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What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

nytimes.com

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Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#141

Post by depressed_394 »

I really don't want to be asked if I'm having suicidal thoughts. Ever. By anyone. If I say yes, someone might try to "help" me by having me confined to a psychiatric hospital. Or worse. Having to lie about it is unpleasant.

I have suicidal thoughts regularly, but I am not going to act on them. From most objective standards, my life is generally good. I've never had problems getting dates - at least once I got the courage to try, though long term relationships are hard. I have a job I like and find fulfilling. I'm well on my way to having "fuck you money". Still depressed.

Since childhood (25+ years) I've been taking antidepressants. Have changed them a few times, though not for many years. They allow me to be mostly functional most of the time. Switching now might put me in a hole I can't get myself out of.

Talk therapy has never really helped me. I don't really have any hope left of ever not being depressed. I've thought about trying psychedelics or ketimine therapy, but can't really find the motivation to do anything.

Fuck depression.

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#142

Post by kortex »

jMyles wrote: post #136

I started reading with a lot of interest, but this line caused me to close the window: > In some cases, calling 911 may be the best option. It seems so tone-deaf. More accurate is: > In cases where life is at stake, consider calling 911, but if you do, know that police will likely respond first and may not be trained to deal with a mental health crisis. In some cases, people have been brutalized or even killed after…

We need a civilian-life equivalent of Rangers from the burner community.

> Rangers act as non-confrontational community mediators, providers of reliable information, facilitators of public safety, and navigators of the edge of chaos.

And/or, train police in these techniques. More empathy and patience, less judgement.

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#143

Post by chris_wot »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #93
astura wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a therapist that once suggested taking herbs for an non-treatable medical issue and another time antibiotics for a cold. I can't believe I actually paid money to see her.

I had a therapist once who suggested that my anxiety was the product of excessively high expectations, and I would feel better if I stopped expecting colleagues to do things like tell the truth. I quit therapy, and also quit that job. I felt much better after doing both!

So you essentially stopped having high expectations of your therapist and consequently stopped paying her :-)

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#144

Post by Magmatic »

RobertDeNiro wrote: post #135
phil248 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you do not know much about the topic, but still felt compelled to contradict the most common suicide prevention advice in a public forum while offering no evidence. Maybe not a great thing to do on a high-traffic website on the day of a high-profile suicide.

> not a great thing to do on a high-traffic website on the day of a high-profile suicide. It's the only time people seem willing to discuss suicide. A week from now everyone will have forgotten that suicide is a real epidemic. I'd rather see people discuss real solutions instead be of endlessly repeating the same pointless things.

And I think people, including the person you responded to, would be open to that discussion if you had in any way supported your arguments with facts. If you want to propose "real solutions" provide some supporting evidence for why suicide hotlines do not provide good value for cost and what alternatives do.

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#145

Post by ajkjk »

ajkjk wrote: post #85
gowld wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You listed a pile of goals, not tools. Understanding how depression works can be a tool.

I'm not saying that a depressed person wouldn't want to understand how depression works, just that they don't necessarily want to, and it's wrong to be annoyed that they don't.

Addendum:

I also don't believe that doctors really talk what the 'various causes are'.

I've been depressed, very much so, and I've read books that summarize scientific reading about depression like The Upward Spiral[0], and I feel like they miss the point, somehow. Like: we're great at finding treatments and things that work for individual people, but I sort-of think that the problem with depression is fundamentally everyone else, ie, 'society is sick', and we treat it as a personal problem because well of course doctors can't prescribe fixes to society, but they can for a person, so it's all stopgaps that don't address the "real problem".

I think that often depressed people have an idea of this -- that it is the existence around them that is sick, somehow -- and so no amount of suggestions (which indeed might actually help) quite gets to the bottom of that because it is the world that is fundamentally wrong. (Or specifically it is the nature of how they currently fit into the world.) From a treatment standpoint yes of course they should do the things that will probably help them, and people around them should be empowered to get them to do the things that will help them. But for the person that is struggling that really doesn't feel like the answer, and I think that they're not wrong.

