Happy > Happy - 1.
Holy shit, man, you have obviously never seen clinical depression.
It runs in my family. Anti depressant drugs are moderately effective for members of my family. They were extremely effective for me. After i emerged from clinical depression (thanks, drugs) i was able to fix the most depressing aspects of my life, and then i was able to go off the drugs. Until menopause. Then i had PMS for nearly a year before i went on estrogen (which is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, just not a āselectiveā one, it does lots of other stuff, too) and now my mental health is okay again.
But clinical depression is crippling. It can happen even when your life is going well. It can lead to suicide. It can drive away your friend and family. It can mess up other aspects of your life.
WTF. I hope you donāt counsel depressed people.
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Also, I read the study, and it was underwhelming. You canāt actually monitor chemicals in the brain, because the brain is fragile and separated from the rest of the body. So they looked at secondary things that they thought would correlate to the chemical changes they expected. The actual study was all about looking indirectly, and it ignored several plausible hypotheses for why the chemical pathways that seem to be affected by antidepressants might actually be important.
But do chemicals matter? Is all depression situational? I had fairly serious PMS, which is to say, depression, not pain, for a couple of days every month for years. My life didnāt suddenly change on a monthly schedule, but my chemistry did. I once literally burst into tears over spilled milk. Spilled milk in a college cafeteria that I could replace in 2 minutes. But it devastated me. And rationally, I knew that my emotional reaction was absurd. But that doesnāt prevent you from feeling those emotions.
Thatās not to say that you canāt also become depressed when stuff goes badly in your life. Situational depression is certainly real, and it can interact with chemical depression, and both should be addressed if you are suffering from depression.
But hell yes. chemicals matter.
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One year at pride I took over 5 pills over a weekend. Upon recovery I bawled my eyes out for a good half hour overā¦The Devil Wears Prada.
Cheeeeeeeesy rice, man. This is incredibly offensive.
I had postpartum depression. Explain that. I used to get panic attacks in crowds because of my anxiety. I didnāt know I had anxiety, all I knew was my physical response to situations and they confused me.
Having been pregnant, I recognized how chemical changes in my body produced very real changes to my feelings and responses to things. I would lie awake at night through my pregnancy and bawl my eyes out because the world seemed so hopeless to me. Then after pregnancy, I got emotional whiplash. Took several months to get back to normal.
Also youāre incredibly rude to insinuate that depressed people lead depressing lives. Shit, man, learn some empathy for people. Please donāt tell a congregant to stop being so boring to get their life on track. Geez.
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Thank you for this post. problably kept me from getting a time out again.
Fuck that. Fuck you Nick. Yer talking out yer ass.
I didnāt know people got timeouts on GoA
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My guess is Nick has never experienced real depression. You donāt need to have clinical depression to know that depression can be pretty crippling. Itās not that you donāt want to hang out with people, itās that you literally cannot get yourself to move.
Think of your first breakup or your first death of a loved one
But given what Nick said, Iām guessing neither of these things were crippling for him.
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OK. Fuck this. Iāll try to explain it. Do you know what it feels like? Do you get the pain? The best lyric to describe it comes from Chris " Nail in my head, from my creator, you gave me life now show me how to live." This description is gonna be all over the place because thatās the way my āgiftā works. No edits you fuck just raw typing. Fuck you. I can feel the breeze in the woods where Iāve dragged you out yer house so I can gut you and leave you for the bugs. See. I am not clinical depressed but just as fucked as my daughter, my sister, my other sister, my other sister, my brother, my mother, and to some extent my father, my other brother. Thatās my immediate family. We are the description of crazy smart, with the em fan sis on crazy, Have you ever seen someone shit themselves in bed just cause they didnāt care to get up? Brains donāt always work right. Just like a child can be born with one kidney or a person can have any of a myriad of physical limitations, so can the mind. The mind is just another aspect, the most complex and important aspect of the body. Sometimes itās fucked up as well.
Clinical depression sucks. Mental illness sucks. It is not some easily dismissible just do āxā and all will be well. Once again what is the worst pain you have ever felt? have you ever had that pain so great that that is all that matters at the moment? It blurs your vision and drops you to the ground. Imagine that effect every fucking day. but not all the time. random, in waves, or a rapid staccato, or a single jab, then nothing. But there is no pain associated with it, no injury, no cause. Just you. The you within you trying to tear the you away to the nothing, the pain without pain.
Depression isnāt about where yer at in your life, or how you face reality, or who you spend time with, or what you believe. It is about your own mind, everything you know as you, trying to at best just harm you.
After several tries my doctor found a good cocktail that worked for a while. I distinctly remember one day realizing āhey, Iām happy!ā I had completely forgotten what that felt like.
