depression and antidepressants

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Postby lunarose » Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:03 am

hi tron. i'm sorry you're feeling rotten. i've had bouts with black depression ever since i can remember at age 1 - 1 1/2. so i think a lot of it originates in the biochemical makeup you're born with. at the same time, there is much you can do to alter the chemical soup in which your organs are bathed.

ssri's have helped me during acute phases (like when suicidal). as far as side effects, you just have to try them out and see how they work for you, its all individual. i've know people who have found them very useful long term, with very minimal side effects. so it's a personal decision.

what has helped me shake depression (no major bouts in a bout the last 15 years, despite any number of triggering events) is really consciously working the thoughts - feelings - actions triad. each member of this triad is heavily influenced by the others. each member of this triad also heavily influences the others, and you can use this fact to break the depression cyce and create a healthy and strong system.

often times in depression you feel so bad that it just throws up all sorts of awful thoughts, and you end up acting like a depressed person - sleeping all day, not eating or eating way too much crap, isolating yourself from family and friends, not doing things you love, staying inside watching tv and not getting any sun or exercise, etc.

the beauty part is that you can consciously decide to change your thoughts or, most effectively in my experience, your actions to those of yourself when happy and healthy, thus changing the momentum of your system towards health and happiness. honestly, this is the best therapy ever i have found for depression (i'm talking about depression where you lose 15 pounds, your hair and fingernails stop growing, you're making hesitation marks on your wrist with a knife over the sink - not just 'feeling down'.)

this requires a significant effort, but pays it back enormously. it also requires looking at yourself objectively, to find what really does make you happy and strong. for me, i'd get up, attend to personal hygiene, dress snazzy, go out and walk in the sunshine, notice the birds and flowers, say 'hello! i'm great today!' to everyone i meet, eat healthy, make a phone call to friends and focus on the positive and what's going on with them. it also is very helpful to complete any projects you can. start small (sock drawer) and give yourself credit. it sends your system the message that you're on top of things, they aren't getting out of control.

i hit upon this strategy with the help of family, but it turns out that cognitive behavioral therapy takes a similar approach. the book Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Life by Patrick Fanning, Martha Davis, and Matthew McKay is widely available and has a section on how to implement this type of activity plan in order to short-circuit depression. it includes detailed instructions on how to score activities as to their effect on your mood and how to structure a weekly activity chart, increasing pleasureable activities week by week.

good luck, and don't despair. i know any number of depressives who've found one way or another back to health, so just keep butting your head against it. please let me know if you would like me to expand on anything her or if any of it doesn't make sense. mrs. rose
"Some people just want to believe that there are nude space people out there somewhere." John Keel
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Postby teamdaemon » Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:15 pm

Thank you, c2w, for referring me here. I don't read the lounge board enough. Tron, I am sorry to hear about your difficulties. Due to me nightmarish experience with psychiatric drugs I am obligated to discourage their use in any instance I possibly can, so I thought I would float some safer alternative treatments.

1. Try eating organic foods, if you have the means. Food allergies are often hard to diagnose and your depression could be caused by preservatives and other shit in processed foods.

2. Omega 3 supplements and B Complex vitamins work wonders for depression.

3. Herbal supplements such as St. John's Wort or Maca can promote a positive mood. I find Maca particularly helpful. Also, herbs like Skullcap and Passionflower can help with sleeping.

4. Try to cut out addictive drugs like alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, and sugar. Yerba Mate is a healthier alternative to coffee that has less negative side effects. Kava is a pleasant herbal substitute for alcohol that is non-toxic and not addictive.

5. Exercise helps a lot.

6. Consider finding a creative outlet for excess energy.

7. Psychoactive medicines are not for everyone, but I have found them to be very valuable in the process of healing myself of my major depression. Cannabis, Psilocybin mushrooms, and MDMA all have very powerful healing properties. Do not take any pills of "Ecstasy" unless you are absolutely positive that you trust the source and that it is completely pure. Natural medicines are usually more reliable. If you every have the opportunity to participate in a Native American healing ceremony using a mescaline cactus or ayahuasca, these medicines can have a dramatic life-changing effect.

