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Tuesday, August 18. 2015

A good description

A good, personal description of one form of what we put under the umbrella label of "depression":


Having anxiety & depression is like being scared and tired at the same time.  It's the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive.  It's wanting friends, but hate socializing.  It's wanting to be alone, but not wanting to be lonely.  It's caring about everything, then caring about nothing.  It's feeling everything at once, then feeling paralyzingly numb.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 14:33 | Comments (15) | Trackbacks (0)

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There is a broad range, and little is more frustrating than listening to people who have never experienced worse than temporarily feeling blue try to equate their experience of "just deciding to stop feeling that way" with the severe depression of a person who cannot even get out of bed to eat or get to the bathroom.

The description is apt, in that there is recognition of what should be done, but this only increases the guilt and hopelessness. The very weapons one would use to fight back with have been stripped away.

It is a kindness to encourage people to do more and go through the motions, even if they don't feel it, and to remind them that depression and anxiety are both liars, promising to last forever when they are in fact temporary states.
#1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-08-18 15:53 (Reply)
Holy cow. I would have thought I wrote that.
#2 Pogo from the Swamp on 2015-08-18 17:41 (Reply)
Whoa AVI, thank you. After this last 'trauma' (#7 to be exact, and it's to the point where I am thoroughly convinced God hates me) I have been trying to find a way to express what it is like, and you nailed it "The description is apt, in that there is recognition of what should be done, but this only increases the guilt and hopelessness. The very weapons one would use to fight back with have been stripped away."

I am very grateful for that, it should be helpful in trying to explain to my family what's wrong. They know I am smart and tough, and have always bounced back--full steam ahead, but this time it's different. When it happened, I physically felt those weapons leave me. And they just don't get that.
#3 Guest on 2015-08-18 18:20 (Reply)
Try some Lexapro.

It can be symptomatically-helpful. If not curative.
#3.1 Bird Dog on 2015-08-18 18:36 (Reply)
Thank you, but I was not dx'd with depression, it's (and I hate this term) PTSD, Dr. said is not a medicine that will help. But the paralyzing result is the same, and your apt description is exactly how it is--the weapons to fight are gone.

And, to top it all off, I just found out 1/2 hr ago I will be living in my car as of thurs night. I'm 55, and have worked incredibly hard all my life to care for my family. Got the kids through college, but mom too much of pain now that she's a burden and not a provider, so they are not helping me. I'm shocked and hurt, but it is what it is.
#3.1.1 guest on 2015-08-19 00:35 (Reply)
Prazosin is used for PTSD to treat nightmares. Getting restful sleep is a big step up in fighting back.
#3.1.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-08-19 08:47 (Reply)
"but mom too much of pain now that she's a burden and not a provider"

Maybe you are exactly right, maybe your children are selfish and disregard all your workto get them where they are. I can't know if that's true or not. But the odds are that you are a clinger and constant complainer and use your mental and physical health conditions to demand attention and favors. The odds are that you are a pain in the butt to be around. Worse if all that is true it is likely that you are totally oblivious to it and no one has ever told you this. Sadly this is the case for most people who make the complaint you did. "nobody loves me, I'm gonna go out in the garden and eat worms".
The "cure" is to make yourself a better person. Find interests and friends outside your family. Don't be a burden to them be someone they enjoy seeing and spending time with. Get a life. Spend time and effort being a better person, a better friend, a better parent. Tough advice, but so much more useful than simply saying "I'm sorry, gee your kids must be jerks". Take responsibility for your life and your happiness.
#3.1.1.2 Sweetpea on 2015-08-19 10:12 (Reply)
I sometimes wonder why more conservative bloggers don’t write about existentialist matters, instead writing about political issues as if they exist in a vacuum removed from the human condition.
#4 grey enlightenment (Link) on 2015-08-18 20:06 (Reply)
Show me an example of this.
#4.1 Sweetpea on 2015-08-18 20:11 (Reply)
Odd statement.
I can say part of the reason I'm conservative is exactly what's going on with me right now (see above post)
My own Church, that is thanks to liberal policies and luring people from other countires here, is receiving hundreds of millions in govt funding for undocumented immigrants, to provide apartments, furnishings, utilities, healthcare, dental, etc., through Catholic Charities. But they can't help me. I have given and volunteered and worked hard all my life, and am ashamed I need help now, but I do. I was shocked that there is nothing for the average American--especially through the Church.
#4.2 Guest on 2015-08-19 00:44 (Reply)
Thank you Dr. Bliss! Sometimes it seems impossible to find the right words to describe the outward paralysis and the internal tsunami. This is excellent.

AVI: you hit the most important truth: people with depression need to push through it because the apathy, dread and anxiety ARE liars, as is the guilt. And we need help pushing, gentle, firm help.
#5 ama on 2015-08-18 20:53 (Reply)
This is exactly the feeling - Dr. Joy. Ama, your 'outward paralysis and internal tsunami' is precisely how I felt after losing all the elders in my family over a very short time (8 years - 20 of them. Gone...)

There I was in a deep hole, dark, scary, I knew the ladder is just over there, but unable to reach it.

When I was lost, someone once said to me 'fake it until you can make it'. It took a long time to get there, but finally, I have pushed through, found the ladder and try to keep looking up.

TheCaptain
#5.1 TheCaptain on 2015-08-19 10:01 (Reply)
It's sort of the opposite of STEM moods.

Curiosity displaces a lot of crap.
#6 rhhardin (Link) on 2015-08-19 12:33 (Reply)
Not sure what a STEM mood is...

Do you mean STEM as in the '(hard) Science, Tech, Engineering and Math' sense? If so there is absolutely nothing about it that would preclude depression. Even the FACT that Engineers are near the top of the IQ scale and are generally rationalists does not preclude depression. Am I right, Dr. Joy?

TheCaptain
#6.1 The Captain on 2015-08-19 12:56 (Reply)
Paglia somewhere in Sexual Personae said that math is an escape from women.

It gives full range to abstraction and concentrating on a single solvable problem that seems will finally be settled once and for all.

That's the opposite of a female interest, which goes to adding complexity and non-resolution to attract it.
#6.1.1 rhhardin (Link) on 2015-08-19 13:09 (Reply)

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