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I don't know anybody personally who has been diagnosed with depression and to be honest don't know anything about it apart from the obvious points about. Sometimes I feel really down about everything, mostly when I have nothing in the near future or so to look forward and it's just a case of studying and working. However, I have never considered myself as being depressed and this feeling of being down all the time always disappears after a day or so but it is near enough always persistent when in the evening when I'm not out and about with mates or out training or something.

It may be nothing but would this sound like, to somebody who has experienced depression,as a typical case of depression or just me being a miserable b*****d?

Would be keen to see what somebody else wold think.

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With things to look for coming up, there's Living With a Black Dog, a book by Matthew Johnstone. I Had a Black Dog is a book from the same guy, more about understanding living with it. Both are absolutely crucial if you ask me.

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Work and personal life have got me quite down recently, to the point where I physically feel strange but I can see that the things that are getting me down shouldn't be. I think to myself, this is rediculious, there is nothing about this that I can affect and it's not really impacting on my life but it's still bothering me.

As someone else said, at what point does it stop being a feeling of being down and become a trip to the doctor?

Without meaning to I spend so much time at work and I don't think that helps, routine can cover most ill's. Pretty sure it's just a passing phase, one of my bad days.

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Was depressed during my entire secondary school time, due to a mixture f things, I tried to end it once, I took my anger out on friends and family, I was a w****r until I opened up and spoke to people.

Even now 4-5 year on I get the odd flashback and it hurts, had nightmares and woke up panicking. I've never let it get me down though and I feel better than I ever have, I'm engaged, got a good job, a family. I just think of the positives these days.

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I deleted the Alan Partridge quote last night by the way. Wasn't aware how 'deep' the thread was going to get, sorry to offend anyone.

(For anyone read no one)

I think it's decent of you to say so - if it's any consolation I have tried to contribute positively to this thread and got where you were coming from. I also accidentally sound like a c**t sometimes on account of my comedy influences.

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I think it's decent of you to say so - if it's any consolation I have tried to contribute positively to this thread and got where you were coming from. I also accidentally sound like a c**t sometimes on account of my comedy influences.

Yep mate I seen that, thanks. Obviously a Partridge fan.

To be honest, I looked at the thread title and didn't read any of the comments, and just wrote what I thought would be an innocent comment. To be fair, the people who want to talk about it on here should be free to without stupid comments like that so I am sorry for that.

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I've mentioned it before on here, but my mother has bipolar disorder, having first been diagnosed with it just over thirty years ago. In many respects, she's been very lucky in that she's always had people around her to support her during particularly volatile spells, and how my dad's managed to put up with it as well as he has I'll never know. Shortly after my sister was born in 1994 my mum had her bipolar issues compounded by post-natal depression and was in hospital for quite a while, both for meds, obs and her own safety. There was one point (I can't remember when exactly) when we were really young when she stopped taking her medication and went really manic and that was really stressful for my dad. Thankfully he caught it and she was back on track.

The worst bit for her long-term has been her inability to work on a full-time basis for any prolonged period. When we were younger she worked part-time as an associate minister then as a hospital chaplain, both of which were not really a problem as she was able to withdraw for treatment whenever she needed to. She's been hospitalised at least once every couple of years or so for a period longer than a month. About 8 years ago now she finally took on a full-time charge and while she was medically balanced it was probably the happiest I've seen her in my life. It's a very time and emotionally consuming job, but one she loved and had always wanted to be able to do "properly". Unfortunately almost exactly two years ago now, after a couple of short spells off work the year before that, including one where she tried a programme of ECT, she was absolutely dead on her feet and starting to get very unwell physically as well, to compound her problems. She should have really been signed off sick in about October-November time but she insisted on working through Christmas to get that out the way. In hindsight we really should have insisted she took that time off earlier as it just made her problems worse. She was admitted to hospital for what was supposed to be a routine 1-2 month obs period but which turned into an interrupted stay of over a year. She was only properly discharged towards the end of the summer and she had to retire from her job back in about April.

In many respects it's been the best thing to happen to her, because she's now able just to focus on getting better, and her physical health has improved significantly in the last two months or so. Mentally she's still temperamental but we're used to that. The more I think about it it's amazing how well we've adapted to such a disruptive issue as a family. We're a lot luckier than most, and the support network for some that we pretty much take for granted as a family must really fall short. I suspect in part we have coped because both sides of my family are far from strangers to mental health issues. My dad's father was also bipolar but went undiagnosed until he had a huge manic episode that caused him to have to retire early in his late 50s. More recently one of my dad's brothers has been off work for just over a year now with a form of schizophrenia. We think with him it's partly been brought on by a very troublesome and stressful work environment, in which more and more was being demanded of him from management with ever fewer resources and a very high turnover of staff around him. He's gone from being a mildly extroverted and very happy person to someone who's sometimes unable to bring himself to venture outside his front door unless he's with someone he knows and trusts. Last Christmas he and my gran came across to Glasgow and it was a big step forward for him just to be able to walk around a crowded area like the city centre for longer than about an hour without feeling unbearably unsettled.

One of the things I remember feeling guilty about when I was younger was not being able to tell when mum was unwell. I can be quite flippant in a family setting and often when thinking I was making light of a situation mum would suddenly get very upset at me apparently being uncooperative. You get better at reading these situations as you get older, but small things will always set it off with bipolar sufferers and it's how you cope with the fallout as much as anything else that is important. Oh and under no circumstances go on a family holiday with someone who shows even the slightest hint of going through a rough patch with bipolar disorder... last time I did I was told that I was never allowed to go on holiday with the family again :lol:.

