Depression.

This is a bit of a rant....sorry. Spawned by Robin Williams' suicide.

I am just so sick of the people who are opining in the media, on Facebook, over twitter, other forums, that he should just have "gotten over" his depression and "look what he did to his family" and all the rest of it.

If you think that people with clinical depression "should just get over it", you really don't understand depression at all. If any of us know others who are hurting, there are plenty of ways to help. A stern lecture on 'lightening up and feeling better", however, isn't one of them.

Having suffered from a period of depression a few years ago, I am very well aware of how debilitating and absolutely soul sucking it can be. I also know how well I presented to outsiders, in spite of it. It was, luckily for me, situational, and resolved when I was finally able to change my circumstances. Those who became aware of it, after the fact, were shocked that I was suffering. Yes, it's very different to clinical depression in some regards, but shockingly similar in others, and both end up draining the life out of you if not treated. In Robin's case that, sadly, was literal. In mine, luckily for me, it wasn't, though it could have been had some things not changed.

I heard the lectures to "buck up," and "quit being so down," and "look at all you have," etc., from the one or two people who knew, but was powerless and incapable of changing, emotionally at least. Folks know me as a positive person, but many of them also knew me back when I was so torn and desolate and broken. They knew me, but didn't know that. Not their fault. Virtually no one did, that's how insidious depression can be. I was passively suicidal, and if things hadn't changed when they did, I can tell you with certainty that I would have become actively so, and people would have been shocked because it would have seemed so out of the blue.

One of the critical issues with depression - and anxiety for that matter - is that above a certain (often) relatively low threshold, it doesn't really matter whether it's situation or transient, it doesn't FEEL situational or transient to the person experiencing it and that can be all it takes to become overwhelmed. True, some people with recurrent depression and anxiety get some relief knowing that this has happened before and that it eventually goes away. However, that is certainly not the case for many folks and, even in those for whom there is some relief in that, it's foolhardy to assume they can always muster that perspective in the midst of an episode.

All that is just to say that depression is a dangerous, insidious and malevolent disease, not to be discounted or brushed aside as just a phase that you'll get over or grow out of. Unless something changes, you won't, with potentially disastrous results.

 

Sad way depression can take over a person. My DIL worked at group home. She passed away 5 years ago. Even back then-had dropped a lot of funding. And Kids said had tried to kill them self at age of 5.They did not know why. Did not care if they came from rich or poor homes..

 

Been there, still doing that!
I wish they had found a better name for the illness. People hear the word and equate it with the sort of feelings one gets on the death of a loved one for example. Try explaining that it has nothing to do with sadness. It is like trying to explain colour to a person who was born blind.
"How could he do that? The sufferer asks the question the other way, How could he NOT do that?"

 

I was diagnosed with depression and when I say something about it I'm usually told I don't need medicine I just need to get over it. *I have to because my depression tends to have the effect of me forgetting EVERYTHING*

 

I don't know what to say. :'( Glad to know I'm not the only one who has suffered from this nasty disease.
My poor husband is suffering right now and it breaks my heart. If you've never been there, be thankful and don't cast stones. I am so tired of hearing "how good I have it" "could always be worse" yadda yadda yadda.
Ronni, you said it beautifully

 

I was diagnosed with clinical depression when I was young. I dont need meds right now (at least, not for my mood...would they help my memory??) though. I did attempt suicide some years ago so I understand how it is to feel that nothing in the world can help you.

Have any of you seen Cloud Atlas? One of the characters says
"People pontificate suicide is a coward's act. Couldn't be further from the truth. Suicide takes tremendous courage."

 

Ronni, This is a perfect description of depression.

TheBip, I totally agree with that.

If someone has short term depression the "officials" try to bide time till the emotion passes. If someone suffers from long term depression, it can be endlessly agonizing. My daughter felt like that for 25 years. Nothing helped. The feeling was always there.

That's too much suffering. Personally I think suicide if frowded upon by society because of the emotions of people who are left behind.

That was me. I didn't want to lose my daughter but now I see that she doesn't have that feeling of sadness anymore. After 25 years. No more agony for her.

There is such a lack of understanding on this subject. I don't usually get involved in these talks but no one should be critical if they have not experienced this.....long term.

 

I was talking with Doctor I clean for. Said there is even more attempts-then you can believe. Do not keep them in hospital long enough. Mental health places closing. And needs increasing. And no one to check to see if taking medicine. You hear":Off Their meds. Too Often"

 

This isn't original, I found it while reading about Williams death. I think it sums things up quite well.

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”

I also found these. I think they give one of the best descriptions of clinical depression that I've ever seen.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2 ... ssion.html

and

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2 ... t-two.html

 

SO this.

There is a point, one thankfully that I never quite reached though I skirted the edges of it very closely, where dying becomes more appealing than living..."appealing" only in the sense that it's the lesser of two evils than continuing to live. It's a choice that is virtually impossible to understand if you've never been in so much emotional pain that you'd do ANYTHING to not feel it anymore. Physical pain, from what I understand, can evoke similar feelings.

