Depression and Anxiety Thread

[CatsbyAZ]

Two weeks ago I couldn't get out of bed for about 5 days. It was on the second day that I realized I was going through, as I term it, a "stress breakdown" which I'm due for anyway. A whole, long weekend where months of mounting anxiety, fatigue, catch up to condemn me to bed for two or three days.

My last stress breakdown was March 2020, following memorable episodes in November 2017, after returning from an exhausting year of work in Europe. And March 2013, coinciding with a severe battle with the Flu. And July 2009, while fighting heat exhaustion, hay fever, and depression. And May 2006, on returning from a long deployment to the Middle East. The first I can remember is June 2004 after finishing a number of tiring months on night shift.

I call it a "stress breakdown" to make its physical equivalent to a Nervous Breakdown. But along with the primarily physical letdown of zero energy and laying in bed all day, eyes half closed, it also manifests the expected secondary depression and disappointment.

[Chicat]

I feel like I could use one of those, minus the guilt.

[84Cat]

Man, take care of yourself. That doesn't sound sustainable to me. I hope you have a professional helping you with that.

[Longhorned]

My last stress breakdown was March 2020, following memorable episodes in November 2017, after returning from an exhausting year of work in Europe. And March 2013, coinciding with a severe battle with the Flu. And July 2009, while fighting heat exhaustion, hay fever, and depression. And May 2006, on returning from a long deployment to the Middle East. The first I can remember is June 2004 after finishing a number of tiring months on night shift.

What caused it this time?

[CatsbyAZ]

What caused it this time?

Burnout.

I’m a big believer in depression serving as a uniquely evolved cerebral mechanism intended to slow us down and give our physiology needed healing for subconscious ailments that by definition we’re not aware of.

Prolonged and acclimatized stress, either from work or in keeping up with life, wears in our bones and blood in ways we wouldn’t know until the bags under our eyes are beyond subduing with face cream. Our brain shifting to depression passively impels us to give up and stay in bed and dread the littlest task as unsurmountable and dare ourselves into introspection – all anti-actions which, by design of depression, slows us down.

Of course a big part of remaining in bed for a whole weekend, apart from listening to the Wildcats tournament games on the radio, is the depression that comes with it. The worst of my weekend depression was realizing, among other thoughts, that if I knew at 15 or 20 the disappointments I’d live with on my way to turning 35, I wouldn’t be too excited about going on.

That isn’t meant to sound as hopeless as it might because it’s a reality adults must face: No examined life is without its regrets. By course of the unintended consequences of living or older morals and perspectives taking hold and putting our youth under a different score, we all deal with inevitable regrets, even if it’s as abstract as mourning time gone by.

Taken with a deep breath, I believe this is a healthy process. As someone who works in a very macho industry, where the preferred choice of response and interaction between its many Type A personalities is to loudly OVEREACT to everything (which more often makes the situation counterproductively more stressful), there’s something to be said about NOT REACTING and instead letting the things settle. As I’ve done this, a surprising amount of solutions will, on their own time, present themselves in the form of workable options.

This is how I’ve come to discipline myself toward depression, where going the way of Xanax and Lexapro is OVEREACTING; instead it has worked out more effectively to sink into higher tides depressions where my more hopeless thoughts can, by staring them down, eventually recede as though into a background, and by receding, leaving me with a reality that I can better come to terms with.

[Longhorned]

Yeah, there's a phenomenon in Italy where mothers go to the hospital periodically because they break down with the burnout from being an Italian mother. It's a common medical condition that comes out of context where the mother is so overburdened. And since their husbands would never allow them to get on a boat and just go loll on a beach in Ischia for a week, recovery in the hospital is the only option.

[Carcassdragger]

So many depressing thoughts lately.

I'm in my late 50s and grew up in an area that loves Trump. Ive lost several long term friends over Trump madness. I had to delete them from my phone because I was tired of getting long diatribes of how great Trump is.

Even now, some friends who I have basically zero contact with and haven't deleted their numbers are texting out of the blue to rant about Biden and say how great Trump is. I've never experienced anything like this collective madness.

I can sense a coldness from other old friends who seem to think I love Biden just because I despised Trump.

Its almost like many in our society are being given secret marching orders to berate everyone who is not on the Trump train. I've never seen anything like this collective madness. Maybe I'm the one who has gone mad.

My family is small and I don't have any kids. My only brother is a racist Trump piece of crap, so we don't talk much. My only sister is burned out from all the drugs and alcohol she consumed in earlier years and she's about half bat shit crazy.

I have a niece who I've been real close with but a business relationship with her has soured and I'm afraid it's going to affect our relationship going forward.

