Depression

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JumpingAnaconda said:
This is my mantra, but go to your doctor and get your vitamin D levels tested. Those that are most affected by the shortening of the nights and sleep patterns are often vitamin D deficient. Get your levels checked, and if they are low, get the doctor to prescribe you a course of vitamin D. Complete the course, get your vitamin D levels checked again, and then get them checked again 8 to 12 weeks later to see if they are plummeting. Then you can insist on a maintenance dose.
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i'm fine marra, just an observation.
 


JumpingAnaconda said:
Yes, I was referred to a local mental health services, they did an assessment and recommended that I did a group CBT class. It was called something like an 'Anxiety Education Class'. It was six weekly sessions of two hours in a class of about thirty people and it was really good. It helped me finish off a lot of work I had started by myself with simple concepts like laddering (where you take little steps towards achieving your goal) and understanding how you maintain your own anxiety. The lady who assessed me and ran part of the course told me I was probably the worst anxiety sufferer in that group by quite some way. I would guess most of those participating were mild to lightly restricted sufferers. I was managing things much better after the class, but I still had a huge amount of anxiety to manage. I was just managing it better. It was not until it was discovered that I had a chronic vitamin D deficiency, and until I was actually seen by a specialist in that area, that it was explained to me that if you have this problem, you will get increased levels of parathyroid hormone, and one of the key symptoms of this is anxiety.

I have always suspected that the anxiety I suffered had a physiological cause. (Blimey, I think that is the first time I have referred to 'suffering anxiety' in the past tense!) During the phase when I was on and 0ff of the vitamin D supplements, when it was being treated as dietary problem rather than my body being incapable of retaining it, I could get a better perception of the physical aspects of the problem.

In my case I am unusual because I can say that a large part of my problem was physical and fixed with a simple vitamin D medication that only became available several months before I was prescribed it. I am convinced that there are others in this world who are currently being treated for depression and anxiety with all kinds of medication who have an underlying vitamin D deficiency causing them problems. The problem is the research is almost non-existent and the condition is almost impossible to diagnose within the existing NHS routines. There is not even a proper name for the condition I have. I am in the early stages of planning what I will begrudgingly refer to as a 'campaign' to try and get a few things happening. Hopefully I am quite well positioned to do this.
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Great post, it's the pigeon holing of those with depression, doctors prescibing anti depressents after a 10 minute chat that makes a mockery of it for me.

Was having a discussion about it last week about the chemical imbalance side they always go on about, this is diagnosed without any tests, you can walk out of the GP's with a prescription that is of no use, especially in your case where it's a deficiency.

Did you find you were/are worse in the winter..?
 
JumpingAnaconda said:
But when you get on top of it, and you find you can take any shit thrown your way, you realise what an opportunity depression can be. Sometimes I think depression is just a learning curve. You are learning how to deal with feelings and events, and maybe you will in the process throw off some of the shackles that have been holding you back from enjoying your life.
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You think like I do, toughest part is getting others to do the same.
 
the fucker has cost me my job, my missus, my friends, everything that was important to me. thankfully I do have some good close friends and amazing parents (who are 70ish and need this shit) but the are dragging me through! keep battling on everyone!!
 
I'm feeling okay currently, take a slight mood enhancer called 5HTP, I get up for work each day (have to as I have to get the bairn to school). Was worried yesterday though, got up and it was dark and cold, I had to stop my brain talking myself into staying in bed :confused:. Having a job helps, the contact with other adults is nice, but I still feel lonely and a bit lost at times...........I put on a happy face, but sometimes I just don't feel like it :neutral:
 
Live In Hope said:
People like the OP mentioned give depression a bad name. I've suffered with it for last month and hid it so well that people don't have a clue. But it's got to stage when I can't face work tomorrow and need to change jobs etc. Still nobody at work or my friends will have a clue when I'm not at work tomorrow as I've kept it to myself. Some people who make a drama out of it secretly enjoy it a little imo
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You need to let it show,get help......then when it returns,you can really hide it better as you know what ya doing then
 
The Fullwell Step said:
the fucker has cost me my job, my missus, my friends, everything that was important to me. thankfully I do have some good close friends and amazing parents (who are 70ish and need this shit) but the are dragging me through! keep battling on everyone!!
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What started it if it's alright to ask, if not I understand.
 
