I know your tongue is probably firmly in your cheek on this, but you are so right.
Recognising, and celebrating that I can’t control everything was a big step on my road to recovery. As was attempting to live in each moment without looking too far forward or too far back.
I, like you, watch some of the online reactions to defeat and wonder if it’s healthy.
That said, getting raw emotion and anger out via a suitable channel can be very healthy.
Perhaps I need to start shouting “sack the board”!
Great post.
I’d add to this that if you’ve broken your leg, it’s clear to you that you need to get treatment and when you arrive for that treatment it’s clear to the medical professional what needs to be done.
At no point in your decision-making process do you think you’ll just be told to get a grip.
**At no point in your thought process do you feel like a failure for breaking your leg. **
At no point do you feel weak or weaker than those around you.
At no point does your ego kick in and tell you that you’re better than this and you can live with the damaged limb.
Depression is just like every other illness until you start to think about getting treatment and then it becomes like no other illness.
Interesting point here, having worked with literally hundreds (maybe thousands) of people who have broken a limb, there are a small percentage who do feel like a failure, who feel like they are wasting our time and that they are ‘stupid’ or are to blame and that they deserve it. Sometimes they will already have a history of depression and be on medication already, however the ones that have no previous history are the patients I tend to keep a closer eye on and fairly often are the ones who develop low mood and tend to take longer to recover.
I am by no means an expert, but I have been trying to learn more about trauma as as a trigger of mental health issues, but as Baz said in an earlier post the variables can be infinite. Sadly I don’t think I’ll ever be proficient at recognising all the signs all the time, even with training and self directed learning it is a tough nut to crack.
And neither am I an expert in the link or otherwise between trauma and depression @gavstar , but I can totally see how that might follow.
I can tell you now that any injury that stops me from flooding my body with endorphins on a football pitch can be really bad for my mood.
Coming to terms with my likely retirement is tough.
Finding a way to exercise every day through pain has been another important factor in my recovery.
Please stop PMing me, I’m not ‘examining’ your groin again.
Some proper bro love one here and am loving it, but can we get back to calling me a bellend…
Not keen on prescription meds now I’m hearing about these side effects! If I got bad I would just push it deep down and medicate with excessive alcohol, like @cb-saint
No school like the old school srs
Sorry Baz, floodgates opened now, no going back, happy valentine’s day bro <3
‘does Les Reed cause depression’
Some cracking posts on here. Top work all round. Will embark on an upvote spree shortly.
Just a small extra point, I do wonder if perhaps the question is more relevant in the US than it is in the UK.
I think a huge advantage of the NHS is that service providers are not attempting to make profit. Patient care is the primary concern.
As I’ve often mentioned, krGF is a GP. She’s never been under any pressure to prescribe a certain medication for financial return, for herself or her practice. Given the relationship between healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies in the US, I wonder if there is more of an issue there.
This is something I have really struggled with over the past few years.
Football and running were excellent for my mental health. Having managed to wreck my knee, football is gone for me now. I am hoping I’ll be able to get back to running at some point soon, but nearly 18 months after my last surgery it’s still not on the immediate horizon.
was just thinking something similar @krg_ , was thinking about youtubing some US pharma ads for anti-depressants to try and gauge the tone but I apparently have some work I should be doing.
Can’t imagine they are too hard to find. I’m fairly sure I’ve seen them when watching the footy (via the US for some unknown reason 
) .
Re meds. One of the drugs I was prescribed was Prozac. I thought yay! Happy pills. I will be happy. Nope, no sudden euphoria. All that happen is that it took the edge off my depression and anxiety but I felt no huge mood shift - just a lessening of the shit stuff. I was disappointed at the time but looking back it was for the best. I can see how you could get hooked on mood enhancers so I was lucky. Going to The Priory was like going to college. For the most part I would turn up 3 days a week and attended classes on the causes and effects of anxiety. What happens to the body with depression etc. There were cognitive therapy session in groups where they taught you that you feelings are controlled by your thoughts and how to deal with that. There were art classes where you would produce something on a theme and then explain to the group what it meant to you. There were music season where you would play a piece of music and explain to the group why it meant something to you. The process was explained as gradually peeling off layers like an onion to get at what was inside. Whilst being the shittiest time of my life, it also gave me some of the best times. The counsellors were excellent and the group of people I was there with were brilliant. 14 years later I still keep in touch with many of them.
I got very close to one person. She was a young girl who was very closed down and spent most of the time staring at the floor. It turns out she was a lesbian and we used to compare notes on a couple of the fit counsellors. I didn’t hear from here for a while after we left The Priory but one day I got a text to say she had something to tell me. I rang her and she was now a he! Had the full op and everything. We keep in touch via FB and he looks more manly than me. He has just got married to a beautiful looking women and judging by his posts, he couldn’t be more happy. It is amazing to see the difference that the therapy made to his life. It gave him the strength and confidence to go out and be the person he wanted to be. Many other people I was in there with have also married and started families. I too have remarried and my life is infinitely better now. It is not perfect but at least I understand what is going on when I don’t feel great and I have the coping mechanisms, or the confidence to get help, when I feel the wobbles coming on. We need to get rid of the stigma regarding mental health. Even Churchill suffered from what he called ‘the Black Dog.’ It is good to see the subject given more air time but there is still a long way to go!
when I worked for the CPS I used to managed a team of women who used to deal with casework on the Rape and Serious Sexual Offences unit. The police had counsellors for the officers who dealt with sex offences. I could see that dealing with this shit was having a detrimental affect on some of my team so asked if we could get the police counsellors in to give my team some support. Sadly it didn’t happen because of budgetary restrictions but it turned out to be a false economy because a couple of the paralegals ended up on long term sick leave.
i seem to be waffling on here. Sorry. Point is, we all need support at sometime in our lives, even if it just opening up to our mates over a pint. When people start saying depression/anxiety is the new back ache, it really irritates me. Those who suffer with it know exactly what I mean.
