Wasn't this posted a few weeks ago?
Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
251–260 of 339 posts
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
as someone with mental health issues going through a rather prolonged and winding down period, i’ve taken this before. just got my high score! going to bring this up with my therapist tomorrow
I am increasingly confident I suffer from depression, rather than just being generically miserable. How do you deal with the trust issues posed by that questionnaire? I have suicidal thoughts most days, but I'm concerned that revealing this to an NHS doctor would quickly result in my freedom of choice on what happens next being taken from me. Seems like one of the few cases where US healthcare (where you are explicit…
Not a doctor but have experienced something like what you're describing. It is important to be open with your doctor about this stuff because it allows them to accelerate getting you help. Differentiating between suicidal thoughts and intentions (the former of which I had, the latter I did not) made me comfortable enough to have the conversation.
Really though, seek help. It is unlikely you'd lose choices (eg be sectioned) if you're asking for help and engaging with that help.
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a great comment. I've always been a little uncomfortable with the thought of this magnetic treatment in a way I couldn't put into words and this nails it. I'm willing to trust, perhaps naively, that everyone is getting the same Prozac tablets. But how does the skill of the practitioner and maintenance of their magnetic treatment device affect outcomes? It's almost like a surgery, but I'm not sure who's actual…
Do you have the same feelings about radiation therapy for cancer?
There are plenty of doctors that rather die than treat their cancer. There was even a "recent" HN story about it. The motivation is that for a nasty one, the treatment is often worse than the disease, and they rather spend their wealth and to easy their pain and enjoy their last months of living rather than going through a very hard process that might not work, might leave them in an not that good state.
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Depending on the severity of the depression, a depressed person might have problems with even basic things as brushing teeth and showering regularly and being able to do household chores.
There are non-depressed people who also struggle with this, I think.
Yes, that's how symptoms generally work. Symptoms are signs that may or may not point toward a diagnosis. A diagnosis such as depression is something separate that is determined from the collection of symptoms on an individual by a doctor.
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curiosity: what if you've done so and your fears have been reinforced instead? Background: after a difficult childhood, I did a therapy, discovered self improvement and lived a few years where I faced fears regularly and expanded massively. However, multiple debatable decisions built up to a point where everything broke down. Lost my job, hoped on 3 jobs even worse afterwards, was morally harassed, and the resulting…
Sorry you had to endure this. It's true that adult life is wide and chaotic and you can slowly end up in a black hole situation. A bed room theory is live small and grow through tiny risks. Small means your life is easier to secure and you can try stuff and fallback as soon as something goes wrong. It's only a theory, that came up through the realization that a lot of pain comes from bad obligations. Too much mortgag…
Thanks, very thoughtful of you.
I was saying almost the same thing as your last line to a colleague, taking many responsibilities in parallel before waiting for full closure, can lead to failing something that you would normally be able to do, just because you were stressed out by the other things you had to do in parallel.
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#256I've been dealing with depression, or rather, a couple of months with productivity where I really work my ass off producing great stuff, then have an as long downtime where I just manage to get by. Any choir was tough to start doing and completing. After being diagnosed with both ADD and ASD.1 I also was diagnosed with Bipolar 3/4. Did not even know they existed but they trigger these hypomania periods. Turns out tha…
You are not alone. I also have been going through something similar. I recently quit my job to work full time on my side project. I am financially secure for another year. I am very energetic for few days, I work my ass off and ship stuff. But after that I have these periods where I just can't do anything. It is hard to get out of bed. I feel like I am never going to make it with any of my projects. I have been to a…
I can totally relate to your experiences.
Writting about myself and what seems to have helped me.
Have been on medications for two years (getting off of them now), and in therapy for a year. Likewise, I had (or have) troubles with feeling stagnated/unmotivated after bursts of productivity and motivation.
The key insight was that creativity and productivity does not come without cost. I used to overwork myself and my body. After "feeding" the intellectual part of me, the other parts became "hungry".
The solution for me is to have breaks, even when I am in the state of flow while doing something productive, and use that energy to work on the dull activities that are required to keep me healthy - physically and psychologically. The stream of consciousness style of journaling helps me as well - it helps the root cause of my bad feelings show themselves, sometimes in a subtle way.
What you may want to have a look at is Active Imagination[1], it comes from Jungian analytical psychology. I find it really helpful.
Good luck!
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure! Though I drink basically not at all when I’m not in a depressive episode. It’s more of a subconscious “self medication” thing, and the symptoms don’t subside even if I’m not drinking sadly.
Seems like a stimulant might be a more logical self medication for depression than a depressant.
A Central Nervous System Depressant and Clinical Depression are two (basically) unrelated concepts. Alcohol is the former. Despite having the same word in them, they are only tangentially related to one another
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#258I have simply stopped believing in depression, I do not blame this "mental illness" for my inaction. Depression is used by many (including myself a couple years back) to relieve any responsibility off oneself.
You are conflating cause with diagnosis. And your conclusion is quite offensive to those living with depression, which is a well established diagnosis. You might want to consider rephrasing it, unless you really mean to imply that you believe that people suffering from depression are all collectively just making up excuses. If that is truly your belief, I have to wonder how you interpret the results of this study?
Not the commentor, nor can I speak to their beliefs.
The people I’ve known that truly believe mental illness is made up or used as an excuse to be lazy, will dismiss any evidence to contrary.
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great Post, thank you for sharing. I do take issue with the commonly parroted claim that depression can be a chemical imbalance. It's a notion arising from pharma marketing psyops, and is largely without utility. It even risks being an antipattern. The few pros include separating responsibility and thus alleviating some guilt, which often coexists with depression, and annoying spiritualists. Tell me if I missed any.…
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. Just that we shouldn't recognize that depression can be a chemical issue because that doesn't help us fix the problem? Are you saying that anti-depressants don't work? So if depression is more about mental models, life choices, and drive and whatever, why do so many people suffer from depression in cycles? There is little change from one day to the next, and yet, many pe…
There can be many reasons for that and most have nothing to do with life choices or "mental models" whatever that means.
* Trauma triggers and unprocessed/unconscious trauma. You'd be surprised how common this is. People who grew up in neglectful or abusive homes tend to believe there's something wrong with them and that their childhood was fine. So when life feels like shit, like there's no point, and it's only suffering every day, that somehow other people manage and they don't, they see no light at the end of the tunnel. It must be their fault, and for some reason they can't "get over it" or "Let it go".
* A person repressing stuff, which at some point reaches breaking point or saturation.
* Combination of (unlucky) factors - e.g. winter/less sun, less people around for some reason, had to sacrifice exercise for extra work, (...).
* Chemicals in the brain indeed, change from one day to another. And maybe the day they feel depressed is when they are seeing things more realistically and crash with that realization.
I don't buy this idea that it's part of the human condition that we're bound to have depression sometimes and that it's chemical imbalance. If we look at human history of psychiatry you'll see how coldly we've been treating patients. You'd be horrified at how we treated mentally ill people in the past. Why would you think we're doing any different now, just in a more mODeRn way - "They're sad because their brain is wrong. Give them a pill."
Re: Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study
#260Awesome. I think there’s a risk of inducing mania but it really looks like we have a lot of new treatments for depression that are safe and effective.
Depression treatment is known to cause mania in people who are predisposed to being bipolar.
Some medications can also cause mania without any predisposition.