Depression experience

[Shadowcliff]

Re: Depression experience

Spenner, do you keep a journal? You should if you don't! It would help you keep track of your thoughts on this stuff.

It's also pretty helpful in general anyway.

Vouching for this. Just finished writing the last pages of a journal I started May 2014. On to the next one! Rereading the journal is a fruitful experience--helps me make new connections on old conflicts.

I tend to write more when I am in a general depressive episode [referring to common side-effects of depression, mostly inactivity or misused time; and it makes sense, considering the state of my psyche this summer, that I had been able to conclude that journal]. For a while now, I've been piecing together evidence of attention problems that I have. Forgetting important dates, forgetting to set alarms, forgetting to eat, accidentally leaving behind important things [wallet, keys, school assignments, etc.; I really really wish I could hold on to a Nalgene for more than 4 months]. Sometimes it feels like my brain is often playing tricks on me in a way that is far too subtle and mundane for me to notice. It dilutes the strength of my work ethic. Looking back on the past 12 or so years of my life, evaluating my behavioral patterns, I can pretty much say that when my attention issues get the better of me, that's when I fall into a depressive state.

I attribute a lot of my mannerisms to the INTP personality type, even if the MBTI were total bullshit. 95% of the time I am having a very internal experience. In my mind I visualize life ahead as a thousand different paths. In well-being, it's really exciting and provides me the judgement and determination I need to take the most natural path. In a depressive state, it feels overwhelming, and I just hover in one place.

I think I hit a relative apex of absent-mindedness in the past months. I moved to a different state with a friend of mine about a year ago--and in May, I was pulled over by a cop and given a citation for driving with an invalid [out of state] license [because I was naive and honest about how long it had been since I moved--far longer than the requirement to update license and address]. I had until the very end of July to get that all updated before I attended court. Pleading responsible would lead to revocation of my license for a year. Kept putting it off all summer. Even did a dangerous thing, where, camping 2 hours from home, campsite wet and a mind that had freshly come down from a strong acid trip, I wanted to be back home by the end of the night. In that state, I was acutely struggling to convey thoughts into words, and the chaotic array of our campsite and equipment was making me extremely anxious. I was only able to say "We should go." My friend could clearly see me acting anxiously, and he was way more receptive and on board than I could fight with my words. No, it's NOT safe to drive in that state. I knew it even as it started happening, and it scared me the whole 2 hours back, which in fact we made it through safely. No accidents, no run-in with the cops. It takes me even weeks after that to finally update my license, one week before the court date. Nothing done yet to update my license plates. [yikes, should i even share that? lol]
(The whole thing was dismissed by the D.A. who was confused that the citation was even written given that I'm an out-of-state college student. Which I did not actually know was an exempting condition until that week before. Don't ask me how. o_O)

As far as self-treatment: I've learned to be very, very patient with myself and recognize patterns. Maybe there's a correlation somehow to FFR--I've been skillboosting as hell. Journaling is very good therapy for me, though it has certainly taken me time to find a writing style that I feel comfortable doing in any state of mind. For attention issues: My roommate is prescribed methylphenidate, but has more than he needs. He recognizes that I have a genuine problem with my scatterbrainedness (he thinks it's possible I have low-spectrum aspergers, but I'm not sure what to make of that), and so he allows me access to his medicine. I take up the offer maybe every other week, for 1 or 2 days. For critical moments where I just need to rely on a focused headspace.

past few days though have been really strange and great. Felt more confidence and peace, especially while at work.

[EDIT: oh yeh, time to go to bed, gotta be back at work in 5 hours for a shift I picked up and forgot about lolol]

[Spenner]

Re: Depression experience

Interesting posts so far, and thank you guys for being openly spoken about this. There's no shame in admitting it as I'm sure nearly everyone can relate.

depression is the realization that happiness is an illusion

The belief that happiness is an illusion*** happiness may logically fall out of context if you are dealing with cold and absolute things, and if you are constantly thinking long term, about inevitabilities, you're going to hit a wall of depression.

