The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Oh shit! Medicating Depression/Anxiety
Frosty the Snow Plow
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Question's in the title. Thought I just had depression, turns out I also have an anxiety disorder. My doctor diagnosed it along with a dad who just now chose to make me aware of a family history on one and both sides for depression and anxiety disorders respectively. Fuck! I can't win. 
But now I need to fix it, and with a family doctor who gets uncomfortable at the mere mention of suicidal desires and a family far too preoccupied with more immediate problems, I'm kinda fucked. So, H/A Forum:
What is a good medication that helps for depression+anxiety?
At this point, it's not even to alleviate any sort of emotional state. I just would really like to do something with myself, and the ability to actually concentrate and not get overwhelmed so easily would be very useful.
Thanks.
But now I need to fix it, and with a family doctor who gets uncomfortable at the mere mention of suicidal desires and a family far too preoccupied with more immediate problems, I'm kinda fucked. So, H/A Forum:
What is a good medication that helps for depression+anxiety?
At this point, it's not even to alleviate any sort of emotional state. I just would really like to do something with myself, and the ability to actually concentrate and not get overwhelmed so easily would be very useful.
Thanks.
Frosty the Snow Plow on
0
Posts
And if you can, I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that you also have anxiety. I mean, it isn't like it just suddenly popped out of nowhere. So you at least have some experience in dealing with it. Also, anxiety is really, really commonly associated with depression. I have a fun combination of the two myself.
Don't ask us what a good medication is, they don't all work the same on people. Like I said, talk to a psychiatrist about the possibility of taking medication, and they can suggest one that will work for you.
They usually come with some side-effects, some bad, some not really that bad. With what I am on, I have nausea a lot and I don't really have an appetite anymore, but that is it for me. Some people have worse, some less.
And don't be discouraged if the first thing you try doesn't work. Sometimes you have to try different things to find one that works for you.
2) daily physical activity has been shown to help alleviate depression symptoms up to 50% of the time, which is similar to drug use. try going to a gym
3) what, specifically, are you looking to fix? different things will overwhelm you differently. general absurdity of life overwhelmingness is different from doing the tps reports overwhelmingness
For reals, these two at least. Don't go gettin stuff on your own.
And I can second the second point. I completely forgot about it. But exercising and moving around and stuff always makes me feel better. And combining this with making sure you are eating better and getting plenty of sleep is always a really good idea.
I used to have a really screwed up sleep schedule and didn't eat super well and that drove me even crazier. Fixing my sleep schedule and eating more regularly/better helped tremendously.
Those sound great too, since seeking any sort of professional help is outside of what I can accomplish. Even if it's not actual medication. Just things to reign it all in.
And about Ran's third part: It's more of the "absurdity of life" variety. They have more the theme of a nihilistic and indifferent world than any sort of "oh man I fucking hate my job". Although, honestly, that almost feels like a part of me. I don't know how intwined they are, but the real thing I want to alleviate is my terrible concentration and confidence.
I'd ask my parents for help, but being the youngest with two money-sink siblings, I get the equivalent of "Yeah? Get in line." Even expressing the profound sense of dread and suicidal ideations has never done much besides garner worry and sympathy. They're just spread that thin.
edit: I would just google free clinic/counseling or ask your doctor
Thanks. Honestly, if physical activity does what you say it does, it sounds like a great solution. Although I don't know what "help alleviate" entirely entails. If it means not giving in to doubt as easily and being able to concentrate, than I think this thread might be over.
And a schedule might make life seem like less of an incomprehensible blur. True!
edit: Christ, I overcompensate. I guess it's disingenuous to try and be cheery and downplay it so fucking much, but I feel like such a downer to others any time I try and discuss this.
For what it's worth, personal experience...I took Lexapro for a while (roughly two years). For me, it worked well enough, took the edge of the depression so that I could deal with it in other ways. The side effects were annoying, but not terrible: early on I had nausea and fatigue. I actually fell asleep driving to work one day, after that I started taking the medicine at night because I was having insomnia anyway and, hey, two birds with one stone. Those only lasted about two weeks. It also crashed my libido, which was longer lasting.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
Exercise and healthy eating is a booster, that's for sure. It's just hard to build yourself up to is sometimes when you're down.
You said you do see your family doctor, so are you covered under your father or mother's insurance policy? Because if you are, you're not just covered under their doctor. The insurance will have a network of health care providers which would almost certainly include psychiatrists. If you don't want to bug your parents, all you need to do is call the number on your insurance card and they can help you out and tell you what's covered and what's not.
