Depression - TalkSport Diagnosis

[kaosmark2]

I was after help for years , wanting doctors to refer me to a psychiatrist or even a psychologist. Basically I didn't know who I needed but just knew there had to be some professional that could help. Nothing happened for years and then I made a serious attempt at taking my own life. After initial emergency medical intervention they were then falling over themselves to get me to a psychiatrist. It is a sad state of affairs when the right services are only offered after something dramatic happens. Other than that your just left floating in the systems waiting list not getting anywhere.

As an aside the psychiatrists (It was rarely the same person I saw - which also left me with little faith in the system) didn't do anything to help other than give me diazepam to calm me down. I must admit as chemical cosh's go it was rather pleasant. However when they stopped giving me the diazepam I was straight back to square one. I then flipped and demanded to see a psychologist. I had to make such a nuisance of myself that they eventually gave in. Even then I was told it would take about 6 months before they could see me! You shouldn't have to fight to get treated, especially when your in a state where there's virtually no fight in you.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I've sort of got coping mechanisms, I have really dark periods in my life, and not enough good ones, but I can sort of function most of the time. The problem is I hate the idea of living the rest of my life feeling like this, and while I flutter around and stop myself getting too awful, or at least know how to reach out to friends prepared to help lift me up when I really do sink, I need something positive to make me feel like I won't be like this for the rest of my life, some sort of serious, long-term help.

I don't look to do drugs, I accept they help others, but after a major period of serious alcoholism and seeing a lot of friends get severely fucked up by illegal drugs, I refuse to try and use anything like that as a coping mechanism. Fair enough if they help you, but I've built up such a stigma in my head about them now I don't believe anything would actually be able to balance out how shit I'd feel about resorting to them.

Tough stuff though. It's always shite for anyone to go through.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I got told by one doctor that she didn't believe I was depressed and was just using it as an excuse to be lazy and skive off my course. Had to move GPs in the end because others in the surgery wouldn't contradict another doctor there. Had similarly crap experiences with being told about daytime appointments, didn't get that bad, but I said I was working and wouldn't be able to attend daytime appointments, after I refused 2 that I couldn't make, I got taken off because clearly if I was able and willing to attend a job 5 days a week I wasn't bad enough to warrant treatment. I just don't get how ignorant services that are meant to help people deal with depression are about how and why people sufferring need help, and what they are/aren't still able to do.

[kaosmark2]

I was extremely fortunate that when I decided to come off the booze I was able to attend an Nhs alcohol treatment unit. It was open 8 to 8 7 days a week every day of the year. But for me as it was part of the mental health services we had a consultant attached. Within a week of attending I was seeing a psychiatrist as well as a counselling session each week. I attended the place every day for over a year (even just for an hour). It was hard work but the benefit of seeing people every day that understood your situation was priceless.

From that though I have found a GP that is on my wavelength. I work as a counsellor and I am very insightful with my condition. When I see the GP I dont have to explain any symptoms I just have to say I am really down.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Wow, that's really good.

I had a really good GP that I'd seen about other issues before that helped me for about 5 months, but then he retired, and my local GP surgery has just had a revolving door ever since. Noone's stuck around for more than 9 months, and I've had to see different ones anyway.

[kaosmark2]

That's a real issue I had with the service - the revolving psychiatrists in my case. Mind you I actually think their approach is crap. All they did with me was ask me how I'd been feeling and then just wrote it down. No pro-active questioning or even guidance on how to feel/get better. Just writing down what I felt then it was a ta ra I'll see you in a months time. Only it wasn't him / her in a months time. Apart from being crap there was no continuum of service. The only time a psychiatrist woke up from his slumbers with a start is when I started talking about sex. When he realised it was sexual disfunction he kind of nodded off again. Oh well, I suppose there's worse off. It's the lack of accountability that gets me though. If I were to be so shoddy in my job I wouldn't last very long ( that said, after years and years of tremendous pressure my job has gone amazingly slack. Hence me being on here during the day sometimes. I think I needed to say that to balance things out ).