That's one of the biggest things I've noticed the past couple of days-- I've distanced myself from thinking about the looooooong term of things, obsessively, as I was. Focusing more on the emerging moments right in front of your eyes holds a lot of potential breeding ground for happiness. Not to simplify things down to "ignorance is bliss", which has some validity but not total validity by any means.

Funnygirl:

Up until about two years ago I kept a journal that was a mix of dreams (mostly my dream journal) with state of mind entries every so often, or at a certain noticeably different point from the last "state of mind" entry. Journal keeping, especially of dreams, was a wonderful way to view a portrait of my emergence into adulthood. Themes that would later lead to some more severe depression were clearly manifesting just before I stopped writing.

My biggest beef with keeping a journal now is my level of shame. Mood swings are intense, hard, and blinding, and if I manage to pull out of one I find that reflection is a bad thing for me. However, the venting aspect is relieving. I'm not sure if going back to journal writing is for me (I did stop because dreams stopped, welp. Therefore the state of mind entries stopped), but I suppose it would be better for my self image (just recognition of self is an uplifting observation sometimes-- I forget that "I" am even here most of the time), and as a list of things-to-either-avoid-or-to-do-more depending on the type of entry. That'd be useful. CONSIDERING IT~

For a while now, I've been piecing together evidence of attention problems that I have etc

I can relate to this a lot, and I am unfortunately reminded any time I make a mistake because of my bad memory (it's bad for relationships, I'll leave it at that). Last year I kind of fell into the same situation starting with a police citation (also a license thing, it was expired), and it triggered an array of various problems branching from that handicap. In simple terms it was stress stress stress, and I feel as though it pushed my body to respond so elegantly by learning to forget, all the time. Moments of blankness started happening more frequently, and same with abstract, or irrational inner dialogues.

I still have a very big problem with conveying ideas confidently to people through word of mouth, among other aspects of social anxiety; the expectation that I MIGHT become confused while speaking is enough of a deterrent for me a lot of the time from speaking at all. However, this is dismissed if I am feeling confidence, and the problem itself was totally of fabrication (fear of the problem = surfacing the problem, in my case, and has been that way for a lot of things).

Money makes me really happy

Something I've been dealing with lately is a detachment from materialism. And because of that, my job has become harder, buying things has become a chore, and is a hollow experience, and I'm constantly wishing I could just be somewhere else.

Which brings up the fact that: I'm not in a good environment. Most of us are probably not in an optimal environment. Most of us are probably going through routines that enable stress to be activating a lot of the time; some of us are better at handling stress than others, and I know I'm especially bad at it, and it will easily trigger a depressive episode if I have a lot on the table.

For someone like me, less is better. I am a minimalist at heart, and there's just a lot to deal with in this world. But identifying that to myself WILL trigger a downfall.

I find that there is always a necessary ignorance to be had, for each type of person. For me, it's important to reduce stress and to feel any emotional competence at all. When in a depressive state, it is utterly convincing that any ignorance is simply wrong, which is one aspect of why they are so hard to get rid of.

...

But lately, I've been feeling better. After quite a long period of isolation and stress I've started connecting more with what's in front of me. And that's been very helpful to remain grounded. I've been biking, and going to a park, and a forest, which is a mood booster. Getting a leg out of the bed can feel impossible, and mentally BE impossible, but doing it (as I was doing every morning before work, after calling in late usually ~_~) quickly contradicts an otherwise imprisoning idea that you cannot do a damn thing/nothing is worth doing.

ive become very isolative and don't want to talk to anyone because in my mind no one gives a shit. that's a fact of life and i'm trying to learn coping mechanisms. i'm my own judge and jury. i can't find happiness in anything anymore. i was in a manic cycle a few years ago and stepmania was my crack. now i don't even bother. nothing in life brings me happiness. happiness is nothing but a lost cause to me.

