Depression

[BuShPuPpEt0]

Mark,

I am sorry to hear about the sudden loss in your life. Things like this seem to be so random, but when the pieces are put together, it all makes sense. I haven't been on here in a few years. (this sub-forum, if you will). One thing I have noticed is that the same people are here. Looking for answers to deeper questions that we will probably never understand.

I have become increasingly detached from everything the past couple of months. I am not sure if it is the reading material I have or that I am delving deeper into justifying the way I think or feel. Along with this detachment, I have this aggressive mindset to go along with it. Things piss me off at an increasing rate but I keep everything inside. I haven't thought about suicide in the past 5 years and now I can't wake up without it lingering.

Can anyone help explain this detachment with aggressive attitude?

[thepastinsidepressant]

the world does have too many people in it

I disagree. You could fit all people in the world in a single medium/large country.

would you enjoy living in this single medium/large country then or would you feel theres too many people in it?

i agree with d e n, when one says too many people in it, i'm thinking of resources to meet that, jobs, housing etc against the pace of technology, of course its going to crack, when is the question.
most people don't live isolated in the middle of nowhere for a reason, it's often not feasible, water, work, electricity etc. ok, one could say 'go live off the land' but again, thats not feasible for many, why should they have to anyway, it could be easy but it could turn out to be a hard life all because the towns are overcrowded and resources are scarce.

humans need to cull for a reason, who culls us? ain't it not selfish to keep shagging rings around us with little regard for sustainability? i can almost hear "sheeeet, we've made too many babies, how are we going to feed them all now?"

there is no shortage of food though, for the moment, no shortage of water either, heck no but the mouths that feed keep coming. then you have corporations making money off the control of food, there is no shortage but they control the flow and are for doing that e.g. Africa and the suicide seed.
yea, its sick. they're obviously not a fan of organics, there is no money spin in it.

[d e n]

yes...

sure we can feed everyone... what does that REALLY mean though. we are feeding most people shit! the constituents of refined, processed food are what's subsidized! small organic agriculture can feed the world better... but to happen on a large scale that would require a collaborative decentralization of our food system. Which is already starting to happen in a way.


excluding insects because of their differences (not forgetting there still exists many similarities with humans) think of the relative sizes of animal populations on earth. the human population is absurdly larger than any other terrestrial animal population on earth and this includes domesticated animals like cows and sheep.

I think that is a world out of balance... and its OK... I mean, it is how things are now. What I am arguing, is that to think there aren't too many people just because this population can technically be sustained (which really isn't even true since we r putting posterity in some wicked ecological debt thats going to take a focused effort to remedy) doesn't mean that its silly to think there aren't too many people.

this view is also contributed to by not believing humans are necessarily the most 'intelligent' animals...

[louise]

i am amazed by some people's insensitivity.

[Cupz]

Last night I dreamed the world stopped using money. It was very nice.

[Cupz]

i am amazed by some people's insensitivity.

[2020k]

All my hugs go to Mark right now.

[d e n]

Mark,

I am sorry to hear about the sudden loss in your life. Things like this seem to be so random, but when the pieces are put together, it all makes sense. I haven't been on here in a few years. (this sub-forum, if you will). One thing I have noticed is that the same people are here. Looking for answers to deeper questions that we will probably never understand.

I have become increasingly detached from everything the past couple of months. I am not sure if it is the reading material I have or that I am delving deeper into justifying the way I think or feel. Along with this detachment, I have this aggressive mindset to go along with it. Things piss me off at an increasing rate but I keep everything inside. I haven't thought about suicide in the past 5 years and now I can't wake up without it lingering.

Can anyone help explain this detachment with aggressive attitude?

try to literally visualize opening up and moving those feelings out, it may seem silly at first but engaging in that practice of visualization can definitely help

this is my take on it at the moment,

we live in a world where everything is objectified and treated as though there is this objective experience of the "real world" when really we only have our subjective experience. our everyday is influenced so heavily by this view it is almost completely contained in it. the aggressive mindset is definitely not abnormal and I think its important to not let that define you... do not be tricked by thinking that mindset is indicative of who you are... that's all just noise... listen to it like a boiling tea kettle. this isn't the same thing as ignoring it or pushing it down... give it the proper attention for sure and take time to think through it and feel it out, just do not make the mistake of feeling guilty for having those thoughts... there are so many images and stimuli imbued into us every single day our selves are simply not well equipped to handle it all, yet we do, because we are adaptive.


