Depression Talk

Many types of depression runs in families, including major depression and bipolar disorder. The odds are that sooner or later, you’re going to bump into a family member or other loved one who is depressed. The best thing you can do is get the person to talk about how they feel and encourage them to get help.

But there are also other things you want to avoid doing. This list was inspired by The Family Intervention Guide to Mental Illness: Recognizing Symptoms and Getting Treatment by Bodie Morey & Kim. T. Muesser, Ph. D.

Thinking It Will Pass

Depression doesn’t go away on it’s own, so don’t worry that you are making a fuss over nothing. Who knows? If a person has untreated depression when they die, they could turn into a ghost with depression. Perhspas that’s why ghosts do all of that wailing and moaning.

Telling the Person to Snap Out of It

A person with any type of depression CAN’T “snap out of it”. That’s like telling a cancer patient to “snap out of it”. The only thing you will accomplish is making the loved one with depression hate your guts. And then, when the situation gets so desperate that you do need to have a serious heart-to-heart with your depressed loved one, they will refuse to listen to you.

Believing That Mental Illness Doesn’t Happen In Your Family

Mental illness is not a character flaw, a judement from God or a curse of any kind. It’s an illness — which is why it has that word “illness” in the phrase “mental illness”. You’d want your loved one to get treatment for cancer, so why not mental illness?

You can have panic attacks for many reasons — not just because you’ve been diagnosed with phobias, panic attack disorder or general anxiety disorder. For example, my migranes can trigger a panic attack. Panic attacks can be the sign of another illness that needs attention. And, of course, suffering a severe trauma like a car accident, mugging or finding your spouse in bed with your best friend can also trigger a panic attack.

Many people with depression do experience panic attacks or know someone who is afflicted with panic attacks. Although panic attacks suck, it can be even more terrifiying to watch someone else go through a panic attack rather than experience it yourself.

When I feel a panic attack coming on, I ask someone I know well to talk to me about anything. It helps distracts me from the whirling thoughts. I sometimes also put on a calming video or DVD to sort of self-hypnotise me back to tranquility (or my usual acidic version of normalcy.)

But my panic attacks are mild in comparison with other people’s. So it’s great that Expert Village did a little video series dealing with panic attacks in a practical ways. I found that the best in the series was “How to Help Someone Having a Panic Attack,” because it explains the difference between helpful eye contact and leering. It also explains when touching is appropriate.

I just want to add that you may also want to help the person breathe deeply and gently remind them that nothing bad is happening to them right now and that you know it’s not their fault that they get panic attacks.

Prescription drugs have two uses — what conditions the box says it should treat and what are called “off label” uses. For example, I currently take two prescription drugs — fluoxetine (generic Prozac) and verapamil (also a generic). I take generic Prozac for depression. That’s no big deal. Prozac is marketed as an anti-depressant, after all.

But I also take verapamil. It’s a high blood pressure medication. I don’t have high blood pressure. In fact, I have low blood pressure. However, many doctors have noted that many people who take verapamil have less headaches. So, I’m taking verapamil for an “off label” use.

So, if your doctor prescribves you antidepressants and you are not depressed, don’t take it personally. This is just an off label use. In these cases, you need to be very familiar with the drug warnings (just in case). Off label use of prescription medications is still a hot topic among many medical circles.

What other medical conditons can be treated with antidepressants?

Chronic Headaches and Migraines

Chances are, if you have chronic headaches or migraines, then you already have been diagnosed with depression. When you have one, you have a very high chance of having another. the culprit now thought to play a role in depression — serotonin — is now thought to play a part in migraines or some kinds of chronic headaches as well.

Trying To Quit Smoking

If you quit smoking, you will get depressed. How long and how severe this lasts differs from person to person. You can also experience trouble sleeping and will literally bite the heads off nails. Antidepressants like Wellbutrin are now usually prescribed to smokers who have just quit. Usually, the need to be on the antidepressants is only for a couple of months.

Urinary Incontinence

The antidepressant used here is called imipramine (brand name Trofanil). According to the Mayo Clinic’s website:

This antidepressant may occasionally be used in combination with other medications to treat incontinence. It causes the bladder muscle to relax, while causing the smooth muscles at the bladder neck to contract.

Insomnia

One of the benefits that many (but not all) people on antidepressants is that their sleep cycle gets regulated. For example, I was a chronic insomniac until I had Valium, marijuana, a handfull of Nyquil or generic Prozac. I can’t really recommend my first three methods of getting to sleep. Of course, a pill can’t completely cure insomnia. behavior modification needs to happen too, such as getting regular exercise and cutting down caffeine.

