You are all on notice.
Jan. 29th, 2008 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasToo many of my friends are in emotional pain. Now, some emotional pain is because of genuine loss, because people are in bad situations, because of real, external things that cause people to be in pain.
There's not a hell of a lot I can do about that, except be a shoulder to cry on, and to listen, and to express sympathy. And I want to do that for you.
But there are also a lot of people I love who are in emotional pain because of depression, and other internal effects that people carry with them.
I have decided that depression is my enemy. I hate it. I've started to make a good dent on killing it in my own brain, and I am now getting sick and tired of this evil enemy attacking my friends, too.
Depression, you are my enemy. I HATE you, and I hate to see you fucking with my friends. And so, I am YOUR enemy, too.
So, people I love -- when I see Depression attacking you, I'm going to get mad, and I'm going to start pushing you to take care of yourself and to destroy it.
If you are sad and upset because of grief and loss, that's not depression. If you are sad and upset because of loved ones who have died, that's not depression. If you are sad and upset because your life actually does, genuinely, suck, that's not depression.
But if the worm of depression is eating away your mind from inside? That's what I declare war upon.
Now, I don't care HOW you fight it, so long as it works. For some of you, taking B12 vitamins will work, because your brains just aren't producing enough of those B-complex vitamins, but, if you take supplements, your brain will be able to use them to make the seratonin and other neurotransmitters you need. If that works for you, that's fantastic.
Some of you will be able to control your depression through exercise. Your brain will be able to use the endorphins and other chemicals released in exercise to synthesize the chemicals it needs.
For some of you, that won't work. Some of you will need antidepressants. For some of you, selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors will work -- you make enough seratonin, but other parts of your brain that don't really need it are slurping it up before it can do its job. For some of you, those won't work, either. There are several classes of antidepressants. If one doesn't work on you, try another one.
Talk therapy might work for some of you. For others of you, it will do fuck-all. At least, before you're on drugs that help. Once your brain DOES have the chemicals it needs, THEN talk therapy will be useful, because, at that point, your brain will physically have the structures to be CAPABLE of not being depressed. At THAT point, you can start to learn how to not be depressed. But you physically CAN'T learn how to not be depressed when, in your brain, that whole part is just plain missing.
Being depressed isn't your fault. It's a physical disability. It is your brain physically not producing the chemicals that non-depressed brains have. In order to NOT be depressed, those chemicals need to be there, some way or another.
And it is just about impossible to get out of depression on your own. Those chemicals which are lacking? Those are the chemicals which would allow you to do things about getting out of depression -- and they're not there.
I have a wife who pushed me into treatment. And pushed me into different treatments, one after the other, until we found one that worked.
So, that's it. I want these motherf-ckling depressions OUT OF your motherf-cking brains. And I'm going to be yelling at each one of you to DO something about it, and if that thing isn't working, to DO SOMETHING ELSE, until you kill the depression.
Unless you don't want me to -- feel free to tell me NOT to do that. I'm not your parent. There are a couple people on my f-list that I AM in some sense responsible for, and you don't get to opt out of this (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
temima, I'm looking at you) -- but the rest of you can.
I just hate depression. I hate that it attacks my friends.
There's not a hell of a lot I can do about that, except be a shoulder to cry on, and to listen, and to express sympathy. And I want to do that for you.
But there are also a lot of people I love who are in emotional pain because of depression, and other internal effects that people carry with them.
I have decided that depression is my enemy. I hate it. I've started to make a good dent on killing it in my own brain, and I am now getting sick and tired of this evil enemy attacking my friends, too.
Depression, you are my enemy. I HATE you, and I hate to see you fucking with my friends. And so, I am YOUR enemy, too.
So, people I love -- when I see Depression attacking you, I'm going to get mad, and I'm going to start pushing you to take care of yourself and to destroy it.
If you are sad and upset because of grief and loss, that's not depression. If you are sad and upset because of loved ones who have died, that's not depression. If you are sad and upset because your life actually does, genuinely, suck, that's not depression.
But if the worm of depression is eating away your mind from inside? That's what I declare war upon.
Now, I don't care HOW you fight it, so long as it works. For some of you, taking B12 vitamins will work, because your brains just aren't producing enough of those B-complex vitamins, but, if you take supplements, your brain will be able to use them to make the seratonin and other neurotransmitters you need. If that works for you, that's fantastic.
Some of you will be able to control your depression through exercise. Your brain will be able to use the endorphins and other chemicals released in exercise to synthesize the chemicals it needs.