[Rufus Gwertigan]

From what I understand some counsellors dont explain how their particular process works. With the few clients I work with it could be 4 or 5 sessions before we start to focus on something. As a standard practice I ask them all to keep mood diarys as well.

I do think that counselling provision is ad hoc to say the least. I work through a charity and it is unpaid but luckily my clients are not constrained in the number of sessions they have. For a couple I even do counselling over the phone and that allows me to have more clients.

But I have had my fair share of clients. I used to see an RMN that used to fall asleep during sessions and I mean properly fall asleep. If would do it in groups and with other patients as well. Eventually I made a complaint to the unit manager. To start off with I was made to feel like I was lying. It took me to stop being calm and have a shout for people to listen. I was even told that he may be ill and I should make allowances for him. The guy even said he was hurt and I should not have complained. Fuck that I was the vunerable patient and if he was not well if should not be at work. He ended up taking early retirement.

[Purple Monkey]

I don't think there is a cure for depression. It's not curable. Well, medically, unless it's clincal/genetic at least.

We've evolved an awareness of things - and the things that get us down are where our beliefs, goals and values as sentient human beings are in total contrast to the reality we have become more and more adept at observing and analysing.

We're fed so much bullshit from an early age - when we're adults we disocover we were never prepared, our education is mostly fluff and propagandist nonsense and the anti-economy breeds injustice and shatters all notions of there being an equilibrium and order that will look after you. When the rug gets pulled from under us, some of us have the tools - in this world that usually means money - to soften the blow and deal with reality. Most come crashing down with a bump and get depressed that the world they knew is over, and the way they saw the world has become cynical and jaded through knowledge and experience.

We're fed a load of lies and then we feel cheated when we observe the stark difference of reality. It's OK to get depressed. However, the reason it's stigmatised is because depressed people are the first to question the state of the world - why does it have to be like this. To the lawmakers who like to keep things exactly as they are, they're dangerous, and must be categorised as such. Ridicule them, keep depression in the category of "lunatic" and people will stay in denial just long enough to keep producing, keep trudging on. The economy, the rich and powerful, needs everybody to put on a plastic smile and carry on or it all falls apart. That's why depression isn't on the agenda as something that must be fixed - it's a by product of a miserable society, an acceptable waste product.

Because life is so miserable people turn to the promises of the afterlife and wishful thinking, because it's easy to believe in, it's a warm blanket.

The cure lies in social change, environment is everything - and our environment is fucked, backwards, in absolutely every single way. Every single institution we have in the west goes against our human needs.

It's completely understandable why depression is becoming a more widespread problem, and why it isn't being addressed. I read that depression will be the worlds 2nd leading cause of death in the west by 2020. Not surprised.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Purple Monkey

[kaosmark2]

I don't think that's entirely true, I don't think the rich are any hugely less depressed than the poor. I don't think money is a powerful tool to cushion awareness of unfairness. I don't think that you have to be downtrodden and maltreated by society to get depressed. If you start thinking that money/success/etc. is a reason not to get depressed, you get into the whole path of "Well this person's worse off than you, surely they have more reason to be depressed than you?" which everyone knows is bullshit.

The meaningless, materialistic society that leaves people feeling powerless, yes, that is clearly a major cause, and awareness of it is unpleasant, because noone feels like they have the opportunity to change things. There's a reason most common pasttime activities are cheap and escapist - TV, video games, reading fiction, they help us absorb ourselves in worlds where things can change, where there are things of more meaning than just the size of TV you own, how fashionable your clothes are, etc, be it a full-blown fantasy or even just some idealistic romantic story. In the stories, things change, people change, and the state of the world and the perception of it can change. I don't believe that even the powers that be could majorly change the world, they can make minor adjustments that feel big to the section they control, but is there any position in the world from which someone could break us out of this meaningless cycle of self-destruction?

[Purple Monkey]

I don't think that's entirely true, I don't think the rich are any hugely less depressed than the poor. I don't think money is a powerful tool to cushion awareness of unfairness. I don't think that you have to be downtrodden and maltreated by society to get depressed. If you start thinking that money/success/etc. is a reason not to get depressed, you get into the whole path of "Well this person's worse off than you, surely they have more reason to be depressed than you?" which everyone knows is bullshit.

