Depression

[The Moonster]

I, personally, have to find the humour in my own mental health issues. If I can do that, it's not a threat to me. How can something I can laugh at be frightening?

Spot on.

[Lisa Cuddy]

Spot on.

I've spoken with several people with the same viewpoint as me, that we just find it helpful to laugh at some frankly stupid things we've thought, said and done while in the midst of dark episodes. It's also useful for demonstrating just how far we've come in moving on. I appreciate that it's not a viable coping mechanism for everyone but should it mean that we aren't able to express things in such a way for fear of upsetting others? It's our form of catharsis and it helps us. I don't know anyone who would deny another person their own coping tools.

[DA Baracus]

So it appears I’ve been revelling in numbness for the past few months. I’ve been feeling fairly decent, but due to events at the weekend, it’s struck me that it’s because I managed to turn off just about all feelings and emotions without even really knowing it. I’ve been coasting and just existing, not living really.

So anyway, shit went down at the weekend. Good shit though. And it exposed feelings and emotions that I pretty much forgot I had. I found myself sharing shit I’ve never shared with anyone.

The issue however is not knowing where things stand. Yesterday I felt anxiety like I haven’t felt in fucking YEARS. To use a shit metaphor, it was like I was using my eyes for the first time, and it hurt, like a raw nerve being exposed. I didn’t know how to handle such feelings. I felt a bit like a mentalist. I utterly lost my appetite, was exhausted (nearly fell asleep at work multiple times) and had zero concentration (I often found myself just staring and had to shake myself back to alertness). I’m still struggling a bit, but feeling quite a bit better than yesterday.

I really feel like I’m being a bit of a titty baby, but I haven’t had to deal with such things in years. The thing is, this is going to a really big deal. I’m sick of running away (I’ve moved 14 since I left for uni at 17, which I fucked up of course, I’m on my 31^st job), sick of being lonely, sick of having no direction and sick of just existing,. Whatever happens, shit is going to change.

I’m going to speak to her at some point this week to see how things stand. Either it goes well and I can being to repair my life, or it goes not so bad in which case I’ll be done with Dundee and be fucking off ASAP to sort my life out elsewhere.

I realise this comes across as quite fucking ridiculous (and makes me sound like a needy teenage girl) and doesn’t sound like a major problem (oh, guy likes girl and shit happens, whoopee fucking do!), but it’s more than that. It has been sort of a wake up call. It’s like I’ve been sleepwalking through life and this has woken me up. It’s the fucking red pill. I know this sounds pretty stupid and pretty fucked up, but this is a game changer.

I’m not explaining this well. Apologies for that. This does read a bit like the ramblings of a psycho, and given that I’ve posted exerts from American Psycho on another thread, you could be forgiven for thinking that I’m a bit of tosser with the emotion maturity of an 8 year old. It’s laughable how out of touch with that emotional side of myself I am and how comically incapable I am of dealing with it. This has been a bit of a shock to my system, almost like I’ve defibrillated my soul.

On a side note, and to try and lighten things up, I recently found out that when I first joined my current workplace, people thought I was a fucking nutter who was possibly a serial killer. Of course I’m now deeply popular with my colleagues* and an established office comedian**, but there are still jokes made about me killing folk. When I first started I was feeling really terrible (my gran had just died, my brain thought it would a good time to attack me with a particularly nasty bout of depression, I was starting a new job which I realised within a week I didn’t like) so it must not have reflected well. It took me a couple of months to really start speaking to folk and for them to speak to me.

Fin.

*We get on pretty decent now

**I talk total pish that sometime gets a laugh

[Homer Thompson]

It's not in any worse taste than the dead pool threads, the Madelaine McCann kidnapping thread, the Clutha Bar thread etc etc

Fantastic whataboutery there. I expected better from you Pete

I understand your reasoning for that but surely, if that's the case, a thread wishing for famous people to die in order to score points is bad taste and therefore, not suitable either?

There was a thread a few years back where people discussed the ways in which they would like to die and people mentioned things like a hail of bullets and being loaded up on painkillers. I don't remember that being considered poor taste. The only real difference is that one specifically mentioned suicide, the other didn't in the thread title but it was contained within the comments on it.

I'll discuss the Dead Pool thread with the other mods and see what they think. I dont see them as being the same thing, to be honest.

I cant really comment on a thread from a few years ago that I didnt see.

[Sweet Pete]

Fantastic whataboutery there. I expected better from you Pete

I'll discuss the Dead Pool thread with the other mods and see what they think. I dont see them as being the same thing, to be honest.

I cant really comment on a thread from a few years ago that I didnt see.

It's not whataboutery, it's a valid comparison. Both the suicide thread and the McCann thread (for example) make lighthearted reference to difficult subjects. Why, therefore, is one more passe than the other? The Australian terror thread recently is another example of a thread wherein death has been discussed in a lighthearted fashion. I simply don't see why the topic of suicide is so off putting for people. If anything, its very seriousness is why we should be discussing it and why it should be just as valid for humour as any other difficult topic. There is no whataboutery in any of what I've said. In fact, the only whataboutery is your refusal to address my point.

Listen, I don't want to take the depression thread off track any further, the only reason I commented in here at all was that I took exception to Scotfree's comment. I appreciate that this thread serves as a sounding board and support group and totally respect that, so with that in mind I'd suggest that this discussion about the closed thread be moved elsewhere as my thread and this one are totally unrelated.

