WARNING: It is not enough if you have read these techniques. You must put actually put the techniques into practice! Everyday we are expected talk softly to suicidal people and treat them as though they are rational and understand how the brain works. They don’t. If you don’t understand that you REALLY don’t know about mental illness and you better read carefully to the end. You are the only one who can fix this and unfortunately you have no training, education or experience to do so, and the disease you have actually tries to stop you from fixing it. I was depressed until the age of 18. I have strong family genetics for anxiety and depression, most of my family is depressed, I was diagnosed with spinal cord cancer two years ago, falsly arrested on two felony charges a year ago, got kicked out of university automatically and honestly could not be happier. I wake up everyday really excited. Don’t worry, my cancer is stable, I was accepted into a better school, and the photo and video evidence I had eventually exonerated me. I attend UC Davis. I have dealt with depression and have tried to kill myself when I was younger. I still deal with chronic pain from the 4 years of cancer growing in my spinal cord but it is now well managed with medications.
Here’s what’s good for you:
-BIG ONE-Immediate medication treatment. If you have a family history or genetic predisposition you are going to need a 24 hour friend to boost you along your journey. If you are even sad enough to be on this site, the benefits of the safe effective medicine for your mental illness is just a GP or Primary Care Doctor away. You don’t know anything about medicine even if you think you do. Unless youre a Psychiatrist which is a medical doctor who specializes in the treatment of mental illness. Providers will typically start with an SSRI. Like Prozac or similar. Take exactly as prescribed, never skip a dose, when you start feeling better do not stop. Go up on the dosage to maximum until there is no more benefit. Remember, if you are takinf medicine and its not working, then its not working. You need to let your provider know so they can switch or go up.
Cut the negative out of your life. All those suicidal and depressed friends you made? Yeah they’re no good for you. Who you surround yourself with is consistently shown to impact us in ways we can’t even imagine. You don’t have to cut contact, but you should move on to healthier friends. This is not cruel. Everyday that you’re not happy is an immediate crisis that requires changes to be made.
Make deep friendships in which you feel bonded. If you cannot make friendships read an outline of Dale Carnegies famous 1930’s book How to Make Friends and Influence People or better yet go on youtube and listen to the fantastic audio book.
Face Depression as you would the Nazis. Its a war for your life. You must be strategic and objective. The bar you should set is maintaining happiness, not alleviating depression.
Choose your placebo and take it everyday. Whether its orange juice or a vitamin. Tell yourself that this substance is helping you to get well and visualize it. It will work beyond your wildest imaginations.
Become the ultimate interrupter. In your brain whenever you hear negative thoughts or core beliefs which are unhealthy and untrue such as “Im not lovable” or whatever it is, you are going to engage in self propoganda. You are going to interrupt that thought by saying kindly to your brain. “Thats not true.” And then you are going to replace it with the positive correct thought, which is the one which will help you best succeed. If you fail at something and feel a pang of pain you’re going to shake your head as though shocked, and teach your brain the correct way of thinking by repeating over and over again and visualizing pretty much the opposite.
Learn about Learned Helplesness, and make yourself an expert in cognitive traps. Like over generalizing, or mindreading, or black and white thinking, or self blame, or shoulda woulda coulda, or believing thoughts are real and important. They’re not, they’re just thoughts. Or Emotional Reasoning.
Eat Probiotics or take Pre-biotics. Reputable studies indicate that having these bacteria in our system is very effective at relieving anxiety and depression. Thats either live yogurt or the pre biotic powder if you can’t afford the yogurt. Note if you are going to go the yogurt route you’re going to need to eat it pretty much everyday.
Start every day with positive self talk outloud. Say your name a lot and give yourself reassurance. “You are really strong. Incredibly strong. In fact I’ve never met anyone so strong. You’re capable of anything if you actually think about it.”
Exercise everyday and feel good about it. Not hard or to lose weight or to get fit. Just to make yourself happy.
Remember: This is not who you are. Depression is not a normal part of a personality. But it has certainly colored your personality. You may be afraid of being happy because we are comfortable with the familiar and you might feel that pills and these techniques will change you. They will. They will alleviate your pain and take away the shitty part of your personality to uncover the wonderful being masked and smothered by not being happy.