JumpingAnaconda said:
But when you get on top of it, and you find you can take any shit thrown your way, you realise what an opportunity depression can be. Sometimes I think depression is just a learning curve. You are learning how to deal with feelings and events, and maybe you will in the process throw off some of the shackles that have been holding you back from enjoying your life.
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Sometimes it can be a good thing and I hope that's what is happening for me. I've had personal problems and going to rip my career up and start from scratch at age 29, scary stuff

Daddyo said:
You need to let it show,get help......then when it returns,you can really hide it better as you know what ya doing then
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Hate letting people know I'm sick of my life at the moment. Everything in my life has been so good lately but last month it's now turned upside down. Feel soft as clart telling friends etc so I hide it. Hopefully a change of career and life will heal things in time
 
Live In Hope said:
Sometimes it can be a good thing and I hope that's what is happening for me. I've had personal problems and going to rip my career up and start from scratch at age 29, scary stuff


Hate letting people know I'm sick of my life at the moment. Everything in my life has been so good lately but last month it's now turned upside down. Feel soft as clart telling friends etc so I hide it. Hopefully a change of career and life will heal things in time
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It happens to us all man,and your real friends will stick with you
 
joemcdokes said:
Great post, it's the pigeon holing of those with depression, doctors prescibing anti depressents after a 10 minute chat that makes a mockery of it for me.

Was having a discussion about it last week about the chemical imbalance side they always go on about, this is diagnosed without any tests, you can walk out of the GP's with a prescription that is of no use, especially in your case where it's a deficiency.

Did you find you were/are worse in the winter..?
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That chemical imbalance thing really pisses me off because it is pseudo-science that a lot of scientists seem to quote, perhaps motivated by the pharmaceuticals companies. If something f***ing terrible happens and you are upset about it then you are supposedly suffering a 'chemical imbalance' rather than the chemicals doing what they are designed to do in your brain.

There is a sketch from Chewin' the Fat where the student comes in and he says something like "Doctor, af been feelin awfa depressed. Everything is just gettin on towpa me an ah cannae cope nee more." And the doctor looks up, and you are expecting to hear him say the old chemical imbalance speech, and instead he says "Gettaway, you're not depressed, ya just are not gettin ya hole!" The reality is, I think a lot of doctors suspect that lack of relationships and sex is the cause of a lot of depression, but they still keep dishing out the pills, which does nothing to fix that, and does nothing to motivate a wholeheartly achievable aim. I would love to know the numbers of long term single people are on anti-depressants (I suspect quite a lot), and how the numbers compare with people in relationships.

With my level of deficiency when it was detected the time of year would not make a huge amount of difference as the levels were below 12 (below the detectable threshold, possibly zero). I believe I have always had a problem with low vitamin D, but I had two years in my early twenties where in successive winters I got fatigued to the point when I was struggling to get out of bed for several months at a time. My body clock went crazy. I remember weeks of struggling to wake up to catch Hawksbee and Jacobs when they started at 4pm. I was at university and had spells of struggling to get to any lectures or tutorials. My anxiety levels reaching new levels as well, which was not helping. I was submitting essays written in states of utter fatigue after missing all of the opportunities to get direct contact with the tutors. All I got from the doctors was a 'probably depression' diagnosis and the first of many attempts to push anti-depressants on me. The Summer after the first time this happened I felt so burned out I decided to avoid working and to make up the difference by refusing to pay my tuition fees. I just about pulled it off, and I got my degree, but it was greatly impaired by my state of health.

Flared Hicks said:
you mantra away
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Vitamin D -ooooommmm, check your levels -oooommm, parathyroid toooo -ooooommmm...
 
The Fullwell Step said:
difficult to put a time on it, but I got meningitis at uni, they think thays fucked my brain up. joy. when I ok I was the life and soul of social life, work etc. when I not it is not pretty.
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Fuckin hell........thats when i changed as well......drink has had a lot to do with it,but ive never been the same since i had meningitis
 
Live In Hope said:
Sometimes it can be a good thing and I hope that's what is happening for me. I've had personal problems and going to rip my career up and start from scratch at age 29, scary stuff


Hate letting people know I'm sick of my life at the moment. Everything in my life has been so good lately but last month it's now turned upside down. Feel soft as clart telling friends etc so I hide it. Hopefully a change of career and life will heal things in time
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I've changed my career 5 times and I am 34. But I have carried a lot of useful experience through it. If you genuinely think it is the cause of your problems, maybe you should make a change, but I think you should understand why it is causing you problems before you do it, and you should have something lined up before you walk out on your current job. I have noticed that depressing feelings can often feeling a lot more depressing when you have bugger all money coming in and nothing much to do.
 
Daddyo said:
It happens to us all man,and your real friends will stick with you
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No doubt at all mate, they will be there for me. I can't face work now (no fault of my own) and need to leave. Change of career and stable job is frightening but I'm not too scared because the depression masks what would normally be fear

JumpingAnaconda said:
I've changed my career 5 times and I am 34. But I have carried a lot of useful experience through it. If you genuinely think it is the cause of your problems, maybe you should make a change, but I think you should understand why it is causing you problems before you do it, and you should have something lined up before you walk out on your current job. I have noticed that depressing feelings can often feeling a lot more depressing when you have bugger all money coming in and nothing much to do.
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All I know is that my job has became too much personally. No money and an escape would be fine by me for short while as I live with parents and they will look after me as I'm lucky in that respect.
 
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