The son of depressed parents (bi-polar and clinical, respectively), I struggled with depression for the first 21 years of my life. I feared it would worsen as I got older. While I’d go through spells (the worst and most crippling lasting a year) without having specific reasons, I was always unhappy with myself.
I’d been obese and struggled with a chronic health problem. Fortunately, resolving these issues actually seemed to cure me of my depression. So too, did finding future-wife. While my iffy mental health made dating problematic, I honeslty feel like she’s the biggest reason aside from my self-actualization for not relapsing.
Some aren’t so lucky. For many, it’s a mix of situations (an unhappy childhood and image issues, in my case) and brain chemistry. And for some, it’s one or the other.
I’m still a little crazy, mind you. I’m insecure, and I often times feel exceedingly ugly and fat. But, I’m not depressed, and I have a bunch of preople that routinely and inadvertently remind me it’s all in my head.
I used to go to bed hoping I wouldn’t wake up the next day, and planning out how I’d go about killing myself if it came down to it. I guess I mean to say, there’s almost always hope.
Exercise is good. If you’re still feeling the problem, You should get to a doc. Soon.
JEEZ!!! :wow: Man, my heart goes out to you. I’m not just saying that. I had no idea it was that rough out there, even for a college grad. i hope something opens up for you soon man. :sad:
Actually, medication can fix the cause, it doesn’t just alleviate symptoms like you said. It replaces the chemicals in your brain you are missing instead of artificially making you feel good like recreational drugs will. I’m not sure what you mean by becoming “dependent” on the medication. If you stop taking the drug you’ll go back to having a deficiency of a certain chemical in your brain, but you can say that about high blood pressure if you stop taking your BP medicine. It’s a treatment, not a cure so of course you have to keep taking the pills but it’s not like they are dangerous or addictive.
I don’t like Tanner one bit, but in this case, he’s right and you’re wrong. Like completely, 100% wrong. Like you could play Dr. B in attack mode and he wouldn’t attack for you wrong.
Chemical imbalances in the brain are simply another symtom of depression, not a cause. The way we individually respond to a situation effects the emotions we feel which, in turn effect the chemicals which are released from our brains. This is our natural reactions to stress. Chemical changes in the brain eventually return to normal when the depression lifts.
By reading through this thread I dont recall anyone claiming to be depressed as a result of a chemical imbalance. We all have reasons for our depression.
I don’t know who gave you your information but it wasn’t a doctor, you have no idea what you are talking about. Our biology determines our mood, not the other way around.
I saw some story about how certain people get really depressed unless they are exposed to strong sunlight. Called sunlight depression, or seasonal depression.
I get unmotivated…but i feel like peopledepend on me and I have to do stuff…i think that brings me out of the dumps even it iadds stress. I also do things for myself.
I don’t think I have been actually been depressed…but I hope this helps.
Hmm… sexperienced is actually kinda right. Sadness is a path to depression, as said, depression is a chemical imbalance- - a lack of Serotonin in the brain, and one of the ways that happens is, lack of sleep, stress, sometimes not eating right which all happens when a person is feeling shitty. Dwelling on negative issues isn’t an easy thing to stop though, regardless of who you talk to. Taking medicine costs to much money, and a person is at a risk of being dependent on it (which isn’t good). So in other words, the lifestyle of the person does contribute ALLOT to depression/moods.
A lifestyle change is the only way. Physical activities (sports) and other social orgs are good for that shit.
I think modern society has a lot to do with people’s depression. I would suggest volunteering for a cause you believe in, or just volunteer at a homeless shelter or church or whatever, get off the computer, get off facebook, stop playing video games (unless you do so with people IN the room), and just try to get yourself around people. I don’t think the human body was meant to sit in front of a desk from 9-5 doing grunt work. The human body was not meant to be isolated in their room with no people. I think being comfortable is actually the cause for a lot of people’s depression.
Back then you’d be around pepole ALL the time, your life was ALWAYS on the line, and you had epic wars or something. People were always walking around looking for food. Technology has made many people numb i guess, and it might be the cause of depression and obesity. A lot of people suggested exercising. How about you exercise with your friends, socialize with people in the gym?
I’ve been battling depression since 2008. Was in a bad car wreck that year, and it had cause some major changes the following months after. I had stress from Iraq the year before the wreck, and as I thought I came out of it, the car wreck almost set me back similar to how Iraq did to my mental stability. Marijuana and interests(snowboarding, playing guitar, etc) helped calm my emotions and things have been steady since.
My suggestion is get involved in an activity that you like. Going to school for automotive is fueling my new found passion for tuned vehicles and hopefully some day in the near future, I’ll turn the education into a hobby building up a Nissan 370Z. Music helps too, though I think mainstream radio stations would probably do the opposite. Oh and if you are the type of guy that enjoys company of women, start going out and mack.
There are ways to cope and help release tension, stress, depression, you just got to be willing to find them.