My dad died a few years ago and my mom is 88. Not sure how long she's got.

I'm not living where I grew up and people are pretty clique around here. No close friends here.

All my life I've been a good loyal friend to others, and in the ladt few years ive diligently tried to support friends in crisis, but I'm not hearing hardly anything from my life long friends just checking on my wife's cancer.

I dont enjoy my job, but the pay keeps me there. I dont have a very marketable education.

I'm afraid my wife and I are heading into our old age without hardly any close friends or relationships with my family and it depresses me. I've never seriously considered therapy, but now I'm starting to wonder if I could use an adjustment.

[Chicat]

Shit CD, that’s a lot to have on your mind and your soul. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone who is struggling to seek out therapy, especially since nowadays it can be virtual (in fact, a former colleague of mine used to do her sessions via text message). You never know what kind of insights and assistance you can get, but at the very least it’s someone to talk to who you won’t feel like you’re burdening with your problems since it’s their job to listen.

[Longhorned]

Dragger, I remember this time when an interviewer (60 Minutes?) tried to get Prince Charles to ascent to being happy. The interviewer did that by listing out all the things that Prince Charles has to be happy about. He probably had his own list of reasons to the contrary, like you and we all have.

I have no advice, but people who have worked through all this stuff for thousands of years are trying to help us. And yes, therapy. Just leap in. There's no other way to do it.

[pc in NM]

So many depressing thoughts lately.

I'm in my late 50s and grew up in an area that loves Trump. Ive lost several long term friends over Trump madness. I had to delete them from my phone because I was tired of getting long diatribes of how great Trump is.

Even now, some friends who I have basically zero contact with and haven't deleted their numbers are texting out of the blue to rant about Biden and say how great Trump is. I've never experienced anything like this collective madness.

I can sense a coldness from other old friends who seem to think I love Biden just because I despised Trump.

Its almost like many in our society are being given secret marching orders to berate everyone who is not on the Trump train. I've never seen anything like this collective madness. Maybe I'm the one who has gone mad.

My family is small and I don't have any kids. My only brother is a racist Trump piece of crap, so we don't talk much. My only sister is burned out from all the drugs and alcohol she consumed in earlier years and she's about half bat shit crazy.

I have a niece who I've been real close with but a business relationship with her has soured and I'm afraid it's going to affect our relationship going forward.

My dad died a few years ago and my mom is 88. Not sure how long she's got.

I'm not living where I grew up and people are pretty clique around here. No close friends here.

All my life I've been a good loyal friend to others, and in the ladt few years ive diligently tried to support friends in crisis, but I'm not hearing hardly anything from my life long friends just checking on my wife's cancer.

I dont enjoy my job, but the pay keeps me there. I dont have a very marketable education.

I'm afraid my wife and I are heading into our old age without hardly any close friends or relationships with my family and it depresses me. I've never seriously considered therapy, but now I'm starting to wonder if I could use an adjustment.

If you're "starting to wonder if...", then you SHOULD seek therapy.

A couple of ideas from an LPCC counselor:

- Therapy works - give it a chance.

- The most important variable for successful therapy is the quality of the relationship between client and therapist.

- For those unfamiliar with the field, choosing a therapist can feel difficult or overwhelming.

- the outcome of effective therapy will be in how you change - think ahead about how you'd like to change.

- the therapist is your employee, not vice versa.

Here's a link to a pretty good introduction to the selection process: https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/a-beginn ... apist.html

Go for it!! or, as "they" say: Bear Down!!!!

[Merkin]

I'm afraid my wife and I are heading into our old age without hardly any close friends or relationships with my family and it depresses me. I've never seriously considered therapy, but now I'm starting to wonder if I could use an adjustment.

Retirement and the pandemic kind of did that to us too.

My family also decided to never talk politics when we get together. Myself and my 3 conservative brothers are on the extreme sides of the spectrum.

[Longhorned]

I wonder whether it's limiting to think of it in terms of dealing with a negative situation. As though your yard were a mess, and now you have to go through the effort and expense of hiring someone to help get in all cleaned up.

In a positive way, it's about experienced something amazing. The best way I can describe it is like lucid dreaming while awake.

[CatsbyAZ]

I'm afraid my wife and I are heading into our old age without hardly any close friends or relationships with my family and it depresses me. I've never seriously considered therapy, but now I'm starting to wonder if I could use an adjustment.

All my life I've seen people refuse therapy for which therapy would undoubtedly help. I'm specifically referencing my parents generation (60s/70s) who've always tended toward an overt suspicion of psychology, psychiatry, and therapy as some sort of new age racket.