If you have depression, you’re probably struggling to pay for your essential life-saving medication. Even if you have your head above water, you certainly don’t need the floating tree trunk of the December holidays to clonk into you. If you haven’t done so already, the time is NOW to talk to your friends and family frankly about your finacial situation and state limits on gift-giving or nixing gift-giving all together.

Don’t Ignore This

Here at Depression Talk, I try to steer away from talk of the high cost of medical care. I save those rants for Dealing With Headaches. I know that when depression weighs heavily on you, you look for any excuse not to try and get help, because you believe that you can’t be helped. Worrying about money was one of the excuses I had for taking years to go for help about my major depression.

You can be helped. But it takes time to change the habits you’ve gotten into because of your depression. You need to tell yourself everyday that you can be helped. You need to attend your therapy sessions, if you are scheduled for them. You also need to give your medication a chance to work. Going cold turkey from your meds can lead to painful side effects.

You Will Feel Guilty

This is why you need to ration your money to keep your head above water. The winter holidays (Christmas, Chanukka, Dewali, Yule, et cetera) are suppossedly more than about gifts and decorations, anyway. You will feel guilty for telling your loved ones that your finacial situation is bad and you can’t give gifts. You will get over it.

Chances are, your loved ones are in the same bad money situation as you are and they will be relieved that you broached the subject first. This also lets them off of the present hook. There will always be one friend or family member who will complain about you being “cheap”. Ask that person if they’d rather see you dead or hospitalized from not taking your medications (it’s okay to exaggerate a little to make a point to a thickhead). If they still protest, then you know who to cut off from your Christmas card list in years to come.

If they have already bought you a present, ask them to donate it to charity.

Hope this helps.

I’ve screwed up more suicide attempts than I care to admit, so I’m sadly more than qualified to write this article. If you’re reading this, chances are you have also gone through a failed suicide attempt or know a loved one who has just gone through a failed suicide attempt. Any communication — whether at home, hospital or on the phone, is going to be awkward for both sides. There really isn’t any right way of talking to someone after a failed suicide attempt, but I can give you some hints that helped me in my past misadventures.

Don’t Bring Up the “S” Word Unless The Patient Does

The person who has attempted to commit suicide and is still alive will feel like a failure. They will be overly self-conscious, embarassed, freaked out and worried. Automatically blurting out, “How could you have tried to do such a thing?!?” will not make the situation any better. Trust me.

Let the patient talk in his or her own time. If they want to talk about it — fine. If not — that’s fine, too.

Talk Like You Normally Would

One of the reasons some people commit suicide is because they feel as if they are a burden on thier friends and family. They believe the world will be better off without them. When the suicide attempt goes awry and they realize they have to face their loved ones, they worry if they’ve forever lost the friendship or good relationship they may have had with them.

Let them subliminally know that your feelings for them still hasn’t changed. Talk to them about things you normally talk about. Although I was resentful at first when this happened after one of my failed sucide attempts, later on I really came to appreciate it.

Ask If You Need To Bring Them Anything

Whether they are in the hospital or at home, it’s alwqays good to ask if you can bring anything to the person recovering from a failed sucide attempt. They will most likely be in shock, which can lead to sudden weakness or incoordination. Just taking the trash out for them or bringing them a cup of tea not only gives you something to talk about, but shows that life goes on.

Hope this helps.

When you have depression, it can be very hard to explain how you feel to someone who does not have depression. It’s like trying to talk to an alien from another planet. Depression affects all areas of your life, including the way you think, feel, make decisions and just about anything else. These feelings can be seemingly incomprehensible to someone who has no clue as to what depression feeels like. Even with all of those funky “Depression Hurts” advertisements from Cymbalta, many of the non-depressed still haven’t a clue.

So, if you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know what you are going through (the non-depressed), you can print this post out and shove it under his or her nose.

Picture If you Will…

Imagine you are lockined in a pitch black closet and can’t find the door. Then, imagine that this house gets caught up in a F-5 tornado. So, depression feels like you are in a locked, pitch-dark closet caught inside of a tornado.

And you feel this way all of the time.

Get It Now?

When I was homeless in England, I had a lot of time to come up with metaphors to describe what deprssion feels like. Not all of the other homeless I met had depression. Many were addicts, which is not the same thing as depression. I remember one white-haired fellow pulling on his can of Special Brew who asked me skeptically, “So, wuzzit feel like to ‘ave depression, then?”

