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Depression

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I've had various periods of depression over the years and I've spoken to enough people to know that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. In my experience, your twenties are some seriously hard work. Reality ain't quite like it was sold to you. What worked for me was getting busy to the point that there was no space for depression any more. I know that might sound a bit whatever but I've had various talk and drug therapies and they've been effective in varying degrees, temporarily. Being busy is more effective for me. As has been mentioned, charity work is a brilliant method.
 
Woland said:
I've had various periods of depression over the years and I've spoken to enough people to know that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. In my experience, your twenties are some seriously hard work. Reality ain't quite like it was sold to you. What worked for me was getting busy to the point that there was no space for depression any more. I know that might sound a bit whatever but I've had various talk and drug therapies and they've been effective in varying degrees, temporarily. Being busy is more effective for me. As has been mentioned, charity work is a brilliant method.
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"An idle mind is the devil's workshop"
 
Portly said:
It's quite likely to be sleep apnoea (or apnea as the Americans say). The drill is that you "present" with the problem at the GP's surgery. The GP should refer you to a hospital for a "sleep study" which involves spending the night wired up to various monitoring devices. The results, if positive, will be that your sleep has been constantly disturbed by breathing obstruction related to snoring.

There's a major snag here, in that when I was informed of this diagnosis, the doctor told me that until treatment commenced, I was not allowed to drive. I was therefore uninsured and had to write to my insurers and the DVLA to notify them of my condition. As it would have taken months to be sorted out by the NHS, I went private.

In some cases the medics recommend an operation to sort it out, but I don't believe the success rate is that high. The most reliable treatment is a CPAP machine which is a small device that pumps air through your nose through a nasal mask all night. That sounds unpleasant but you get used to it pretty quickly.
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Nah, Portly. It isn't something along these lines. I get to sleep just fine, and I don't snore (unless I've gone to bed with too much drink) or have breathing difficulties. I just wake up, usually after only 2 or 3 hours sleep, feeling anxious and unable to get back to sleep. So I go and read and watch the telly until it is time to get up. It is shit.
 
doctor_mac said:
Nah, Portly. It isn't something along these lines. I get to sleep just fine, and I don't snore (unless I've gone to bed with too much drink) or have breathing difficulties. I just wake up, usually after only 2 or 3 hours sleep, feeling anxious and unable to get back to sleep. So I go and read and watch the telly until it is time to get up. It is shit.
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I sometimes wake up for random reasons and then find it difficult to get back to sleep. Especially if work is doing my head in (just like now). I find lying in bed with my eyes shut and refusing to look at the clock for about an hour sometimes works.
 
I used to have some sleep trouble and I'm not one of these dudes who can just nap and stuff, until I read some new age bullshit about how to meditate. That half hour read has probably gained me a thousand hours sleep. I don't believe in the mysticism but I can get back to sleep in the middle of the night now. I'll look it up if anyone is interested.
 
Woland said:
I used to have some sleep trouble and I'm not one of these dudes who can just nap and stuff, until I read some new age bullshit about how to meditate. That half hour read has probably gained me a thousand hours sleep. I don't believe in the mysticism but I can get back to sleep in the middle of the night now. I'll look it up if anyone is interested.
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My brother has also talked about meditation as the solution to his sleep problems.
 
I can't meditate. My brain simply won't switch off (yeah, like my mouth, before one of you says it!), unless it's highly medicated.

I can't be hypnotised either. Dunno if those two things are related.

As for depression, I've experienced it myself for the first time over the last year, it's probably the hardest thing I've faced tbh, & I've had some shit in my life.

It magnifies everything negative & makes doing normal tasks impossible.

Some people on here have been very supportive & Tbh I owe a lot to them in regards to where I am now, which is greatly improved.

I've loads more to say, & I will, but I find it hard to talk about a lot of the effects its had without getting too down, which kinda defies the point!
 
The whole point of meditation is creating techniques to 'turn your brain off'. It doesn't come naturally and requires practise and effort. Worth it though.
 
Should sixcrazyminutes come with a health warning that been a member of this site can lead to despression.

Goes to join RAWK
 
My mom suffered from depression and general anxiety on two separate occasions. The first is a private matter which I'm not comfortable sharing online. The second was as a result of a cataracts operations she had undergone. It's really unimaginable but overnight, the surgery made her a different person. She was scared stiff to do anything to her eyes. She couldn't sleep because she was afraid she would touch her eyes. She had trouble with dry eyes and vision, which was expected but she overreacted by going to the specialist a couple of times over the next few weeks. And she was so anxious about her poor near vision that she went to an optometrist who charged her 2k for bifocal lenses. I only found out about this later in, but honestly there's no better person I'd like to see in hell than that bastard for taking advantage of a lady who wasn't in her right mind.

