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My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

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Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#91

Post by InclinedPlane »

reubenmorais wrote: post #52

I'm fairly sure I'm depressed, but I feel like I have to hide it in order to protect my mom, who is also depressed. She's been dealing with her depression for about five years now, and thanks to software I've been able to support our family for the past three years (I'm 22), which is fantastic for her and my siblings, but at the same time it makes me feel like I have to be an emotional/financial anchor for the family…

If you have health insurance, definitely try to get some treatment. Pills and therapists aren't perfect, and they aren't for everyone, but they can work. And they can be kept secret. Beyond that, look at acquiring skills and habits to be able to manage your depression, drugs will only give you the opportunity to build those skills easier, they won't make everything magically better forever. I'd highly suggest looking at cognitive behavioral therapy (basically developing habits and patterns that are healthier) and meditation/mindfulness, they are amazingly effective in a lot of cases.

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#92

Post by md224 »

innertracks wrote: post #76

7.62x39 was going to be my bullet of choice. 10 years or so of depression was enough. Until I saw my 3 year old daughter down the hall while I was heading to the closet to get the rifle. In that moment, I chose to endure the pain for her. Not that I didn't think about it again, many times, over the years. A friend happened to call a few days later. He convinced me to schedule a doctor's appointment that day. Tip: The…

Nobody should have to suffer for even a single year. We really need to improve treatment for depression.

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#93

Post by [deleted] »

innertracks wrote: post #76

7.62x39 was going to be my bullet of choice. 10 years or so of depression was enough. Until I saw my 3 year old daughter down the hall while I was heading to the closet to get the rifle. In that moment, I chose to endure the pain for her. Not that I didn't think about it again, many times, over the years. A friend happened to call a few days later. He convinced me to schedule a doctor's appointment that day. Tip: The…

[deleted]

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#94

Post by InclinedPlane »

formula1 wrote: post #60

As someone who has suffered from depression for my entire life I can say the truth sets me free in a lot of ways. My life is a weird struggle between the feeling of hopelessness, paranoia makes me feel like I am worth taking care of and overall confusion of my emotions and what my best path. Today I believe that I am a dog, to be trained as a dog. Find what good things reward me and reward myself for doing good. Avoi…

Are you sure you're not bipolar? I thought I suffered from depression for 20 years until I finally figured out I was actually bipolar. The portrayal of bipolar in the media and the zeitgeist about it are not reflective of what it looks like, or feels like, in reality. More so, the prevalence of "bipolar 2" (depression + hypomania, not full on mania) is much greater than bipolar 1, but poorly understood by the public at large. There are a lot of tropes about bipolar that just aren't true. That you have tons and tons of energy like you're on meth, that you act "crazy" when you're manic, that you're ludicrously "happy" when manic/hypomanic, that phases come and go at random. None of that bore a resemblance to my life, so I never knew. For me bouts of hypomania always just felt like periods where I had just found something to work on and somehow had managed to maintain focus on it for a while, they're periods of productivity or enthusiasm, often about new things. And only rarely would I describe them as periods of happiness, when you're depressed for so long it can be difficult to even know what it feels like to be happy, and you can spend time in a hypomanic state without being notably happy.

But I noticed that there are times when my sleep schedule is very different (easily masked because I have a sleep disorder as well which makes it difficult to maintain a consistent schedule), times when I am very chatty, times when I'm very focused on a project or game or activity (focus on goal oriented activities), times when I feel a sense of inflated self-esteem or grandiosity, times of increased risk taking, and so on. I just always saw these things as aspects of my personality, and things that I'd been able to leverage for my own benefit or, usually, keep under control.

Here's a list of symptoms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_II_disorder#Hypomanic_...

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#95

Post by neom »

mistermann wrote: post #72
neom wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use talkspace and it's really good, highly recommend it. Feel free to email if you ever feel that you need someone to talk to.

Is this only text or do they also offer audio/video? Text to me just seems like it would take a very long time to accomplish something, at least at the start.

You can send whatever you want, my therapist and I do little video snips often. I like txt too though, sometimes I'm just doing nothing thinking and I write my thoughts down and send them to him, it's good.

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#96

Post by InclinedPlane »

yeukhon wrote: post #21

I don't believe in therapy. I have multiple major depressions throughout my life, and I entered a new one two and a half years ago. I don't believe in therapy because therapists don't offer anything new but the same comments and advice I get from books and television shows. Morning commute and night commute are the darkest hours of my every day life. Sleeping in doesn't help me because my mind is full of ideas and fe…

Therapy is just scaffolding that gives people the opportunity to work through their issues and can provide the courage and motivation to carry through. It works for some people but not for everyone. Personally, therapy is not for me, but I would never discourage anyone else from trying it.

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#97

Post by Gratsby »

I'm blown away by all the openness and good advice in this thread.

I've suffered through bouts of depression most of my life as well. Luckily, I learned a few things about how to deal with it in my younger years - not that I have always followed the process, but at least the tools are there.