I told him the above description.

He nodded, blinked for a while and then said, “Wow. I had to go through twenty years and thousands of pounds worth of chemicals to get to feel like that. And you were born with it!”

Varying Degress

The tornado you’re in slows down every now and then when you have depression. Sometimes, it even stops and you finally get to see that there is a way out of the closet. But, eventually, you somehow seem to get back in that closet in the middle of Tornado Alley. It ’s the feeling of not being able to find a way out is what it’s like living with depression day in, day out.

Well, it’s not a perfect metaphor, but hopefully this will help those without depression understand what depression feels like.

If you’ve had depression for more than ten minutes, you’ve probably noticed that you have to do a lot of lying in order to talk to other people. Lie whenever they ask you how you are doing or feeling. Just say, “Fine”. There is a method to this madness. If all you do is complain, you’ll soon find yourself with fewer and fewer friends to complain to.

Social Support

It’s recommended to interact with others when you’re depressed. But how can you talk to others when all you really want to do is whine and rant? Even the most loyal of friends will suddenly remember a root canal appointment. So, depending on the friendship, try to keep a time limit on your complaining. Then, ask your friend how they are doing and listen to them for at least the same amount of time they’ve listened to you.

If they say, “But how are you really feeling? You can let it all out. It’s okay,” then winge away. They’ve given you permission. But it is still polite to let them talk about themselves for some parts of the conversation.

Comparing Yourself to Others

Another reason that it’s good to listen to other people’s problems is that, in comparison, your usually aren’t too bad. You listen to your friends and family and think, “Thank God I’m not this person.” That might seem a little crass, but when you have depression, you need all the help you can get. You may find yourself feeling a lot better, even if only for a few minutes.

Talking to Your Doctor

These tips are only for talking with friends, family and aquaintances. When talking to your doctor or therapist, be as brutally honest as you please. They’re getting paid to hear you complain. Get your money’s worth.

Hope this helps.

When you know you’re not wanted, that can make you depressed, stressed or intensify an already depressive condition. This can happen to misunderstood classes of people such as homosexuals and minorities. Well, if you live in England, you have a reason to be just a little more cheerful. There is finally a job you can apply for where you won’t be discriminated against.

You can be a spy.

M15 Wants You!

The UK’s M15 spy network is legendary, thanks in part to writers like Ian Fleming, John le Carre and Grahame Greene. Pretty much some of the only requirements are that you:

• are a UK citizen
• are proficient in at least one language (preferably British English, but they’ll probably haggle)
• have lived in the UK 9 of the last 10 years
• are at least 18 years old
• be willing to have your background and credit checked
• be willing to go through drug tests
• like working as part of a team
• can keep your mouth shut

When you have any type of depression (clinical depression or the “blahs”) it can be really hard to find a job, let alone a job worth finding. If you work for M15 — even not as a spy, but as an IT professional, CCTV surveliance monitor or administrative assistant — you not only get a steady wage, but benefits.

However, you probably will be fired immediately if you do a James Bond impersonation on the job.

Lie Back And Think of England

It may seem odd to American readers, but homosexuals could not work for the UK governement until the 1990’s and not for M15 until now. This was because it was assumed that gays and lesbians would be more suceptable to blackmail.

But how about if you are a clinically depressed gay Brit? Would you still be hired, even though you have the desired sexuality and handle all of the other requirements? This depends. Although literature and pop fiction is chockerblock full of depressed spies, the actual spies are still tight-lipped about what ailments are permitted in the M15 realms and what aren’t.

The M15 has been quietly recruiting minorities for a few years and also has been hiring some disabled people. But perhaps they feel the need to infiltrate the words of fashion, interior design and cross-dressing clubs. In such a dire need, perhaps they will accept clincially depressed gay minorites.

Man, there are days I really wish I was still living in England. Maybe I could have faked being gay. Americans count as minorities in the UK, right?

This is the usual reaction people get when they reveal that they are clinically depressed. Personally, I think it should be a law that if anyone asks you that and you have diagnosed by a doctor with depression, then you should be allowed to punch any idiot who says this right in the mouth. (Opinions like these are probably why I never got into law). They might as well ask a cancer patient, “What have you got to be sick about?” Same question — different illness.

