What came first, you depression or your crap life?
My Psych and my Doctor refuse to accept that my depression is a direct result of my crap life. They think my crap life is a result of me having depression.
If my life was not crap, I’d have at least some motivation to want to fight my depression because I’d want to get back to living my life.
My life is absolute crap so why would I want to stay out of bed for more than 1 hour each day. I don’t have the desire or the motivation to try and exercise, eat healthily or go out in public.
Then my Doctor says “That’s text book depression. That’s what a depressed person would say.” Duh… that’s because I have depression because my life is crap.
Some day’s it’s just not worth chewing through the restraints!
25 comments
At your age one would think the distinction was immaterial. It’s a shame your therapist wastes valuable time with labels. Your therapist definitely needs to take a holistic approach, not discect the issue.
I wonder how your therapist would respond to this:
If a crap life led to depression, the treatment plan would be ABC. If depression led to a crap life the treatment plan would be XYZ. What is the difference between ABC and XYZ?
This is the moment when I need a Like button.
Definitely depression, but it goes the other way too now.
That is basically my argument. I’ve been depressed for 30 years. Tried numerous Psychiatrists and Psychologists with no benefit. I’ve been on over 50 types of anti-depressant, anxiety and psychotic drugs with no benefit.
I think that If I had a chemical imbalance and was depressed for no apparent reason because my life was fine, then I’d think there would be more chance of medication working.
My life has been absolute crap since I can remember and I know what I have been through and what stresses me and I know what I constantly obsess about. I know why I am depressed and I went to my Psych telling her that I accept that my physical problems have caused my depression but I make it worse by holding onto false hope. Wishing that things will get better when logically I do know they can never change.
I asked for help to give up all my false hope and to learn to accept that this is the life I have to live. So I am wanting ABC and she is trying to force me to take XYZ when I have tried numerous variations of XYZ already with no benefit.
You have a serious physical disability. One that relates to sexuality which our society is notoriously bad at dealing with. If one was looking at first causes, common sense would dictate that the disability came first, you not having any coping skills as an adolescent came second, depression came third.
Yeah, no amount of drugs is going to change the first cause. They *might* help you be numb to the issue. That’s no solution.
I do think there is hope for you. I can’t comment on the kind of hope you think they are trying to feed you. Now that I am in my sexual sunset I’ve learned a bunch about myself and better ways to express my sexuality while my capacity to have traditional sexual contact has become more and more curtailed.
Last winter I briefly dated an amateur sex therapist (but a real PTSD psychologist) and she debunked my cock-centric thinking. I was ready for the message but still it was a shock to my system. Regardless of how enlightened I thought I was she showed me half a million ways I tied my masculinity to the ability of my cock to function. I still have a ways to go.
So I think there is hope to be found for you. I don’t think it’s a false hope. Is it easily obtainable? Not by a long shot. I know you’ve had a lifetime of worse than bad sexual experiences. You would have to unlearn volumes. But I’ve witnessed some amazing transformations in my life. So I say there is hope.
Therapists are people too. I’ve seen, first hand, how they have their own issues. Sexuality isn’t something most people are comfortable talking about. Maybe you have the bad luck to be stuck with a therapist who can’t be effective with you because of his own issues. Instead of thinking clearly about your condition he’s giving you “safe” advice so he doesn’t have to be confronted with things he is unprepared to explore?
Peace be with you. Mike. I hope somewhere in the above is something that helps you. I hope I didn’t sound like a smug know-it-all.
I know exactly what you are saying and I do agree. I know society makes men believe their entire worth is based on their sexual ability. I realized this when I was hit by a semi trailer and made the 6 o’clock news. Every other news report where a man was injured or killed they described the man as a 36 year old father of 3 or a 27 year old father of 2. My news report stated that a 31 year old man was struck by a high speed semi trailer. If you have managed to procreate you are a valued member of society but if you have no family you are of no value.
I have told my psych before that I know I caused all my own problems because other men in my situation were brave enough to try and find a woman who accepted them and many did and they have never had years of humiliation and ridicule. I could have avoided all my problems if I had been brave enough but instead I made my problems worse by allowing myself to be humiliated all my life.
I do thank you for the support but I know there is no hope for me because I am too damaged and after 30 years of being told I am worthless by thousands of people. If I met someone who thought differently I’d still never accept it because I’d feel like I was just getting an altered expression of pity to save my feelings. Thanks again for your support.
Mike, I have told myself in the past “I’m too damaged.” Look at me now, walking, talking, and dealing with my dad. I will probably go back to saying that when this crisis is over, but I’ll know deep down that my level of damage-ed-ness is a perception issue, not a rule of nature or God. I am in NO way trying to trivalize the pain or challenges you are facing! Just some food for thought.