The meaningless, materialistic society that leaves people feeling powerless, yes, that is clearly a major cause, and awareness of it is unpleasant, because noone feels like they have the opportunity to change things. There's a reason most common pasttime activities are cheap and escapist - TV, video games, reading fiction, they help us absorb ourselves in worlds where things can change, where there are things of more meaning than just the size of TV you own, how fashionable your clothes are, etc, be it a full-blown fantasy or even just some idealistic romantic story. In the stories, things change, people change, and the state of the world and the perception of it can change. I don't believe that even the powers that be could majorly change the world, they can make minor adjustments that feel big to the section they control, but is there any position in the world from which someone could break us out of this meaningless cycle of self-destruction?

Edited April 17, 2012 by Purple Monkey

[eFestivals]

you're right that money doesn't cushion you from being depressed. Is that partly because we're so conditioned to achieve material wealth, that even when 'we' get it, we stop and say "is that it?"

nah. It's simply the case that, in many cases if not all, depression is a mental symptom of a physical issue.

It's been proven that, as an average, those who are physically more active are less likely to get depressed, and those who are depressed come out of their depression sooner if they do physical exercise than those who do little physical exercise.

There's a solid link between the amount of physical exercise and depression, and the rich are just as able to sit on their arse as the poor - and so just as likely to get depressed.

The 'western world' - the people who spend much more of their time sat on their arses - has a hugely greater instance of depression than the developing world where people tend to be active, and for the western world depression has become a much greater issue as the amount of physical labour has reduced.

Given that we're animals who are meant to be naturally active, and until the last 50 years or so didn't spend our time sat on our arses, it's hardly a shock to find that a change in our behaviour has an unexpected consequence.

The more that is discovered about "mental issues", the more we get to find out that they're not really mental issues but the consequences of physical things ... but hey, it's going to be a very slow haul for that to register with society at large, because all those shrinks and everyone around them aren't going to give up their mis-placed positions of power and influence without a fight. The idea of the mental being in control of the physical is too ingrained in all areas of society for people to give that up easily; you only have to look at how philosophers and the like fight against the facts to see it.

[kaosmark2]

When you're depressed you can't just stop 'sitting on your arse' and go out and do exercise that feels as futile, meaningless and difficult as everything else. Exercise helps prevent, manage and overcome depression. Guess what, so does social contact, but you can't just go out and start making friends when you're depressed. When you're unable to do anything because of depression, you can't just click your fingers and start doing things that'll help. It's not laziness that stops you taking positive steps when you're depressed.

There are a fuckload of things wrong with psychiatry, but offerring counselling, support and advice to people who are sufferring from depression is not one of them.

[eFestivals]

When you're depressed you can't just stop 'sitting on your arse' and go out and do exercise that feels as futile, meaningless and difficult as everything else. Exercise helps prevent, manage and overcome depression. Guess what, so does social contact, but you can't just go out and start making friends when you're depressed. When you're unable to do anything because of depression, you can't just click your fingers and start doing things that'll help. It's not laziness that stops you taking positive steps when you're depressed.

social contact only works if they're not fuckwits. That would just be even more depressing.

There are a fuckload of things wrong with psychiatry, but offerring counselling, support and advice to people who are sufferring from depression is not one of them.

Hmmm, not sure about that. It gives a depressed person validity to wallow in it, when no one has a clue if that's helpful or not.

Just because wallowing in it might make the depressed feel better while they're wallowing, nothing of that is necessarily addressing the depression or making any improvement in the person.

And while a trick cyclist might have loads of testimonials from people they've treated which say "I saw this guy and now I'm better", there's no proof within that that the patient wouldn't have been 'cured' anyway without 'treatment', or that the 'treatment' has had any benefit at all.

People put themselves forwards into the positions of being able to treat others, and via doing so they gain a power. There's nothing which is able to validate whether they're deserving of that power - but little by little, the claims such people have been making for themselves are being whittled away with solid proof that those claims have not been true.

It's surprisingly like religions in just about all respects - unvalidated, unable to be validated, but slowly the claims are being proven as wrong. And just like religion, people hand over responsibility for themselves to a third party who offers them the hope of salvation without anything of substance to show they're able to give it.

