[Cyb3rNuX]

Man, I loved it. All the things you wrote. I've been depressed for about 2years now. This made me think about what I've been doing these 2years. Nothing. Just sitting home spending my time infront of the computer all day. Taking medication for it but that didnt help. Well I really needed these word. Thanks alot man. And sorry for the bad english

I hope this will help you out and good luck! ♥

[NexttxeN]

Yes, this topic will be useful even for those who did not have depression, because it can happen absolutely with everyone.

[phyrrus9]

First of all, what is depression?

Depression is simply defined as sadness, emptiness and basically non-existence of happiness in someone's life, that can last from few weeks to few months and in some cases even few years.

From some research, depression affects (or affected) 1 in 10 people worldwide, so it's not rare illness. Today, it mostly affects teens and it's leading cause of suicide among them.

Am i depressed?

I know many people today that are saying they're depressed, even if they aren't. Depression is sadness without almost any feel of happiness for a longer period of time. Being sad for few days doesn't have to mean that you're in depression, but that you are just sad, which is normal. No one is happy everyday.

If you think you're depressed, please answer to all questions i wrote below. If you answer positive to 5 or more, you're most likely depressed.

1. Sleeping problems - hard to fall asleep, nightmares, staying awake for too long at night
2. Feeling like there are no reasons to live - everyday you feel like it's just one more day for you to suffer
3. No interests in things you loved before - your favorite movies/tv shows, games, hobbies or books are not fun anymore
4. Mostly/always tired - always sleepy, just want to be in bed for hours staring at walls/crying
5. No eating - no apetite, you don't eat for one or more days in a row
6. Bad concentration - can't focus on homework or talking with someone
7. Avoiding activities - you don't want to go out, go to school, do sports
8. Hate people around you - just don't want to have any contact with anyone
9. Speaking quietly - speaking heavily, hardly, lazy

Beating depression

I was depressed for 7-8 months and i will try to help you as best as i can from my own experience.

I didn't even knew what is depression nor that i was depressed until i talked with someone about my problems. I decided to talk with my mom about it, because i know she will always support me in anything. I just said everything - how i felt, how my friends acted because of my behavior, that i don't eat properly, sleepy all day etc.

Turns out she was also depressed long time ago. We had long talk and i instantly felt better after that. Psychologists won't help you much if you don't help yourself. Most important thing is talking with someone about it and having that person fully understand and support you. There is always someone you can talk to, even if you can't talk with your family, you can with your teacher, school friends, pedagogue etc. Being quiet about it and hiding your depression from everyone is worst that you can do.

Don't want to talk about it

Depressed people may not want to talk with anyone about their problems with depression because they think they are weak for feeling down, or they are afraid of answers/thoughts they may get (e.g he's so miserable, he just wants attention etc...).

You shouldn't be afraid of talking about it with anyone. Same as you can talk about a fever, you can talk about depression. If they act negatively because of how you feel, they are not your friends nor someone you want in your life.

What triggers depression?

From my case it was loneliness - i just didn't have any good friends i can spend time with so without any social interactions depression was slowly appearing. In some other cases, it can be bad social environment, family fights, poor social skills, different sexual orientation, genetics, loss of loved one and so on...

I think that above reasons are not valid enough to stop you from living life the way you want and enjoy it. You need to step away from negative things, such as bad friends and be in positive environment, e.g your family, close friends etc. You will be happier.

Depressed friend

If you know someone that is depressed, you should talk with that person. Most people are trying to cheer up depressed friend, which may help but only temporarily.

Goal is not trying to make them happy, but making themselves feel happy by their own thoughts. They're sad because of focusing on negative things. You need to help them out by clearing up their thoughts and getting them happy on their own.

