So this is me

[ReefTroll]

I'd been wondering if I should put this on here, and I finally thought yes, i will. Given the support I've always found here I thought I'd share, and try to make my issues less "closet bound" at least. I guess I still see them as something to be hidden away. So, in an effort to face what's going on, here we are :
My Journey into Life: Yesterday's Misgivings

 

[Scoobaru]

That is very deep, but I admire you for speaking about it, as I've been told this is a very hard thing to do. My mrs suffers from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. She is slowly coming to terms with them and coping with them better. And I am slowly learning how to help her through, whilst trying to understand and listen to her.

I think you are heading in the right direction by going out and spending time with your family, as well as enjoying life. I really hope this helps you to deal with your issues, and if nothing else takes your mind off the bad thoughts and allow you to be happy.

Keep up the fight my friend, and keep enjoying your hobbies and family

 

[Simos]

Thanks for sharing, small steps, one day a time... Keep focusing on the positives

 

[denian]

Be strong,for you and for those around you, so Oscar can see whats in the deepblue sea.

 

[Azrael3000]

I like the freediving analogy. So take a look around, but don't forget that you need to get back, because down there you can't breath. So all the best to you for finding the power for the first kicks back to the surface. As everybody knows the hardest part is when you are deepest.

 

[ReefTroll]

Thanks guys, really appreciate it. A lot.

 

[BatRay]

You have done a brave thing by putting your depression into words. It is essential to acknowledge it in order to find your way back to a better place, and it is good that you are still participating in activities. Depression is a tough, tough thing to go through, but it looks like you're determined to get through it. That's good. It's much better than dwelling in it, a tendency that I have seen in some people. Take care.

 

[Dai ASBO]

It takes a lot of balls to take the step forward of sharing your problems with your peers, this has no doubt been a difficult decision that has carried its own worries and fears. But you've done it and massive respect to you. Hope this has brought even just a small amount of peace and relief to help you on your journey back up to the surface. Take care.

 

[Spaniard]

Thanks for sharing this with us. You are facing up to it and accepting that it is something you must deal with; a very important step. Please try and concentrate on the positives in your life, in particular your family and friends. Life is an interesting challenge for all of us and i'm sure you will win the many small battles to win the war! Stay positive my friend and talk to us.

 

[monkeyhatfork]

wow man! just came across this thread. Ive not suffered from this myself but have been consumed by it the last few years. Had been living with my dad the last 4 years to help him out. At one point he had a very near successful suicide attempt. my dog licked him awake he had a change of heart and medics got there minutes till likely death. He was briefly institutionalized. During that same time i met the girl below who was a huge part of my life for the last few years "so this is me" is almost word for word identical to her letters and 2am tear inducing phone calls. One of the sweetest, funnest people iv'e ever met all smiles on the outside but internally a self hatred and anxiety I'll never fully comprehend. Always at her best when we were climbing, hiking, camping cut off from the cell phone, laptops, work. But would notice her sink the minute we headed back. Painfull to try so hard to help, support, reassure, and to realize I couldn't seemingly make any difference. Oddly enough I got a string of texts from her this week, she's trying really hard but I think has a long road ahead still, she self medicates so has additional hurdles now to overcome. My dad on the other hand has made a complete 360 he got remarried this year and is the happiest he's ever been in his whole life it took him along time but the change is very real he tried all kind s of stuff endless self help books, therapists, meditation diet. Don't know what off those things made the difference think it was just the fact that he was aware and working on it. At some point something just clicked on in his head and he was transformed seemingly overnight. The brain chemistry stuff is hard man but keep at it the best years of you're life could be just around the corner.

 

[ReefTroll]

Thanks very much for sharing all of that with us. Everybody needs some strength, and it seems you're the strength for a few lovely people

 

[monkeyhatfork]

no worries man. that hit me like a brick when i read it this morning i'm sure that was difficult to write. hope any of my story was helpful. The strength thing is a two way street I have the nerve to get away with the life i have because of a very strong support system of friends and family so try my best to return that whenever i can. Here's to things looking up for everyone in 2013

 

[Kars]

Ok, let me ask a simple question, what is depression?

James Corbett phrased it as a hopelessness, the failure to see a possible positive outcome.
It has also to do with energy, if one is low on energy and one is attacked, it's easy to feel depressed, to want to flee, retreat etc. If one has energy, one will feel aggression, a strong will to deal with the attacker.

