Human Depression

What in the world are people talking about when they say a person is depressed?

I’m not 100% sure. Perhaps it means that person is unable, psychologically, to rise to the occasion.

What do you think, turtle?

This questions leads me to believe you’ve never been depressed, so before I answer I have a question of my own.

Have you ever been depressed, turtle-dove?

Google is your friend!

google is not good for understanding depression.

I am depressed but I am happy also. honeysavant are you depressed?

I’m certifiably depressed LoL, I’ve been diagnosed.

It comes and goes. Since my diagnosis I have kept a close eye on my cycle – I know the first signs of what I call a “downslide”. I’ve actually been downsliding for a couple of months now. First sign is a crabbiness I can’t shake. Second, I lose interest in social activities. Third, that loss of interest becomes a desire to lock the world out – this step will go on for awhile, until I feel like I’m going to explode everytime someone says my name. Fourth, I actually do lock the world out, pull the covers over my head, and sleep – catatonic depression. It’s the worst.

I’m generally pretty good at stopping the downslide around the time I lose interest in social activities, but this time I’m getting to, “I’m gonna fucking explode if one more person asks me for anything.”

Is depression related to introversion?

I doubt it.

rakra are you introverted.

honeysavant do you consider yourself to have a clinical depression. what is clinical depression.

it means you might as well not go to the bathroom and shit yourself because that is your life. :banana-dance:

I think it means generally that a person is more unhappy than is considered normal, and/or that a person’s ability to generate happiness/contentment in life or across varying situations is abnormally restricted or underexpressed. In terms of the reasons for this being depressed, there are many, and I do not believe that causes for depression are entirely well known yet.

I get depressed sometimes, occasionally severely so. I think this is a normal human experience. Life is often depressing, after all – so being depressed is often enough only a genuine reaction to one’s being alive. Suppressing these sorts of reactions because non-depressive states are considered desirable to depressive states tends to make one false before oneself, rob a person of their ability to be authentic in their emotional experiences, and can lead to neuroses and psychological complexes, obsessions or deseases.

Unfortunately I know many people like this. They have traded a deeper self-knowledge and quality of emotional experience for a larger quantity of shallow cheap “happiness”. Of course the real condition of their psyche is written all over their face, particularly in the eyes, and it is apparent they take great pains to deceive others and themselves about what is really going on inside. It is sad but telling that Western societies today are so geared toward producing these unfortunate conditions in people.

My official diagnosis, turtle-dove, is clinical depression, which means nothing more than, “depression of sufficient severity to be brought to the attention of a physician and to require treatment”. When I was diagnosed (seven years ago) my doctor suggest I seek therapy, and set me up with a guy. The first ‘therapy session’ I went to, this man asked me a shit-ton of questions to which I was to respond - none of the time, some of the time, most of the time, all of the time - and scored my answers. He said this little quiz was a way to gauge the severity of my depression, and when I was finished he informed me that I scored a “severely depressed”. Whatever that means.

I so agree with all of this. When I first was diagnosed I was put on medication, and honestly, at that point in time I needed it. I had no will to help myself, and the meds gave me the kick in the ass I needed. After a few months, though, they weren’t necessary anymore. All they did was shield me from experiencing any emotions whatsoever. I was neither happy nor sad, and it really f’ing bothered me, so I stopped taking them.

good post ttg.

honeysavant do you accept the diagnosis you have.
i see a psychoanalyst. he says i’m depressed.
i think he is right.

Yes, turtle-dove, I accept the diagnosis I have. More than a doctor telling me that I’m clinically depressed, I know it to be true because…well, because I’m me. I’ve lived my life, I know what I feel. I also know that mental illness runs rampant throughout my family members. I’m okay with my diagnosis – before I was diagnosed I thought I was literally going insane, so it was a comfort to know there was a medical reason for it. Chemical imbalance is no joke.

I also know that I don’t need medication. With loss of emotion comes loss of inspiration, and that is not okay with me. I’d rather have some bad days (or months) and be able to feel than be medicated and be “okay” all the time.

honey savant–that thinking seems quite mature.

Thank you for starting this thread–it takes the onus off me. But I do object to your labeling clinical depression as a mental illness. It really isn’t an ''Illness," since ‘illness’ has a potential for a cure. And it really isn’t ‘mental.’ You said it, BlurredSavant, when you said, “Chemical imbalance is no joke.”

The lack of certain chemicals within the brain can’t be ‘cured,’ but it can be corrected with drugs that ‘replace’ the needed chemicals. Do those pharms alter mental functions? I don’t think so. Are they physically addictive?–No.

Why is it that using drugs so often means using mind altering drugs? Don’t people use aspirin to relieve pain and/or fever? Don’t people use vitamins as dietary supplements to augment nutritional deficiencies? What’s the difference between using vitamins to supplement nutrients and using a pharm to add a needed brain chemical?

Thank you, again, I do appreciate your posts.

I wonder how helpful psychotherapy is for depressed persons.

I think depression is often just a phase as a person grows up and starts to take control of their life. Once the depressive triggers are removed, life and one’s overall mood improve. In my view, seeing a psychologist is OK if that psychologist is a responsible counselor; but it won’t do any good if they just give you drugs. Drugs won’t cure depression.