I feel you, it's the very same reason that I became reclusive and quiet for a long period these past couple months especially. Even posting on the internet became impossible. Happiness is hard to come by, so I don't look for it. I've found being void of both positive and negative force to be fine enough; right now I'm not "happy", but I'm fine. There is a dismissiveness to the types of thoughts I'm choosing to retain and digest; I know what it's like to be unable TO reject thoughts that are soul wrenching, and for those times you do have to just forcibly crawl away and find something to distance yourself. A break from thinking, in general, is a necessary demand for me now. Or, heavily moderated thinking.

I was good at something in highschool when my disorderly emotions became inescapable: watching an incoming thought process and assessing it. "Is this nasty or neutral?" I would generally try to deduce. A constant vigilance of whether or not you are headed in the direction of nastiness, I found, was a good tool. The trick was doing it without becoming obsessive and totally introverted, which led to some other issues... doing this during a developmental stage of life was not optimal, but nonetheless, the same rules still apply. I don't feel terrible right now because the normal swamp of negative thoughts haven't been let into the room. They still exist, they aren't going anywhere, but they don't need to not exist. They don't need to be in your face either. If you get a general idea of what you NEED, mentally, in terms of what kinds of thoughts you should be engaging in, you can start directing yourself to that goal.

Sorry if this is just a splatter of type, I am in a bit of a manic wave myself.

(But IceCubez I do recommend you try for some sort of benzodiazepine, or etizolam if you end up having no luck with doctors. Thoughts that are moving that quickly, about such abstract grandiose and anxiety inducing things, greatly benefit from that kind of medicine. You need less stress, like a lot of us, but unlike a lot of us not everyone can stop stress on their own-- hence the recommendation which you prolly already know much about but just throwing it out there)

[iCeCuBEz v2]

Re: Depression experience

you're right spenner.

my doctor atm doesn't seem like she's trying to help me i'm just her research puppet.

[korny]

Re: Depression experience

Don't misunderstand my man spen, money makes me happy, because money provides the convenience and freedom to do as I please. Not so I can buy even more Gucci and Louis Vuitton shoes

[DossarLX ODI]

Re: Depression experience

I watched a series on Anxiety and Panic Attacks, starting with this video. An important point to take away is the part about "what you resists persists". I mention this because this is a serious issue that runs with my family and I can tell you without hesitation that the conflict resolution between my parents is fucking abysmal.

On July 10th I had to leave work early because of an infrequent intense physiological reaction I've developed over a decade related to the thoughtless disgusting bullshit my parents made me go through which fucked up my mental development and physiological responses. What happens is that I get eye pain and can't see normally (only outlines of objects in front of me), I get a continuous aching pain in my head (can't think clearly obviously), my right leg gets slightly numb, I get numbness in my left hand, and my chest is in a lot of pain. When I got home I collapsed for 6 hours. What's worst is when you can clearly see people who are basing their interactions on an unstable model (sidestepping issues and letting them come back repeatedly) and rely on thoughtless insults and yelling as well as turning everything into a competition, even if it means damaging their relationships with other people. It's fucking sickening that this kind of bullshit would continue when I clearly can see something is wrong but they'd rather act like 3 year olds.

What's overwhelming is when your heart rate spikes up. The day before I saw my doctor I had what felt like the start of a panic attack: heart rate spiked up and it took 30 minutes for me to try channeling that energy throughout my body. It's a fear that my body has to process or I just get overwhelmed to the point where I either get noticeable chest pain or the above reaction (which is rare). And I am 99% sure of the major contributor to why I have these anxiety attacks.

I wouldn't necessarily say what I have is depression since I can still continue with my daily life. The scary part is that I can look normal but still have anxiety-inducing thoughts because a few people found it okay to fuck up my mental development as a child. You're not alone.

[Cavernio]

Re: Depression experience

"the problem itself was totally of fabrication (fear of the problem = surfacing the problem, in my case, and has been that way for a lot of things)."

