Depression experience

[Cavernio]

"the problem itself was totally of fabrication (fear of the problem = surfacing the problem, in my case, and has been that way for a lot of things)."

Yes. My lack of performing daily actions definitely feels like this. However there seems to be nothing to do for it. I just avoid and avoid because facing the act of not doing the thing brings me to writhing and gnashing of teeth and tears and thoughts of self-harm.

I am trying giving in these days. I do not try much anymore, I will either do it or I won't.

I have never had enough self-awareness to properly explain my mental states, but I can relate to everything that has been said personally in this thread to some degree or another.

Abilify calmed down my racing thoughts. Was also the worst withdrawal I have ever gone through.

The past couple years I have over-reacted emotionally to everything. Which is something someone can not really do since a reaction just is, its neither good nor bad, so one cannot 'over-do' it. But that's how I've begun to be. I think part of me wanted that because stable is boring. I felt like I was missing out on so many emotions in life I actually went to therapy with one of the major goals of being able to feel more emotions.

There are many faces of depression. I have experienced many.

My memory is so poor, the weed is not helping that aspect of my life sadly, so that any realizations that being high gives me, and they happen regularly, I end up forgetting most of them. I know that one of them is that in order to stop my brain from constantly going someplace negative the best way will be for me to be doing an activity that draws my focus away from myself.

It feels like life is just full of pain and I have to accept that as reality. There is no hiding from it or fixing it, it just is. I have come to what shouldn't be all that surprising of a relevation to me, is that my levels of emotional pain are simply too high for wanting to try to exist. Even when I'm not suicidal, I generally don't actively *want* to live. I am slowly learning how to put coping mechanisms into place. If I kill myself in the meantime, I think that's ok too though.

[Izzy]

A few years ago the depression hit me hard. I was having regular panic attacks and didn't want to do anything at all. It's kind of mellowed out at this point, but I find myself so indifferent to basically every experience. I don't feel like doing things, but I also don't not feel like doing things. It just doesn't matter to me. I sometimes find myself staring at my monitors for 30 minutes thinking about nonsense I may want to do, but do actually feel motivated enough to start doing.

I keep buying games and starting shows only to soon realize I don't feel like starting them or that they don't entertain me anyway.

Still, I'd rather experience an infinite existence of nothingness than to not experience anything at all.

[Hakulyte]

When I get depressed, I unconsciously become confused instead and trigger a neverending cycle of "Why I'm depressed? What if I __________ . " and I continue the process until I'm mentally exhausted regardless of if I'm coming out with good or bad reasons. The goal is to make myself get bored of my state of depression and shift my thoughts to wanting to do something different.

It always work for me and when it doesn't, I simply stay in my state of confusion for several days until it does. It's better than "feeling depressed" and it's making me more likely to talk with others/get help if I can't fix myself and get over it asap.

So yeah, it's all about not mentally creating bad scenarios and assume that they're right and get further depressed etc. The best way to fight depression is to not let it have the opportunity to affect you imo. Letting your depression take over yourself is just as damaging as letting yourself get hit physically. You should do everything you can to let it not become the center of your thoughts in general. The brain is a crazy thing that can makes you convince yourself of things that you shouldn't let yourself be convinced of especially when you're in a state of vulnerability.

Right now I'd say that I'm consistently varying betweem being happy and feeling "neutral". I haven't been particularly really depressed in a very long time and when I do it's usually short and go away fairly quickly.

So yeah, there's hope on that.

[MarioNintendo]

When I get in a depressed state of mind, I get very self destructive. I was at my worst in 2014 when my ex left me.

What helped me the most was attempting the nofap challenge and going to the gym (first time was very hard because I was always complexed with not being physically fit, but asking advice to arch0wl helped). I feel much more confident now and feel like I'm the master of my destiny.

No joke in december 2015 I was at my best. I managed to tell my feelings to a girl on whom I had a crush. She said no at first, but I believed in myself. A month later, we're together, and we just celebrated our first year. In my case, self confidence (and trying to stop getting my confidence from others) is what did the trick.

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by MinaciousGrace

depression is the realization that happiness is an illusion

What helped me a lot was realizing that happiness is not an illusion per-se, but rather just an experienced result of neurochemical signaling. At least as far as modern science can say- but I'll take that over throwing my hands in the air and admitting depression will never be understood.

When I was most depressed, I thought of the fact I had to take meds as being proof that I was, in some way, a bad person.
But that's the nature of depression being classified as a disorder, beyond just "being lazy" or "being sad."
Thinking taking depression meds reflects a problem with you personally is akin to a person with an ear infection thinking they're worthless because they have to take penicillin.

And, once I made that leap to accepting that meds actually help me, I really started to do better, and I am now doing well enough that I am on fewer meds and lower doses of the ones I do take. Ironic in a good way.

