[efb]

Originally Posted by Guill

Thanks OP, great read, great insight into something, TBH, i don't understand.


Ah response: Grow a pair!

4 balls would look funny

[Local-womanizer]

Originally Posted by Jimoslimos

- What are you depressed about? You have a good job/family/etc

Thankfully I don't suffer from depression and I agree with many on here that it is subjective.

Sometimes when I feel a bit down,which is normal, I just think that yea,I have good friends, family and a job I enjoy going too.

These things probably help a lot when it comes to getting over a bout of depression,simply because of the support and understanding (family and friends) available to a person to keeping busy in a happy environment which takes your mind off things even for a brief time (a job)

I'm not saying these are a reason not to suffer from it but can help a person deal with it to a certain degree.

[Jimoslimos]

Image embedding doesn't work but anyway
http://memegenerator.net/cache/insta...5/12191324.jpg

[Overheal]

Very reflective post DeV. I've had my own bouts and posted about them on the site previously, not that I think I wish to revisit them right here. It's always very good to read these especially if you are a regular sufferer of depression (especially in the winter!) - acts as a good reminder to self-diagnose yourself for the telltale signs. I have a bedroom floor index myself, based on a ratio between 0 and 1 of how much of my floor I can see visibly and how much is obscured by random clutter or laundry.

[im invisible]

Originally Posted by Overheal

I have a bedroom floor index myself, based on a ratio between 0 and 1 of how much of my floor I can see visibly and how much is obscured by random clutter or laundry.

jesus, going by that i must be worse than i thought so...

Ah, we'll have it tidy for christmas

[Insect Overlord]

**Warning!** Bit of a long post coming up here! I write far too freely in the middle of the night.

I've never had a formal "diagnosis" of depression, but at least one counsellor has recognised the symptoms in me and I've known what it's like to spend months at a time feeling hopeless, direction-less, purposeless. I've spent nights lying awake in bed thinking about suicide. That's not to say that I've ever considered killing myself. But, it's a sign of very unhealthy thinking when you're quietly comparing and contrasting methods.

My story? Nothing extraordinary. Bullied for a long time in primary school. Reached the top and had to stop, but then moved on to secondary and once again it was bothering me. Found it hard to make friends, both because I was an awkward, temperamental individual and because people were actively warning others to avoid me. I got in fights after school and never fought back, had my locker broken into, books stolen, bike vandalised, that kind of thing, for the first two and a half years in that school.

I started coming into my own in the build-up to the Junior Cert. I stood up in an English class one day and read a short essay about how the loneliest time in my life was when I was bullied. I think that started the process anyway. I know I started making a lot more friends after that, and I'm still close to most of them now, ~8 years on. Since then it's been a series of highs and lows. Not quite bi-polar (the highs and lows tend to last too long for that) but a bit like the biblical metaphor of times of plenty and times of little.

Intense relationships bringing out the best in me, bad break-ups sending me crashing again. Failing to prepare for exams, projects, deadlines. Getting anxious and doing everything at the last minute. Not really caring about consequences. Not taking enough risks, as opposed to taking too many. Putting too much energy into side-projects when I should have focussed on my degree/MA. Spending hours on the Internet when I should be asleep, working, shopping, cooking, exercising, anything! Being stoic about trivial things instead of just getting them done. Torturing myself with memories of when I've screwed up in the past. Convincing myself that there's no fairness in the world.

And on the other side of the coin, I've learned to play an instrument. I've sung on stage with a band and performed in a few pubs to entertain friends. I've published poetry. I do martial arts/self-defence to a fairly high level. I'm respected locally as a very reliable goalkeeper, and right now I'm in the best shape of my life. I got my degree, even though I hated the time I spent doing it and ended up in counselling twice. I run an Irish language discussion forum and moderate some great forums here on Boards and have a decent little following for my blog. I've done the Gatekeeper and the ASIST suicide awareness and prevention courses and educated myself about mental health in general so I can help myself and so I can offer to be there for others.

Talking about my life on-line has always helped. The year I spent modding the Clearasil & Hormones forum brought me close to an incredible group of exceptional young people. Most of them have stopped posting in that forum now, but we all helped each other through some really bad times. It didn't matter that some people suffered more than others. There was just an acceptance and an understanding and an empathy in that group that made the forum a magical little corner of the Internet. We are the generation who knows it's okay to talk and to share and to be honest. And all of that is possible because of this marvellous resource the OP has been building since the late 1990s.

DeV, a million thanks for this platform and for encouraging people to use it for good, and for leading by example yourself. It'll be great to have this thread to look back on the next time I go through a dark spell.

[Snowie]

The other day some one said to me, they need to either turn the voltage up or down... I think there person was trying, to say Im nuts or crazy maybe even immature.

But I think people confuse being random with being a bit mad really, I'm not, I suffered for 20 years of being well tbh pretty damm miserable, and its fine, Ive been bullied, Ive been singled out bye groups of people. I've had people stab my back I've had people gang up on me.. Ive had people mentally **** with me physically beat me. Ive had it all.


So for a long time id say I've been depressed these days err not so much. But to a degree Im past the depression I'm trying to get over anger, anger at the people who singled me out ho hit me who hurt me for no reason what so ever...even a member Of family which is awful at times because I feel guilty.
Getting over it slowly.. It takes time.


But being honest, depression is not a glum feeling. Its fvcking hell. its like standing in the worlds biggest airport, with thousands of people walking around they don't really see you, because your completely out of faze with every one else, they don't notice your down or in the middle of your chest there's a black hole which is sucking any good feeling you have out of you.