Edited April 17, 2012 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

God, I'm sounding like a scientologist.

That's not where I'm coming from AT ALL. I'm simply pointing out that the claims of shrinks are slowly being shown as false, but the shrinks are - currently - fighting a winning battle against those new truths, because they've been given more power than they ever deserved, and because humans in general like the easy and comforting answers.

[kaosmark2]

social contact only works if they're not fuckwits. That would just be even more depressing.

[kaosmark2]

sometimes people just need someone who'll listen to them objectively.... whether that person is any good, or the right 'listener' for that depressed person is another thing. An intelligent conversation with someone - a friend - who has some understanding of your situation could be as, if not more, helpful. Some people don't have an 'other' person to do that with.. which is sad in itself

trick cyclist...

[kaosmark2]

agreed (again... feels like I'm agreeing with everyone today!)

is it partly because we don't need to exercise. Going to the gym isn't a necessity (apart from the exercise), it's not the same as going hunting or foraging for basic needs is it. Just exercising for the sake of it, can end up being just as depressing - by it's routine - as anything.

[feral chile]

God, I'm sounding like a scientologist.

That's not where I'm coming from AT ALL. I'm simply pointing out that the claims of shrinks are slowly being shown as false, but the shrinks are - currently - fighting a winning battle against those new truths, because they've been given more power than they ever deserved, and because humans in general like the easy and comforting answers.

[Katster]

I agree with Neil about exercise. Walking saved my life a few years back. To me it was a natural thing to do, my subconscious looking after me? I didn't plan to walk I just used to find myself doing it. When exercising I 'zone out' and that zoning out was a welcome relief from thinking and rethinking and rethinking and rethinking over things.

I think it depends on the type of depression you have and why you have it, as to what treatment will work best but for all types if you can somehow manage to summon up the energy/courage to even just walk, then it will help.

[worm]

I agree with Neil about exercise. Walking saved my life a few years back. To me it was a natural thing to do, my subconscious looking after me? I didn't plan to walk I just used to find myself doing it. When exercising I 'zone out' and that zoning out was a welcome relief from thinking and rethinking and rethinking and rethinking over things.

I think it depends on the type of depression you have and why you have it, as to what treatment will work best but for all types if you can somehow manage to summon up the energy/courage to even just walk, then it will help.

[worm]

Do you feel the same about all people involved in mental health? i ask because I know people studying clinical psychology, and they talk about helping people to deal with their pain in a way that doesn't cause them more harm. And they're encouraging a move away from the medical model, to look at the social causes of mental illness - to try to resolve the causes instead of controlling the symptoms.

I feel they're finally moving in the right direction - I always suspected psychiatry was a form of social control of deviant behaviour.But now they seem to be accepting that it's society/life in general that's fucked up, and that's why the person's reactions are as they are.

Though mind you there's always been a tension between psychiatry and psychology.

[eFestivals]

At the end of the day we are not designed to be living like this. We have 'evolved' into sitting at computers for 8 hours a day, walking hardly anywhere, watching rubbish on the TV, not seeing enough nature and being told from a young age we should care about pointless things such as fashion and have the perfect body. I don't believe all causes of depression are as a result of a physical thing - there are several reasons why people suffer from depression. A person could be going the gym 4 days a week and then a divorce for example could cause them to develop depression. I certainly don't think that lack of exercise helps though, especially with anxiety which tends to build up due to not releasing physical tension. I have known people who have been very active and still developed depression but there is usually always a trigger - a stressor that starts it off whether that be lots of negative events or even a positive event.

I'm not entirely sure that depression is always a physical thing - no one is (at least, not on the basis of what is known) - but there's been stuff discovered recently which suggests that being inclined towards all sorts of 'mental issues' is the result of physical 'abnormalities' in the brain, and that a 'trigger' is just that, a trigger and not the cause (the cause being the 'abnormality').

I've not read of anything which has attempted to connect the idea of an 'abnormality' with the 'cure' of physical exercise, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that physical exercise might somehow 'over-ride' the issues being caused by an 'abnormality'.

