I remember a bit from "The Noonday Demon" where the author says the only thing that kept him from killing himself during bouts of depression was the total inability to get out of bed. And if his father hadn't come to stay with him and make sure he kept eating, he would have dehydrated and/or starved.
It's a very good book for expla>Unless you've experienced the horrid blackness of depression you can't
Having been in the pit (I call it the pit - deep and black as night) I can verify what is being said here. I've been there several times, and sometimes it even takes awhile to realize what's going on. It starts out sometimes feeling like everyone is irritating me. So I drive them away. Then the blackness comes and I realize it's depression come back again. Takes awhile to learn this. Takes another while to understand that it's not my walk with the Lord that's the problem. It's a chemical problem in my body. Then it takes a LONG while to learn how to explain to other people that this is a chemical problem, not an attitude problem. And another while before the other people will begin to 'get' what I'm saying. It's a lifetime journey. Mine is gone right now, with a small dose of medication. I pray for you Anne, and I pray for everyone here who doesn't understand. She's gonna be okay, even if right now every solution is too frightening to think about. She's gonna be okay. She is taking the right steps. Small ones. But taking them. And it requires courage and inner strength, all you have in you, to take them.
Karen, Queen of Squishies
As usual, Sunny, you have your finger right on it and have explained things beautifully. If you don't mind, I am going to save this to send to anyone else that needs a simple explanation of what is a serious and complex issue.
On Sat, 3 Oct 2009 21:23:19 -0500, onetexsun wrote (in article ):
well said Sunny.
Dearest Anne, I am so very sorry that you are having to go through this very tough illness. I'm even more sorry that you are having to deal with the mental health system in a country that barely even recognizes mental health/illness issues. You are correct in saying that we are stuck in the dark ages regarding mental health and mental illness. I have worked in Obstetrics and mental health so I can see your problem from both sides. You have gotten some very good advice from a lot of wonderful ladies here. One of the best ideas that I've read so far is the tape recorder. I can understand not taking your meds because you didn't want to pass them on to the baby through breastfeeding but that may be one thing that you just have to do since this is a very treatable illness. I don't have any advice for you as you have to do what you and your family feel is right for all of you. I do have daily prayers and hugs and good wishes for you though. I hope you can keep your faith strong and trust God to heal you. Remember, we're all here for you and love you.
Hugs, Kim
Well said, Sunny. I'm fortunate in that I've only suffered the normal, everyday depression that all of us get once in awhile, but I've seen the other in a couple of my relatives. There is a such a world of difference between "ordinary" depression and clinical depression.
Best regards, Michell > Unless you've experienced the horrid blackness of depression you can't
Thanks for taking the time to explain, Sunny.
ep
At last---common sense spoken. My point was, if help is available and the patient refuses to comply-quit complaining. As in most medical problems, some sort of compliance and vigilance is required of the patient. I wish you the best of luck in managing your problem, and no nasty-gram from here. Gen
It takes a commitment to go after help, and campaign for it. I will not go on and on here, for reasons of not wanting to get nasty-grams sent to me.
G> What a sad statement. Guess you'll just have to adapt some way. I can't
That's a very big "if." One of the problems with this illness is that there are all sorts of "buy me"/"come to my hospital" ads that say that "depression is easily treatable," and it is NOT. BTDT. The side-effects of the available medications are overwhelming for many people. It's very often a crapshoot as to which anti-depressant (or off-label uses of anti-seizure medication or whatever other junk is being off-label marketed as the depression-discovery-du-jour) is going to help any given patient. "Treatment" can be an extremely difficult process for some of us. (I ended up with PTSD after the process. This is no joke. Believe me, you don't want to have PTSD that hinders you from seeking medical treatment.)
I don't think it's a very good idea to tell somebody who needs support to "quit complaining," just because we think they aren't running their lives the way they should. When I've been through this mill, I've needed to complain and get angry as much about the so-called "treatment" as about the underlying condition. "Listen to your doctor" was about the worst advice I could get in some situations. The patient has to exercise vigilance as much about the medical advice they are receiving as they do about the underlying condition. Certainly, we ignore medical advice at our peril, but we also follow it blindly at our peril.
Depressives who don't get angry can "implode," so to speak. Let's not go into the results of such an implosion, okay? Let's just hope it doesn't ever happen to anybody again and encourage depressed people *not* to suppress their feelings. Talking is a very good treatment for depression -- talking without restraints, censorship, or criticism by uninformed, unsympathetic people.
Depression is a hot-button issue in any newsgroup when uninformed or unsympathetic opinions start surfacing. Sympathetic people like me feel they need to respond in order to support the depressed person. Flame wars sometimes ensue. I hope we don't go that route here at RCTQ.
ep
You know EP I am probably right up there with the most uninformed since thankfully the need has not come in my life or those I love. That doesn't have a lot to do with sympathy involved though. My heart breaks for the kids involved here. My biggest concern is for those that have such a need to post so personal of info in such a public way. This stuff isn't going away. The kids involved are being brought out to the public and I suppose worse case scenario is CPS showing up at your door and removing kids. I think I suggested very early on with this thread that folks that could help might please do that in a private way. Some things just don't belong where they can hurt you or come back years later to haunt your kids. That isn't specific to Anne and this issue, that is to use net posts generally. Just my opinion, ymmv. Taria
The public nature of the Internet is certainly a valid concern, but I'm afraid that ship has already sailed :-) There are scads of support groups for various issues, including sensitive and/or private ones. And they've helped a lot of people.