[FuzzyAffro]

If you have depression and anxiety Id question if you "have your health". Both are illnesses that impact on your health.

They do but in a superficial way. Your body isn't actually ill, like if you had cancer or were disabled.

You can fix your head or learn to live with it, you can't do that with physical ailments or illnesses that are serious.

I basically had a health scare, turned out I was fine, but it made me realise all this things I had been worrying about and wrestling with all my life didn't matter in the slightest, only my health did.

So I have been off everything since then,didn't need them anymore.

[Homer Thompson]

It's not whataboutery, it's a valid comparison. Both the suicide thread and the McCann thread (for example) make lighthearted reference to difficult subjects. Why, therefore, is one more passe than the other? The Australian terror thread recently is another example of a thread wherein death has been discussed in a lighthearted fashion. I simply don't see why the topic of suicide is so off putting for people. If anything, its very seriousness is why we should be discussing it and why it should be just as valid for humour as any other difficult topic. There is no whataboutery in any of what I've said. In fact, the only whataboutery is your refusal to address my point.

Listen, I don't want to take the depression thread off track any further, the only reason I commented in here at all was that I took exception to Scotfree's comment. I appreciate that this thread serves as a sounding board and support group and totally respect that, so with that in mind I'd suggest that this discussion about the closed thread be moved elsewhere as my thread and this one are totally unrelated.

If you seriously think that then theres nothing further to discuss

[SweeperDee]

They do but in a superficial way. Your body isn't actually ill, like if you had cancer or were disabled.

You can fix your head or learn to live with it, you can't do that with physical ailments or illnesses that are serious.

I basically had a health scare, turned out I was fine, but it made me realise all this things I had been worrying about and wrestling with all my life didn't matter in the slightest, only my health did.

So I have been off everything since then,didn't need them anymore.

Superficial? You do realise that the actual illness of depression can seriously impact your physiology? I'm beginning to think you're taking the mickey.

[NotThePars]

They do but in a superficial way. Your body isn't actually ill, like if you had cancer or were disabled.

You can fix your head or learn to live with it, you can't do that with physical ailments or illnesses that are serious.

I basically had a health scare, turned out I was fine, but it made me realise all this things I had been worrying about and wrestling with all my life didn't matter in the slightest, only my health did.

So I have been off everything since then,didn't need them anymore.

lol okay

[The Moonster]

Superficial? You do realise that the actual illness of depression can seriously impact your physiology? I'm beginning to think you're taking the mickey.

Whilst I don't agree with what he's saying, mainly because I witnessed my own health deteriorate last year when I was going through the worst of my depression - I lost weight (which isn't good for someone who was already under weight) and my teeth are now in pretty bad shape, which makes me inclined to think that he's wrong but if he's no longer taking any drugs for his depression and has learned to deal with it by thinking in that manner then fair play to him.

He did say it may not apply to everyone, only that he found things easier when he changed his thought process and I can understand that.

[FuzzyAffro]

Superficial? You do realise that the actual illness of depression can seriously impact your physiology? I'm beginning to think you're taking the mickey.

No it can't, it can have superficial affects largely related to lifestyle. I've been depressed more than half my life you're not going to be educating me here. All you have done is underlined my point, you can't get really seriously ill from depression, and if you are really seriously ill it puts your depression into context. Or if you think you are as in my case.

Edit to add - really seriously ill physically, you are obviously ill mentally if you are depressed. And to suggest the two are related is an insult to people who really are very ill physically.

Edited March 10, 2015 by FuzzyAffro

[DA Baracus]

No it can't, it can have superficial affects largely related to lifestyle. I've been depressed more than half my life you're not going to be educating me here. All you have done is underlined my point, you can't get really seriously ill from depression, and if you are really seriously ill it puts your depression into context. Or if you think you are as in my case.

Edit to add - really seriously ill physically, you are obviously ill mentally if you are depressed. And to suggest the two are related is an insult to people who really are very ill physically.

I think you're making the mistake of applying your situation and experiences to everyone else. Depression affects people in different ways.

[FuzzyAffro]

It does but never in the history of the world has it made someone seriously physically ill. That's my point.

[Lisa Cuddy]

It does but never in the history of the world has it made someone seriously physically ill. That's my point.

It has and does very often in a wide variety of ways.

[FuzzyAffro]

No it hasn't that's literally impossible. Lifestyle issues associated with it do, as I said in my first post, depression itself cannot possibly make you seriously physically ill.

[Lisa Cuddy]

No it hasn't that's literally impossible. Lifestyle issues associated with it do, as I said in my first post, depression itself cannot possibly make you seriously physically ill.

We'll have to agree to disagree then but my professional experience is that you are wrong. You're correct, however, that lifestyle issues certainly play a big part but that's not the sole contributor to poor physical health as a result of depression.

[Sweet Pete]

I think this guy's on the wind up.

[FuzzyAffro]

We'll have to agree to disagree then but my professional experience is that you are wrong. You're correct, however, that lifestyle issues certainly play a big part but that's not the sole contributor to poor physical health as a result of depression.

Which serious illnesses ddoes depression cause?

[RH33]

Depression itself is a serious illness.

[Lisa Cuddy]

Which serious illnesses ddoes depression cause?

It's not a case of specific illnesses being caused by depression, it's far more complex. Consider the physiology involved. Brain function is altered in depression which can impact on any and all of the processes controlled by the brain. Heart, lung, hormone, liver, kidney, you name it, it can be affected by the changes in depression.