K. wrote:

>Hi Guys

>It's getting to the stage where I at least know a crash is coming on - but I'm no better really at coping with 'em :-(

>Here I sit with all the warning signs...

• Bad temper/short fuse (especially towards myself)
• An inclination to shut myself away from the world
• Not wanting to see my own face (fun when you're shaving)
• A general belief that I'm a piece of shit (head says "no I'm not" but something inside begs to differ).

>Hell! Sounds like I already have crashed - so maybe I'm not getting too much advance warning.

Sandra responds:

But you know the warning signals.

>What's bringing 'em on? Well, it seems to this highly partial observer that it's linked to socialising and my lack of ability at it.

Any other triggers?

>And it's a double-edged sword because I'm lonely(ish) and I crave company and yet when I get amongst it I just clam up and don't have much to say and am just generally boring and the death of the party. So 2 weekends running now I've had "social occasions" to attend. I've tried to make it easier for myself by rationing my drinks (alcohol makes me more introverted), but I keep on walking away with the feeling that somehow I've been boring and withdrawn and have made others feel uncomfortable (and probably glad to see the back of me). I think it's certainly true to say that I'm rather intense.

>Or so I think: My self-perception (and my perceptions generally) are so distorted right that it's impossible for me to be objective: especially about myself.

You've got your awareness of what you go through going down in high gear. Now: What do you do when you get down? Do you fight it? Or do you accept the symptoms and go through them, accept them? And once you go through the down - what are your advance warning signals that you are on the way up? What triggers a return up? Can you work forward to that experience, rather than trying to back out of going down at all?

Work with your symptoms instead of fighting them; observe them, and use them. You can shorten the down period.

>If you recall my recent misadventure and am concerned about me ending it all - don't be. I don't have the necessary paraphenalia to "end it all" painlessly. Besides I'm not THAT down - but this is still no fun.

It never will be - but if you learn how to work with the symptoms it doesn't have to be all that miserable either.

The routine I'm about to talk about is the result of a lot of practice over a good many years and is NOT intended to make light of the situation. I've already shortened my cycles considerably.

I crashed big time last night. Had a great morning and did a complete nosedive after seeing someone I have a major problem with - a man who actually triggered my last severe clinical depression two years ago. I'm trying to work through my perceptions about that now and he showed up where I was at a very sensitive time. The emotional trigger pulled my chain as hard as it could and my body chemistry followed suit. I let myself go into it. I went all the way down. I worked forward to the things that trigger a rise, without stressing myself out about it. The triggers of choice last night was a pecan waffle I wanted to taste but not force myself to eat, a good movie I sat through stone faced but that I liked a lot, and an early bedtime, on clean new sheets, naked, with a good book to go to sleep by. Then today I just went slowly through my daily routine and steadily back up the mood ladder, and I'm fairly okay now.

Oh - I did draw a couple of fangs on a picture of the bastard, and that did me a WORLD of good...

R. wrote:

>I've been lurking and reading a little in this newsgroup for just a short time and I get more worried the more I read. I was diagnosed with anxiety-depression about three months ago. I had no idea about the depression because of the anxiety, which was ruining my life in several different ways. I'm not a great fan of any meds except for aspirin but I convinced myself to do Ativan for the anxiety. After getting used to the tranquilizing effect the depression settled in for weeks. But i still couldn't bring myself to do anti-depressants. With exercise and therapy the depression got 90% better but once in a while I get so down that I can't function.

>While reading through this group I've noticed that the majority of the folks on here swear by some sort of anti-depressant. Has anyone out there every managed without? And is it really physiological AND psychological? I've been told that because of a horrible experience with my ex and PTSD that my brain isn't "fused" the way it should be and that anti-depressants would put it right. True?

>Another concern is the rumor that my libido would suffer. Is this also true? Would I lose interest in sex?

>To be truthful I've always been more worried about my anxiety attacks and I'm happy that I can manage those. And with time and weight lifting I've managed to wean myself from the Ativan slowly. So, I'd like to think that there is a way to help the depression without meds also. Anyone have ideas? Maybe some kind of natural medication?