Something I'm involved with and something I'd definitely recommend to people who have family members who suffer from bipolar disorder, is the Edinburgh University Bipolar Family Study. They're conducting a long-term study, including MRI and psychoanalytical tests to try to understand what causes bipolar disorder and what the genetic and behavioural effects are of it and related disorders. It might also help them explain more fully why it is that the children of bipolar sufferers are significantly more likely to suffer from some sort of depressive illness during their lifetime. These are fundamentally chemical problems rather than simply being behaviourally erratic and working out how to stop the chemical imbalances in the first place, rather than merely redress them when they become unstable, and to find a way of predicting and controlling its inter-generational effects, could transform a lot of lives. I've sometimes wondered whether I'm cyclothymic but I suspect it's just that I'm more acutely aware of behavioural and emotive extremities because of family history with that sort of thing.

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I'm not cracking wise but I want to know in the context of mental health what you think a chemical imbalance is and, conversely, what a chemical balance is. I don't think the latter actually exists, so I question the existence of the former.

This isn't to say that depression isn't something that can be treated by medication (of course it can) but the idea of restoring balance is pretty meaningless.

For the likes of bipolar disorder, it clearly is a question of chemical balance. There are a range of factors, such as hormonal and genetic, which cause the brain to behave differently from the "range of normal ways" (for want of a better expression) which lead to erratic and unpredictable behaviour. In that sense, there is a chemical imbalance, and the multitudes of medication that are taken to redress that are themselves a balancing act.

Just for example, my mum takes something insane like 8 or 9 different pills two to three times a day. There's the core anti-depressant she'll be on at any given time, then a number of pills in various succession to prevent the excesses of the side-effects of those, then pills to remove the side effects of those and so forth. She is constantly in touch with her doctor even when she's not in hospital having the dosages of each one altered on a near-monthly basis depending on which residual symptoms persist. Every so often, the anti-depressant she is on will cease to be as effective as it was before, and she'll have to be moved onto something else. It mightn't be a chemical imbalance in the sense of, say, an under-active thyroid, insofar as much of the medication that is used is designed to "trick" the brain into behaving in a different way by disrupting its usual patterns rather than redressing the specific deficit or surplus of a naturally occurring hormone or similar, but I think it's entirely reasonable to talk about chemical balance.

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-1 from Saint John.

dry.gif

Edited to add, go and have a look at previous depression or MH threads.

It's not so much what you wrote, I was advised by a psychologist to do just this, it's the flippant/throwaway way you threw it into the debate. I would have red dotted you too but I realise that would feed your "look at me" syndrome.There are people on here trying to lay bare their demons and you jump in with a pathetic one liner that appears to trivialise the illness. It would have been more helpful if you had posted a link to the thread.

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I have felt alot happier since I've came to a couple of conclusions. They may be arse-achingly obvious and common sense but because I have been severely depressed for a long time they never occurred to me.

1. The only person who deserves your own love above anyone else is you. For me self-loathing was a massive factor in my depression but for the past day I've kept this in mind whenever the dark thoughts rear their ugly heads.

2. You can choose the people who are in your life. Those people in your life who have unreasonable expectations of you that you have no intention of fulfilling, who just make you feel down or who only talk to you when they need something? Tell them exactly where they stand and cut them out like the deadwood they are. Be ruthless with it and don't let them give you a guilt trip. I got shot of two people last night and I felt top of the world.

3. You are not responsible for other people's feelings. If anyone is upset or angered at you then it is only because they gave you that power. Conversely don't allow other people to decide your feelings.

I was thinking about this last night and I'm not sure how well I've explained it, but that's probably the gist of it.

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Guest The Phoenix

I got shot of two people last night and I felt top of the world.

:o

Seriously, though, good luck with Day 2 and the rest of your life.

Ad Lib - I know I often find your posts nauseatingly boring but I read the one I've green spotted above from beginning to end and you have my utmost respect.

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I'm losing track here, who's an alias and who isn't?

Each of my split personalities has it's own alias.

I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in my early 20's. Thankfully many of the self destructive behaviours have subsided now and by mid 30's very few people still have the behavours charactaristic of BPD. I've spent time in both the Priory (not glamourous but bloody hard work) and Dykebar.

In-twined with that I have depression and anxiety. Thankfully I have a fabulously supportive husband, GP and a support group. Earlier this year was rough and then I fell pregnant so had to come off my medication.

I am very thankful that I worked for a company which had private healthcare and was able to get into the Priory as the NHS mental health services are chronically underfunded and very sparce. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy worked really well for me and still does. Had I not I'm pretty sure one of my attempts would probably have been succesful.

Instead I'm still hear posting shite on P&B and I now have 2.5 happy healthy children.

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Each of my split personalities has it's own alias.

I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in my early 20's. Thankfully many of the self destructive behaviours have subsided now and by mid 30's very few people still have the behavours charactaristic of BPD. I've spent time in both the Priory (not glamourous but bloody hard work) and Dykebar.

In-twined with that I have depression and anxiety. Thankfully I have a fabulously supportive husband, GP and a support group. Earlier this year was rough and then I fell pregnant so had to come off my medication.

I am very thankful that I worked for a company which had private healthcare and was able to get into the Priory as the NHS mental health services are chronically underfunded and very sparce. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy worked really well for me and still does. Had I not I'm pretty sure one of my attempts would probably have been succesful.

Instead I'm still hear posting shite on P&B and I now have 2.5 happy healthy children.

Bit of a catch, weren't you?

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