Try having a long talk with your depressed friend. Try your best to fully understand and help anyway possible. Let the depressed person think about everything and don't act like you are responsible for his life, because he may feel too weak and ignore you or just feel even worse.

~~~

Below are some links i would like you to read:

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-fami...depression
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond...c-20356007
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/kc/depr...ments-8933

If you have any further questions, please feel free to PM me or reply below, i will be happy to respond you and talk about anything.

Nice post with a lot of surface level information, kudos for citing your sources.

I have a couple points I want to make (from my experiences working in the medical field).
Depression is not like a fever, and there are many different types of depression:
Acute Depression (lasts less than 24 hours, basically you got sad because your paycheck was $0.12 short)
Post-Acute Depression (a lingering symptom of acute depression, example you crashed your car)
Chronic Depression (depression that has no physical root cause and can linger for months, years, or indefinetely. Example cause: isolation, same as you stated)
Manic Depression (also known as Bipolar type 2, you go through cyclic periods of feeling good and feeling bad, almost everybody can be diagnosed with this)
Chronic Manic Depression (also known as bipolar type 1, same as bipolar 2 except the period is <6 months and a predictable trend is present. this is usually rooted in childhood psychological trauma)
Induced Depression (sometimes referred as a symptom of social anxeity, this is the nasty one, it's practically undiagnosable and very difficult to treat).

I do, however agree about psychologists/iatrists. Their job is to find a problem with you, and scientifically if you look for something bad, you will either observe it or create it. My advised course of action is to see your regular doctor about these issues, a doctor that knows you well. I find that psych medications (benzodiazepines, SSRIs and barbituates) tend to work very poorly at treating depression, they only supress the symptoms and cause a myriad of other unwanted symptoms. However, there are other (ADHD, Pain, diet) medications that treat depression very well with very few side effects (aside from addiction). Your regular doctor will know about these and be able to prescribe them if necessary. Don't ever ask for a medication, let the doctor doctor.

But the most important thing to do when you're depressed is to stay active. Find a task to do, the more tedious the better.

[Blink]

However, there are other (ADHD, Pain, diet) medications that treat depression very well with very few side effects (aside from addiction). Your regular doctor will know about these and be able to prescribe them if necessary. Don't ever ask for a medication, let the doctor doctor.

How do they affect OCD? SSRIs for example, are also used to treat OCD, aside from depression and anxiety.

But the most important thing to do when you're depressed is to stay active. Find a task to do, the more tedious the better.

Physically or mentally?

[Cyb3rNuX]

Nice post with a lot of surface level information, kudos for citing your sources.

I have a couple points I want to make (from my experiences working in the medical field).
Depression is not like a fever, and there are many different types of depression:
Acute Depression (lasts less than 24 hours, basically you got sad because your paycheck was $0.12 short)
Post-Acute Depression (a lingering symptom of acute depression, example you crashed your car)
Chronic Depression (depression that has no physical root cause and can linger for months, years, or indefinetely. Example cause: isolation, same as you stated)
Manic Depression (also known as Bipolar type 2, you go through cyclic periods of feeling good and feeling bad, almost everybody can be diagnosed with this)
Chronic Manic Depression (also known as bipolar type 1, same as bipolar 2 except the period is <6 months and a predictable trend is present. this is usually rooted in childhood psychological trauma)
Induced Depression (sometimes referred as a symptom of social anxeity, this is the nasty one, it's practically undiagnosable and very difficult to treat).

I do, however agree about psychologists/iatrists. Their job is to find a problem with you, and scientifically if you look for something bad, you will either observe it or create it. My advised course of action is to see your regular doctor about these issues, a doctor that knows you well. I find that psych medications (benzodiazepines, SSRIs and barbituates) tend to work very poorly at treating depression, they only supress the symptoms and cause a myriad of other unwanted symptoms. However, there are other (ADHD, Pain, diet) medications that treat depression very well with very few side effects (aside from addiction). Your regular doctor will know about these and be able to prescribe them if necessary. Don't ever ask for a medication, let the doctor doctor.

But the most important thing to do when you're depressed is to stay active. Find a task to do, the more tedious the better.

I've enjoyed reading this. Also I wasn't sure about types of depression, thanks for clearing that, appreciate it.

[Mom]

However, there are other (ADHD, Pain, diet) medications that treat depression very well with very few side effects (aside from addiction). Your regular doctor will know about these and be able to prescribe them if necessary. Don't ever ask for a medication, let the doctor doctor.

How do they affect OCD? SSRIs for example, are also used to treat OCD, aside from depression and anxiety.

But the most important thing to do when you're depressed is to stay active. Find a task to do, the more tedious the better.

Physically or mentally?

Both. The body is a temple and it must be respected. While you don't have to be a complete gym rat, it still helps immensely to force oneself to perform the upkeep generally demanded for a healthy body like running or other core taxing (something something there's a reason obese people have such obscenely high depression rates).