Yes. My lack of performing daily actions definitely feels like this. However there seems to be nothing to do for it. I just avoid and avoid because facing the act of not doing the thing brings me to writhing and gnashing of teeth and tears and thoughts of self-harm.

I am trying giving in these days. I do not try much anymore, I will either do it or I won't.

I have never had enough self-awareness to properly explain my mental states, but I can relate to everything that has been said personally in this thread to some degree or another.

Abilify calmed down my racing thoughts. Was also the worst withdrawal I have ever gone through.

The past couple years I have over-reacted emotionally to everything. Which is something someone can not really do since a reaction just is, its neither good nor bad, so one cannot 'over-do' it. But that's how I've begun to be. I think part of me wanted that because stable is boring. I felt like I was missing out on so many emotions in life I actually went to therapy with one of the major goals of being able to feel more emotions.

There are many faces of depression. I have experienced many.

My memory is so poor, the weed is not helping that aspect of my life sadly, so that any realizations that being high gives me, and they happen regularly, I end up forgetting most of them. I know that one of them is that in order to stop my brain from constantly going someplace negative the best way will be for me to be doing an activity that draws my focus away from myself.

It feels like life is just full of pain and I have to accept that as reality. There is no hiding from it or fixing it, it just is. I have come to what shouldn't be all that surprising of a relevation to me, is that my levels of emotional pain are simply too high for wanting to try to exist. Even when I'm not suicidal, I generally don't actively *want* to live. I am slowly learning how to put coping mechanisms into place. If I kill myself in the meantime, I think that's ok too though.

[Izzy]

Re: Depression experience

A few years ago the depression hit me hard. I was having regular panic attacks and didn't want to do anything at all. It's kind of mellowed out at this point, but I find myself so indifferent to basically every experience. I don't feel like doing things, but I also don't not feel like doing things. It just doesn't matter to me. I sometimes find myself staring at my monitors for 30 minutes thinking about nonsense I may want to do, but do actually feel motivated enough to start doing.

I keep buying games and starting shows only to soon realize I don't feel like starting them or that they don't entertain me anyway.

Still, I'd rather experience an infinite existence of nothingness than to not experience anything at all.

[Hakulyte]

Re: Depression experience

When I get depressed, I unconsciously become confused instead and trigger a neverending cycle of "Why I'm depressed? What if I __________ . " and I continue the process until I'm mentally exhausted regardless of if I'm coming out with good or bad reasons. The goal is to make myself get bored of my state of depression and shift my thoughts to wanting to do something different.

It always work for me and when it doesn't, I simply stay in my state of confusion for several days until it does. It's better than "feeling depressed" and it's making me more likely to talk with others/get help if I can't fix myself and get over it asap.

So yeah, it's all about not mentally creating bad scenarios and assume that they're right and get further depressed etc. The best way to fight depression is to not let it have the opportunity to affect you imo. Letting your depression take over yourself is just as damaging as letting yourself get hit physically. You should do everything you can to let it not become the center of your thoughts in general. The brain is a crazy thing that can makes you convince yourself of things that you shouldn't let yourself be convinced of especially when you're in a state of vulnerability.

Right now I'd say that I'm consistently varying betweem being happy and feeling "neutral". I haven't been particularly really depressed in a very long time and when I do it's usually short and go away fairly quickly.

So yeah, there's hope on that.

[MarioNintendo]

Re: Depression experience

When I get in a depressed state of mind, I get very self destructive. I was at my worst in 2014 when my ex left me.

What helped me the most was attempting the nofap challenge and going to the gym (first time was very hard because I was always complexed with not being physically fit, but asking advice to arch0wl helped). I feel much more confident now and feel like I'm the master of my destiny.