in this novel Infinite Jest the author, David Foster Wallace, talks about something called adehonia or something (i misspelled it I think). A depression that is characterized by feeling nothing. I think many people have been in this space at one point and it doesn't feel good. In my experience trying anti-depressants (rooted in an OCD type thing I had going, which ceased to be as much of an issue in me when I stopped labeling myself with that diagnosis) I found out that they contributed to feeling numb... it became clear that feeling nothing wasn't any better than feeling the heavy waves of anxiety that would consistently rise and fall. In my experience, the SSRI I had did not help the obsessive compulsive thinking that would intensify and agitate this anxiety.


pardon my french, I'm really throwing all my cards out on the table and PLEASE take this with a grain of salt as I don't mean to offend anyone, I only got a two decades a change in this place so I'm naive

ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGY and PSYCHIATRY IS BOLLOCKS

so many fellow students I know have regretted majoring in it because its just full of LABELS and GENRE, the deficiency comes from the same place as Boards of Canada are coming from when they said:

"Were not a dance band, were not an IDM band, were just a band"

diagnosis and clinical labels REINFORCE the issues that are interpreted as such... they beget them! I learned that with the OCD thing. And no doubt, people often develop certain dispositions like I did with obsessive-compulsive thinking patterns. Not saying there isn't a congenital component, I am saying that the 'born with' explanation is over-emphasized. Like "oh this is just your brain chemistry" what?! things are changing every second! Your brain is flexible yet it can mos def become inflexible when someone one is telling you WHAT YOU ARE all the time!

clinical practices and therapists can absolutely be life-changing and extremely helpful... its just that the general paradigm is deficient and I believe that the more aware a therapist is of this even when working within a conventional clinical practice the more effective they will be. For example, SSRI's should not prescribed as a long time solution! They can certainly have an appropriate application in the context of an actual PLAN that includes the intention to slowly lower the dose to where they don't need to be taken. The culture of fixing problems with a synthetic pill is a flawed, expensive, solution.

then again so is our physical health system. so many diagnosis are wrong and lazy and do not get to the root of the problem.




anyway, Im not being careful with my words... I'm in that space though where it felt good to just write all of this without inhibition.

P.S has anyone read the Campfire Headphase era interview where Mike mentions having a history with depression?

[BuShPuPpEt0]

Mark,

I am sorry to hear about the sudden loss in your life. Things like this seem to be so random, but when the pieces are put together, it all makes sense. I haven't been on here in a few years. (this sub-forum, if you will). One thing I have noticed is that the same people are here. Looking for answers to deeper questions that we will probably never understand.

I have become increasingly detached from everything the past couple of months. I am not sure if it is the reading material I have or that I am delving deeper into justifying the way I think or feel. Along with this detachment, I have this aggressive mindset to go along with it. Things piss me off at an increasing rate but I keep everything inside. I haven't thought about suicide in the past 5 years and now I can't wake up without it lingering.

Can anyone help explain this detachment with aggressive attitude?

try to literally visualize opening up and moving those feelings out, it may seem silly at first but engaging in that practice of visualization can definitely help

this is my take on it at the moment,

we live in a world where everything is objectified and treated as though there is this objective experience of the "real world" when really we only have our subjective experience. our everyday is influenced so heavily by this view it is almost completely contained in it. the aggressive mindset is definitely not abnormal and I think its important to not let that define you... do not be tricked by thinking that mindset is indicative of who you are... that's all just noise... listen to it like a boiling tea kettle. this isn't the same thing as ignoring it or pushing it down... give it the proper attention for sure and take time to think through it and feel it out, just do not make the mistake of feeling guilty for having those thoughts... there are so many images and stimuli imbued into us every single day our selves are simply not well equipped to handle it all, yet we do, because we are adaptive.

I will try this on my day off tomorrow. Thank you.

[Cupz]

I will try this on my day off tomorrow. Thank you.

You can do this whenever you want, even while working! In fact, the best thing would be to stay in that state. Making your own reality and shit.

[Amo Bishop Roden]

This is way more personal than I ever care to get with anybody ever, so I'll be brief, but general advice/brief story for any and all who may need this thread:

Around this time last year my depression was so severe that I could no longer handle any aspect of normal life. In the end, I dropped out of school, destroyed my entire social life, and spent pretty much all of my money on liquor, weed, and acid. I was living with my parents and my performance at work (as an assistant in a warehouse) was suffering. I had been seeing a therapist for about a year and been on and off a number of meds, all of which made me feel worse.

My parents left on vacation to Jamaica for a week, and I made an attempt at my life. Naturally, I botched it. I was okay but got arrested and taken to the psych ward at the hospital, where I stayed for two weeks.

