I would like to talk about my experience of depression. Although my priciple psychiatric problem is schziophrenia I have had depression as well. At its worst in 1993 it was a horrific experience, a mental torment and self torture.
I started feel depressed at school. It started off because I believed I was ugly because I didn't get picked for social dance by the girls when everyone else did and this happened all the way through school. I grew up believing I was ugly and I was never going to find anybody. I also got depressed about my paranoid schizophrenic dad who lost his job when I was about 5 and became more ill and a recluse as the eighties progressed. Back in those days it was just the milder 'grey' neurotic depression, just feeling really miserable. I was also worried about genetics I was aware that schizophrenia had a genetic element. The depression did break sometimes and I would feel ok and even occasionally happy, I had a good circle of friends and quite a number of activities I enjoyed. From the age of 10 through to the age of leaving school I had 5 crushes on girls I hardly knew. This fed the depression a bit. In the last year of school academic stress added greatly to this. I tried to kill myself with some deadly poison. I didn't swallow the poison, but it was so deadly stuff that just getting a little on my hands should have been enough to kill me.
Near the end of school I had two holidays in 1990 and 1991 in Puerto Pollensa where I met some great caring people and had a good time. The second holiday was just after I left school and before I had my first year at university. I had a crush on a girl called Michelle and kept writing to her and several other of my friends from Pollensa for a bit after.
At university I suffered from low mood and difficulty concentrating and also sexual problems and contacted my GP in December 1991 and the university GP about them and I mentioned the suicide attempt at school and I started seeing psychiatrists in March of 1992. In May of 1992 I was admitted to hospital with schizophrenia. After about a week on medication I began to come back to reality.
I felt wretched most of the time over the summer of 1992 I spent 3 months in hospital or so coming back to reality and also wrestling with ethical issues over War and Peace and nuclear weapons.
The rest of 1992 and early 1993 were quite uneventful, I remember a holiday with my to visit my brother and a trip to the caanaries.
Never again will a story be told as though it is the only one:- Anon
The really severe black psychotic depression began in August 1993. It was a truly horrific experience a TORMENT, I believed I was damned in hell and I was been tortured for my wrongdoing. I felt a kind of hyperguilt I would feel hyperguilt about small things like not giving enough to Oxfam, and things like that. (i had given twenty pounds to Comic relief earlier that year, which is probably pretty good going on income support and nothing else, but to my supercharged conscience this wasn't good enough.) I also felt superguilt about sexual issues and the phenomenalogy had a great deal of religious content to it I thought I was going to get crucified upside down, that I was the Antichrist from the book of Reveleation. A did have a good psychiatist at this point Dr Campbell and with the help of new medicines and a wee bit of of a chat and rest I got out of it.
In the years that followed I sufference from intermittent grey neurotic depression. I got overly selfishly obsessed my chronic single status and my inability to find a girlfriend, and also my dad's illness. There were times when it would lighten up when me and and mum would walk along the canal say for example. In 1997 I was prescibed an SSRI antidepressant and within a couple of years it helped matters.
At the turn of the millenia my parents died. I cried a lot at my mum's death, but I felt little at my father's death as in a way for the most part I had never had a father.
Never again will a story be told as though it is the only one:- Anon
In the new millenia I went back to college and got and HNC (i had got highers and A-levels in the old millenia)
Then in 2004 I had another breakdown that had schizoid, depressive and manic stages. I was put on new medicine (a mood stabilizer called Vaporate)and after a few months things cleared.
I was still suffering from milder grey depression in 2005 and 2006, I got away a nice holiday on my own to Falmouth in 2005 which was quite enjoyable. The last time I had serious suicide ideation was in 2006, I have been rpetty OK since I have bad doses of the blues but not Depression.
Never again will a story be told as though it is the only one:- Anon
1.For Serious Black psychotic depression get admitted to hospital for your own welfare. N.B. THE WORD PSYCHOTIC DOES NOT MEAN WHAT MUCH OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC THINKS IT MEANS. 'Psychotic' means a sleepwalking like state where there is loss of contact with reality.
2. TAKE YOUR MEDICINES.
I found medicnes from all the following medicine classes helpful.
3.Take FISH OIL capsules and Multivitamin tablets and try and eat well if you can.
4. Talk to your Psychiatrist and GP and CPN and psychologist about any problems you might have. For example I was given a neuroleptic that made me impotent and sleep 14hrs of the day in 1992 when I was 17.
5. If you are having trouble explaining something, try producing a written account of your illness for your shrink and your GP to be included in your notes.
6. Find ways to relax:- I particularly enjoy saunas and steam rooms at our local sport centre. I have tried a lot of other things like that, like meditation, listening to music and reading. I think TV is a bit overated however.
7. Study the subject of psychology get to know your mind brain and behaviour and try and get an education generally.
8. When listening to music try to ration your listeninng of things like Pink Floyd. Think of a Pink Floyd album from DSToM onward as a paracetamol or Co-Codamol tablet. One or two will help take away the pain but if you listen to it too much it might kill you. I tended to find the fish era Marillion sometimes a bit like that too. The Floyd album before DSoTM such as 'Meddle' and 'Saucerful' don't really count as they are not really depressive. 'Meddle is quite therapeutic, and I tend to find Enya quite calming too.
9. Read psychology self Help books about how to deal with your illness.
10. Reach out and form good friendship and good relatioship with family as far as possibile.
11. Try and go out for a nice walk in the countryside with a friend or a loved member of family to lighten mood.
12. Try a spot of voluntary work or political activism. If you really really over it you can even try paid work
Never again will a story be told as though it is the only one:- Anon
Just one more recommendation for dealing with depression
:- If you are depressed or even just having a bad dose of the blues, try avoiding watching the news for a while, maybe even a couple of weeks. I have found since I stopped watching the news so often my mood has tended to get better.
Never again will a story be told as though it is the only one:- Anon
My experience of depression
Posted - 11/18/2012 : 05:04:46