No joke in december 2015 I was at my best. I managed to tell my feelings to a girl on whom I had a crush. She said no at first, but I believed in myself. A month later, we're together, and we just celebrated our first year. In my case, self confidence (and trying to stop getting my confidence from others) is what did the trick.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Depression experience

depression is the realization that happiness is an illusion

What helped me a lot was realizing that happiness is not an illusion per-se, but rather just an experienced result of neurochemical signaling. At least as far as modern science can say- but I'll take that over throwing my hands in the air and admitting depression will never be understood.

When I was most depressed, I thought of the fact I had to take meds as being proof that I was, in some way, a bad person.
But that's the nature of depression being classified as a disorder, beyond just "being lazy" or "being sad."
Thinking taking depression meds reflects a problem with you personally is akin to a person with an ear infection thinking they're worthless because they have to take penicillin.

And, once I made that leap to accepting that meds actually help me, I really started to do better, and I am now doing well enough that I am on fewer meds and lower doses of the ones I do take. Ironic in a good way.

I don't want to kill myself, big ups to cymbalta

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Better living through science and all that.



*note: You can make the argument that mental health meds are a passing and ultimately tangentially effective treatment, the modern day equivalent of historical quack psychiatry. I took a class on the history of psychiatry last year and so I've spent several months thinking about this question from different angles, albeit just at an undergraduate level.
But this thread asked for what helps, and I can personally verify that taking meds, in some way (even just via a placebo effect), definitely helped me want to kill myself less. So, strangely, I think it's a valid answer whether or not the science is right. This was not a popular opinion in the class on my hyper-liberal campus, by the way. Apparently big medicine is bad no matter what just because it's... big?

[gold stinger]

Re: Depression experience

Just chiming in to give my own opinion on depression, considering that I have been more or less dealing with it for 10 years of the 20 years of my life and counting.

Depression to me feels like a sort of natural dampener response to stress, and trauma. It kind of forces the body into thinking, or taking options that would be less stressful or traumatic in the immediate scenario, given the chance. Even where said action would benefit towards fixing said depression, the choice leaned towards is the one that takes the least energy, and is the least stressful.

This means, that if you ask a depressed person to call you up if they ever want to talk, they probably won't. They will most likely take the less energetic route, and keep themselves from having to deal with talking to another person. Even though it's better for them to do so, they won't. Does the depressed person have to do chores? They are likely going to be procrastinated until the situation gets really bad and either peer pressure from what other people think kicks in, or they get confronted about it.

People who are depressed imo don't necessarily dislike to talk to people, or break down easily. But stress, and depression are major contributing factors that can help flare up those kinds of traits, such as social anxiety, insomnia, mood swings, and PTSD. Sometimes when stress is so high, suicidal thoughts becomes a thing. Because again, it's about weighting choices that take the least energy, and are the least stressful. If just existing is hitting your stress threshold, some people may come to conclusion that this is a good idea, thus the birth of suicidal thoughts and tendencies. I for one, love to talk to people; Getting out of the house, to go and visit people to talk to is rough for me. I'd much rather stay at home. It doesn't stop people from visiting though, or reaching out to me themselves.

[Cavernio]

Re: Depression experience

I feel like I'm entering a period of my life where I am going to be isolating myself for a long time. What happens psychologically when one isolates for long periods of time?

[choof]

Re: Depression experience

I don't want to kill myself, big ups to cymbalta
I'll do a post tomorrow after I see my therapist

lol WHOOPS

I don't take cymbalta anymore, I'm taking gabapentin and my night meds (mood stabilizers) are in a bit of a limbo stage right now. gabapentin fucking owns. anxiety is gone, my depressive mindset is way easier to deal with. big ups to tripsit.me too, I logged in and spenner happened to be there. asked about gabapentin at recreational doses, and I found that the original dosage of 100mg twice a day felt too low. now I'm up to 300mg twice a day. goddamn, I'm loving it.

my night meds are in limbo because I haven't been able to find something that works as well as seroquel, but my doctor doesn't want me to take it because of the long term side effects, particularly brain damage. this is mostly because he expects me to be on a mood stabilizer for a while, and he's not too keen on me risking brain damage while I'm going to college for comp sci and math lol. I've tried uh... remeron and now I'm trying doxepin. doxepin has been interesting, it's somewhat like a benzo in that it puts me in an interesting mind-set. very little drowsiness though.

