyway,any of yis aware of the idea that modern society contributes to a rise in depression/suicide?the basis being the pressures people are under,the breakdown of family life (i know thats very sweeping but id imagine theres a lot more of that than there was 50/100 years back) read it in a few places now and wondering what others think...

 

[billygannon]

Re: Depression

ok massive thread,havent read it all so this may have been discussed previously but anyway,any of yis aware of the idea that modern society contributes to a rise in depression/suicide?

Actually... there is an environmental phenomonen called "Global Dimming". Basically the world is darker than it has been for several centuries - there's more cloud cover than before.
This has led to less sunlight coming through, which will lead to more people feeling depressed or down.
I saw it all on Horizon a couple of weeks ago.

And apparently if they resolve this Global Dimming, it's going to accelarate Global Warming ten-fold.

 

[Lefty Frizzell]

Re: Depression

Life is like a dimmer switch.

 

[c0De_n1NjA]

Dim and dimmer.

 

[Deleted member 3435]

Re: Depression

ok massive thread,havent read it all so this may have been discussed previously but anyway,any of yis aware of the idea that modern society contributes to a rise in depression/suicide?the basis being the pressures people are under,the breakdown of family life (i know thats very sweeping but id imagine theres a lot more of that than there was 50/100 years back) read it in a few places now and wondering what others think...

also, i was talking to a friend the other day about how depression is becoming de-stigmatised to such an extent that it may be a double edged sword. while it's a good thing for obvious reasons, there are set behaviours which are associated with depression. this may give people licence to "indulge". you might say that there's a depression meme, and that it seems to be a pretty successful replicator for some reason.

what does anyone think about that?

 

[kevin gallen]

anyone ever used a herbal product called SAM-e ?

 

[Squack]

ok so i've been on these anti depressants just over a month, seem to be doing the trick but find myself getting a bit spaced sometimes and not able to focus and then start fretting about it

does anyone else experience this?

 

[BC]

ok so i've been on these anti depressants just over a month, seem to be doing the trick but find myself getting a bit spaced sometimes and not able to focus and then start fretting about it

does anyone else experience this?

what is it you are taking, if you dont mind me asking?

 

[La La]

what is it you are taking, if you dont mind me asking?

tell him, shine. hes like the human equivalent to a pharmaceutical dictionary.

he also knows a helluva lot about periods and girlie things. handy to have around, y'know!