I also face depression and depressive moments, and I think for the following things are the source.

- my intellect, I can easily see ahead, obstacles, many reasons why not, many barriers.

- my minds programming. From day one we are told many lies often with good intentions, but as we get older we realise stories of a fairness don't present reality, in fact most if not all our dearly cherished deepest believes, including the many subconscious believes are not reality. Consequently, because of our smart intellect, we recognise the cognitive dissonance, the short circuit happening in our brain, of reality conflicting with our believes. From time to time we bump into experiences that challenge our deepest believes, and we experience a great loss of something cherished, something very dear. This loss needs to be processed, morning. Since it used to be part of what we used to think we are, we need to reconsider what we are again. We need to go down to all our core convictions and see if those change with new insights too. We come to new conclusions, and other parts are affected and stripped away too. Then we rebuild our personality with the parts that we still find true and logical. (Logic = without contradiction). This process needs time, silence, work, solitude.
This process is called creative desintergration.

There are mountains of stories we believe in, but there are only a few diamonds that will last through all the heavy weather of time.

One reading tip; 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

One life tip; make sure the reward equals the investment.

A positive of knowing depression; you'll recognise true beauty and will appreciate it's rareness much more then anyone else.



One more thing.

On reality.
I find that we have a need to fit every experience into our model of the world, worldview.
In our world there so many contradictions and exceptions that it is very difficult to have a logical (without contradictions) worldview. What most people do, is create different compartments in their brains. A box for each set of understandings, in this way they avoid having to deal with the short circuiting understandings all the time. Religeons, philosophies provide a nice ready made box set to order your understandings in a way that eliminates your short circuits, for a lifetime, or a while, depending how far, how hard your search, how honest you dare to be with yourself.

So we are in a very conflicting world, utterly confusing, our worldview is crumbling (film tip: Inception), and our self-image, our foundation, appears to be build on a swamp of lies. Instead of lying to ourselves a daily changing new lie as of who we are, each time a wall cracks, we recognise that it's a much deeper problem.

How to find a new stable foundation?

Be honest, be loyal to truth, not to any believe.
Get to know your believes. Believes create expectations that give birth to disappointments.
Use writing to memorise and map your thoughts.
Have regular solitude and exercise with sweating.
Focus on 1 task at a time.
Have long term, medium, and short term achievable goals.
Do creative things.
Experience is more valuable then 2nd hand knowledge.
Slow, and stop judging.
Slow and stop having exceptions based on your believes
Keep an keen eye on your energy levels, give yourself breaks of solitude before you run out of steam (again).
Eat good fresh fuel, complete nutrition especially for your brain because it is truly working out overtime.
Reduce and stop the amount of media input, because you already have enough confusion to deal with right now.
Read short depression survival stories, you can do it too.
Anything you do is voluntary, though you may not believe that now.
Avoid being exploited, make sure the material and emotional pay is in balance to the energy you've invested.

You're doing work most people rather avoid, your reward will be a clean consciousness, a solid self-image, a worldview that is tested and you know you can trust. This knowledge and experience form wisdom, you can share with the few brave but scared and confused young souls, to help them in their quest for truth, certainty, wisdom.


Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

ps these are just my current and incomplete thoughts on the depression issue, an more experienced person would be able to say I've went through a number of crevasses, but I've not put the time in to structure and write down what I've learned, yet. May your journey gains some clarity. I think many difficult things are very close to solving once we succeed in asking the right question. In order to do so we need to use the trivium (Trivium Education | Where Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom Begin), to have a method of thinking that allows us to arrive at knowledge, instead of assuming yet another believe.

 

[monkeyhatfork]