Furthermore, anybody who goes public on the Internet probably has left enough of a record in their "real" life that such real-life data could be accessed by anybody with a "need to know," e.g., re children.
I have also seen identities, both real and fictitious, hacked.
So one can be careful, but we can't live our lives seeking or believing we have guarantees of privacies, whether in meat life or on the Internet. IMHO, YMMV.
The desire for privacy is one reason I use several false identities on the Internet. It's too easy to google everything "Edna Pearl" ever wrote on the Internet, and some of it I wouldn't want to be public (like my tendency to swear :-) which is fairly well known to my real-life acquaintances, anyway). Of course, I can probably still be identified if somebody once to try really hard. I do recommend using false identities, though.
ep
Not only that, but people can't *see* what is wrong with you. That leads to stuff like "just snap out of it", demands that the correct faith, willpower, or "do what I tell you" will not only make it All Better, but do so by the weekend at the latest.
Those same people wouldn't even consider telling you to "snap out of" breast cancer or muscular dystrophy or even a "mere" broken leg. But since they cannot see or comprehend a *physical* problem, they think you can simply choose to no longer be ill, and the refusal to do so is willfulness on your part which merits insults and abandonment. So the odds of having a useful support system are far worse than with a physical problem.
(The exceptions, interestingly enough, are the physical problems most entangled with depression: chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. They too tend to get "it's all in your head, snap out of it" as a response, since there's no specific and express physical cause that can be pointed to.)
--pig
Well said!
ep
Damned right! Add polymialgia rheumatica to that. My mum has developed it. She now realizes just how lucky she is that she never suffered from clinical depression, and only now sufferes from PR depression. As if that isn't bad enough...
I get a lot of the puzzled looks. No-one has quite dared to tell me to pull myself together.
I have real physical causes for my pain and exhaustion, ehlers danlos syndrome and narcolepsy, but most people still don't get it!
Honestly I think they play a huge part in my depression, I'm not in constant pain, but it is almost daily pain and it can be severe, and add in narcolepsy to looking after a newborn and your doomed!
Cheers Anne
If I ever write a book it will be called "But You Don't LOOK Sick!" For six years my life has been controlled by a rotating regimen of pain, total fatigue, illness and meds. I don't look sick. When I'm the sickest with a flare, I have bright, beautiful red blooms on my cheeks. People inevitably say "Oh it's so good to see you looking radiant and healthy again." And typically I have a high fever and am in total pain and my response has to be "Thank you."
I know a lot of people on this board have silent and invisible diseases. A lot of people in our society have them too. But you can't tell by looking that our Ginger has lupus and pain and struggles to stay active and works her buns off at a very responsible job. You can't see Anne's depression - most people see a young mom with a beautiful new baby and think "Oh lucky thing, she must be so happy." You can't see polymialgia rheumatica, chronic fatigue syndrome, panic disorder, fibromyalgia or a host of other life changing and sometimes life threatening diseases.
One of the challenges facing bird owners is that you seldom see a sick bird. They flit around, nibble on seed, ruffle their feathers and drop dead. It's nature's way of keeping a diseased animal as safe as possible so it might have a chance to recover from the illness. If a bird looked sick, predators would eat it in a heartbeat. We aren't birds, but I'm sure nature has worked the same tricks on us evolutionarily. That just means we have to talk and talk and talk some more. And ultimately I believe (and this is just my belief) that the answer is compassion. Imagine the world if we every one made a compassionate heart the center of our beings and the focus of our lives.
Ok, off my soapbox. My roast has been in the crock pot for 8 hours and isn't even vaguely tender yet so we all had Cream of Wheat for supper. Tomorrow I'm chopping it up to make soup.
Hugs to all, Sunny
I do understand. To paraphrase, I try to take one type of depression at a time, but sometimes several hit me at once.
I take a list of what *doesn't* hurt today when I wake up... And then I add in the gloom factor: today were at about 3 for pain and 3 for depression on a 1-10 scale. An OK day. Friend coming in for coffee and book natter later, so I'd like to get the sitting room tidied and hoovered before she gets here, but she won't worry if I don't. Once the pain killers kick in and the joints have loosened up, things will feel a bit better.
I find if I list the things that are affecting me today, I can set then aside and get on a bit better, as I then know what I have to do something about (take pain killers, for example) and do it, and what I just have to sit out (gloomy weather depressing my mood, for example, and weather changes affecting pain levels).
On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 15:50:22 -0500, Anne Rogers wrote (in article ):
I'm so happy to hear this. I hope she can be rock for you as you find your way through this.
Maureen
Unfortunately, I have not been around much, so was unaware of Anne's situation. I am so proud of her. She knows she has a problem and is taking the all the necessary steps to keep both herself and the children safe. It is a long haul. We as a group have been there for so many over the last 10 years that I have been involved. Our prayers, our shoulders to cry on, our ears to listen to her and our support have never waivered. Unfortunately, we are spread out across the world and cannot be with her to physically assist her during this time.
Anne, my prayers are with you. Please c> please no time to say what
Howdy!
And, when someone posts publicly to this ng, and other Usenet arenas, they are likely to receive replies expressing opinions that don't necessarily match the one that started the line of "conversation". Things may be posted that the originator of the subject & sympathizers don't want to hear. So be it. No flames necessary; agreement not required. Personally, I'm desperate to see "desperate" re-spelled in the Subject line. ;->
Cheers!
R/Sandy- taking my own advice and moving the mouse...
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