It's not that you're not scared of dying, but that the alternative, that of living, just becomes unbearable and unendurable. And nothing, not one's kids, spouse, family...nothing is enough any more to anchor you to this life that is nothing but pain. So the choice to die, however frightening that is, finally and irrevocably becomes more confront-able, more endurable, and less painful, than continuing to live.

Think about that. Think about the immeasurable amount of harrowing pain a person must be feeling to find death, that irrevocable thing that we spend inordinate amounts of time and money doing everything in our power to avoid, to stave off, to force away, THAT becomes a better choice than continuing to live.

No amount of counseling, drug therapy, or love of one's family (or in William's case, the less personal love and adulation of millions of fans) can possibly outweigh the pain of living.

The sadness in that is ineffable.

 

Not every depression medicine is "good" for all people. A family member had 1 dose of a popular medicine, and had recurring adverse affects for well over a year before she committed suicide. Apparently, she had a 2d breakdown that no one noticed in time. She was on other meds, but apparently they did her no good either. Most medicines have or can have serious side affects, or allergic reactions..

 

I believe anti-depressants have their place, and when my addict son was self-medicating with all manner of drugs, I was dogged in my attempts to get him to a doctor and get him on some sort of anti-depressant, because I believed he would benefit enormously.

On the other hand, I also believe anti-depressants are way over-used, and also used inappropriately. When I was so severely depressed for example, given its situational genesis, had I been medicated I might have been less inclined to take the steps necessary to remove myself from the environment and the person causing me such pain. I can't know that after the fact, obviously, but being able to tolerate my circumstances more, having them affect me less through the effects of meds might have allowed a further endurance of the circumstances.....the last thing I needed!

I have clients too, who take anti-depressants because their lives are so "hard." Obviously I can't know their pain, but their own descriptions of the hardships they must endure in their lives are certainly not anything I would consider difficult to endure. I'm not judging here, though it sounds like it. I'm just trying to impart the differences in circumstances that make it hard for me to understand why a physician would dispense anti-depression meds to someone who is upset over rich people issues.....being slighted at the Country Club, being 10 pounds overweight, the botox or other face work not looking like they wanted it to etc. These are actual examples of clients who have been prescribed anti-D meds based on what they told their physicians.

I believe THAT kind of thing is a misuse of the medication, and is symptomatic of a class problem that mistakes discontent with depression.

Sorry, another rant I'm just on a roll, apparently.

 

Ronni--I agree with you to some degree. I think some people turn too readily for a pill bottle rather than taking harder but more effective steps to treat their ills. Most of the things in life worth having require work & sustained effort. Most of the 'quick fixes' are illusory at best, and traps at worst.

However, I have personally known several women in difficult home situations who were so depressed and downtrodden that they blamed themselves for their situation. Sometimes medication helps a person see things more clearly & be able to take action on their own behalf.

 

This is really what I was ranting about most of all. I see it so often. Someone reaches for a pill bottle rather doing the actual work necessary to fix what's broken.

This was me. For the longest time I was convinced I was uneducated, illiterate, lacking social skills, not worth anyone's time. When you're told that repeatedly, in a variety of ways, over a 30 year period, you tend to start to believe it.

It was completely by accident that I stumbled across a verbal abuse site on the internet. I was looking for something that would help me "fix" my marriage....or more properly fix myself, so that I could fix my marriage and stop doing all these wrong and awful things that caused my husband such anger. :-?

There were links I just kept following, and ended up on this forum for verbally abused women. I was shocked beyond belief!!! I had NO idea that so many people were suffering the same kinds of things I was! It was even MORE shocking to see it, right there in writing over and over and over again, THAT IS WASN'T MY FAULT!!!!

I can't even begin to describe the revelatory nature of that, how that piece of information just exploded into my little world, how fundamentally and viscerally it hit me. That was the start, the turning point, the catalyst for me to begin to dig my way out of the bottomless pit I was in. It took 5 more years before I finally left, but they were 5 years of education and learning and finding strength that I didn't know Ihad to claw my way out.

THAT'S what made me see clearly. That's what propelled me forward, and the continuing connection with those on that forum who were so amazingly supportive and helpful is what gave me the strength and courage to take action, and to finally leave.

It was 1999 when I realized I was being systematically verbally, emotionally and mentally abused. 2004 before I left. I made some lifelong friends on that forum, folks I'm still in contact with to this very day, though no longer on that particular forum. I started my own, so that we could continue to stay in touch. We're having a reunion here as a matter of fact, in October, where we'll all get to hang out and visit and see how much the kids and/or grandkids have grown. I can't wait!!

Wow, I really veered off topic, didn't I? I guess the only point I was trying to make is that sometimes you DO need help to overcome, but that it doesn't always have to be medication. In my case it was just reaching out to like-minded people, and realizing I wasn't alone.