My Dad, for example, would be greatly assisted by working out two long-unresolved matters with extensive therapy, preferably in group therapy with me: 1) letting our ugly past with my sister finally go - she estranged the family at 16 and it got worse from there - and 2) his unhealthy dependence on work.

My advice and encouragement for you with therapy is twofold:
1) Don't short cut the time component. To expand, the benefits can take a while, meaning a dozen sessions or so, before a healthier sense of self begins to noticeably set in.
2) The better news is, many people who start therapy despite its initial intimidations are more than relieved to discover that difficulties can quite often be processed and even resolved merely by talking them out in different ways.

I'll leave you with an observation of my buddy who once hosted a rather obnoxious morning radio show in Las Vegas. His wife, a regular therapy-goer, told me that, unlike her, her husband never needed therapy because every morning he gets to start his day by talking out and shouting out and yelling out whatever topics are burdening his mind.

It started me appreciating whether something like loneliness, or whatever might occupy our default worries, can be lightened by talking it out as part of a routine, a format which therapy provides a setting.

[dovecanyoncat]

I'm afraid my wife and I are heading into our old age without hardly any close friends or relationships with my family and it depresses me. I've never seriously considered therapy, but now I'm starting to wonder if I could use an adjustment.

Retirement and the pandemic kind of did that to us too.

My family also decided to never talk politics when we get together. Myself and my 3 conservative brothers are on the extreme sides of the spectrum.

Retirement, the pandemic, and politics are the trifecta of challenge. There's a fine line between maintaining the principles that found one's self-respect and allowing the needs of social togetherness to mitigate those principles. I let go of a friendship because of my stance on Trump, and I think about it almost every day when triggered by the simplest of habitual daily tasks. Family can be even worse. To top it all off, the isolation of the pandemic makes self-reflection overwrought and fuzzy. We need others, but if others dilute or debase us we suffer inwardly. It's easy for me to say, but if I were as unhappy as you sound CD I wouldn't hesitate to see someone. What is the risk in doing so?

[Chicat]

“How can I focus on myself without being selfish?”

Wow… that is just… poignant.

[CalStateTempe]

White claw is delicious, and I say this as a person who hates seltzer water and things like La Croix. The citrus flavored white claws like the lime and tangerine are perfect for the pool

Had my first one this past week at the beach. It wasn’t terrible.

I actually kinda liked it, but then again I mainline la croix nightly, so it was a easy jump.

[Longhorned]

Speaking of which, I've had a Topo Chico addiction for a while. Just the water, not the new alcoholic one. My stash is spent from all the guests I've had, and the guys renovating my bathroom haven't been kind to my dwindling stock. The stuff appears in Tucson every once in a while, and I buy as many cases as I can until it vanishes again for several weeks. I haven't seen any for a few weeks now.

[CatsbyAZ]

It’s that time of year again: January – my most depressing month. Not to end an otherwise OK 2022 on a bummer, but January arrives like a hangover. Once the post-holiday letdown sets in and the month-by-month parade of festive holidays are over, from Halloween to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and through the New Year’s celebrations, January’s emptiness and gray skies mirror my inevitable state of mind, slowed and downturned by the overstimulation of celebrating so many holidays, fittingly toward the year’s end, one after another, like the year itself went out drinking and partying away its own night too late. Thus January’s hangover. The Southwest needs the rain, but fittingly the weather this week is an overlapping of several heavy Pacific storms, a depression of weather not necessarily to be differentiated from the depression of the mind. And the turn of the year is when I most sense all these years are cycling by with little difference – the same vacation plans for later in the year, from where the same postcards are sent to the same folks, whose Christmas cards posted on the fridge every December tradeoff all too similar updates to careers, house buying, and children.

January through February is consistently my worst time of year for weathering depression. I’m sure it’s seasonal circumstances – cold, dark by 5PM – mixing with the post-Holiday, back-to-work letdown but it’s stark how like seasonal clockwork January becomes a month largely lost to plummeting motivation, inability to write or work effectively, and overwhelmed by various disappointments that I usually tune out. All before emerging into better spirits toward March. Last year was especially empty, lasting until almost April.

[dovecanyoncat]

[CatsbyAZ]

Once the post-holiday letdown sets in and the month-by-month parade of festive holidays are over, from Halloween to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and through the New Year’s celebrations, January’s emptiness and gray skies mirror my inevitable state of mind, slowed and downturned by the overstimulation of celebrating so many holidays, fittingly toward the year’s end, one after another, like the year itself went out drinking and partying away its own night too late. Thus January’s hangover.

