Depression - TalkSport Diagnosis

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Every councillor?

[zahidf]

My aunt keeps threathening suicide after her nervous breakdown. She is seeing therapists and taking medication, but it's been almost a year and it doesn't seem to be helping. She seems to have just given up at life, at 52 as well.

Any advice?

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

My aunt keeps threathening suicide after her nervous breakdown. She is seeing therapists and taking medication, but it's been almost a year and it doesn't seem to be helping. She seems to have just given up at life, at 52 as well.

Any advice?

[zahidf]

Ok, thanks. I'll ask her go to the doctor. I'm just worried the medication might make her into a zombie.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Ok, thanks. I'll ask her go to the doctor. I'm just worried the medication might make her into a zombie.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

My aunt keeps threathening suicide after her nervous breakdown. She is seeing therapists and taking medication, but it's been almost a year and it doesn't seem to be helping. She seems to have just given up at life, at 52 as well.

Any advice?

[Dave The Hedgehog]

Have to say, I very rarely step outside of the boards belonging to the festivals I'm going to but this is one of the most interesting threads I've seen on any internet forum I've ever used. Reading through all of this though (and I have, genuinely, read it all), I could do with having something clarified.

Neil, have you ever suffered from depression before?

[eFestivals]

Neil, have you ever suffered from depression before?

Given that the depressing depression 'specialists' can't agree amongst themselves as to what depression actually is, no one knows.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

Given that the depressing depression 'specialists' can't agree amongst themselves as to what depression actually is, no one knows.

[eFestivals]

That'll be a no then. In which case, everything you've said on this thread is completely irrelevant, pointless and meaningless, and I dismiss it accordingly. Merely an observer.

I'm glad to see that you're applying no different a method to me as do the people who 'diagnose' depression do.

And that's the whole problem with this subject. People like to consider themselves experts on the basis of almost nothing.

FYI: One 'expert' said I was, while another 'expert' said I wasn't. So some more were tried. And guess what? One 'expert' said I was, while another 'expert' said I wasn't.

If the shrinks don't know, then who does? Not you, not anyone.

And we're back to the heart of the problem, that mostly it's an invention. That doesn't mean that depression doesn't exist, it means that a meaningful science around depression doesn't.

[AcademicPistol]

And it's not healthy to start chucking anti-depressants down as soon as one 'expert' 'diagnoses' you as 'depressed'.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

I'm glad to see that you're applying no different a method to me as do the people who 'diagnose' depression do.

[eFestivals]

you'd know that half of the problem is that nobody does.

I'm of the opinion that it's more than half the problem. But not all in the way you're meaning.

[eFestivals]

Whether somebody is an expert or not is irrelevant

as this thread gets to prove, it's not.

[Katster]

What if Neil has suffered depression but never been diagnosed? Bit harsh to dismiss everything he says like (i haven't read the whole thread).

[feral chile]

What if Neil has suffered depression but never been diagnosed? Bit harsh to dismiss everything he says like (i haven't read the whole thread).

Edited August 4, 2012 by feral chile

[eFestivals]

It's a bit risky talking about depression as if there's a universal experience, because it's different for everyone.

the best set of words I've seen in this thread.

[rexclark]

A very interesting thread and some great

the best set of words I've seen in this thread.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

It's a bit risky talking about depression as if there's a universal experience, because it's different for everyone.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I third that. It's like if you go to your GP with a broken leg and expect him to pull out the same cast to put around your leg as he did somebody elses, as if one size fits all. Depression doesn't work like that; mental illness as a whole doesn't work like that. I was given 5 different medications (or 'casts') for depression over the course of nearly 10 years before I went to see a private consultant who basically said, "you don't suffer from depression so you don't need anti-depressants, but you take anti-depressants because the anti-depressants make you depressed" and explained to me what 'generic anxiety disorder' was; but allowed me the space to make up my own mind as to what I wanted to do with it rather than do what every other person I'd seen before had done -- the most dangerous thing ANY doctor could do -- which was offer a repeat prescription. My problem was I reacted badly to stress and the doctors beforehand had misinterpreted my symptoms as a sign of depression rather than an irrational reaction to my rational concerns and worries; an irrational reaction that was exascerbated by the side effects to the medication I was being given and actually led me into depression, weirdly.

What I said wasn't aimed at criticising Neil, or even dismissing him; it was merely to find out if he felt he suffered from what he defines as depression, and if not, then ask how he felt obliged to enter the forum of debate on a topic he knows nothing about (because he hasn't experienced it, directly himself or indirectly with somebody else).

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I often think that a GP prescribe medication to keep the patient happy. It is far easier than getting involved.

Personally I dont think it is healthy to be happy all the time.

[eFestivals]

What I said wasn't aimed at criticising Neil, or even dismissing him; it was merely to find out if he felt he suffered from what he defines as depression, and if not, then ask how he felt obliged to enter the forum of debate on a topic he knows nothing about (because he hasn't experienced it, directly himself or indirectly with somebody else).

Just because I choose to express different opinions to your own doesn't mean that it's something I know nothing about.

-----

And, it's worth considering this: if tomorrow it was proven beyond all doubt that there is no such thing as depression, the 'experts' on depression would refuse to accept it. As a body of knowledge and people of that knowledge, they are more interested in ensuring their own position and power via what they claim to know than they are of investigating and utilising what knowledge there is.

Edited August 7, 2012 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

On the second point I'd love to be happy all the time. What could possibly be wrong with it?

What would undoubtedly be wrong be wrong with it is that you would fail to recognise that happiness.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I think GP's don't get as involved as much as they might like because of the limited amount of time they have to deal with each patient.

On the second point I'd love to be happy all the time. What could possibly be wrong with it? I'd say very few people fall into that category though.

[AcademicPistol]

What would undoubtedly be wrong be wrong with it is that you would fail to recognise that happiness.