some thoughts on depression..

[ghost]

carried over from the old board:

thoughts on depression..
« Thread Started on Nov 16, 2006, 11:05am »

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am i the only one who notices that when it comes to mental illness oprah never really gets it at all?

i don't watch her show often.. but i did when brooke shields was on talking about her post partum depression.. and again the other day on the subject of a man who became so depressed he killed his twin daughters in a psychotic state of depersonalization.. oprah was really tough.. she does not understand mental illness or depression..

maybe this sounds odd, maybe most people don't.. it's just hard for me because my entire life has been dealing with my family's mental illness and depression.. everything from alcoholism, ocd, and agoraphobia to my sister's chronic paranoid schiophrenia.. so yes.. it is my world.. it is just all so familiar i'm afraid..

anyway, my real point is.. everyone knows how i will break into a rant over drs and psychs and the drug companies over selling antidepressants and such.. i mean every commercial break on tv nowadays is for a drug ad of some sort.. and they practically throw them at me when i go to the drs and try to 'just say no'..


so although this man described honestly in full detail exactly the circumstances of his illness and what occurred.. an otherwise perfectly good father of 5, a banker, happily married.. no one could understand how his wife forgave him and visited him prison.. and the moment she mentioned he had just started a new antidepressant that week.. the subject was changed.. closed.. commercial break.. over.
so i was sorta pissed off observing that..

but then who comes along and surprises me entirely but a young neuro psychiatrist to explain some things about depression.. he not only did not push drugs! ! ! but said we should Not simply rely on them because they are not enough.. and focused instead on 3 major symptoms to keep in mind as a loved one of someone with depression: they are Hopelessness, Isolation and Alienation..
(my middle names!!!)

he said faith is so important because it is a direct line to Hope.. and hopelessness is the worst (don't we know it..) and can lead the person to look for a 'resolution' which can mean suicide, etc..

isolation breaks the lines of support that bolster the hope and comfort from the person.. when you sense a person withdrawing from you at least see that they are getting a connection with someone else.. isolation kills.

alienation always occurs before someone severely depressed commits an act of harm.. because they have to be disconnected/detached from feelings of deep caring to do what they do..

alienation is my biggest fear of all.. i feel it always towards the humans in general.. but i have a small inner circle of my 2 guys and 7 kitties... i have at one point in my life had the 'bad' kind of depression with ongoing 'intrusive thoughts' of suicide along with this awful detachment of caring.. it was caused by a seriously adverse reaction to a simple stomach medication that slowed my metabolism terribly.. that year was a black hole in my life.. i lost my son's 8th bday, christmas.. i remember my husband dragging me along to get the tree.. all i remember is i got a stupid rock in my moccassins from the gravel.. and they propped me up to watch them decorate the tree.. that horrible detachment.. when you lose caring.. of course you lose all hope because nothing matters then.

anyway.. what he said was so important.. i will always remember these things as the 'big 3' .. thank goodness when someone remembers that this is a human problem and to deal with it in a human way..
ghost


p.s. the new Wyeth commercials state NIMH's latest research statistics on their most recent ad for the latest greatest..
"over 70% of people taking antidepressant medication are still depressed.." ! ! !

placebos fared so much better!! hell, i'll take the sugar pills!!!


i rest my case!!!!


ghost

[littlemitch]