It’s Not Your Fault That You Have Depression

Clincial depression or bipolar disorder (another kind of depression) are still often thought to be character flaws or punishment from God about some misdemeanor you did in your past. I used to go to a strict Christian school where you were screamed at for being a sinner and not trusting in God enough should you happen to slip up and admidt you were feeling depressed. I graduated from that school in 1987 and I hope they still don’t take that appraoch with their students, but you never know. People hate to change cherished beliefs. For example, I came across this debate on Helium, “Bipolar Disorder: Illness or Excuse?”

We do not know why some people get clincially depressed or get anixety disorder or get bipolar disorder. We do know that it seems to run in families, but how did those families get in the first place? One thing for sure is that depression doesn’t come about because you are somehow “bad”.

It Is A Mental Illness

Clinical depression and it’s bretheren are illnesses of the brain function, thought to be problems in the brain’s chemistry. But, due to the stigma associated with mental illnesses, many people who don’t have clinical depression asssume that all people with mental illnesses need to be locked up and are incurably dangerous.

Clinical depression is a mental illness, but many people with it can still function in society, holding down a job, paying the bills, whatever. It is not because we woke up one day and thought, “I know what. I’ll be miserable for the rest of my life!”

Depression isn’t a choice. It’s an illness. And, oftentimes, a manageable one. So, you do have something to be depressed about, even when others can’t see it.

I went to a walk-in clinic today about my wierd health ailments. I’m sure that the world is happy to know that FINALLY, someone is acting like they give a damn about me. Or, at least, she is doing a really good job of pretending. Either way, the doctor I saw today was concerned and has ordered a battery of tests, so I should know what is up with me within weeks.

I realized today as I sat in the walk-in clinic being totally calm and collect that I’ve never before been to a walk-in clinic for a medical ailment. Before, it has always been because I’m LOSING MY MIND and I fear that my brain is about to splatter all over the walls. Or perhaps because I fear that my small intestine is about to worm its way out my nose and strangle someone. Or, you know, the sleep button in my brain needed to be re-wired or because a roommate found me sobbing in a heap on the floor (Over socks. For the third time. That day. Oh, shut up.)

Today there was none of that fear. There was no rehearsing which drugs I’ve taken before and which just don’t work for me. There was no concern that someone would recommend some Haldol and ship me off to the loony bin. There was no worrying about pronouncing complicated medications. All I had to do was point at my neck and wait! Fabulous!

Just a regular person, with a regular doctor, having visible parts of her anatomy checked out.

Who would have thought this was even POSSIBLE?

Amazing.

I’m on vacation this week, a vacation that started out with my nephew howling at the train station “Please don’t move away forever, Auntie!!”. And for a moment, just one little moment, I thought of threatening to stay away FOREVER if he ever wanders right into the ring IN FRONT OF MY HORSE while I am riding him again. But then I figured, hey, the poor kid is probably still traumatized from the time I fed him hummingbird food in a bottle at three a.m. He likely doesn’t need any more tramautic experiences at the hands of his beloved Auntie.

My vacation was interrupted today by going on a date, and when I say that it was interrupted by a date I mean that it actually was. Dating for me is like a full time job; the stress and anxiety and amount of workplace-appropriate shoes I need is really that important. I went on a date and it was fun and he was nice and in the end, CAN I GO BACK TO BEING SINGLE NOW?

And PHEW, the answer to that one is always yes because every time I meet someone I fancy just a little bit, he turns out to be a stalker or insane or unemployed or the father of five children or a chronic back-waxer. And I just can’t put my poor mother through another of THOSE types of men.

If someone’s future mother-in-law whispers under her breath that she thinks you’re crazy, does that make you crazier than you really are?

I met someone this weekend, quite unexpectedly as it is Berry Season, after all, and how do you meet someone when you devote your life to fruit?

I got to leave the berry farm for a little over fourteen hours this weekend and it was a great relief to discover that the world is still turning beyond Field #7.

This individual I met wears cowboy boots and has a belt bucle and showed up tp the stag I was at in a PBR button-down shirt. For those of you not in the know, the Pro Bull Riding finals are the highlight of my year, and anyone who knows what they are — other than my parents — is really a special person in my eyes. Someone I’d consider offering my second last beer to, even.

He drives a tractor for a living and has a big ol’ pickup truck and wears a ball cap and I got to thinking about it, and who’s kidding who? I can’t date someone. I hate dating. When people breathe near me, I want to smack them. When people sit beside me, I feel claustrophobic. I detest the awkwardness of dating, the formality of it, the expectation that you should lean in for a kiss goodnight. And by the way, how are you supposed to know if you’re on a date with someone that the other party actually WANTS to be kissed goodnight?