No, no and no. I don’t even know where to start. Depression is biological and can be caused by both genetics and environment. With some people it’s just a temporary thing and other people it’s permanent (and there are people everywhere in between). Let me try and explain in the most basic possible way what depression is and what anti depressants do. Depression is when the neuroreceptors in your brain have a hard time communicating with each other usually due to low serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine (neurotransmitters). When you take an anti depressant, it attempts to correct the amount of neurotransmitters to allow better communication between parts of the brain. That’s all the drug does, it doesn’t fuck you up, doesn’t make you a zombie, none of that… it just makes your brain communicate better.
Telling people they should avoid drugs is not only stupid but irresponsible and could be turning them away from their best possible treatment. I don’t understand the fear mongering when it comes to anti depressants but it always comes from someone with no understanding of medicine. Can you become “dependent” on anti depressants? Yes, I seriously doubt you understand the medical definition of “drug dependency” is. All dependency is is when your physiology adjusts to the drug so you have withdrawal effects if you stop taking it. What this means is you simply have to taper off the drug instead of immediately stop taking it. People get prescribed anti depressants for temporary depression ALL the time and when the depression stops, they taper off the drug for a week or two and good as new. People make it seem like if you start anti depressants you are suddenly the equivalent of a heroin addict.
Let me make it clear that depression can be treated with or without drugs. Some people have depression for biological reasons, others because of trauma they experienced and some people are both. Whatever way you want to treat your depression, please visit a doctor and don’t let people with no understanding of medicine deter you from possible treatment options.
anti-depressants aren’t for everyone. I’ve been on a few in my life and they ran the spectrum from “not helping at all” to “made things worse”. They can definitely help a lot of people, so don’t take this as me saying that you should always avoid them. But they’re not a panacea potion either.
I’m also not convinced that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. Based on my own experience and what I’ve read, the chemical imbalance is caused by the depression.
You should always see your doctor (and a therapist) if you’re having issues with depression and anxiety, but there are treatment options other than drugs. Just talking to someone can make a world of difference.
On the norm though, depression is caused through environmental reasons. The genetic ones are like Manic depressive, clinic depression which have strong genetic influences which of course needs medication. Those who research depression have been able to determine that to some extent depressive illnesses can be inherited. However it isn’t the depression that is inherited it is the vulnerability to depression. This means that if we have close relatives who have clinical depression, the person may inherit a tendency to develop the illness. It does not mean that we are destined to become depressed. I don’t think clinical depression is the case here, reason is, i think it’s quite normal for every human being to have some sort of depressing situation in his/her life time, it’s just how fast they recover that’s different and the main way of recovering is by a change of lifestyle/enviornment.
You see, what a doctor/councilor is just give you a bit of talks at first, and some therapy as in writing things that you wish for your life in the future, what you are happy about, etc… drugs isn’t always the best. There is no drug in the world that does shift the “i’m not happy” into “i’m very optimistic”… those drugs just give a good peace of time for a bit and lower the pain your depression gives when it’s starts running. You’re post sounds as if a check up would give the OP a perscription to some pills and come back feeling all jiggy after, Please do some research on how Clinical Psychology is handled. Serotonin can be regained with out any pills, and sometimes the pills won’t do shit afterwards if that person keeps sitting down and not changing his life.
I doubt that a Psychologist will prescribe any medication, because i’ve seen allot of cases from the people around me who went to a psychologist due to heavy issues just had a few therapy sessions and most of the things they where lectured was just the same advice they got from people around them, just in a much wiser detail.
Happiness is all a choice, being happy or unhappy isn’t something that is predestined in our lives.
You threw me off when you said sexperience was “right” because he was saying there was no need for drugs and then you backed him up (I thought). You do know your shit but I still think it’s irresponsible to tell someone to stay away from drugs, because drugs are proven to work. Will drugs work for everyone? Not at all, nor are they an instant cure, I never said that, but they are a valid treatment option to consider. Every individual is different, some work best with medicine, some with therapy, most do better with both. I just don’t like the idea of steering people away from medication by scaring them about “dependency” when it might be the best option for that individual.
Sexperience is right, period, there is no reason for the OP to get medication. Environmental reasons are the start of it all, and if that person just decides to bitch and just be pessimistic then he is seriously damaging his own psychology very slowly. Telling a person to try to work it out himself (with out any medication) is actually admirable than irresponsible. Because lets say the guy gets the pills, what happens next after the first container of pills finish?
He’s going to spend a couple of hundreds buying more because he still gets sad here and there? or do you think that he’ll become all happy, and it strengthened his self esteem? Come on bro, of course not.
And Drugs are not proven to work. As i said, medication is only given for clinical depression (manic depression for example) but the medicine doesn’t actually cure the patient at all, what it does is it keeps the persons bad psychology as docile as possible, but eventually that person would still be mentally sick again, and would go in and out of the hospital. Clinical depression is a whole different issue, and it isn’t verbally expressed (i’m depressed i want to be happy kinda expression) or even known by the sick person.
It’s really in the environment and lifestyle (building of self esteem and confidence) of the person that combats depression well, and if that person wants things to change then he’s the only one that can do something about it, medication won’t help him. If you think that medication is a valid treatment, then tell the op to buy some weed instead, because it’s cheaper.