PS. Do Not let the fear of prescription drugs stop you! SSRIs are $4 bucks a month at walmart. With no insurance. You MUST become an expert in the medicines you take and understand how they work. A patient sent home with the starting dose of ssris is EXPECTED to get side effects. Those are supposed to disappear or great reduce by 4-5 MONTHS. And you will not feel the full effect OF THE DOSE YOU ARE ON for at least 4 Weeks at which time you will keep going UP until benefits stop. Expect to be near the max dosage of this very safe drug.
52 comments
Are you depressed or ever have been?
i updated my post in response to your excellent question.
Apparently I’m fashionably late here as usual. “Angel of Life” If I have been on several different forms of MAOIs, TCAs, SSRIs, and SNRIs and none have been effective- some of which I was given a smidge (20mg-100mg) above the FDA recommended maximum dosages for, and am still depressed.. which medication route is next? You seem to be all-fucking-knowing. Here’s the kicker, besides the major depressive disorder, I have 6 other mental health disorders.. Your 60 seconds to resolve my misery starts now. GO!
Angel of Life, thanks for trying, but these are the same clichés that we have heard many times, tried, are still trying, and yet here we are. But really, thanks for trying, no sarcasm.
Really? You’re going to tell me that you’ve adequaltely tried every medicine out there? Or have you read the same thing over and over again and not actually done it.
My life is not up for debate because nobody, not any of my doctors, therapists, holistic healers, dietitians, not Sigmund Freud, and certainly not you can claim to know me better than I know myself. That is all.
Medicine can help, but sometimes maybe we need therapy instead. Sometimes, it’s not biological, but environmental. We have to find out why we’re miserable and try to get out of that environment. That’s what I’m trying to do.
Excellent point. A Pill Cannot solve your problems, but without that pill you may not be able to ever achieve a normal basline of functioning and thats just the truth. Not saying thats the case but for me without zoloft at 200 mg id still be in emotional pain everyday. I never imaginee what that medicine could do for me. It changed everything. It was my 24 hour buddy that boosted me.
No one is asking to debate your life. You are
majorly depressed, I find it very hard to believe that a majorly depressed person has gone through every medication and has found them all to be ineffective. If that is the case then your standards are too high. Is getting better your goal or is being defensive your goal. Which one will help you fight Nazis.
Golly gee, Dorothy. You mean all I gotta do is call my problem a Nazi, blame myself for failing and it’s solved. Thanks you’ve fixed my entire life, go girl! Another one saved.
That was sarcasm that time. Common etiquette imon this planet: don’t come storming into a room of strangers preaching. Self righteousness is so tacky.
Why don’t you try addressing the points rather than the speaker. Do you want to get better? How are things working for you? If they are working fine then by all means please continue. If you’re not then why not try something new? Where are your Cognitive Behavioral therapy logs of replacing your thoughts? What medicines are you on or have you tried? Clearly they are not working. I don’t mean this insensitively at all. I am trying to get to the point of the matter. Your sarcastic comment made me LOL and it was pretty funny 😉
Typical normie mindset… All about ”fighting the nazis” and ”winning at life” blabla.
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to fight anything anymore.
Life can happen in spirals and it can spiral down or up. As you alleviate the symptoms of depression you will notice a positive upward spiral which will give you the will to fight. And you’ll want it because depression is incredibly exhausting. So there’s two ways out either someone kills themselves or they get better. Have you done all of the above? What medicines are you on? How was your mindset when you tried them and did you take them as prescribed? If you havent done these things i wouldnt expect you to be happy.
This post is a keeper! This is the best compilation of current qualitative thinking on the subject I have ever seen. This sort of professional drivel is great for funding large organizations of status conscious stake holders but does next to nothing for those who suffer, except perhaps to increase their suffering.
PS: In all that mostly costly and deeply questionable advice are a few nuggets of useful information, but it is normal to incorporate some honest information into any working fraud.
Nothing I suggested is costly. Name something that is costly. The idea that someone here is trying to financiallly benefit from your shitty situation is one more symptom of your deep depression. Where everything is gloomy. You gotta adjust
your sights to hit on the mark and correct for depression when interpreting reality.
hey no problem wo/man. Ill just say i was very skeptical of meds and I would put down $200 right now that in 4 months if you actually got good care, the meds prescribed would work and would work great. If you feel comfortable contact me at ryanatcentral@gmail.com id be super interested in what youve tried and also in learning from you.
So you believe the process of evidence and peer review is drivel? Is that a rational thought? Do you believe that the hundreds of thousands of psychiatrists that go to work everyday are trying to make a buck off of ya?
