This Cures Depression

QUOTE :[/quote]
What you don't realize is that telling someone who is diagnosed with major depressive disorder, or bipolar, that they just need to "put in more than a half *kitten* effort" to think positively is like saying "you aren't trying hard enough". There were days I couldn't even find the energy to brush my teeth...the last thing I needed was to feel like MORE of failure because I didn't have the strength to suck it up and think happy thoughts.[/quote] END OF QUOTE



its called "fighting to survive everyday" hence why you "have" to try when your depressed and why i said more than half assed....

dunno about you, but i wear my mental boxing gloves every day....

Don't feed the troll!

John, you are right on. I spent ten days locked in a unit for depressed, suicidal individuals. I learned so much in that week and a half. This is what I learned.

There are a load of folks worse off than me.
When your clinician tells you that you need to socialize with the others, translated, sit around and watch Opra with them, that he is obviously misinformed.
God can heal anything.
When your psychologist says that depression is forever, here are some pills, he is not correct.

Med free, on top of the world, hulahooping, and happy,

Lodiloohoo

Sigh...........

This is the kind of crap that kills people.

I think we should just let this thread go away.

Please just stop talking.

That is some of the worst pop psychology I've seen in some time.

I've suffered from severe depression in bouts since the ripe old age of 10 years old, due to what I'd imagine would be a powerful cocktail of both environmental and genetic predispositions. It peaked at 16 and led to me being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (Melancholic subtype). It got to the point where I could not get out of bed on most days and I completely lost the ability to concentrate or think clearly. Even the most basal activities like getting dressed in the morning leeched me of the little energy I had - even talking on some days seemed to demand so much energy that I often ended up slurring my words or saying things too quietly for anyone to hear because I was just so tired. When I did manage to get up and do something with my day, it typically didn't make me feel any better because I no longer had the capacity for obtaining enjoyment out of anything, even if it was once something I loved. It drained me and made me feel incredibly frustrated and helpless over the fact that I had completely lost my sense of self. Any personality I used to have was now completely and utterly gone.

I spent a long, long time trying to convince myself that if I could just be better; if I could just "think positive", or exercise a little more, or read more self help books, that I could just "get over myself" like just about every form of social media seemed to imply I could. I'd been convinced into believing that antidepressant medications were simply for the weak-minded - for people who "didn't want to face their problems" or "couldn't be bothered to do the work", and that if you took them you were just taking the easy way out. Every day that I failed to do all these things led to a staggering amount of guilt. When people lecture the depressed on how they're ungrateful and how there are people out in the world with far more problems than them who still manage to function, I don't think they realize that the depressed torment themselves over this already. My depression was the worst it's ever been at a time when, ironically, my life was at its most stable. I felt so guilty about how unhappy I was despite the fact that my wonderful mother was there to support me and that I had a team of professionals trying to make my life more manageable. It didn't help that the rest of the human population seemed intent on talking down to me and telling me how I should snap out of it because I had no "reason" to be depressed.

The fact is, some people do need antidepressants to function and get through life, due to being naturally predisposed to chemical imbalances. Some people spend huge portions of their lives suffering tremendously due to being fed lies about medication and feeling like they aren't bad enough to seek professional help. Some people do everything right - they exercise, they eat healthily, they go to therapy, and they still get absolutely nowhere. Frankly, unless you have a very, very mild form of depression - the kind that typically goes away by itself due to it simply being a normal reaction to, say, a loved one dying, "positive thinking" quackery just doesn't work, and it couldn't possibly work, due to the fact that major depression completely clouds your thinking. Antidepressants aren't supposed to numb you or magically make your problems go away - their usefulness is in the fact that when you're depressed, your mind is on a never ending loop of negative thoughts that goes on and on and on, and you don't feel like you can ever stop it or get out of that cycle. They are supposed to give you your own "voice" inside your head back that enables you to actually take a step away from the negative cycle and reason with it, rather than be drowned by it.

The sheer impudence of the people belittling those suffering from depression and telling them that they're just being attention-seeking is truly astounding to me. Especially since they very rarely come from a place in which they've truly experienced the horrors of severe, major depression.

There are two causes of depression 1) spiritual and 2) physical/hormonal. You have addressed the first one and it IS a very important one. Some experiments have suggested that what we think about actually influences brain chemistry! The second area is much tougher because we don't yet know enough about the physical influences on the brain and how it works. But one thing I DO know is that no one has a deficiency of Prozac. If the pharmaceutical companies were honest (and they are NOT) they will admit that their potions rarely help anyone other than a possible placebo affect. Often, people will feel much better mentally if they address their health by good eating and exercise. I would investigate VERY thoroughly before I encouraged anyone I loved to take antidepressants.