Found my solution - thx BoJack!

[dovecanyoncat]

Less than a month and a half from her 95th birthday my mother died peacefully after falling and not regaining consciousness. She was a helluva tough, mean, West Texas woman whose profound liberalism reserved its greatest fundamental kindness for community, feminism, and the disadvantaged members of humanity. Everyone said I was her son, not my father's son, and I'm proud to an asshole in her likeness.

[azgreg]

Sorry for your loss buddy.

[84Cat]

I'm sorry for your loss dove! She sounds like a wonderful woman

[dovecanyoncat]

Sorry for your loss buddy.

Family is everything. Family is overrated. Family is the exorbitant privilege of having something better than we deserve precede us before we've had our chance to earn it.

[dovecanyoncat]

I'm sorry for your loss dove! She sounds like a wonderful woman

She busted balls and got Republican ....... Montana Republican support ....... for liberal legislation not only in Missoula but state-wide. She was a true Montana icon in her day. She was a personal inspiration for John Tester's former chief of staff. And she bore her flaws like a warrior.

[CardiacCats97]

She sounds like a firecracker.

So sorry for your loss, but it sounds like she spent most of those 95 years raising hell and independent humans like yourself.

May her legacy live on in all the ruckus you cause Dove.

[dovecanyoncat]

She sounds like a firecracker.

So sorry for your loss, but it sounds like she spent most of those 95 years raising hell and independent humans like yourself.

May her legacy live on in all the ruckus you cause Dove.

West Texas Methodist liberals are radicals in their devotion to education and liberalism. I hope to live up to my forebears.

[Carcassdragger]

Dove. Real sorry to see this.

Seems like the world and Montana are better because she was in them and Montana sure could still use women like your mom.

Hope you are ready to pick her up and carry her with you soon.

Best to you Dove.

[scumdevils86]

My condolences man. Sounds like the kind of woman I loved to chat with back when I worked in the credit union. Always a hell of a time.

[dovecanyoncat]

Dove. Real sorry to see this.

Seems like the world and Montana are better because she was in them and Montana sure could still use women like your mom.

Hope you are ready to pick her up and carry her with you soon.

Best to you Dove.

We used to argue about resource management. I never won.

[dovecanyoncat]

My condolences man. Sounds like the kind of woman I loved to chat with back when I worked in the credit union. Always a hell of a time.

She'd have hit up your CU for contributions to Dem candidates. LOL

[EastCoastCat]

Condolences Dove.

I lost 2 parents who both reached into their 90's so take solace in the fact your Mother led an eventful and fulfilling life. Sounds like a great lady.

The grief and sorrow eventually turns into pride and revelation.

[dovecanyoncat]

Condolences Dove.

I lost 2 parents who both reached into their 90's so take solace in the fact your Mother led an eventful and fulfilling life. Sounds like a great lady.

The grief and sorrow eventually turns into pride and revelation.

You're exactly right. It already has.

[CatsbyAZ]

It’s that time of year again: January – my most depressing month…

January through February is consistently my worst time of year for weathering depression…

Here we go again, cycled around to January and the post-Holiday seasonal depression that awaits. Depression replacing the household presence of your Christmas Tree.

Longform, winding thoughts on depression – will break this into two posts – but here goes…

Earlier this year while on work travel I caught up with a former enlisted buddy of mine who now volunteers as a counselor through the chaplains office on the local military bases. He invited me along to a weekly group counseling circle he hosts in the conference room of a barracks housing junior Sailors/Marines. It’s usually an open-invite discussion ranging from PTSD, Stress, Depression, and Adulthood to include methods for coping.

For my visit, my buddy lead our group discussion on what we “hold onto” (spiritually or practically speaking) to get us through our worst depths of stress/depression/anxiety. I answered first, praising prayer as a stabilizing force giving me fortitude to get through my most difficult times. In turn, most of the younger Sailors/Marines (ages 18 – 25) said they “hold onto” Netflix or Call of Duty.

This really surprised me not only because it was unexpected, but something like Netflix fails to drown out anything in my way of depression or stress. Streaming is especially too passive of a diversion to compete with more absorbing escapes like reading or journaling. But it got me thinking whether mankind is deep enough into an age of “Infinite Entertainment” that by binge watching or passing the hours on YouTube or Call of Duty, entertainment is costing us the drive/focus for Work Ethic, Religion, Friendships, and Nature that’s otherwise been innate to mankind’s pursuit of fulfillment.

Religion addresses death with ambitions to solve death, but are we reaching a neck deep point with entertainment that those raised with instant and endless access can successfully avoid acknowledging death at an existential level? And similarly rely on entertainment to drown out stress/depression/anxiety in the immediate sense?