For some of you, that won't work. Some of you will need antidepressants. For some of you, selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors will work -- you make enough seratonin, but other parts of your brain that don't really need it are slurping it up before it can do its job. For some of you, those won't work, either. There are several classes of antidepressants. If one doesn't work on you, try another one.
Talk therapy might work for some of you. For others of you, it will do fuck-all. At least, before you're on drugs that help. Once your brain DOES have the chemicals it needs, THEN talk therapy will be useful, because, at that point, your brain will physically have the structures to be CAPABLE of not being depressed. At THAT point, you can start to learn how to not be depressed. But you physically CAN'T learn how to not be depressed when, in your brain, that whole part is just plain missing.
Being depressed isn't your fault. It's a physical disability. It is your brain physically not producing the chemicals that non-depressed brains have. In order to NOT be depressed, those chemicals need to be there, some way or another.
And it is just about impossible to get out of depression on your own. Those chemicals which are lacking? Those are the chemicals which would allow you to do things about getting out of depression -- and they're not there.
I have a wife who pushed me into treatment. And pushed me into different treatments, one after the other, until we found one that worked.
So, that's it. I want these motherf-ckling depressions OUT OF your motherf-cking brains. And I'm going to be yelling at each one of you to DO something about it, and if that thing isn't working, to DO SOMETHING ELSE, until you kill the depression.
Unless you don't want me to -- feel free to tell me NOT to do that. I'm not your parent. There are a couple people on my f-list that I AM in some sense responsible for, and you don't get to opt out of this (
temima, I'm looking at you) -- but the rest of you can.I just hate depression. I hate that it attacks my friends.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-14 05:25 pm (UTC)Everyone, depressed or not, should have a support network. The problem is getting one.
Another problem is finding an effective therapist. It's easy to say that if I just took some drugs it would allow therapy to start working, but if nothing is accomplished in a therapy session besides me complaining until time runs out even when I'm having a good day, I don't see what would ever happen.
Can anyone describe what exactly goes on in effective, productive therapy, where they ended up changing for the better? I know the obvious, vague stuff, about exploring your feelings and motivations and coming up with strategies and stuff. I feel like I do that all the time on my own, without any results, while I *didn't* discover anything in therapy and certainly never came up with any strategies. So I'd like to know the *details* of what happened in therapy and how it helped.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-18 02:01 pm (UTC)I think your first point is right: clinical depression is ONE thing that can result in procrastination and social isolation, but is far from the ONLY thing that could.
Now, MY question, about the REST of your family, is, "are they generally content being loners and taking their time getting things done?" There's nothing wrong with being a loner, there's nothing wrong with being laid-back. If they're content with their lives, if it works with them, then there's no problem.
If it causes pain, then it IS a problem. And it sounds like it causes pain for you. Does it cause pain for the rest of your family, too?
I'd say that, for ME, at least, "productive" therapy is when the therapist and I can set specific, concrete goals for the time between then and our next meeting, things that I can work on, track, and come back and report how it worked out.
For instance, perhaps I could make a goal of "spend two hours working on my resume, and apply to three jobs per day." Or "go to the gym twice a week." Or something like that. Something concrete and measurable, some goal.
If I DON'T make that goal, then we look at WHY, at what happened emotionally or to my energy level, or what, that kept me from doing it. Without throwing blame around, doing our best to NOT have me feel guilty about it, but giving us a chance to look at what happened instead of what we intended to happen, figure out whatever that thing was, and start to come up with ways to work around it.
For me, anyway, useful therapy isn't about "how did I get this way," but rather about "what do I do from here".
Other people have different needs. There are people who have genuine traumas that they need to deal with -- in effect, they're dealing with so much emotional scar tissue that it's getting in the way. There are people who have irrational responses to situations, which they need to work through and understand in order to defeat.
But me, what I need is concrete plans and measuarable goals.
That is merely what works for me -- you may need something different.
But, as you can see, for ME, since I need measurable goals that I can attempt to do and then talk about what made it succeed or fail, I ALSO need drugs to allow me to have the chance to have it work. If I have so much emotional shit going on that I physically cannot get out of bed (I've been going through my LJ and tagging old entries, and I'm reading about how bad stuff used to be), then it's obvious that I cannot learn anything useful about why I didn't get to the gym twice this week -- I didn't get to the gym because I couldn't get out of bed. That's not useful.
So, for ME, I need drugs to get me to the point where I have a chance to do something, then therapy to help figure out things to do, and to discuss and analyze why I was or was not able to do them.