Sorry I misread your post. I was so focused on the meds part I saw little else on the first reading and then commented. There are plenty of us who are every so leery of the meds, me included, but past that there were many nuggets in there. Among them: I have read the Dale Carnegie book twice and greatly benefited. Probiotics? You bet! Pre-biotics? I had not heard of those so I will google them. Negative friends? Keeping the distance from them. Again it was the meds that threw me off. Sorry about that. It is a great post.
Well, that is good everyone else seems to know what is good for us.. These so-called professionals ruined my life.
Professionals have ruined my life too. That’s because they’re human and make mistakes. My cancer went undiagnosed for 4 years and I live in chronic pain.
Its like a tool and depends on how it is used. The only thing you need positively a professional for is for prescribing meds. Serious doubts about therapsts that you pay for yourself. They have strong incentive to not telll you
things you don’t want to hear.
Professionals (doctors and nurses) forced me to live, literally, without using foresight or concern, and I am still paying for it emotionally and it is not good. Giving that power to a professional is absurd. Yes I can live but the only real beneficents are them.
What works for you may not work for someone else. Giving tips to help others is a very nice thing to do but don’t expect everyone to achieve the same results you have. It’s good to know you’re healthy, that’s good to hear, and your advice may be able to help someone.
I just want to add: It’s pretty much impossible to try every medication available. There are a lot of people who don’t have the resources to try different treatments that may help them. I’m one of those people. Please try to be more understanding of others and their situations.
That really sucks. In many cases people simply believe that they do not have the resources. If you live in the West you unquestionably have these resources. No matter how poor you are. Many companies will offer their drugs for free if asked.
Do you understand how the brain works? If so, you would be a billionaire, are you? We talk to suicidal people that way because if you’ve ever slightly been suicidal you’d know that everything hurts and frankly you’d do anything to end the pain, hence being suicidal. Any word uttered, any decision made, would be the difference between solidifying their own beliefs of suicide or seeing hope, this is why we speak the way we speak to depressed and suicidal folks. Thank you for your tips, as I can tell you are atleast somewhat experienced in this field. Because that’s what this really is, just tips, things to help us live and endure life. You may write tips here, others may write their stories. Just dont go around preaching that you know everything about us here, and on top of that, know more about us, because who really knows? I don’t agree with everything here, but I also agree with a lot of things here. Everyone to their own, take what you will from it.
Thank you for your insightful comment. I dont agree with you considering me out of “us”. That would be like telling an addict who has recovered that he has no right to speak on addiction to others. Success doesnt exclude me it actually makes me a successful story and I have personally been amazed by how much was possible. I never thought. I am
not a billionaire and do not understand how the brain works. I do not work in this field. I have read and studied the DSM and textbooks on psychiatry and psychology as well as having helped literally countless people SUCCESSFULLY recover. Anyone who says these are tips is absolutely correct. Humans are individual to an extent but they are also remarkably similar. And we know that greatly depressed people literally interpret reality differently and wrongly. I have been in that pain. The difference is that I know it i know immediately to not concentrate on the pain. You have to reset so that you can start the positive upward spiral.
Shiny happy people holding hands.
Unfortunately (or not, depending on your viewpoint), not everyone is the same.
Not everyone’s depression is a straightforward result of a serotonin imbalance. I tried 3 different SSRIs. None made any positive difference whatsoever. The first did trigger some fairly unpleasant physical side effects though (which I’m still struggling to manage, 7 years later.)
I have issues with friendships & relationships not so much because of the mechanics (I can make friends fine when I try), but because of issues with intimacy and feeling a real connection with anyone. Friendships don’t make me feel better in the same way they do for most people. That’s a product of my individually screwy psychology, my past, my experiences. None of it is easily solvable with self-help books (though I spent years trying.)
Visualization has never really worked for me. Ditto placebos & positive reinforcement. My mind is simply too skeptical to derive any benefit from that kind of stuff. I can tell myself something until I’m blue in the face (and have done on many occasions at the behest of therapists), and it makes no difference to how I actually feel.
Probiotics had zero impact (except on my wallet.) Those yogurt drinks sure are tasty though.
Exercise can give you a lift, but it’s no panacea. And in my case it usually involves confronting intense social anxiety – so it’s a mixed bag.
Now this is not to say that any of your advice is useless. It may be of benefit to many here. In fact, many have probably already encountered it, through their interactions with mental health services, counselors, doctors, websites etc.