If you value your mental and emotional capacities, DO NOT use psychiatric drugs. These drugs are designed to addict you for life and make you physically ill. Most of them cause impotence. The entire psychiatric industry is a social control tool for the ruling capitalist elites. They do not care about you and they are not interested in helping you feel
better.

Watch this before you consider taking psychiatric drugs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFbs8s3VI6M
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Postby tron » Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:03 pm

thanx guys

i barely know where to start with all the replies (im feeling the love)

i had a road traffic accident a few years back and it knocked me for six, ended up with ptsd depression and severe social anxiety, the first thing the psychiatrist offered me was "im going to prescribe you some medication and you are going to take it" i made sure he knew i wanted try some other means other than drugs but he was forceful, i still however refused and it took months to get some talking therapy organised. i had been getting a lot better
by cutting out all the crappy foods with additives and only eating freshly made stuff (lentil soup and hoummus seemed to help a lot due to the tryptophan i think) i was getting more exercise which def helped.

i was getting so much better when a crappy thing happened and i fell flat again, i was climbing the walls and got valium from my doctor (i only use them occasionally but alredy feel a tolerance to the dosage) they helped calm me down but my doctor said "any time you want to consider anti-dep's please let me know" and i feel that its been so long that maybe i should but thats the helpless thing kicking in i guess , should probably get back into the exercise and healthy eating.

T

ps sorry if i dont reply much, i dont get on the net too often
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Postby compared2what? » Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:23 pm

annie aronburg wrote:
Little Miss Stays Up 2 Late wrote:"]And I'm disturbed, not to say horrified, by any opinion that categorically condemns the medication itself as an inherently evil on ideological grounds.


I know, but Aldous and the
Buzzcocks got in my brain at a young age and poisoned the well.


Pete Shelley is too little recognized as among the greatest composers of song cycles since Schubert. Also, you're a witty woman.

A very strong disinclination to take powerful medications that might fuck with your central nervous system, the long-term side-effects of which are not known, and that are probably being prescribed to you by a doctor who knows little more about them than what he or she read on his or her complimentary GlaxoSmithKline notepad and ball-point pen is a totally justifiable and inoffensive point of view.

I meant to, but forgot, to follow up on your comments about people who had trouble going off SSRIs, because anecdotally speaking, I too have noticed this is a huge problem, and one that is huger than it needs to be, because many doctors won't countenance the possibility, which is (a) enraging and stupid; and (b) a stance that is self-unfullfillling, since abruptly ceasing to take many SSRIs actually can be physically brutal, and the chances that it will be actually can usually be reduced to the point of not-such-a-big-deal by reducing the dosage incrementally and verrrrrrry slowly before going off them altogether. Obviously, if they were causing intolerable side-effects from the get, you shouldn't have been taking them for long enough to experience horrible symptoms when stopping. Though that might happen, too. There are no guarantees; but it's not as high-probability.

My horror is primarily because I have known many, many people who by self-report confirmed by my experience and observation of them, which was as thorough as I was able to make it, would be incapacitated, if not dead, were they not taking psychotropic medications. Theirs is not an easy lot, since almost no one with a condition serious enough for medication to be among their few treatment options actually likes taking the kind of drugs we're talking about. And it kind of goes without saying that if it were a question of choice, no one would choose to have the serious condition to begin with. Even assuming the best of all possible outcomes, there's a world of difference between taking a medication that allows you to feel well, and actually being well. That's true for any chronic ailment, whether clinical depression or diabetes.

It shouldn't have to be said that no one wants to be sick, and still less to be both sick and stigmatized, whether for the sickness, or for being a weak-willed collaborator with fascist Big Pharma who is betraying the people owing to their selfish and willful refusal to just stop being sick and get with the crusade.

So, imo, it's very cold-blooded to carry your war against Big Pharma's crimes against society to the members of it whose lot is not easy, irrespective of who wins that war. Because no uninterested authority protects or fights for their interests. And although it would certainly be more convenient for opponents of Big Pharma to wish their conditions out of existence, that's not any more possible when done by a third-party than it is when done by the person with the condition. They are by far the most vulnerable segment of the population with a rooting interest in this conflict, and it's shameful that no primary party to it makes more than a superficial effort to accommodate the needs that they can't help having while on the front-lines, deploying strategy.