Originally Posted by choof

I don't want to kill myself, big ups to cymbalta

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Better living through science and all that.



*note: You can make the argument that mental health meds are a passing and ultimately tangentially effective treatment, the modern day equivalent of historical quack psychiatry. I took a class on the history of psychiatry last year and so I've spent several months thinking about this question from different angles, albeit just at an undergraduate level.
But this thread asked for what helps, and I can personally verify that taking meds, in some way (even just via a placebo effect), definitely helped me want to kill myself less. So, strangely, I think it's a valid answer whether or not the science is right. This was not a popular opinion in the class on my hyper-liberal campus, by the way. Apparently big medicine is bad no matter what just because it's... big?

[gold stinger]

Just chiming in to give my own opinion on depression, considering that I have been more or less dealing with it for 10 years of the 20 years of my life and counting.

Depression to me feels like a sort of natural dampener response to stress, and trauma. It kind of forces the body into thinking, or taking options that would be less stressful or traumatic in the immediate scenario, given the chance. Even where said action would benefit towards fixing said depression, the choice leaned towards is the one that takes the least energy, and is the least stressful.

This means, that if you ask a depressed person to call you up if they ever want to talk, they probably won't. They will most likely take the less energetic route, and keep themselves from having to deal with talking to another person. Even though it's better for them to do so, they won't. Does the depressed person have to do chores? They are likely going to be procrastinated until the situation gets really bad and either peer pressure from what other people think kicks in, or they get confronted about it.

People who are depressed imo don't necessarily dislike to talk to people, or break down easily. But stress, and depression are major contributing factors that can help flare up those kinds of traits, such as social anxiety, insomnia, mood swings, and PTSD. Sometimes when stress is so high, suicidal thoughts becomes a thing. Because again, it's about weighting choices that take the least energy, and are the least stressful. If just existing is hitting your stress threshold, some people may come to conclusion that this is a good idea, thus the birth of suicidal thoughts and tendencies. I for one, love to talk to people; Getting out of the house, to go and visit people to talk to is rough for me. I'd much rather stay at home. It doesn't stop people from visiting though, or reaching out to me themselves.

[Cavernio]

I feel like I'm entering a period of my life where I am going to be isolating myself for a long time. What happens psychologically when one isolates for long periods of time?

[choof]

Originally Posted by choof

I don't want to kill myself, big ups to cymbalta
I'll do a post tomorrow after I see my therapist

lol WHOOPS

I don't take cymbalta anymore, I'm taking gabapentin and my night meds (mood stabilizers) are in a bit of a limbo stage right now. gabapentin fucking owns. anxiety is gone, my depressive mindset is way easier to deal with. big ups to tripsit.me too, I logged in and spenner happened to be there. asked about gabapentin at recreational doses, and I found that the original dosage of 100mg twice a day felt too low. now I'm up to 300mg twice a day. goddamn, I'm loving it.

my night meds are in limbo because I haven't been able to find something that works as well as seroquel, but my doctor doesn't want me to take it because of the long term side effects, particularly brain damage. this is mostly because he expects me to be on a mood stabilizer for a while, and he's not too keen on me risking brain damage while I'm going to college for comp sci and math lol. I've tried uh... remeron and now I'm trying doxepin. doxepin has been interesting, it's somewhat like a benzo in that it puts me in an interesting mind-set. very little drowsiness though.

I'll probably do a big post later tonight that doesn't have to do with medication.

[Mahou]

What causes my depression is how I look towards myself at that given moment in life. If I feel like a piece of shit or feel like I look like a piece of shit, it really hurts my mood. I will have temporary stages of happiness depending on what's going around me.

For me, the only way I was actually able to cure my depression is working out on a daily basis - I never thought of seeing a professional about it because I'm almost inclined to believe that most therapists don't give a shit. I even called a suicidal hotline last year, and the guy one the phone wasn't even very helpful. Thank goodness that I had one friend nearby that helped me cope with my emotions.

Overall, if I don't any sort of physical activity in my daily regime, I start to have very negative thoughts about life.

[Spenner]

Gabapentin is a good call, in fact just identifying that you need something that works in the GABA area of your brain to quell excessive stimulation and anxiety (which is pretty much like a very slow, continuous seizure, if you ask me sometimes... when your thoughts are in a loop there is no stopping it, unless you have something that stops your fear-response mid-thought, gabapentin will do that). There are of course pros and cons of using things that affect the GABA receptors of the brain (cough alcohol cough) but used right it is some of the most effective medication for directly intervening with anxiety, and some depressive episodes too. Glad you got some solid info my friend, keep that one on the shelf.

Night medication is something I'm working on whittling down myself, I'm so incredibly over-stimulated and it never slows down, and at night when external stimuli goes away, it draws even more attention to that baseline stimulation I have. Benzos work, but aren't a solution, so I'm going to see a specialist/neuroscientist and get some testing done on my brain... that should be interesting.