I'll also add emphasis to exercise as the only safe way to self medicate depression, and I personally find that a better body works wonders for confidence. It may not be enough though, so you may still need professional help.
Very useful, thanks. I've been told that I'll lose coverage soon though since I'm not a student, though. Hopefully I can get something out of it while I'm still 18.
Exercise then. To the fitness thread I suppose. :^:
EDIT: Seriously. My pup has helped me through some dark days.
But dogs are awesome yeah. Even if it tears everything up. I'm sure it wouldn't mind going outside more.
1. It's not going to go away completely. At this point, what is a treatable disorder has probably also become a part of your learned habits. This means that even if you take care of the medical side of things, you will find certain thought patterns have become a part of your personality. This can change over time, especially if you're willing to work at it, but keep your expectations realistic. It's a serious problem, you can't expect it to go away overnight.
2. You will, at various times, have valid concerns and emotions that you will be tempted to chalk up to your condition. Don't do this. It's tough, but learning to discern the difference between the way the disorder lies to you, and true rational concerns, will help a lot.
3. Don't let other people do #2 for you. My sister struggles with depression (though I'm not sure hers takes the anxiety aspect, the same principles apply anyway). My mother, God bless her well-intentioned heart, says some really stupid shit about it at times. For instance, whenever my sister is having a difficult problem and is concerned about it, the first thing my mother always says is, "Are you taking your medicine regularly?" If people do this to you, call them out on it. It's bullshit for you to assume that every problem you have is due to the disorder, and it is equally bullshit to let others make that assumption.
4. Some days will be better than others.
5. Watch for side effects. For instance, the stuff I take makes my already-horrific sleeping patterns even more difficult to corral. Right now I'm taking a melatonin supplement to counteract that particular side effect.
6.
Your friends care about you, your family cares about you. We are the internet, but to the extent that you are a fellow human being, we also care about you. (Except that guy over there. He's kindofadick.) The point is, stop trying to be falsely cheerful. It's for-damn-sure not helpful to yourself, and the people who truly care about you and are decent human beings will understand legitimate expressions of your emotions and thoughts. If you feel sad, be sad. It's all right. If you start to slide down the emo road of false gloom, someone will call you out on it. You obviously don't want to be that guy, so I doubt you will end up that way.
7. Medication, if you end up needing it, is not the end of the world. That doesn't come until 2012, obviously.
Hence me saying 'not quite so many'. Everything has side effects. Then again everything is worth researching before you start taking it, herbal and medicinal.
YMMV.
Also, while exercise has yet to help me with my issues much, I'm finding this to be a good jogging program for someone like me who had never really exercised before. If you're going to look for a non-medical solution, that might be a good place to start.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Keep in mind the most effective treatment today for anxiety and depression is medical marijuana, if you live where medical marijuana is available the cost is generally between 100-200$ and proof you have the ailment.
Since prescription drugs are largely unavailable that's your best bet. If you must obtain it illegally be very careful, you're 18 I doubt you'll have any problem finding suppliers.
Alternatively if some moral pretense or paranoia prevents you from that path you have really two other options: Diet and biofeedback.
You can add certain chemicals to your diet to help your anxiety and depression issues as well as cut others out. I recommend you eliminate all caffiene as it's an irritant for anxiety and depression issues, there's some info out there that shows that it may even cause them so be weary of it specifically coffeee, black teas and energy drinks.
Lack of omega 3 fatty acids (aka fish oil) has been shown to be a major factor in the prevalence of depression and anxiety issues, this also helps your cognition quite drastically. You can buy it in supplements or begin consuming genetically altered pork or normal fish. If you go with supplements talk to a pharmacist usually they recommend you take other supplements to reduce it's acidity and prevent ulcers.
Calcium has a major effect on calming anxiety. A high dairy diet not only is good for you but also helps reduce the intake of fat (calcium in dairy reacts with fat forcing it to foam in a way that your intestines can't absorb).
Those 3 things should have major effects on your life. After that if you still need help you need to start exercise preferably outside in the sun. The sun has a major effect on your happiness and if you don't have allergies spending time outside in the sun can improve your depression greatly. Exercising helps clean out your system plus helps you feel better.
Finally biofeedback. This is a process in which you basically think yourself better. Besides marijuana it's the second most effective treatment. Biofeed isn't as ludicrous as it sounds either, it's not simply mind over matter. Basically you use the fact that your brain builds connections via repeatedly using said connection. The more you are happy the more happy you are as a whole. An interesting thing though faking happy is just as effective as being honestly happy. So if you can't be happy fake it. Over time you'll actually succeed in rewiring your brain to be happy almost like forming a habbit.