As a man who was speaking from the heart on this point said.

That wish is no crime. It should be heard with compassion, not irritation, however irritating it is to live with anyone who's got a reason to wish it. Which I fully concede, can be very fucking irritating. But it's the de facto responsibility of the stronger person to sort that one out. Because, for one thing, nobody else present is very likely to have the necessary capabilities to do it.
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Postby lunarose » Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:52 pm

hi tron. my own experience has led me to this rule of thumb.

if you are able to do all the exercise and food, etc. stuff that will get you healthy again, go that route.

if you are stuck in a place where you can't do your healthy stuff, are suicidal, or doing what you need to get well is so hard and requires so much energy that you feel unable and hopeless, then try the meds.

i've been on ssri's a few times. they enabled me to do the healthy stuff, which stuff then kicked in on it's own, and i had very few side effects (mostly extra 15 pounds fat). i never had any withdrawal, though i know those who have, and was able to quit the ssri's and be healthy. then the weight came off easily.

if you're worried about withdrawal, just taper off very slowly. you can easily find schedules on the web. it doesn't have to be a big deal, and your doc doesn't have to be involved. you can just do it on your own.

everyone has their own opinions, and can get quite militant about it. but what counts is what works for you, and it sounds like you already know quite a lot about that. just do your best, and don't be afraid to take a reasonable risk. if people are giving you grief, just don't tell them what you're doing.
"Some people just want to believe that there are nude space people out there somewhere." John Keel
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Postby brainpanhandler » Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:23 pm

tron wrote:thanx guys

i barely know where to start with all the replies (im feeling the love)

i had a road traffic accident a few years back and it knocked me for six, ended up with ptsd depression and severe social anxiety, the first thing the psychiatrist offered me was "im going to prescribe you some medication and you are going to take it" i made sure he knew i wanted try some other means other than drugs but he was forceful, i still however refused and it took months to get some talking therapy organised. i had been getting a lot better
by cutting out all the crappy foods with additives and only eating freshly made stuff (lentil soup and hoummus seemed to help a lot due to the tryptophan i think) i was getting more exercise which def helped.

i was getting so much better when a crappy thing happened and i fell flat again, i was climbing the walls and got valium from my doctor (i only use them occasionally but alredy feel a tolerance to the dosage) they helped calm me down but my doctor said "any time you want to consider anti-dep's please let me know" and i feel that its been so long that maybe i should but thats the helpless thing kicking in i guess , should probably get back into the exercise and healthy eating.

T

ps sorry if i dont reply much, i dont get on the net too often


Hi Tron,

When you get a chance can you elaborate on your accident, if that is comfortable for you?

Was the social anxiety a problem even before the accident?

Can you describe your symptomology in some more detail, without of course going into anything more personal than you would want to in this context?

Are you currently taking any psychotropic drugs?

You're getting tons of good advice from some of the smartest, most empathic members of the board. I'm afraid you are also getting some pretty bad advice. Absent some more information I would for now recommend following the obviously good advice given to you in this thread and your own good sense and redouble your efforts to try the nonpharmacological methods you and others here have mentioned. Ask yourself if you have really made an honest effort. Until you can say you have you won't know what you can do. Most people don't know what they are truly capable of.

It's not that chemical remedies don't have their place. They most emphatically do as has already been pointed out eloquently. As has also been pointed out, we each have unique neurochemical constitutions and sensitivities. What has worked so wonderfully well for me, might be poison for you.

I assume you never returned to the psychiatrist that insisted you take the drugs he prescribed? If not I would continue to see him only so long as necessary to find another psychiatrist that will respect your wishes and attempt to work with you rather than impose upon you. I would not break off any active therapy until you had actually found another therapist.

If you're sitting pretty flush you might consider purchasing a light and sound machine. The only potential danger of the things is that they could trigger a seizure in people susceptible to seizures. I have been using one myself for years to treat anxiety and depression as well as for other less therapeutic pursuits. I can give you more information if you are interested.

Don't forget to breathe. Consider practicing some form of Yoga or at the very least learn some of the basic techniques. One that I have used before and after stressful situations is The Breath of Fire.