But at the same time I’m thinking that it would be awfully nice to have my phone ring at some point. This is not typical of me at all.

I think the PBR shirt has clouded my judgement.

My boss and I went on a beer run tonight, the type of run that is not uncommon for girls like us. We generally guise our beer runs under some other thing, like “Us leaving the farm right now will help the farm succeed through this season. As a result, it is pertinent that we leave. Now. Heading South. And I swear, its totally a coincidence that we must go South and the Beer store is South of us.”

We were on this run when my boss went on a diatribe about the people I date and I have to say, My God, is that really the impression people get? Because I swear, I’ve totally dated nice people. It just so happens that they’re generally terrified of a psycho like me, and head for the hills after my first outbreak of hives. If that’s not the case, I have to toss them soon, Very, Very Soon because what’s wrong with him if he’s sticking around? Clearly, a lot.

But, we happened across a handsome man this evening, one driving a minivan which either means he is so young he’s not legal for me to date, or he’s got seventeen kids and he’s met and needs to drive around at least five of them. I commented on his attractiveness and sighed. My boss could contain himself no more and shrieked “Amanda! He has only TWO LIMBS and they both come out of his NECK!”

“Wha-?”

“Amanda’s dream boyfriend: No speak English!”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that for the love of GOD, you need to date someone who doesn’t have an obvious deformity and who’s native tongue is compatible with yours!”

“But-”

“And he can’t be a chemist because that’s code for someone who WORKS IN A METH LAB!”

“They typically are more covert about their –”

“And just because he’s HIGH ALL THE TIME doesn’t mean he can call himself a pilot!”

“Well, now, I’ve never –”

“AND his native language needs to have developed a form of WRITING COMPATIBLE WITH WINDOWS XP!!”

And you know, I’ve never really thought about it like that before, but maybe she has a point. Maybe I should look for someone who’s limbs number more than two, that extend from a part of his body that is entirely separate from his neck.

I got up bright and early today, at seven thirty, and decided to run down and see my horse. I was planning on feeding him, watering him, and cleaning out his stall, but my father had beat me to it. So I stood, instead, and scratched his friendly little ears while my dad finished up the cleaning.

Later I was feeling a little bit bad that my poor father had to clean out two horse stalls instead of one, and I asked him if he would like to trade off days on stall cleaning, or work out some kind of deal.

My dad pondered for a little minute before he looked at me and said “Well, Dear, I just don’t think you could do it to my satisfaction.”

And a lot of people might be offended at a comment like that. Like, what, I can’t shovel shit good enough for you? Like, I might shovel shit the wrong way? Is there a wrong way to shovel shit? I’m sure that many people would be put off by such a statement.

But not me.

See, I accepted a long, long time ago that my parents are Farkin’ Insane. My mother has a thing about the pots in her kitchen: Each one has certain tasks, certain foods that can be cooked in it, and if you cook the wrong food in the wrong pot, heads just might start to explode.

My father is equally insane. The way that I garden maddens him to the point that this year, he banished my garden to behind the chicken coop. We’re talking a location that was once a rock pile. Yes. It was once a rock pile. Not a pile of, say, compost that might have desintegrated in the last thirty years. It was a rock pile. (On a brighter note, it was mentioned to me today that since I’m managing to actually grow things in this rock pile, I’m making quite a statement about my agricultural skills. Good point.)

I think I was eight or nine when I decided that since I probably can’t beat them, I might as well join them. And I then went on a campaign to end the improper stacking of coffee cups in our home.

Since then, every time I find an improperly stacked coffee cup, I fiercefully whip open the cupboard door, produce the cups from within it, smash them together with the right amount of force and care such that they don’t end up broken, and slam the cupboard door shut. Occasionally, an imbecile trundles through our kitchen and stacks the coffee cups the wrong way but I am generally quick to remind them of their errors. And then they promptly quit coming over altogether.

And so, the fact that I probably can’t clean out my horses’ stall to my father’s satisfaction doesn’t worry me one little bit. I know that I’m a good shit-shoveler. in fact, I’m probably one of the best shit shovelers. I even throw that little tidbit out in conversation whenever I get a chance!

Its just that skill can’t compete with Crazy, and so most of the time, I don’t even need to try.

I am that confident in my ability to shovel shit.