Technical fields are very prone to bring out depression. We work long hours, spend a lot of time in isolation, and have little time to celebrate our own successes. Poor eating and lack of exercise add to the recipe of less than optimal mental health.

There are a few things you can do to help yourself avoid a bad mental state, and help others as well.

1. Have a good attitude. This Ted Talk is fantastic: https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_be...

2. Be more social. Interact with people at work and outside of work. Include others in your day to day adventures.

3. Get more sun. It's spring time. Enjoy it.

4. Get exercise. It's crazy how quickly you can go from completely sedentary to running a 5k.

5. Get sleep. It's astounding how much of a difference regular sleep will make in your happiness, in your metabolism, and in your overall outlook.

6. Don't accept dangerous behaviors out of your peers. When you see someone working 100 hour weeks over and over again, make them stop. We all appreciate a solid work ethic. Don't take advantage of it. When you see a co-worker isolated due to workload, figure out ways to bring that person out of it.

7. Be a leader. Be healthy. Have balance. Show people what kind of a difference that lifestyle can make.

Depression is always best cared for by a professional, but not everyone is open to therapy. When you identify someone going through it, don't simply recommend seeing a doctor and move on. Be a friend.

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#98

Post by Nrsolis »

foxhop wrote: post #89
Nrsolis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoloft. I had a very strong opinion about psychiatric drugs: I hated the idea of them. But when you are desperate, you'll try anything. And I was desperate. SO I made a bargain with myself: drugs for a maximum one year. No matter what happened, I'd only try the drugs for one year. After one year I didn't need them any longer. I was able to understand when I was entering a depressed state and adjust. Knowing what "goo…

I just started Zoloft, 10mg, 4 months ago. I was desperate, I just wanted to be happy for Christmas for once, for my children's sake and it brought me back. (brought me back: ability to smile and laugh. Ability to find amusement watching television [even my wife's shows], ability to think at work. No longer staring out my window wishing everything would end) I have not put in the work to find a talk therapist, I real…

Here is the thing: the drugs are like a cast or a crutch. They help you heal.

The talk therapy is like learning how to get strong so you don't break bones or lose balance and fall.

They go together. You can do talk therapy without the drugs but that didn't work for me. The drugs got me into the right frame of mind to understand and process emotions. I could be mindful and see when I was irritated because depression was creeping back in.

I don't think depression is something you completely cure. I think it's something you manage your way out of and keep at bay with constant effort. Mental hygiene practiced with a professional goes a long way towards making that happen.

Look, I discussed some really gut-wrenching things with my therapist. I dug deep. I did the hard work. It wasn't fun.

But today I'm able to live without drugs or weekly visits to a therapist. I'm effectively in remission. And let me tell you man: I'm HAPPY.

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#99

Post by levemi »

I used to have major depression. When I was in the military I nearly killed myself when I snuck a bullet from the rifle range back to my barracks. I was deeply in pain.

I think people who feel this way definitely need to seek help. I was lucky in that I didn't have to. What solved the worst of it for me was going out and being with people, having success (and epic failures) with dating.

Even though the depression never really neared suicidal levels again I was still mostly sad and I didn't realize this until many years later when I took some MDA. I hadn't ever done drugs before except some minor pot and MDA showed me the difference between what I had been feeling and what it was possible for me to feel like. I only took MDA a few times in my life and it's been over a decade since, but I learned from those experiences what kinds of things made me feel better and what it was possible to feel like and I've strived to achieve those feelings without taking drugs.

Now I feel happiness by achieving goals, being around people I love, having silent moments to myself, exercising, managing my stress levels and listening to music that makes me feel better.

It's not always a rose garden, life can be tough, but I never really feel like those awful pains of despair I lived in as a young adult.

Re: My dad hid his depression. I won’t hide mine

#100

Post by some_furry »

I suffered from severe depression for years (to the point that suicide seemed preferable to enduring more failure), and only recently (the past year, really) have managed to stave it off entirely.

I didn't do so through the normal approach: Pills and talking about your feelings. I didn't do much of anything, really.

* The major sources of stress in my life worked themselves out. (I don't want to go into detail about this one.)

* I went on a ketogenic diet for a while, which helped with the anxiety significantly. I stopped six months ago because of unemployment (keto diets are expensive!), and the anxiety has not come back.

* I truly accepted that, no matter how much weight I lose or how successful I am in my career, I'll probably never be attractive enough to find a boyfriend. This was something that used to torment me with feelings of inadequacy (magnified by having to be in the closet to my religious family).

Recently, I started working a job that actually provides a livable wage AND health insurance benefits. (Also, paid time off. I haven't taken a vacation in five years!)

Now that I might actually be able to afford mental health care, I'm waiting to see if the depression will come back, because conventional wisdom says these small tweaks to my life are temporary measures at best. (However, if it doesn't come back, I'm cool with that.)

These were my experiences with depression. I'm sure many more people have suffered through it than will admit it.

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