Breath of Fire - for Energy, Focus, and Vitality Breath of Fire is a rapid, rhythmic, and continuous breath that sounds like powerful sniffing. The breath is forcefully exhaled by rapidly contracting the diaphragm and pulling the navel point toward the spine. The inhale occurs naturally as the diaphragm relaxes and air flows effortlessly back in without a sharp intake or effort. The inhale and exhale are equal length and usually occur 2 to 3 times per second. This breath is great as "pick-me-up" if you are feeling lethargic or unfocused. It can be done throughout your day- for 30 seconds to 3 minutes- if you need to increase your energy.

How to do it:
Take a deep breath in, through your nose, and feel your stomach relaxing outward. Exhale, through your nose, as you pull the stomach back in.
Inhale again. As you exhale out this time, pull the solar plexus (the area above the navel) back toward the spine with a pumping motion. The exhaled air should leave the nose in a forceful sniff.
Immediately relax the solar plexus and let the air come back in with a sniff.
There should be no pause between the inhalation and exhalation. Continue the pumping motion with the sniffing breath.
In the beginning, it may be easier to simply concentrate on the exhale as you pull in on the solar plexus and let the inhale come naturally as you relax the solar plexus.
At no time should the breath of fire be practiced beyond your current level of comfort. If at any point you begin to feel strain, breathlessness, or pain, stop the attempt at breath of fire and relax the breath.
If often takes practice and time to become familiar with this breath and, when familiar, there is a sense of joyful rythm and boundless energy.


Link: http://www.yogayoga.com/kundalini/pranayama
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
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Postby teamdaemon » Thu Jun 19, 2008 3:33 am

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Postby OP ED » Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:23 am

Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore:
fecemi la divina podestate,
la somma sapienza e 'l primo amore.

:: ::
S.H.C.R.
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Re: depression and antidepressants

Postby Et in Arcadia ego » Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:42 am

tron wrote:hi

i have depresssion which comes and goes ,i have good days and bad days and mood swings and things on both days

my doctor wants me to consider anti depressantt drugs as this has been going on for nearly three years now

ive reseached the drugs a bit and im wary of ssri's

im basically wondering if anyone knows of any with limited side effects

thanx

T


I'm not a doctor, just a life-long diagnosed maniac.

Flush your meds down the fucking toilet and go play some frisbee.
"but I do know that you should remove my full name from your sig. Dig?" - Unnamed, Super Scary Persun, bbrrrrr....
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Postby barracuda » Sun Jun 22, 2008 4:32 am

I love frisbee.

Image
The most dangerous traps are the ones you set for yourself. - Phillip Marlowe
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Postby Penguin » Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:52 am

I would also consider antidepressants to be the last option. I havent had the bad luck of needing them myself, but Ive experimented very broadly with tens of different psychoactives in my time, including a variety of modern pharmaceuticals - and my opinion is that many of the SSRIs (not to mention sedatives and sleep inducers) are among the more addictive and mentally dangerous substances - including most illegal drugs. Their mechanism of action is not clearly understood, and the effects very personal. Also it should always be asked whether the depression is a symptom that tells you that there is something wrong - your mind telling you need to change - or whether its a symptom of living in a sick society, and feeling depressed because of that.

Good nutrition, meaning organic foods, lots of fatty acids like omega 3, 6, 9 (hemp seed oil for example is superb) and exercise often help. You should only consider drugs if you think that you cant find help in other ways. And if one starts to feel worse when on SSRIs, suicidal or so, one should be aware that there is maybe 1-2% of people taking Prozac, for example, that will become akathisic / suicidal (akathisia = state of no emotion, empty feelings, detachment, combined with suicidal thoughts) and have killed themselves or others. Thats something not many doctors remember to mention to you when they prescribe something.

You should remember that oftentimes, the doctors are not experienced with the actual effects of the drugs they are prescribing - most doctors have never tried the substances they dole out. I think that should be mandatory - how the hell can you give someone else something you havent tried yourself? Heal thyself first, medicine man.
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Postby teamdaemon » Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:05 pm

I forgot to add, if you have the means acupuncture can help a lot also.

This is a very positive and helpful group that I have had some contact with. They have a lot of good information about the nature of "mental illness".

http://freedom-center.org/
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