>I wouldn't get in here too often to follow a thread so please feel free to e-mail me at lindah@wost.umass.edu

>Thanks for listening.

Glad to find a place to listen and be heard!

I don't use any drugs for depression. I didn't like the side effects when I was on anti-depressants, and after seeing my Dad on Prozac a few years ago, I don't think it's something my particular gene pool would like! Lithium also turned out not to be an option, making other medical problems worse.

I am very much in favor of behavior modification, because it's been a workable solution for me. It doesn't stop the depressions; it brings them more under your control. You can learn to shorten the cycles by not being afraid to go through a depression. The stress of fear adds to the symptoms. Instead of trying to fight to keep out of a depression, let yourself go through it, knowing that you will come out the other side and find your way up the ladder again. I have terrible terrors, what you call anxiety attacks. Calling something like what many of us go through, an "anxiety attack," to me is rather like being told that it is proper to call having your head split in two by an ax just a little headache! When I say terrors I mean terrors. I have taught myself not to be afraid of going through a terror. Number one, being terrified of terror is a little redundant; number two, it bleeds you of precious energy that you need to conserve just to walk through the terror and get on with your life. It may not seem possible to do that, but it is. The more you work at it, the stronger you get.

The thing is, try to simplify how you deal with depression. Stop worrying about the causes. The cause of real medical depression is a chemical thing that happens to us. Events and environment can trigger a chemical reaction, emotional depressions can make symptoms worse, but they are not the causes. Abandon trying to understand the cause and concentrate on the symptoms. Own them - don't let them own you. Don't fight them - work with them. You'll find they have less and less power to screw up your life. I'm not claiming this is a cure. But it is a workable plan for living with depression.

Try to find a copy of The Depression Workbook by Dr. Mary Ellen Copeland. She's one of us. That's the resource I turn to when things get really bad now. I found it while going through my last really bad clinical depression. I managed to keep working and not have to be hospitalized in spite of a hellish time.

Hope this helps

Sandra Sparks

E. wrote:

>Hi. I'm a college student in New York and I'm suffering from some SERIOUS bouts of depression. Some of you may recognize my name from posts previously, and thanks to the great advice given here by individuals on asd, I hadn't suffered from my depression in a major way for 3 1/2 weeks...until now-and it's worse than ever before.

>I don't know what to do. I'm a solid student, have a ton of friends, a good sense of humor, but I can't deal with depression at all. It hits hard ALL the time--I don't even know the source of any of of these bouts, and I can't talk about it with anyone b/c no one believes that someone with " their head on so straight " can be seriously depressed. I've developed a mild ulcer from all this depression and I lie awake all night writhing in mental agony. I have lost all will to live and I probably would've killed myself, but I really DO want to live, but not like this. I don't understand all of this; I can deal with everything else in life but my depressive states elude me.

>After 7 years of suffering I finally had the nerve to see a therapist at my University. I have a great deal of difficulty dealing with my own feelings/myself and opening up to her which not only frustrates her but me as well. I have shooed away a friend who wants to help--I think; nothing in life makes sense to me at this point--and I don't know what to do about this at all. I'm everyone else's therapist--I give the best advice to all and am a genuinely caring person who is always the first person everyone calls, but I can't follow my own advice or deal with my own problems as easily as I deal with others.

I went through some of my worst depressions in college, which actually ended up wrecking my graduation (more than five years of college and I didn't get the degree). Crying jags, terrors, apathy, and suicidal periods all took their toll. But I learned one great thing in college that took me a few years to get into the right gear, but it was worth it. The counselor I had in college was the first to tell me that I could take control of my depression cycles by not fighting them. Accepting that I must go through the cycles to get out of them, instead of trying to keep out of them by struggling, I save precious energy. It also shortens the cycles. Today alone I have felt suicidal, terror, deep grief, apathy, everything that I have gone through since I was a child. But the periods were so brief, interwoven with normal periods, I was able to have a fairly decent workday and a good night - so far. I've been through a lot of misery today - I do every day. But I've also been through a lot of joy. The thing is , you have to redefine what joy is. Quality, not quantity. And you have to learn that depression is not lack of energy but a different kind of energy - once you really understand that, you begin to learn how to use it, rather than letting it overwhelm you all the time. You give it permission to overwhelm you sometimes, so you can rest and work your way back up the mood ladder. But you learn to set the limits of your depressions to the best of your ability. The more you work at that method, the stronger you get, the more normal life you can have. Just something to think about - the choice is yours. I'm happiest using it. Good luck.