She was put on medication for a couple of months . I helped out with the housework in between. But all the time I couldn't help but despair over how something so harmless could change someone so drastically.
 
Btw, I have Lifehacker as one of my RSS feeds. From time to time they have very good advice on how to improve your life. Meditation is one example. I've only just begun with daily five minute sessions, but I think the whole point is about training your mind to block things out, which is a great skill to have in any situation, especially work.
 
FoxForceFive said:
I can't meditate. My brain simply won't switch off (yeah, like my mouth, before one of you says it!), unless it's highly medicated.

I can't be hypnotised either. Dunno if those two things are related.

As for depression, I've experienced it myself for the first time over the last year, it's probably the hardest thing I've faced tbh, & I've had some shit in my life.

It magnifies everything negative & makes doing normal tasks impossible.

Some people on here have been very supportive & Tbh I owe a lot to them in regards to where I am now, which is greatly improved.

I've loads more to say, & I will, but I find it hard to talk about a lot of the effects its had without getting too down, which kinda defies the point!
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And you will say more. All in your own time and at your own pace buddy.

Take your time and seek counsel when you need it.

Dealing with this will almost certainly be a life changing and illuminating positive for you.
 
You keep going or you get stuck.

You can't dwell whe you're like that because you stay like that and the effort to try and pull yourself out is ridiculous.
 
Defo. When you've spent a year navel gazing pretty much anything can be put off til tomorrow.
 
I spent from Sat night til Weds eve in my flat pretty much. Tremendously hard to drag myself out of my pit. There was some sickness as well but a large portion of it was linked to my mental well being imo.

Fucking Villa have a lot to answer for.
 
Spionkop69 said:
I spent from Sat night til Weds eve in my flat pretty much. Tremendously hard to drag myself out of my pit. There was some sickness as well but a large portion of it was linked to my mental well being imo.

Fucking Villa have a lot to answer for.
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At least you had me to cheer you up:cool:
 
I don't want to hijack this depression thread but noticed the talk about people waking up in the night, sometimes for no obvious reason, and then either lying there fretting they can't sleep (which makes things worse) or having to do active stuff before going back to sleep.

I suggest reading about 'segmented sleep' and these news articles of recent times. If nothing else, they might help some of you worry less about being awake when you think you should be asleep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/24/sleep-twice-a-night-anxiety
 
I notice that some of the people on here suffering depression are or have been heavy drug users. Could there be a connection?
 
Yeah lol.

Anyways my mum woke up one day following brain surgery and decided that the last 40 odd years of Catholicism was a load of bullshit, went into steady philosophical decline, couldn't fathom meaning and then tried to top herself one Christmas morning. Which was fucking inconvenient as much as everything else. As was the following period when she was sectioned and electro shocked and all of a sudden got used to heavy drug use for the first time in her life, only she wasn't what you'd describe as an active participant. This had a considerable effect on my dad, who soon followed her. Oh it was so much fun knowing instinctively why he hadn't answered the phone, going over to his house and finding him on the floor all full of his own blood and faeces - and somehow not dead yet - and having him thrown into the same system.

A quick look back through the family tree reveals a lot more of the same. They seemed to manage to reproduce before they exhibited proper mentalism, more's the pity. I'm not sure about what they all got up to on a weekend but I'm fairly convinced that I'm the first of this particular branch that got stuck into drugs. When I was being seen by the psychiatric crash team on Ebony ward at Fazakerly in my early twenties during a psychotic episode I did ask whether they thought my state was as a result of my foray into drug use and abuse. An old Indian dude shook his head and said he thought I had the cause and effect about tit. That I took drugs to cope, not took drugs to fuck myself up.

The jury's out as far as I'm concerned.
 
My mum's side has similar stories, my dad's family were considerably less well off & less educated though, & mention things like 'black moods', my grandad was known for taking himself off into the yorkshire moors to avoid people & would sleep outside alone when in a 'black mood' & would sometimes remain there for weeks on end.

His father had done the same, both had drunk heavily at times, none at others, with the benefit of hindsight this seemed to be an attempt at self medication.

Cause & effect is right though, it's difficult to know whether people prone to depression are more likely to take drugs in the first place, or whether the drugs can have an effect. It's absurd to suggest that years of taking serotonin enhancing substances doesnt have some effect, but not enough has been done on any long term studies to give definitive answers, & nothing of note on the profile of drug takers brain patterns when making the decision to start taking drugs at all.

Speaking for myself, shrooms & pills at various times have helped me cope with shit, not in a medication way, but because they literally gave me acceptance of life being what it was, so when I wasnt high I could still realise that. I honestly believe without some of the periods of drug taking in my life I would have made some extremely poor decisions & been in a very bad place as a result.
 
My dad is clinically depressed and the only drug he had is alcohol.

My grandfather went into black moods and didn't take drugs.

I have depression and have taken class a. I have no conclusions from these observations.
 
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