(By 'society is sick' I mean that the person does not, for whatever reason, exist in the mentally healthy setting that their brain was 'designed' to exist in -- a healthy community, the right kinds of relationships, the emotional mentors and sources of wisdom that provide the right kinds of useful guidance, a body that works the way that it's supposed to, physically and mentally, etc; and a world around them that makes sense, that they can feasibly cope with, which is exactly the opposite of the nihilism induced by news of politics and global tragedies.)

[0]: (https://smile.amazon.com/Upward-Spiral-Neuroscience-Reverse-...)

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#146

Post by rectang »

mmt wrote: post #139
rectang wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the purposes of constructive discussion I don't mind qualifying "agony" with "enduring", so to limit scope to those with chronic, untreatable depression. But the original statement is an honest representation of my thoughts. ETA: At the same time, it's important to recognize that suicides inflict dramatically more pain on those left behind than other causes of death.

OK, so enduring (which includes constant/unwavering?) and untreatable. I haven't been able to find how many sufferers of depression that includes. If it's close to or actually zero, then maybe it's a strawman.

It's not zero. The numbers are pretty big:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment-resistant_depression...

Treatment-resistance is relatively common in cases of Major Depressive Disorder. Rates of total remission following antidepressant treatment are only 50.4%. In cases of depression treated by a primary-care physician, 32% of patients partially responded to treatment and 45% did not respond at all.

I'm not advocating withholding help from any of them. It's more of a philosophical quandary.

If you believe (as I do) that the universe is indifferent to human suffering, that life has no greater purpose beyond this one life, and that minimizing human suffering is worthwhile; then the idea of forcing someone to live a life of pain bothers me. And at the same time, the idea of a suicide increasing the suffering of those left behind also bothers me.

It's probably impossible to avoid this degenerating into a religious debate, but those are my thoughts.

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#147

Post by rjurney »

tptacek wrote: post #17
rjurney wrote: post #14

It is unfortunate that stigma around mental illness causes most people to view psychiatric hospitals as places to avoid at all cost, as they have a stigma so terrible going to one is like dying multiple deaths. After that you're 'legally' crazy (whatever the fuck that means)! In fact, if you need one, if you are severely depressed or hallucinating, a hospital is exactly the place for you. You will most likely love it…

I wish this were the case, but "vacation for the mind" is not a good description for the hospitalizations I've been a party to (and have had to work to get people out of). Hospitalization is better than physical harm and is an appropriate response to an acute crisis, but our acute mental health care system in the US is very problematic. I think it's important to be clear that there are interventions that work that pr…

Partial hospitalization would be way preferable, but that generally requires more engagement on the part of the depressed than "show up and say you're gonna kill yourself."

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#148

Post by Alex3917 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #92
Alex3917 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research seems to show that most people who don't take SSRIs recover from a bout of depression in about two years. If you take SSRIs then you partially recover after a few weeks, but the underlying problem doesn't resolve. https://smile.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatri...

That link doesn't seem to show me any research, just a pop-science book for sale?

The files are inside the computer.

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#149

Post by rjurney »

rjpr wrote: post #21
rjurney wrote: post #14

It is unfortunate that stigma around mental illness causes most people to view psychiatric hospitals as places to avoid at all cost, as they have a stigma so terrible going to one is like dying multiple deaths. After that you're 'legally' crazy (whatever the fuck that means)! In fact, if you need one, if you are severely depressed or hallucinating, a hospital is exactly the place for you. You will most likely love it…

Personally I'd avoid them at all costs due to the loss of control. You can't just decide "I'm done" or "I don't like it here", you getting released is at the discretion of people that you don't even know.

What if you need the help? If you're severely depressed or hallucinating, by definition you can't care for yourself.

Re: What to Do When a Loved One Is Severely Depressed

#150

Post by rjurney »

tptacek wrote: post #104
soared wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that its /rarely/ not in your control. I'm unable to find numbers, but I find it hard to believe that any significant amount of people's requests to leave are taken to court.

I've never seen it be in someone's control, in the sense that they were able to say "this isn't working for me, I'd like to leave now" and then were allowed to leave. I've also never seen it go all the way to court; rather, there's a statutory period of time after a voluntary admission where you have to either be released or taken to court, and that period is something on the order of an entire business week. The pat…

I've seen multiple people dislike it there, and walk out. Unless you are committed, you can leave at any time. You sound clinically paranoid.
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