I strongly reject your assertion that you were avoiding your problems or lacked courage!!! Three exclamation points. I’ve had serious therapy over this particular issue. You have done the best job of coping that you could. This isn’t an issue of “inner moral fiber” or some such magical thinking. This is an issue of skills you didn’t have and maybe a dash of luck that you lacked.
Your present cycle of humiliation is a less than idea way of coping and has has nothing to do with with your fitness as a human being. Back to the leg apology: your leg healed badly and now you limp. Just because you limp doesn’t mean you are wrong or deficient or a “gimp freak.”
I dearly wish that you could see yourself as human and flawed not disgusting and monstrous. I find you to be highly rational and pleasant, for what it’s worth.
I do sincerely thank you for taking the time to give me your support.
I don’t think anyone realizes how messed up I really am. Every sexual experience I have had was just humiliating. Thousands of women telling me I was not a worthwhile human being, not a real man. Every sexual experience over almost 30 years.
Then having Doctors and nurses laugh in my face and even lie to me about having a spinal block and then giving me a general anesthetic just because they couldn’t control their laughter and degrading comments while I was undergoing a cystoscopy.
Then the state government releases an advertising campaign that uses small penis humiliation to shame male drivers into driving more slowly.
This is what I had drummed into me constantly played on all TV channels for 3 years :
https://youtu.be/5hWxU_ICoHM
These billboards were alongside all major highways for 5 years. Everywhere I drove for 5 years I constantly saw these huge billboards telling me I am less of a man:
http://bi.dpc.nsw.gov.au/assets/Behavioural-Insights/images/blog/A-visual-from-the-Pinkie-campaign.jpg
http://www.advertising.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/imagecache/campaign_large/images/campaign/super8_3.jpg
Driving behind a bus confirmed to me that I am less of a man, again this campaign was for 5 years:
http://www.advertising.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/imagecache/campaign_large/images/campaign/road_bus.jpg
Even bus stops displayed these same images:
https://www.rockdale.nsw.gov.au/road_traffic/Pages/_layouts/images/Rockdale/Roads/speeding-small.jpg
It was this advertising campaign that increased my self harm 10 fold and was a huge contributor to me starting my IV drug abuse.
Some people complained about the adverts but the courts decided they were excellent ads and explained that any normal person would understand that the pinky finger gesture was not meant to say that you had a small penis per se but that you were displaying behavior that would make people think you were less of a man. So our judicial system actually admitted that the pinky finger gesture alluded to a small penis and that a small penis indicated that you were less of a man and used this as defense to prove they were not saying you had an actual small penis.
All these TV, newspaper and billboard adverts probably meant nothing to most people but 3 years on TV and 5 years of billboard adverts destroyed any final speck of confidence or self worth that I had left. Nobody would understand what all this on top of years of being humiliated by prostitutes actually did to me. I will never recover from this.
It’s manipulation people through gender identity. That’s never OK. No one would stand for linking small breasted women to some civil issue. “Litterers have small tits!” Yeah, I can see how that would be like having rock salt rubbed in your eyes every day.
Maybe you should write a book. (Read your blog, BTW.) People have written about our sexualized society but I bet you would have a much better awareness of the pervasiveness of it. These are issues we need to get over if we want a truly egalitarian society.
I’d just be laughed at and humiliated even more for actually admitting in public that I have a micro penis. I think I’ll just continue to exist in the shadows anonymously. The fact is that to the majority of people a small penis is something its owner should be ashamed of and anyone with a micropenis is truly less of a man. That’s why those ads ran for 5 years.
They won a heap of gold awards for creativity. Everyone thought they were wonderful which gives me a very accurate indication of the true thoughts of society. That’s why any woman telling me she wouldn’t think of me as less of a man and find me to just be a joke would never change my perception. The truth is right in front of me everywhere. Its not like I developed some abnormal thoughts that were not true. This is who I am and that is what I am thought of, I accept that. I don’t know why my psych would even try to make me believe a lie.
I just checked out the pics and video you posted. What an insulting, sexist, downright trashy ad campaign!
It is actually far worse than what I posted here. If you want to see the extent they go to have a look here:
http://www.logictivity.com/blog/rta-pinkie-ad-is-all-about-the-penis/
How was everyone involved in this not fired?
I had a shit childhood idk which is the chicken or the egg but which ever it is my life was shit first.
Same as me. If our lives were not so crap we may never have known what depression is.
Same here. My shitty life started at childhood and has never really stopped. In fact, it’s been getting worse for years now. This is the cause of my lifelong depression and constant thoughts of suicide. If I only could of had a better life, I have no doubts that I would be fine right now. This is why I chose “LifeIsCruel” as my screen name on here. Because it is.