Mentally, the mind can only stay in it's cage and ruminate for so long before it becomes straight up damaging at best and exacerbating of depression at worst. This one is a bit easier to fix: Get a hobby. Seriously. Anything that demands lengthy amounts of focus and attention is something that's generally beneficial about the mind. It's hard to think about how horrible everything's going and agonizing about the future when you're far too busy trying to get the right angle on a painting or when you're fundamentally involved in a war game.

Another thing I personally found great for my own depressive issues as well as breaking through anxiety is gaming with people in real life. I go to a card shop, talk with people there, play both war and RPG games on tabletop. It's a hard self-imposed barrier at first, but it's genuinely something fun to look forward to which always make the shitter days easier to deal with before then.

Humans are inherently social creatures. Whether you're introverted or extroverted, you need to be around people for at least some amount of time. I'm no psychologist and all of these are things I just personally do so I don't paint the wall with brain matter, so I can't pretend to either know why we need that exposure nor if these are the best possible solutions. It just works for me.

SNIP

I have to disagree with it being just a "sadness". The biggest show of depression is despair.

Now, what is despair? Google says:
1. the complete loss or absence of hope.
"driven to despair, he throws himself under a train"
synonyms: hopelessness, disheartenment, discouragement, desperation, distress, anguish, unhappiness;

The reason this difference is important is because people handle despair differently, but they all feel a perpetual weight of despair. Commonly, many feel sad, this is true. That's just the natural way most deal or react to it. Some more assertive personality types, however, respond with aggression. Always angry, always aggravated. Others are almost always panicked, stressed, seeming on the verge of vomiting at the slightest trip up that seems like the end of the world. And yet more just don't have any outward observable feelings that can tip others off to depression, but inside that very same despair boils.

Empathy begins to decay, at least in my own personal case. You know people love you, but you can't feel it. You can't properly identify what that love is. Then you don't know why it is. Then suddenly everyone's lying to you because they're supposed to care about you, but the expressions of love ring hollow to you because you simply can't connect with it. This is what induces isolationism in many, if I had to guess. Your problems grow and grow into tumors that you can't rid yourself of. Each and every error you made, make, and will make are harbingers of a condemned life you're trapped in. You can't do anything correctly. The world is unfair. Everyone can cope with it except you, so you're obviously the problem. There seems to be no proper way to repair this. You're broken. Fixing it would be too expensive or too lengthy to bother. You aren't worth the effort. Everything is infuriating, aggravating, taxing, exhausting, difficult, and simply waking up becomes a burden. Every expense of effort reveals something else that demands more effort from your ever diminishing pool of already crippled motivation. Death is scary. Eternal blackness is a horribly unappealing prospect. But as your coping mechanisms begin to falter more and more, your desire to make it stop suddenly begins to outweigh the inherent fear we all have of our end. Suddenly, losing everything really doesn't seem so bad when that everything is the very problem that harasses our every waking, and sometimes even sleeping, moment. It doesn't get better. There's no reason for it to. Nothing HAS to happen. This never HAS to stop unless you make it so and that slowly becomes the most surefire way to do so.

That is my rendition of despair and, therefor, depression.


Sorry for the minirant and I hope it doesn't look like I'm just correcting @"Cyb3rNuX" . I just feel like this is how I've experienced things and that I can properly convey them in a higher depth. Like I said on up, we all deal with it differently. We are all afflicted with a different breed of it. But ultimately, it's all just despair.

nb4 edgy fggt

[mothered]

In short, there are so many forms of depression and as such, It's treated on a case-by-case basis.

There's some excellent points listed In this thread, but they do not apply to each and every Individual trying to beat (or control) depression. The same applies to meds. Effexor XR, Mirtazapine and other antidepressants may work for some, but have very little to no effect for others. Diagnosis and prognosis of clinical depression can be an arduous task.

[phyrrus9]

However, there are other (ADHD, Pain, diet) medications that treat depression very well with very few side effects (aside from addiction). Your regular doctor will know about these and be able to prescribe them if necessary. Don't ever ask for a medication, let the doctor doctor.

How do they affect OCD? SSRIs for example, are also used to treat OCD, aside from depression and anxiety.

But the most important thing to do when you're depressed is to stay active. Find a task to do, the more tedious the better.

I've never seen a true case of OCD, so I can't answer that question for you. I'm sure pubmed has some good research on it though

Physically or mentally?

Both. If you subscribe to the "taking your mind off of it" theory, then it's obvious. I personally subscribe to the "doing things makes other things happen in the brain" theory. For example, if you're addicted to SSRIs and you're in withdrawls, sex and running both release the same chemicals in your brain and therefore will prevent the symptoms from being present.

[ParadoxEpoch]

These are some really great points, but it's worth noting that true depression is very chemical. Something I struggled with for six years. It's often caused by extraneous psychological factors and in some cases can be corrected with psychological methods, but a lot of times anti depressants (when prescribed) are a sad necessity.

[mothered]

but a lot of times anti depressants (when prescribed) are a sad necessity.

That's If you're lucky enough to find a suitable type the first time around.

Until the correct type of anti depressant Is Identified for their condition, a lot of patients are a clinical guinea pig.