My time in the hospital really changed things for me. Within a few months after I left I was able to get off the meds they put me on and function normally. It's been less than a year now, but I've really got things back on track. I have a real salaried job with benefits and all, I even wear a tie to work, moved out of my parents place, I've been able to finance a new car all by myself (A beautiful Jetta named Olga). I've discovered my greatest passion (Philosophy) and I'm hoping to be in school part time for it by next fall, if I can allocate the funds for it.

TL;DR: When you get desperate, consider inpatient time at a good mental health facility. From experience, it's not all that bad and the results can be massive. Give yourself every chance you can get.

And for the record, it wouldn't be accurate to say that I'm not depressed anymore. I still deal with that every day, but I feel that I own it, and it doesn't own me.

[Amo Bishop Roden]

As a side-note, d e n, I totally agree with everything you said. I think modern psychology is utter shit.

I don't think mental health is a medical issue, hence me dropping my meds.

The reason the hospital was so effective for me was because it was such a positive environment. My whole world prior to that was negatiity, as nobody really seemed to give a damn about me or ever tried to legitimize my feelings. My therapists genuinely cared for me, and I'm friends with some of the other patients to this day (though technically you're not supposed to do that.) A lot of people there were worse off than me, and some better, but everybody made some degree of progress, and we were always encouraged to do better.

John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats (and former mental ward nurse) puts it aptly:

What I've been learning over the course of my life is that diagnoses exist to help get people services they need-- but there's no such thing as mental illness. We're all mentally ill and we're all haunted by something, and some people manage to find a way to ride it out so that they don't wind up needing extra help. So I think that "mental illness," as a term, is garbage. Everybody is in various states of needing to transcend something. I believe in mental health care, but when we call people "crazy," we exclude them from our circle. That's bogus-- you're in the same boat as they are! Maybe some people are better at pretending they don't harbor all kinds of issues, but, really, everyone has them. Everybody experiences reality in a way that's only true for them

[d e n]

word is bond ABR

I totally agree with that quote

[Magrathea]

Just a quick question for the folks here, has anyone been on Cymbalta (60mg) and have their Dr adding Abilify (2mg) ?

I have seen no change at all from Cymbalta 30mg to 60mg except that I sleep a lot more.

Doc has put Me on Work Leave since November, and I am still struggling to find interest in anything at all, I am completely stalled... I got My cpap machine for sleep apnea (which various tests indicated I had) but while it works and is a great help for sleep it's not a silver bullet for everything.

I'm tired of being broken, and since this is like My fifth or sixth big depression I don't intend on going on in life without rooting out the causes and fixing them. 45 is a bit young to think that you're done with all that there was to do in life :\

[Cupz]

Hello Magrathea,

Actual Abilify survivor here. Get off that shit pronto. It will turn you into a brain-dead zombie switch operator. I don't know you so this is only a stab in the dark, pointed more at my past then your present but, the problem isnt your mind, its your life. If you're struggling to find interest in things, its because those things aren't interesting to you, and thats not fixed by taking a pill that makes you stop thinking about wether or not things are interesting. If you're depressed because you're bored at your work for example, maybe its time to find a job that isn't completely skull-fuckingly boring. Life is very interesting but so many things distract us from seeing that. Things like monotony and stress, or even a messy house.

This being your fifth or sixth depression I'm probably saying what you already know. I wish I could invite you and we could dance pretentiously on the beach together and discuss life.


anyway dr. Cupz's second opinion prescribes a single session with either mescaline or ayahuasca over prolonged intake of the satanic silverfish-seed that is abilify...also dancing pretentiously on a beach with friends!

Edit: A "secondary side-effect" of Abilify is spontaneous death. Its on the leaflet, read it and GET RID OF IT.

[Magrathea]

Thanks Cupz, I will definitely keep an eye on that, seeing the Doc in two weeks, the psychiatrist in three and a psychologist I expect in a few weeks after those two... I need to find a way to break from this cycle and yes, you're right I am probably fed up with quite a few things in life, like work, gf, etc. etc.

Thank you so much for your input, it means more than you may realize.

Thanks Man!

[Cupz]

Cool to hear Magrathea. I wish you the best of luck!

[Mexicola]

Saw The Imitation Game tonight. First time in years I've seen a movie audience give a standing ovation at the end. Fantastic. Go see it.

[fujee]

Saw The Imitation Game tonight. First time in years I've seen a movie audience give a standing ovation at the end. Fantastic. Go see it.

Yeah it was great, if a little heavy on the artistic license. Turing is one of the gravest miscarriages of justice ever. If you ever need a reason to distrust authority, his life would be that reason.

[Mexicola]

Correct on both points. Definitely 'based on' a true story, and those in power should hang their collective heads at how long they took to pardon him. My Dad visited Bletchley recently and said alot of it has been left to rot. Very sad.