We're still in the dark ages when it comes to these sorts of things, but it certainly seem to be the case from the little knowledge that exists outside of the only-presumption-based-ideas-of-the-mind that there's a far stronger physical and chemical link to mind issues than the likes of shrinks have been saying up till now.

In the future it's quite possible that all of the current beliefs of how the mind works will be dismissed in favour of a purely physical/chemical view of it all. It's certainly true that the newer discoveries are tending to suggest that might be the case.

[eFestivals]

So offerring support in overcoming a problem can be a bad thing because it gives validity to the idea there's a problem?

No, that's not what I'm trying to say.

There's clearly a problem, but the support often ends up supporting the problem rather than gives support in overcoming that problem.

I'm not advocating wallowing, if it's linked to stress a couple of weeks off to calm down can help, but long-term wallowing doesn't address problems.

And yet the current trends for 'therapy' pushes the idea of people needing constant therapy (cos it gives repeat business ) which is of course support for the idea of long-term wallowing.

You're right that psychiatry isn't a science in that you can't actually provide sufficiently similar and repeatable issues to get real evidence, but that doesn't mean that it can't be helpful. Experience in recognising symptoms and suggesting cures that work for some people - as long as the psychiatrist is smart and modest enough to recognise s/he might be wrong - can certainly help SOME people. Just because there's no absolute definable, cure-all solution for everyone doesn't mean that it is as invalid as things that are 100% bollocks.

I've not trying to say that it can't be helpful in some cases.

But if the overall basis it works from is wrong and it's (say) having little more than a placebo effect, then the idea that "sometimes it's helpful" tends to stop progress towards a more meaningful 'cure'. The newer discoveries of there being physical reasons for some instances of mental issues are struggling to be widely accepted, precisely because of the 'damage' they do to the 'established thinking' in these areas.

[eFestivals]

Do you feel the same about all people involved in mental health? i ask because I know people studying clinical psychology, and they talk about helping people to deal with their pain in a way that doesn't cause them more harm. And they're encouraging a move away from the medical model, to look at the social causes of mental illness - to try to resolve the causes instead of controlling the symptoms.

If what you say here is the established current thinking, then I absolutely do.

It's slowly being discovered that the idea of "social causes of mental illness" is wrong, that it's a completely wrong path, and that the causes are more from the physical and chemical than the social or mental.

And so the approach you give there is looking like it's not getting close to starting to resolve the causes but are only scratching lightly at the symptoms.

It might be that that 'scratching at the symptoms' is all that can ultimately be done towards any 'cure', but if there's much more to the physical and chemical than the established current thinking accepts then there's a whole mis-placed 'academic discipline' to be over-turned and re-aligned, which is already proving difficult with the smallish discoveries that have been made so far.

I feel they're finally moving in the right direction - I always suspected psychiatry was a form of social control of deviant behaviour.But now they seem to be accepting that it's society/life in general that's fucked up, and that's why the person's reactions are as they are.

And these are exactly the sorts of ideas that newer discoveries are tending to strongly suggest are completely wrong - while the likes of you are buying into them on an ever-greater basis.

Which gets to show that there's going to have to be a battle of massive proportions to get onto a path that is based on solid evidence rather than very little more than presumptive ideas based in very few facts at all.

[eFestivals]

That's very twee. ''Ah, a good walk will sort it out''. Knitting's another one.

I'm sure it'll work if you have the blues, but it's not going to do anything for depression I'm afraid. I'm not so sure that they'd bother giving it a clinical trial.

And herein lies the problem.

Who are you to belittle what Katster was feeling, and to dismiss her real experience on the basis of only presumption? I bet you feel proper smug about your attitude to science.

Shrinks and those who go with them think they know it all already, and yet the 'knowledge' they are using to know it all is based on very little more than merely presumption: we have no fucking idea of how the mind works. They dismiss any idea of trying to look at things in a different way when there's a growing basis in facts and not merely presumption to justify that fresh look.

The only rational explanation for why they might dismiss attempts to discover more is that they see their own current power being whittled away by solid facts rather than the mere presumptions on which their power is based.