I'll probably do a big post later tonight that doesn't have to do with medication.

[Mahou]

Re: Depression experience

What causes my depression is how I look towards myself at that given moment in life. If I feel like a piece of shit or feel like I look like a piece of shit, it really hurts my mood. I will have temporary stages of happiness depending on what's going around me.

For me, the only way I was actually able to cure my depression is working out on a daily basis - I never thought of seeing a professional about it because I'm almost inclined to believe that most therapists don't give a shit. I even called a suicidal hotline last year, and the guy one the phone wasn't even very helpful. Thank goodness that I had one friend nearby that helped me cope with my emotions.

Overall, if I don't any sort of physical activity in my daily regime, I start to have very negative thoughts about life.

[Spenner]

Re: Depression experience

Gabapentin is a good call, in fact just identifying that you need something that works in the GABA area of your brain to quell excessive stimulation and anxiety (which is pretty much like a very slow, continuous seizure, if you ask me sometimes... when your thoughts are in a loop there is no stopping it, unless you have something that stops your fear-response mid-thought, gabapentin will do that). There are of course pros and cons of using things that affect the GABA receptors of the brain (cough alcohol cough) but used right it is some of the most effective medication for directly intervening with anxiety, and some depressive episodes too. Glad you got some solid info my friend, keep that one on the shelf.

Night medication is something I'm working on whittling down myself, I'm so incredibly over-stimulated and it never slows down, and at night when external stimuli goes away, it draws even more attention to that baseline stimulation I have. Benzos work, but aren't a solution, so I'm going to see a specialist/neuroscientist and get some testing done on my brain... that should be interesting.

@Everyone though, depression I feel is becoming less of something the minority experience. More and more people are finding themselves confronting it, and being unable to push it away so easily. It's part of how we're evolving I guess, we're more detail oriented, more worried, more mindful. There's more on our plates than most people. I'm not trying to identify depressed people as special in that regard lol. But we have as abnormal way of observing the present-state we're in, often lost in what could be, what hasn't been, what should have been, etc. Because it's easy to feel out what shape would fill your complex void of sadness (or to feel that there is that void), it is a very challenging thing to learn to cope with prioritizing less with drawing attention to needing to fill that void.

I've learned again the hard way that sometimes, depression just needs time. I had a series of extremely bad days, and honestly, take notes or have some sort of safe-item on you to remind you that lucid thinking does return to you, or that it can as long as you remember you have the ability to do it (too often people completely put faith into the idea that they are completely lost causes, and it becomes a reality). I sure as hell needed to remember.

Kinda with you Cave with the poor memory, I can say that it is a core part of my issue with depression in general. Sometimes I forget why I'm even depressed, yet it continues. Then what? Weed has never actually been very detrimental for my memory (naturally it's just pretty poor) but maybe you should look into a nootropic supplement to take to help give your brain the capacity to work more efficiently.

Keep in mind that back in the day when I was using Noopept a lot, I wouldn't even feel high. I'd have some mental and physical effects, but a big effect of cannabis is that strange effect on how you're perceiving the world and your attention span being messed up. But noopept gave my brain some superpowers and it was mad efficient or something, I could be high and functional at the same time. Gonna get more of that :l I suppose there's a reason they prescribe it to people with the onset of alzheimer's.

Overall, if I don't any sort of physical activity in my daily regime, I start to have very negative thoughts about life.

I highly agree that physical momentum is a sort of pusher of motivation, endorphins, and the like. It's a way to actively prove to yourself that you have competence. Highly recommend doing anything physical even if it's just walking and reflecting.