Hi ghost,

Hope things are well with you today. I thought I would just add my hubby and my experience re: meds. My hubby has been told he has AD by our current therapist who has been an expert in this field for many years. This diagnosis made sense of many symptoms he has had his whole life. Since we married when I was 19, that has meant most of my life too! We are very much into natural healing and don't go to DRs much. We have tried over our life to find natural cures to his depression. We have seen 2 different naturopaths about it at different times and have tried the usual St. John's wort, exercise, sleep, tried positive thinking, David Burns books, etc. The past 4 years the stress level in our life ramped up a huge amount due to work and caring for elderly parents and other things. To make a long story short - my husband became extremely depressed, obsessive, abandon phobic and started associating with a person who saw his vulnerability and has been using, abusing and manipulating him since (that description came from our therapist who read about 100 emails between my hubby and this woman. The therapist said she could tell by these communications and our descriptions of her that she is a sociopath). This nightmare has put us through HELL for about 2.5 years. Anyway- my husband has been trying to understand his emotions and addiction for this person. He feels it was like an obsessive addiction that he had no control over. He did not want to be with her in a real relationship - but he could barely go a day without receiving approval from her via talking to her or emailing. It reminds us of a cult or other situation when someone goes against everything they have ever believed in to be a part of something toxic and unhealthy. We are on our 2nd therapist and 4th medication. Just the past couple of weeks with an upping of the dose of Zoloft my husband says he feels that he has been set free from a demon. The intense feelings of obsession have magically gone away with the higher dose. I know they use Zoloft for OCD and it takes away those compulsions in some people. I have seen first hand how devastating bad brain chemistry is and how the right medication can make a HUGE difference. We are both kind of sitting down in shock that the solution to such a horrible obsessive addiction could be so simple. I am not letting down my guard though just in case this is temporary, or not the real solution. But it is amazing to us - especially to my husband to have these horrible compulsive invasive thoughts just gone. These have led him during the past year to horrible behavior including infidelity and pathological lying. That is another question I have for other AD sufferers.. Do any of you have terrible obsessive feelings and/or addictions? I have known him since 17 and he is now 47 and I would never have stayed with him but for the fact that I know this recent behavior is not the real him and he had become very mentally ill for some reason - maybe his age increased his problems combined with huge stress levels. With the change this medication has made in his mental state he is excited that he may have found the answer to something that has plagued him his whole life. Now with his mind starting to feel healthy, I think it will be sooooo much easier to address some of the other emotional issues that are there. When his brain was so off, he didn't care enough about anything but feeding his obsession that he would never have been able to concentrate on the emotional problems. It reminds me of a heroin addict who might not be able to get a job - until his mind and body is set free of the heroin, job training and writing resumes, etc. would be a waste of time. So focusing on that instead of cleaning him up first would be illogical. Until my husband could think straight, most of the efforts we have been putting towards dealing with emotional stuff have done nothing. It just so happened that all of the things we have tried to get him mentally "there" have not worked until we adjusted his med up. He started the drug several months ago and did notice a huge decrease in his anxiety and depression, but the obsession was still there so we finally went back to the DR again and talked about it. The DR said he was on a very low dose for someone as big as he is and doubled it.. It took about 2 weeks for the obsessions to go - then BAM, they just went. It is a miracle for us.

Hope this helps someone.

Love,
littlemitch

[ghost]

oh.. littlemitch.. what good news!
that is truly what ssris are supposed to do for a person.. and intrusive thoughts are so distressing and frightening.. i've had them at times.. thank goodness the zoloft is a good match.. i am not anti-drug as it may seem at times.. (i rant a bit about over prescribing and not making proper diagnoses..) but i can relate as my husband/bdhp (of 20 years in 2 weeks!) has a.d.d. as well as his ad issues and must take adderrol or he simply cannot function at all.. before we realized he had a.d.d. we just fought and he forgot so much it seemed crazy.. he lied all the time to cover it up and had such low self-esteem due to the incredibly low frustration tolerance he had for his own attention deficit brain.. combined with impulse control problems..!
so i know how very appropriate some of these meds can be..
and also i can understand how someone with ad could fall under the spell of a woman of the kind you describe..
my husband was under control of a very toxically shaming aunt he lived with for years.. and it was so bad and unhealthy.. but i had to really wrench him away as he seemed doomed to keep trying to earn her respect when in truth all she ever did was make him feel worse and worse and just lower than human..

i notice he always sways to an older female figure and will walk right into this kind of subserviant position..

with myself i have always 'attached' to older females in my ad.. i guess i need a mom or mentor.. but i stay connected long after it's obvious they could care less about me.. so i sympathize..


you mentioned ocd with the intrusive thoughts..
i will tell you i have had them.. only on occasion but they scared the hell outta me.. ocd runs in my family.. my sister has it very bad but i've always had more of an 'ocd personality' rather than the full blown disorder.. my son as well is this kind of personality but along with it he pulls out his hair unconsciously.. we get by without meds for it as it doesn't intrude into our lives too bad.. but if it did we would have to reconsider..

well, it's good to have you on the board..
and i wish you and your hubby the best,
ghost

[emma]

Hi littlemitch,

I'm glad you and your husband have found some relief with the zoloft.

I wanted to respond to your question about obsession. I am obsessive. I fixate on a person and never let them out of my mind. Usually none of the thoughts are positive. I analyze everthing to death until I can find a way to see the situation in a way that fits what I fear the most. I never am free of the thoughts about the person unless I am specifically engaged in something that is very demanding of my attention. And even then, I can't stay away from the thoughts long. I wake up in the middle of the night and SNAP! my mind goes right to it - no break, no rest.

I was once on lexapro but it started to make my hair fall out. I am not particularly vain, but I would rather be nuts than hairless, so I quit and am afraid to try anything else In general, I have the same sort of feeling as Ghost. I am leary of the drugs (says the self-medicator - I know, I know. I'm contradicting myself!) But I'd like to think that I'll make it without any drugs someday.

You really sound like an understanding and forgiving person. He is lucky to be with you. Hope that things continue to improve. Welcome to the site.
Emma