Hope some of that helps.
Eh, only problem with St. John's Wort is that you cannot ever ever use it with an anti-depressant. So it's one or the other, and I would recommend the treatment that has passed years of clinical trials and research (protip: not the plant).
I'm not really sure what gives you that impression. You need to actually find out. Here in Oregon your children must be on your insurance until they're 24. I thought this was actually for all health insurance but you may want to find out.
This is false. Depression is a lack of ability to get happy and and overestimation of problems. All problems. While you might be right that you have honest to god problems becoming stressed out by them or feeling overwhelmed by them is never a good idea even if it's a natural response. Most depression is caused by a natural response happening too often. Odds are even if it's a valid problem if you suffer from depression you're probably overestimating it or focusing too much on it. When your mother asks if the medicine has been taken she's accomplishing a lot of good if you haven't taken your meds. Though since she's irritating you you may ask her to stop because irritation is one of those negative emotions.
Hence why depression meds are only for people in danger of imminent suicide. Depression meds are some of the most poisonous medicines that are taken over time. They have hundreds of very negative long term side affects and are meant to be taken in conjunction with therapy to eliminate the root of the problem then weened off. If you've been prescribed them by someone other than a psychiatrist you need to see a psychiatrist and talk to them about solutions. Depression meds is a common thing doctors will prescribe just so you stop bugging them but general practice doctors are often not qualified to determine if your depressed any more than an online personality test tells you your personality.
Salmonned for bad advice. While it's helpful to keep your family and loved ones appraised of your situation encouraging people to express sadness and feel sadness complicates the problem. You do need to be able to talk about it from a frank perspective though and if keeping up the ruse harms this drop it temporarily explain how serious the problem is and how you're trying to change it. Believe it or not but having someone cheer you up when you can't do so yourself is very helpful.
Depression is curable if you work with a therapist or perform the exercises yourself. The most important ones are faking happiness when you're not, and changing your mindset so even if you are faking you're not thinking about why your faking it. Spinning the way things are percieved slightly in your mind to help is very useful. I.E thinking that instead of a glass half empty it's a glass half full can have drastic effects on your psyche.
edit: one last thing, if you're searching through google putting a minus symbol before a term will eliminate results that include it e.g. -marriage. Putting quotations around something also forces google to search exactly what you typed in e.g. "depression counseling".
First, I think I know what depression is, thank you.
Secondly, you are drawing something from my words that simply isn't there. I didn't say one should "become stressed out" or "feel overwhelmed". I encouraged honest attempts to rationally discern between the depression's influence and legitimate concerns. Yeah, it's difficult and not fool-proof. It's also an important effort.
What I know is that I have been taking them for approaching a year now, and my sister has been taking them for nearly a decade, and we're both just fine in terms of deal-breaking side effects. I am also a psychology major, and have not been told any such thing by any of the professors I have consulted with -- and I did consult with them.
I didn't encourage anyone to feel sad. I encouraged him that if he did feel sad, not to stress about trying to cover it up. While mental perspective is important, pushing yourself to be a faker is a part of the problem. Over the long-term, on a daily basis, it becomes a cause of great stress because when you're always trying to fake it, you never get a chance to let it off. As pointed out before, your legitimate problems may "hide" in amongst the rest of the emotions, so you're not only faking and bottling up your disorder-related tension, but also other concerns that aren't even possibly going to be faked away.
I'm not sure what your experience or authority is for your statements. Obviously, IANAD or anything, but frankly I think your advice is more harmful than helpful.
It's not hard to go to google scholar and look up some of the horrifying side-effects of anti-depressants. The problem with them is that they significantly alter the way the brain functions something we don't understand even close to as well as we do the rest of the body. I'm a biology major in premed attending OHSU which gives me no authority I recognize but good advice can come from someone with or without certification. I've also had first hand experience with genetic depression which has all but been cured via biofeedback therapy.
I'd be very careful how you say such things in the future then. If I understood it as being feel free to be as sad as you want it's likely others could've understood it the same way. You have to be very careful when dealing with depression for this reason.
My advice is very sound and refers to many published medical papers on biofeedback which would be helpful for both you and OP to read.
For example by performing a full smile whether it's fake or not the same endorphins and hormones are released as if you were honestly smiling. By laughing, be it fake or not the same hormones are released that are caused by really laughing. Your brain doesn't distinguish whether the impulse to laugh comes from emotional or logical switches. The thing the brain does notice is that the area responsible for laughing is being reinforced, or the area responsible for being happy is being reinforced. This creates a positive feedback loop that helps gradually increase your 'set happiness' per se. Obviously, the process is more complicated but the basic gist is feel happy as much as you can and you'll grow to become happy.