If you start arguing with a professional (psychologist, psychiatric…) they will put you on therapy and/or medication. They will no admit that the “crap” life led to depression, they will ignore the facts, after all we are not the only one going to period of “crap”, and no everybody get depressed with the same “crap”.
My question is, what make us be depressed? You can embebed a person with psychotropic drugs, and the person will never get better if you do not give that person the things she/he had before that depression crisis. And now, you will say, acceptance is a good beginning, a positive attitude is going to help you, true. But the reality is that depression will be part of our life until those external factors the make us depresses change. And sometimes, we need to accept that nothing will ever change.
I think my traumatic childhood came first, and yet I honestly believe it doesn’t affect me now. However, I do think mine is a combination situational and endogenous. Wow, that answer wasn’t much help.
Depression is obviously real but there is still no concensus on what causes it. Since it is a feeling, it could just as easily be in reaction to a situation or the result of a neurological malfunction or both. Too often those in the medical/psychiatric fields insist that it is always a biologically-based problem, and others insist you must have a good “reason” to be depressed. Neither side can prove their point. They can only produce selfish motivation as an excuse, and that isn’t good enough!
I once used the analogy of leg pain. Whether you broke it (external cause) or developed a circulatory disorder (endogenous cause) and whether or not the doctor can identify the cause, it is all the same – your leg still hurts!
Exactly mysteriousvisitor, I am totally agree with your approach of the problem. And the true is that just the one with the hurting leg can really know how much it hurts. You cannot measure the pain. Every person has different pain thresholds. Some will take one cap of acetaminophen and feel release, other will need two, and others will just accept the pain and refuse to take any medication.
I agree. You have leg pain either way but the same treatment will not fix both causes. Pain medication can treat the symptoms (pain) but both problems have different underlying causes that require different treatment to actually correct the problem.
I think depression can be a chemical imbalance with no external influences or it can be totally caused by your situation or circumstances with no biological reason for it. The symptoms of both types of depression can be treated with antidepressants but to get to the underlying cause of the depression you will need two different approaches. Psychologists will always focus on putting a band-aid on the symptoms because they know that many situational and circumstantial causes can not be changed.
When the problem is a chemical imbalance with no apparent external influences then the usual treatment will be medication. When the cause of your depression is situational and circumstantial and those things can not be changed then the Psychologist will focus on our perception of the situation or circumstances and how we respond to those things. This is what my Psych is trying to do. She is attempting to get me to work on my health and to not let my situation or circumstance affect me so much. This is where my problem is. When you have no interest in life because it has never been enjoyable, it is difficult to become motivated to battle depression and work on changing how I perceive my situation when I have nothing in my life that I want to strive for.
If there was anything in my life that I liked and was missing due to my depression then I’d want to get better so I can get those good things back but there is nothing to motivate me.
Yep, each case should be approached individually with a goal of correcting the underlying cause. It makes sense to try and alleviate symptoms in the meantime, but if the cause isn’t addressed the symptoms will worsen again. Soley treating symptoms should be reserved for situations where the underlying cause is a true mystery (which happens with both medical & psychiatric conditions).
Absolutely.
Actually they might be partially right. Usually it’s not as simple as A+B=C, but rather A+B= (while life=”on” repeat { A = C +B })
What i’m trying to explain in a pretty poor sort of pseudocode (ages since i’ve written code and i’m pretty sure it doesn’t make any sense at all) is that it’s a vicious, recursive situation. You could argue that your life caused depression, and doctors might claim that it’s the other way around, but most likely you’re both right, because if you’re depressed your life is bound to be crap, and if your life is crap, you’re bound to keep being depressed… and so on.
In the end it kinda doesn’t matter which happened first, because getting out of that cycle is what’s important. I do think that the cycle in itself blinds us a bit, and it becomes a can’t see the forest because of the trees sort of situation.
I remember i had a conversation with someone recently and i told them about some of my life experiences and when i was done they said “all those things should have left some sort of baggage or burden… how do you deal with that?”… my answer: “what, doesn’t this sort of things happen to everybody?”. The fun thing about that is that i was being serious, so… yeah, i do think you might (maybe) find some motivation or have a different outlook if you ever manage to break out of that cycle… how do you that? no idea, since it varies for everyone and well… i am posting in a suicide site after all, so i haven’t found that answer either, lol. I do hope you find it eventually (and sorry for the lengthy answer btw).
Haha, anything lengthy can only assist me. I need all the help I can get.
Ah man, this was a gem of a read! Obviously my crap life came before my depression- I couldn’t possibly see how it could possibly be read the other way around.