@Everyone though, depression I feel is becoming less of something the minority experience. More and more people are finding themselves confronting it, and being unable to push it away so easily. It's part of how we're evolving I guess, we're more detail oriented, more worried, more mindful. There's more on our plates than most people. I'm not trying to identify depressed people as special in that regard lol. But we have as abnormal way of observing the present-state we're in, often lost in what could be, what hasn't been, what should have been, etc. Because it's easy to feel out what shape would fill your complex void of sadness (or to feel that there is that void), it is a very challenging thing to learn to cope with prioritizing less with drawing attention to needing to fill that void.

I've learned again the hard way that sometimes, depression just needs time. I had a series of extremely bad days, and honestly, take notes or have some sort of safe-item on you to remind you that lucid thinking does return to you, or that it can as long as you remember you have the ability to do it (too often people completely put faith into the idea that they are completely lost causes, and it becomes a reality). I sure as hell needed to remember.

Kinda with you Cave with the poor memory, I can say that it is a core part of my issue with depression in general. Sometimes I forget why I'm even depressed, yet it continues. Then what? Weed has never actually been very detrimental for my memory (naturally it's just pretty poor) but maybe you should look into a nootropic supplement to take to help give your brain the capacity to work more efficiently.

Keep in mind that back in the day when I was using Noopept a lot, I wouldn't even feel high. I'd have some mental and physical effects, but a big effect of cannabis is that strange effect on how you're perceiving the world and your attention span being messed up. But noopept gave my brain some superpowers and it was mad efficient or something, I could be high and functional at the same time. Gonna get more of that :l I suppose there's a reason they prescribe it to people with the onset of alzheimer's.

Originally Posted by Mahou

Overall, if I don't any sort of physical activity in my daily regime, I start to have very negative thoughts about life.

I highly agree that physical momentum is a sort of pusher of motivation, endorphins, and the like. It's a way to actively prove to yourself that you have competence. Highly recommend doing anything physical even if it's just walking and reflecting.

[choof]

Originally Posted by Spenner

Gabapentin is a good call, in fact just identifying that you need something that works in the GABA area of your brain to quell excessive stimulation and anxiety (which is pretty much like a very slow, continuous seizure, if you ask me sometimes... when your thoughts are in a loop there is no stopping it, unless you have something that stops your fear-response mid-thought, gabapentin will do that). There are of course pros and cons of using things that affect the GABA receptors of the brain (cough alcohol cough) but used right it is some of the most effective medication for directly intervening with anxiety, and some depressive episodes too. Glad you got some solid info my friend, keep that one on the shelf.

odd that you should mention alcohol
I don't remember if I posted this, but about two weeks ago I went out drinking with some family for my sister's birthday. I had taken gabapentin right before I left, and after a few drinks I ended up vomiting blood.
at first I was pretty embarrassed by it, only my brother knew that I was vomiting blood, so my sisters/sister's friends thought I just wimped out after 3 pabst blue ribbons lmao. fortunately I was quickly brought to a hospital.

I've battled with alcoholism in the past; nowadays I just grab a craft beer after a good day at work. but after the vomiting blood and another incident about a week ago where I was just uncontrollably vomiting until I passed out in my bathroom... I am 100% done with alcohol.

I have yet to smoke weed with gabapentin though. I think it'll synergize well?


when it comes to night meds, right now I'm just drinking tea with valerian root in it and taking doxepin. it works well enough, but I wake up really drowsy; feels a bit like a hangover. maybe it's a comedown? idk.

so, depression. after having gabapentin for however long I've been taking it (ironically spenner would know more exactly than I would, that night when I popped into tripsit was the first week I started taking it), my suicidal thoughts have disappeared completely. that is definitely a Good Thing, but flying out of a depressive state as quickly as I have is leaving me... at a loss for things to do. and some of the old things I used to do to cope are just utterly boring to me now.

like... ffr. I honestly have no idea what's going on, but I care a lot less about the people I've talked to on here. in skype groups, all I do is post here and there and then disappear. I can't remember the last time I actually talked to someone. and I'm fine with that. it makes me pretty sad, but I have zero urge to interact with anyone that I've met online on a personal level.

and another thing that I encountered recently, is that coming out of depression, I feel emotionally calloused. I listened to an album for the first time in years about a week ago, it was an album I listened to and shared with someone I cared about deeply. I was expecting it to affect me in some way, but it didn't. I don't experience sharp peaks and valleys anymore, it's more like rolling hills. it's jarring, and I'm sure I'll come to welcome it later on, but right now it's got me feeling really fucking weird.

I didn't want to end up just vomiting words into a critical thinking thread, oops.