One reading tip; 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Absolutely!!!!! Kars i agree with just about everything u said and its good advice. that said it is tricky giving this advise to someone who may not be capable of hearing it at least not seeing it in the same light as someone that does not share they're problem. In this case u have someone who seems to really want to work on a solution and maybe read flow and get something out of it but if they are bad enough state? I was actually reading that book when dealing with that stuff and thought wow this is the simplest well thought out solution to everything bad going on around me. I knew she would not read the book so would try and fit much of what u said into conversation. NOPE either would go unheard or might even anger or frustrate thinking u are trivializing a problem they think is insurmountable. I think its harder now too for younger people because in many cases they are simply told there is nothing u can do about it you are a victim that was dealt a bad hand here are some pills and prevents them from even thinking about finding a better solution once the brain is fogged over with chemicals "flow" cannot be applied in my case she quit her meds cold turkey(scary) and promptly replaced them with drugs and alcohol which solved some issues but created more. Its a messy thing to address. its certainly a growing problem I know many people now with it. Growing up in southern california we were actually told that if u drank tap water u were ingesting small amounts of antidepressants because so many people were taking them in los angeles that it has become a permanent element in the water table. I always felt torn as well on the advice issue often felt guilty that always helping always covering taking care of problems was maybe enabling bad behavior and creating a bigger problem at the same time not wanting to push to much and send someone over the edge as had already been dealing with one suicide issue. Not to say these things are same as Reeftrolls situation everyone has a different set of variables. "flow" is absolutely great advice tho whether depressed or not and as someone with a masters in art obsessed with watersports and nature flow is probably preaching to the converted but I do think creativity good diet exercise and experiencing nature as much as possible goes along way. so anyway hope I'm not confusing the issue and certainly hope I'm not coming off as making this about myself always feel a bit uncomfortable with posts like this really trying to back what kars said with a bit of personal experience

 

[Kars]

Thanks Monkey!

A few more things, inspired by what Monkey said.

People can get 'addicted' to depression. I don't think they really like the feeling, but more the attention, and or the start to wear the label as a batch of honour, because they give up accept it like fate.

But some of you may have noticed that in a different place we become different people.
In a situation where I'm used to being depressed, exploited, it's easy to let that trigger my feelings of depression. But going too, and being in an new area, with new people, landscape, things to do, etc. we can experience a 'new' or the other self. It has taught me there can be enjoyable work for instance. It also showed me I can be on time and motivated to give the best I can. Some qualities I did not think I had in me.

Communication is a skill. How often is it we feel like talking is walking through a minefield of hypersensitive emotions? People are taught to react, not to respond. The fight or flight part of our brains has been overstimulated, preventing us from rational responses to questions. We've aligned, embraced and united our personhood with abstractions. For instance many will feel assaulted when I say: ' I don't like Barack Obama's policies'. Their emotional attachment to Barack Obama prevents them from even asking what particular policy I don't like. Can you imagine asking these people anything even closer to their 'imagined' personality?

Asking for 'trust' to a sufferer of depression is tough. They have been already been taken advantage of, and all the well meant help has proven to be red herrings.

What I need when I'm depressed, is quit, time, good food, exercise, distraction, sleep. Things that worsen the condition are, lack of sunlight, small spaces, low bank account, lack of appreciation, lack of matching compensation for my efforts, lack of nutrition, bad people, careless people, people making light or mocking my challenges and efforts.

Yes I think the journey is an individual one, though we may have some company for parts of the journey. I don't think the path to enlightenment is narrow, it's non existent, we need to make it ourselves.

 

[BatRay]

I've met some people who I believe are addicted to depression. One of them has gotten to the point where he claims not to feel any emotion, yet I see ample proof that he feels emotion. His emotions are all over the place, and he reacts very strongly if someone disagrees with him. He sees a psychiatrist, but he has been seeing this psychiatrist for over 15 years with little progress.

In cases like this, I wonder if the depression is simply an ingrained part of his personality, or if it could be beaten back using good strategies, like the ones that Kars lists. It's become such an integral part of this person's life that it's hard to say if anything would work if he tried.

 

[ReefTroll]

It is amazing how tiring it can be. Have a day where my happiness needs more work, a darker day, and I find the next day or two I am exhausted. But my wife is incredibly supportive.

I am on some medication to get a balance where I can concentrate on fixing my anxiety and depression. I am amazed at a few people I know who think their medication is the answer. They take it, for years and years and years and that is their cure, not actually removing the cause of the depression from their own mind.
For me, the medication is merely a tool. My goal is to fix my mind, and get off my meds and start to live in the light again.

 

[BatRay]

It sounds like you have a good plan, and it can work. I had a bout with depression after I graduated from university. I took meds and they helped me to stabilize. After a while, I went off the meds and sought counseling. Thankfully, I had a good counselor, and he helped me to evaluate my life and to make the changes I needed. There are occasional bad days, but nothing that I would call "depression" in the sense that I experienced before.

I think you'll make it back It's good that you're looking at it as something to overcome.

 

[ReefTroll]

Yes this is definitely something to fight against, to overcome, not something to learn to live with.