But people this is were theres a difference people rant mind readers if i had a penny for every time some ones asked me am I alright and not been able to talk about it because I was shy or embarrassed.

It's all well and good promoting and trying to defend depression, but I'm sorry when your depressed your usually very selfish and only think about your self. but some times you don't know why. Some one said it to me, Well actually she said I think you have no self confidence, no self eseatem no value to your self or to any one, Finishing off with i think you suffer from depression.


That person is the reason I'm able to write this. Id love to point out I love to hate her Im aloud.

3 weeks later i was in the most aggressive therapy sessions you could imagine man I kicked the flying fvck out of that black hole. but

Being honest these days all I want in life is to be happy and sod any one who trys to stop that telling me i gotta be successful, I just wanna be happy and when Im taking pictures I am. When Im being creative, I see the satisfaction and feel the satisfaction in my life that I never and I've only been taking photos a year and I've been told I've got potential My confidence is at an all time high.

Im finishing of on a positive note.

The only person who can change things is you and it takes work if your sick of it you the anger of being pissed of feeling like **** as the strength to deal with it because people who suffer from it. beat it with large sticks.

[Wibbs]

Great opening post and great and welcome thread.

I'd certainly agree with DeV on the depression/intelligence angle. IMHO and IME "thinkers" get it more and more often than less bright people, or bright people who are quite narrow in their focus. Of the cleverest people I know, I honestly can't think of one who didn't get it to some degree or other. Not necessarily requiring treatment, often situational triggered and for the majority thankfully temporary but they got more than a case of the "blues" that's for sure. Stands to reason. The more one sees the world, the more likely one also sees much of the BS of it. Objectively speaking the BS tends to outweigh the good stuff.

Originally Posted by DeVore

"I'm a basketcase, ****ed up and if I tell people they will try to kill me with fire."
1 in 4 suffer depression. At those odds if you tell two people, you are almost 50/50 to be talking to another sufferer. It's means almost every family has a member who is hit by it. It means everyone knows someone who has a mental health problem, probably several people.
You aren't frankenstein's monster, they aren't going to chase you out of the village with torches.
You aren't a freak. Ok maybe you ARE a freak, I dunno. but if you are, its not because of your mental health issue.

This + 1000. It's incredibly common. People who talk about their own "black dog", whether that be a temporary encounter in their past or an ongoing issue in their lives less so, but thankfully that's changing.

[efb]

Sleepless night- decided to head to my doc now

[DeVore]

Insect Overlord, your early life mirrors mine very closely!

Snowie, if the black hole has balls, I hope you burst them Its good to hear therapy has you back to yourself and you are happy and focused.

Depression can make people seem to be right selfish bastards sometimes. And sometimes thats true but sometimes its an interpretation of their actions by people who are trying to make sense of them. Like the person earlier on who said their boyfriend broke up with them.... well that sounds like he simply couldn't see a future for the relationship, many people who suffer depression feel like that, nothing could possible come from X and its dooooooomed to failure so why bother.


Finally, great work Tom, you have something you want everyone to see and read.... so 5am on a Sunday morning is a GREAT time to post it.
Oh, im smart alright, reaaaaal smart lol

DeV.

[KKkitty]

I suffer from anxiety and even though it's no laughing matter I've done so many irrational things cos of anxiety. I can't have a pain without thinking something is wrong. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. I feel like a basket case most of the time.

[44leto]

LOL
A great OP, I was about to get on my high horse and write a big post challenging the thread title.

I use to think it was a fake illness till I got a serious bout of it. It was like being lost in the middle of an endless dark forest and paralysed from the neck up.

I got past mine, the drugs helped a lot and gave me some motivation with encouragement from a family member who does triathlons. So I trained and did a sprint triathlon, the training discipline helped and gave me a purpose, I did the triathlon and in no-way a world beating time, but I completed it. I have been lightly exercising since and the darkness hasn't returned.

So contrary to the OP, in a way, I did walk it off and I keep it at bay that way.

[cloud493]

I was diagnosed with depression, and Almost certainly bipolar, but Im not taking anything anymore. The funny thing is, I've never met anyone in real life who calls it depression. I don't call it depression. Without going in to specifics, since I already have in C&H, bad past. Lost of bad things.


Please, talk to someone. I, not very long ago, March it was, after 7 years of self injury, decided I couldn't take it anymore, and went further than I'd normally go, nearly spilt my arm open apparently. It was so stupid, and the scars dont fade. Please, talk to someone. It's only a few words to the right person.

[DeVore]

Leto, each person finds their own coping mechanisms. I'm very similar to you exercise works for me. It doesnt work for everyone though, so each person needs to find their path to the surface.

For me, hurtling down a mountain on a snowboard works wonders. you simply dont have the time or desire to be anything but 100% focused. I find it very hard to have that black ambivalence when I'm shredding
But thats also temporary... what really works for me is fitness. When I'm training and really working myself to exhaustion there is a blanket of peace that comes and a few weeks of that and I stop feeling like I'm driving myself around from 6 foot behind myself. I feel like I really inhabit my body. (sorry, its a very hard to describe the feeling).

Efp, if thats the only thing that comes from this thread, I've succeeded. Good luck mate, like your said if we all stick together and realise just how many of us there are, we'll never be alone.

DeV.

[Seachmall]

I spoke to a counselor a few years ago who he mentioned he thought I was suffering depression however taking into account I can only remember having "depressive episodes" twice in my 20 odd years and a dozen or so of much lighter(?) "episodes" does this really count as depression? Surely it's too sparse to consider it depression?

Is this simply a case of a counselor jumping to conclusions (only had a handful of sessions with him) or can depression be that sparse?