Sandra Sparks

U. wrote:

>I'm starting another cycle of depression these days. For me, it's always in the late afternoon.

>Do I immediately set out to dig for an underlying emotion/repressed trauma?

>Do I just try to surf it through and sit with it quietly?

>Depression is wicked--it not only hurts, but it says "ah-HAH. I'm still here. You're still a 'problem child'". How do we destigmatize it? How do we tell it to shut up?

We can't really tell it to shut up. It's been talking to us too long. Tell it to shut up, and depression just gets mad and talks louder.

So, we learn to have a conversation with it. We learn the arguments don't work, just stresses us out more. We let it have its say. We have ours.

We make compromises. It gets our bodies at certain times, and we get our bodies the other times. If we're lucky, or very very good at working out compromises, we get the quantity time and depression gets the quality time.

If it tells us we're bad children, if we're strong, we say "sod off". If we're wise, we don't tell it it's bad either. We ask "show me all of you, what you're made of." We learn to understand what it is made of, by spending time with it rather than avoiding it. We learn and accept that it is a part of us.

We take it out and introduce it to other people, not as an embarrassing acquaintance. We don't pretend it is a stranger we don't know. It's one of our closest living relatives and we should introduce it with some kind of grace and dignity befitting its rank.

When we learn to do these things, the voice is not always so loud. It talks for shorter and shorter periods. If we learn that depression's louder voice is warning us we need to make some changes in our lives, and we listen to that voice and take action, we keep control over the relationship we have with it.

Because I've been too too busy lately, mine started yelling at me again. This past weekend I said "okay, you can have me for awhile," and I crawled off into bed more than usual. During these times,I wake up with a bad period of grief or terror going on, then eating helps cool it down. I have another bad period in the afternoon, and then one late at night. In between, fairly normal life, even though the edge of the terror I feel is underneath everything. I don't look for causes anymore. I deal with the symptoms. I note they are there, and go through them and let them go. The past few days, it's been really hard not to stress out sometimes, the terror is so bad. But I know I will come out of this again. I am taking a rest inside a depression; I am not trapped inside it.

So off to bed again. May your latest cycle be a short one.

Sandra Sparks

K. wrote:

>A Cure for Depression That was very naive...pie in the sky stuff<

And the crowd roared.

An acquaintance of mine who is also a dep and an abuse survivor said something very wise once. Those of us who have seen so much pain and and so many ups and downs have a great gift. When we add two plus two, the answer is fifty. We look at things so many different ways. We have so many different experiences that make up who each of us are. As we learn from them - or choose not to learn - we come up with wrong answers, right answers, vacant answers, stupid answers, and once in a damn blue moon, something truly inspired that changes our lives.

K., this is not that once in a damn blue moon. We've heard this all before.

To me the most important thing in the world is really live your own life and work with what you have. I don't care how other people define what I'm going through. I know what I go through. I've stopped looking for reasons and semantics. I care about opening other people's eyes about how they view the mentally ill by showing I am comfortable with myself. I have no more use for people who want to believe mental illness does not exist than I do anyone else who can't see past the inside of their own eyelids.

I will tell my stories but I will never claim that the processes I have found in order to live my life are the right ones for other people. They are not solutions. If they are useful, for others, fine, if they are not, fine. I use or do not use what I learn from other people as I see fit.

But, K., I do take offense when someone proselytizes beliefs that are pulled out of the air instead of out of his experience. You can read all you want, Tim. You haven't worked through the mechanics of the problem.There is something desperate behind you wanting to find pat general solutions to something that can't be generalized. Whatever it is, that's your business. Take care of it. And take care of yourself.

Sandra Sparks.