A hangover.
hat cunt doesn’t have feelings.
Some fascinating and honest stories here. I will add mine and hope it aids some of the discussion.
My step mum (known her since I was a kid) has suffered from severe depression for seven years now. The “trigger” is thought to be the unexpected, sudden and very unpleasant death of her best friend. Since then she has had three suicide attempts (one very nearly successful) and many other desires for further attempts. She has been in and out of institutions depending on her condition.
During this time she has been taking up to 30 tablets per day. Some of these were designed to medically suppress the darkest thoughts and to control outbursts etc. These have largely worked, though not always - partly because different medical professionals have had responsibility for treatment and have had different ideas on what works best. The majority of tablets however were intended to provide gradual improvement in her condition and thus a gradual cure. These have not worked.
The only treatment that has worked has been ECT or Electro-Convulsive Therapy. Formerly called electroshock therapy, despite sounding like something from Guantanamo, this type of treatment is rapidly gaining ground. It proved to be extremely effective in a very short time.
Unfortunately the improvements only lasted 9 months. Apparently patients need regular follow up “top up” treatment, which did not happen.
It is entirely right to say that funding for therapy / psychologists is very tight. My step mum has met three (male) psychologists before and none of them have even been able to build a relationship with her. Their approach was blunt and totally at odds with a reluctant patient. At present, she is in an institution again and has been waiting for a new psychologist session, this time with a female, for three months.
Meantime the medication is proving to be less successful than ever. Seven years on and the condition is worse than ever. The latest psychiatrist in charge is not a fan of ECT and will not consider using it, even casting doubt that it actually worked before, despite the official NHS record and my Dad’s own “testimony”.
Yes this condition is notoriously difficult to treat and there is much trial, error and debate. Greater funding would certainly help but in addition there are senior professionals who plough their own fields and do not want to be helped or told what has worked and not worked before. The solutions, or at least attempts to find then, could be so much more efficient and logical than they seem to be.
ECT reminds me of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest but I am sure things have come a long way since then. That story is horrendous Bucks. I hope that she gets through it ok.
Sorry pap, but whatever the intentions with the thread title (specifically the title) I’ve got to say that reading it feels like a fucking gut punch. Really very disappointed to have come across that on here.
However I do wholeheartedly applaud the responses found within. There’s always been a certain degree of kinship between Sotonians members (as evidenced at the matchday beers and beyond), but it was a real “ahhhh!” moment to discover that many of us are approaching life from approximately equivalent angles.
I am currently suffering from a reasonable-scale episode of depression - one of many over the past 15 or so years. Yes, there have been some distinct triggers in recent times. But as with KRG it really stems from the cusp of adulthood. Until my late teens I showed few explicit signs of depression, nor the anxiety that now defines much of my personality (though looking back, there were key warning signs reaching back as far as I remember).
It is apparently relatively common for adulthood to exacerbate these conditions. We could muse all day about the triggers for that - and perhaps should at some point - but it’s not the wider point I’m trying to make.
The anxiety is a constant and often goes hand in hand with depression. Anxiety tends to bring forth depression and depression amplifies anxiety. What’s utterly maddening is how convoluted it can make something so ‘easy’ as meeting mates for a beer. Quick-fire irrational thoughts and worries drift into and out of your mind, making you question and doubt the most basic of things. At turns it makes you feel weak, odd, blank, manic, empty…
I presume I seemed fairly chirpy and ‘together’ on Sunday. To an extent I was; I’d just set up The Butcher’s Hook for the day, which is a place I have great fondness for and it’s work that I enjoy. I was feeling particularly validated (like a real-life, functioning proper human) and looking forward to catching up with some mates that I’d not seen for a while. Even then, there’s always a low-level difficulty with social situations. Silencing the nagging voice within and even simply communicating verbally can be immensely tiring.
So if medication makes everyday tasks and merely existing even 5% easier then fuck me, I’m in. No, it doesn’t necessarily ‘solve’ anything. The key point is that by facilitating perceived normal behaviour this can increase fulfillment. Of course this works to different degrees for different people and should really be twinned with other coping strategies and techniques. As touched upon by others, in a stretched medical system pills can be over-prescribed. But as one tool in an arsenal, for many people it’s invaluable.
Whilst it is sad the read other people’s experiences, it is also heartening to know that you are not alone. When it first kicked in many years ago I had no one to talk to about it and there was very little in the media. If I talked to people about therapy they would just laugh and say it was all just another American fad and a load of bollocks. It was all man up and stiff lip stuff. Good to see people opening up and sharing their experiences.
On the Myers-Briggs scale I am probably more introvert than extrovert and wonder if introverts are more prone to mental illness?
Jesus. Has anyone on here found Happiness & Peace? If so, where did you find it? Asking for friend.
No not Jesus for me mate, just a good woman to share your life with. 