Laughing and a full smile (involving your eyes) though will always have an affect on your happiness. Utilizing this effect can work wonders and even cure someone with a genetic depression like mine. Of course I had help from a biofeedback therapist and medical marijuana.
What you say about expressing your emotion giving you an out for stress has been found repeatedly to be wrong. Expressing anger (i.e screaming into your pillow) significantly increases the prevalence of anger you feel from your day to day life. Expressing sadness is more or less the same way, while it might help you feel better in the short term your dramatically increasing the amount of sadness you feel on a day to day basis. While I would say if you need to cry feel free I would also recommend you counter it as soon as you recover with something that makes you feel happy.
If I'm not mistaken, this summarizes your point, and I never said anything which contradicts this.
What I do know is that "fake it 'till you make it" is something that I tried for quite a while, because of exactly this kind of advice. It did not help me at all -- in fact, it simply formed a dam behind which everything I was feeling built up. It ended with me collapsing in tears and breathing difficulties when I happened to return home one day and my mother asked in just the right way, "Are you OK?"
No. I wasn't OK. And allowing myself to say so was the beginning of any progress I have made since then.
You have a point, regarding biofeedback. But just as you cautioned me to "be very careful how I say such things in the future", you should know that the way you have presented it here comes across as bullshit and disingenous to those who have dealt with these issues and are not perfectly aware of all the caveats and qualifiers that you mentally attach to your statements.
"Fake it 'till you make it" is how your advice has come across here, and frankly I'm a bit angered by that attitude. If that's not how you intended it, fine; "be very careful how you say such things in the future".
Gandalf, while I do find it interesting that the biofeedback approach caused an explosion like that I think you misunderstood a bit the process hence why it didn't work for you. Fake it till you make it approach does work wonders but it's important that you're not constantly undoing the effect. You can undo the effect or cause negative effects if you're entertaining in your mind the problems that made you sad in the first place while trying to 'fake it' or by second guessing the method. The fake it till you make it approach is basically distract your mind from the problems it's focusing on (change your state of mind) then combine it with outward acts of happiness. Things such as smiling (full face smiles only), laughing etc are only a part of it, it's important that you replicate the act of being happy and prevent your mind from filling up with negativity at the same time.
While I recognize doing this is extraordinarily hard for depression patients to perform (hence why it took me nearly 2 years) it does work and it does help. Attacking the method because it failed for you yet works for most is a bad idea because all your succeeding in doing is discrediting (via fallacy of course) a method that works for most people and could very well be the only thing OP needs to help.
If OP is interested in a biofeedback approach I assumed and recommend that she would research it more in depth. I assumed that OP would be researching any suggestions from H&A but I suppose not everyone takes this stuff with a grain of salt. So at the risk of repeating it, take everything with a grain of salt OP H&A is for advice and advice isn't concrete.
As someone who experienced in depth biofeedback therapy I'm also willing to answer any questions the OP has.
(Mostly I think this exchange was a misunderstanding on both sides.
Oh, no problem. If there's anything depression is ok for, it's instilling a big dose of cynicism.
obviously see a doctor first, but citalopram is working wonders for my depression/anxiety after a few months
sadly i've managed to acquire one of the side effects (cough ejaculatory problems cough), but nothing that isn't managable
i've been terrified of going on "CRAZY DRUGS" for ages, but man they are really helping
i'm sure the DRUGS are having an effect of some kind on my mood(s), but mostly i just feel more like doing things (exercising, studying etc) instead of worrying about not doing them, which makes me feel better, which has snowballed until i feel pretty dang good about myself most of the time
and if you do feel like stopping treatment, make sure you check there are no adverse effects before going cold turkey
Webcomic Twitter Steam Wishlist SATAN
edit: I was on cetalopram for a while and it didn't really do much for me. Fortunately I didn't get the sexual side effects either. I just ended up switching to something else.
Also more anecdotal stuff that is actually really important advice! If you are ever tempted to for whatever reason, never, ever ,ever,ever intentionally (or accidentally I guess) take too many antidepressants (intentional OD). It won't do any better, and it won't kill you (at least not in any pleasant way). It will just wreck your shit for a while. I was stuck in my own personal hell for the better part of 3 days.
If __________ works for you, great! If it doesn't...try something else. Something will work eventually.
Well put.