That cocktail stopped working after a few years, and Iāve never found another that does the job (I have tried an awful lot). What I am on now maintains things well enough - if I miss a few days I can tell. The last several years have been rough.
Recently Iāve been doing better. I think the job change helped. In the last few weeks I finally had another āhappyā day, so that was nice.
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The only thing I know about you is that I would not be your friend.
So you are a pastor who doesnāt care about people? Is it not a basic requirement of that job?
Fit that matter, situational depression isnāt just ānot leading an interesting lifeā. The depression comes from my dadās side. My momās mental health was pretty good. But twice in her life her doctors thought she was depressed, and she saw a psychiatrist about it. The first time she actually had a horrible auto immune disease that nearly killed her (and in some sense, ultimately did, because treatment for it is why she had no immune system left when covid finally caught her.) It had not yet been diagnosed, though. The psychiatrist, after consulting with her, said āshe has some mild situational depression thatās caused by something else. Keep looking for it.ā (and then it got worse and she stopped breathing. Fun times.) Yeah, she was depressed. She had a damn good reason to be depressed.
The other time was also related to really bad physical health issues beyond her control.
Yes, people with situational depression lead depressing lives. People in intensive care have pretty unpleasant lives, too. I recommend you avoid intensive care as well as other situations that make you depressed.
Such helpful advise.
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Yes. But the message of Christianity is that youāre forgiven for your past. Move on into your future and here is a better way to do it. Let go of anger, greed, list, dishonesty and live a life of love, peace, good character, patience, and self control.
Iām not sure how that counteracts with what I said.
Actually yes I was very depressed for 2 years after my first breakup. Failed out of college and caused quite a few problems for myself. Also developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol that I didnāt rectify till 4 years ago. I also developed some unhealthy behaviors and mindsets. But there came a point where I resolved to make the changes neccasary to get myself back on track. Later when I got married is when I really turned to my faith. My faith gave me more direction than just work and prosper. That has made me try to make a positive difference for others too. Everyone has the same ability to move forward but no one is going to do it for them. If youāre extremely blessed someone or maybe someoneās might be willing to walk beside you, but that is their choice and cannot be forced on anyone.
Its not that I donāt think depression is real, it is. I just think counseling would go way further than pharmaceutical use. Learning new behaviors and making life changes will do far more than raising seratonin levels. I am interested in the possibilities presented by psychadelic drugs. Seems they have a pretty unique ability to wipe the slate clean and give someone a fresh start. Of course they will need help.to make sure they donāt recreate the same ruts they made for themselves all over again.
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I doubt a single person here would argue that medication without ācounselingā (better, therapy) is a good solution.
I mean I know people whoāve gone through months/years of therapy and decided they were good to stop, but not no therapy.
I would definitely argue that counseling is not needed to treat clinical depression. In my college psychology classes most treatments were able to eliminate symptoms about a third of the time, helped somewhat about a third of the time, and didnāt help about a third of the time. The research at the time showed that anti-depressants alone were effective in 40-50% of cases, way better than talk therapyās 20% effectiveness. Combining the two moved the needle to like 60-75% effectiveness.
Also, clinical depression and situational depression are two very different disorders. Drugs do not treat situational depression well and talk therapy is far more effective. What Nick is describing appears to be situational depression.
Doesnāt do jack shit for PMS-related depression.
I mean, there are some behavior changes you can make to mitigate the damage, like avoiding people when itās really bad so you donāt do or say something you regret. But itās not like making life changes can prevent it.
Thereās a chemical component. The paper cited couldnāt find the evidence it hoped to find. That doesnāt mean there isnāt ample proof that there is a chemical component to depression.
Iāve been treated for depression twice. The first time, counseling was extremely helpful. There were some things in my life that needed fixing, and the counseling helped. Butā¦ I went on prozac for a few months, and I donāt think I would have had the energy to make those changes without the help of the prozac.
The second time I had been planning to go back to therapy, when I sort of randomly asked my doctor for estrogen to treat hot flashes. An hour after I took the first tablet, I realized that I had been suffering from PMS for most of a year, and that it was gone. I am still on estrogen. I never did go back to therapy (well, for two session after my mom died ā I really needed it when she was dying, but it took a while to set up) and Iām fine. There are absolutely some cases of depression that can be cured with drugs, and donāt require therapy.
I donāt know if you counsel people as part of your role as a church leader, but speaking as a person with an extensive and intimate familiarity with depression, the idea that you are taking the toxic comments you made and possibly using them in counseling your parishioners is scary. Thatās the connection.
Iām not saying itās never helpful to say, āhere are some things you are doing that are making your life worse and here are ways you can make your life betterā is never helpful. Of course that can be helpful. But if that is the only tool in your box, you are going to end up breaking people.
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