Depression thread

[DCDave]

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[Bernard]

Because not all medical problems are totally unaffected by anything but drugs.

[Bernard]

Lest this point get lost -- by all means do go right and take whatever you & your doctor decide.

[DCDave]

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[Bernard]

I'll murk this one as well.

[DCDave]

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[Chet]

Having fits of intense, irrational misery even when things are going really well in general is the pits.

Curse my ridiculous brain.

[diesel_powered]

Curse my ridiculous brain.

I feel like this could be a motto of sorts.

[Bernard]

Has anybody tried this? Any luck with it?

http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome/faq

So far, it's pretty funny:

JANE is positive, generous, but gets fazed in social situations and is sensitive to criticism.

Maybe we are all a bit like JANE sometimes.

Meet CYBERMAN, looks good on the outside, but seething wreck inside.

Maybe we are all a bit like CYBERMAN sometimes.

Meet CREEPY ANGRY… Actually, on second thoughts, let’s not meet CREEPY ANGRY just yet. He really has problems.

But then again, maybe we can all be like CREEPY ANGRY sometimes.

[RavingLunatic]

Has anybody tried this? Any luck with it?

http://moodgym.anu.edu.au/welcome/faq

No, but I'm going to bookmark it. Those pieces you quote there are kind of discouraging though.

[Bernard]

You know, I went through most of the first module and it's not bad at all ... I think they're just trying to be a bit light-hearted. Apparently the target dem. is Australian youth (teenagers, I think) so perhaps that's why the tone is like that. I actually found the assessments to be pretty accurate. I think it helps if you know yourself a bit already and are ok with truthfully clicking things you feel, even if you know intellectually that they represent inaccurate thoughts, like you probably know you failed on a test simply because you didn't study enough and you could do better next time, but you may still feel a little like a personal failure, or like you're doomed to fail again. That sort of thing.

[clare]

Cool! (ANU is my university :-) I don't know anyone much in the psych dept, but we did take E there for some research purposes when he was tiny (someone was doing her PhD on facial recognition in babies). Anyway I'll check out the moodgym, and ask around and see if I can find out more about it.

edit: actually CMHR is a different beast altogether - one of the reseach schools. I used to know someone there, but not sure what happened to him...

"young people" in this context could mean anyone under 25 I think, though I haven't looked at the modules yet.

[jebreject]

but we did take E there for some research purposes when he was tiny

the meaning of this sentence changed dramatically as i was reading it

[clare]

Ah, yes, sorry... 

[DCDave]

Discontinuation syndrome sucks.

[Ashley]

So a few months ago I got a referral for a Mood and Anxiety inpatient treatment program in a hospital in Guelph.  I told the doctor I wouldn't be ready for a while.  They said they would make the referral anyway because it takes a while to get in.

So today I got a call saying my funding went through, and there's a bed available for me on Tuesday.

The program is 8 weeks long.

I'm really tired of living all over the country.  Ideally I wanted to go to school and work here (Newfoundland) for a year, and then go back to Ontario, do the mood and anxiety program, and then go back to design school.  I feel like it'd be a waste of time to go do the program now, then come home and be stuck in limbo again, unlearn a bunch of shit in Newfoundland, and then go to design school and crash again - design school is what I really need it for.  Design is what makes me most crazy, and what I want to be the most functional at. 

The only part of me that is saying I should go right now are the parts of me that say I'm not doing anything important right now (which isn't to say I'm not doing anything), and that it'd be rude for me to say no to this bed because so many people are bending over backwards for me.  There's a small part reminding me I'm having anxiety problems about work.  ... and regretably another small part saying "If you go away for 8 weeks and come back, maybe that girl will be ready to date you again".

8 weeks is a long time and Guelph is so far away.

[clare]

Yeah, that's a tricky one. Good luck with your decision making (i know what I'd do, but this isn't about me ;-)

[Ashley]

I called my  ... uh well she's like my second mom but she's also a psychiatrist and talked to her about stuff and I'm just gonna wait until after christmas at least.   She told me not to stress about it, so I won't.

[Chet]

Some of you may know about my great moving away and going to university adventure.
I was very, very happy when I first got here.
Then things started to get bad.
Now things are really very quite bad and I can't make sense of it, because this is everything I ever wanted.

[mixed cats]

That sounds just like my first college experience. Does your school have counseling? It helped me sort through a lot.

[Chet]

They do, and I am gonna go.
Also been to the doctors.
This is way bigger and badder than anything sort of stuff I've dealt with before though.
Like full on debilitating in an even getting out of my room and making myself dinner is hard to do sort of way.
And I speak to people about it and I have a real supportive academic advisor who says reassuring things and I have a brilliant flatmate who tries real hard to help me make sense of what I am doing to myself mentally but it seems like the more I talk and the more I try to express myself and seek support the worse it seems to get.

[alex]

Damn, I was wondering where you went the other day and hoped that you were just having such an excellent time that you forgot all about us. Sorry to hear that's not what happened. Wishing you all the best.

[mixed cats]

Yeah Chet that's kind of how my life went. I got into a really respected school on good scholarship money, and was really psyched on it, but by November of my first semester I was sleeping through half my classes, not doing any work, not leaving my room, not eating, etc etc. And then it was a spiral: I missed a class, so I didn't know what we did or would have to do for the next week, so I would dread going to the next class. I didn't want to go to the cafe and have to answer questions from other students about where i'd been (since the answer was 'in bed'), so I stayed home. I knew that my problems were less than others', so then I felt worse about feeling bad.

I hadn't made many friends so I didn't have a support system nearby. Professors I talked to were sympathetic (possibly because of all the crying) but ultimately unable to help. I started seeing a counselor who was really nice and gave me food and tissues and whatever in addition to our conversations. My grandfather died a week before the end of the semester, and I ended up leaving notes for my professors and abandoning everything.. Hello 1.6 GPA.

The next semester went way better with regular visits to the counselor; I was starting to understand my learning style, work methods, and the amount of interaction I needed/could deal with. Also I admitted to myself that this great school was really not where I belonged, and that it was OK if I didn't return for my second year. That lifted a lot of the pressure.

Anyway I can't promise anything for you, obviously, but Internet hugs and stuff.

[clare]

Ah bugger, that's a shame Chet. Like Alex, I was wondering how you were going, but I didn't think that this would be the answer. I hope you get the hand you need soon.

[Bernard]

  to you, Chet.