It got me thinking how the real threat to religion was never so much its sworn opposition that can conversely reinforce belief. The real threat to religion is what can numb us into a distraction continual enough to keep us from seeking meaning in the outlets where we seek meaning and purpose (church, books, friends, competition, art).

[CatsbyAZ]

So what does Entertainment have to do with Depression and Anxiety?

A counselor once advised me to find more to do with my hands. Working with your hands, she said, engages the mind with the productivity and focus needed to lift the mind from shallower bouts of depression. She was right. It’s probably why I feel better handwriting my journal rather than typing it out.

Most of us on here were probably raised with hands-on activities – crafts at school, coloring books, sports leagues, building Legos, shooting hoops in the driveway. Activities that unbeknownst to kids are a mentally healthy involvement of our hands and also translate well into adulthood as more sophisticated skills that might even rise to the level of a profession – auto mechanics, hair stylists, chefs, construction work, firefighting, tattoo artists, nursing?

Now we’re mostly defaulted to screens.

In short, is the Age of Infinite Entertainment is costing us the art of our hands? And thus a means for tending our mental health?

[Alieberman]

Working with your hands or really doing anything physical 100% works.

For me its been running / hiking - but even doing yard work can get me out of my head

[CalStateTempe]

Me too Ari. running hiking saves me

[Chicat]

Surprisingly, drinking until your liver craps out doesn’t help.

[OriginalAZ]

As a psychiatrist I definitely need to find ways to unwind. I find hiking works well but when I just want to stay home I find building Lego sets to be therapeutic. I know I'm not the only adult out there who does this.
Lego is even marketing this:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/categories/a ... indfulness

[Alieberman]

Surprisingly, drinking until your liver craps out doesn’t help.

But its a method we all have to try!

[dovecanyoncat]

Religion addresses death with ambitions to solve death, but are we reaching a neck deep point with entertainment that those raised with instant and endless access can successfully avoid acknowledging death at an existential level? And similarly rely on entertainment to drown out stress/depression/anxiety in the immediate sense?

It got me thinking how the real threat to religion was never so much its sworn opposition that can conversely reinforce belief. The real threat to religion is what can numb us into a distraction continual enough to keep us from seeking meaning in the outlets where we seek meaning and purpose (church, books, friends, competition, art).

In my mind latin to bind: ligare, or ligo is the root word of religion. Religion is what binds and re-binds us to our perceived fundaments of existence. The ligatures of life come at us in different ways, (for me, the holidays are themselves a mild depressant and always I can't wait for them to pass) and so does its liberations. Whether death is a religious ligament or liberation is another matter, but I agree entirely with you that entertainment through escape into a digital world is ultimately a corruption. Perhaps we can overcome it, but largely we evolved without "distraction continual enough" to distort our relationship with scarcity. A good a example is online dating. I think it may easily cause more depression and anxiety than relationships and marriages.

I think our primitive nature is built to seek liberation through engagement, and while it could be claimed that video and gaming is exactly that ...... I think it fails the organic test, and like online dating, when subject to no scarcity at all, it obviates a link in an ancient primordial chain that binds together an individual. So it's the same for me as it is with other here who free up themselves through exercise. The physical body is a point of departure as much as it is a site of confinement. Without it I don't think I could bind my own mind together.

[azgreg]

I am quickly approaching Michael Douglas in Falling Down territory.

[Chicat]

I am quickly approaching Michael Douglas in Falling Down territory.

Please don’t blow up anything with an RPG.

[UAEebs86]

I am quickly approaching Michael Douglas in Falling Down territory.

Got the baseball bat in hand?

Good thing I'm on the other side of town.

[CalStateTempe]

I’ve had some baaaaad email anxiety lately.

Just got my hands in too many work and professional thinks right now that I’m slowly trying to divest from.

Lesson learned. Finally was able to chip into them a bit today, probably about 2-3 more hours to go…

[CalStateTempe]

And yeah, I have a bit of the black dog too and he’s been hanging around a bit more lately…

All good, we trudge on.

[Chicat]

In all seriousness Greg, talk to someone. Sometimes things get better just knowing that someone has heard you.

[dovecanyoncat]

Maybe a day off at the links grippin' and rippin' would help?

[Merkin]

You are not the bad guy!

[pc in NM]

In all seriousness Greg, talk to someone. Sometimes things get better just knowing that someone has heard you.

As a behavioral health professional, I can tell you that the evidence supports this - but only for folks who give it a shot...

... friends, ministers, etc. can be beneficial too. Just do it!