I would just say that people are different. What has worked for you may be completely irrelevant to others, and that does not make their experiences any less valid than your own. They are not depressed because they have failed to follow the advice that worked for you. They are depressed because of a combination of individual factors, many of which you have no experience or understanding of. You are trapped in the bubble of your own narrow experience.
In other words, you do you, and expect others to do the same. By all means share your experiences of what helped you, but don’t expect that to apply to everyone, or even most here.
Personally, I’ll continue to cope with my depression for as long as I choose to do so. I’ll continue to take steps to move forward when I feel able to, and I’ll call it a day if and when I decide to. It’s not a war for me. I tried treating it like that, for years, and it only made it worse. The harder I struggle, the worse it gets – like quicksand. For me, it’s a process – of gradually, slowly letting go of your expectations, fears, and ideas of how the world should be.
I look forward to reading and considering your comment carefully but I must protest that you are more skeptical than me! Thats pretty much my identity and what Im known by! Very atheist. I disagree that humans are as individual as you say. We know that actually humans are remarkably similar on the grand scheme of things. Im sorry that SSRIs didnt seem to work for you. And i do NOT believe in that depression can be cured by a pill. But there are many variables. For instance, how long were you on? Did you know it took me about a year for the minor side effects, which is what you had, to go away? Also dosage and how steadily you took the medicine. If SSRIs dont work there are many other options. but if someone suffers from depression and they’re also very likely to suffer from anxiety which prevents them fairly evaluating a pills performance. Your comment was very detailed so I will take my time to consider it more carefully.
Skepticism is about more than religion. It’s just as applicable to distortions in the portrayal of science (for example, inflated claims made about the effectiveness of SSRIs.)
The brain is remarkably complex. Damage or stimulation to certain parts can result in widely different experiences and behaviors. What is effective at treating some is useless for others, and the science is not yet at a level to know why this is.
I was on the first SSRI for around 3 weeks, low dosage, during which I had fairly intense physical side effects. A doctor then advised ceasing taking them, and I switched to another SSRI, low dosage. I was on that for around 3 months, with no noticeable change. My doctor then advised switching to a third. Again, low dosage, again I was on it for around 3 months, and there was no noticeable change. Throughout I took the medication exactly as advised. I was still experiencing minor side effects with no discernible benefit, and my doctor seemed to be out of ideas, so I decided to cease treatment. I could’ve tried more drugs, or higher doses, but that would’ve risked greater side effects. In consultation with my family I made what I thought was a rational choice.
There is no way to ‘objectively’ measure a pills performance. It is entirely based on how you feel, as measured by questionnaires administered by doctors. My results throughout remained the same. Therefore I am forced to conclude that they had no positive impact.
SSRI’s do have a measurable effect on neurochemistry, but the problem is that a plethora of other variables will impact the extent and intensity of that effect, and doctors don’t have the ability to monitor or advise you in any kind of scientific way – due in no small part to monetary factors. Personalized treatment yields the best outcomes for this reason, but only a sliver of the population can afford it.
Tangentially, suicide rates among healthcare workers is dramatically higher than in the rest of the population. I think this is because doctors begin to feel like their occupation is to sell things, rather than to help people. Some are probably better at rationalizing their position than others. The doctors who provide personalized treatments probably have the lowest rate of suicide among all fields, but I don’t know of any study that breaks it down that way. Human beings are unbelievably clever – we can do amazing things, but we have a hard time understanding what things mean outside of purely material terms.
I have a disease? Weird, I thought I lived in a diseased culture that’s currently frothing over like a hoard of rabid beavers.
^ This.
Ditto rivets. Just remember (sarcasm ahead!) that it all our fault. Yeah.
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately your doctor was not qualified or educated in the medicines he was treating you with. SS our eyes require a very long time for those initial very bad side effects to go away. thus, it is totally on surprising that you switched from Madison to Madison completely and successfully having only been on them for three weeks. Any psychiatrist worth his salt which is over 90% of them, would no off the back of their hand that you need at least four months for the side effects to go away and usually you don’t need to switch more than one medication. unfortunately and no blame here at all, the depressed state does not give us room to think critically and skeptically about our own treatment and of course providers work in shitty time frames of 20 minutes. or whatever the fuck it is. i’ve dealt with more providers that all of you combined. unless you are in your 70s or 80s. Hardly something to boast about. you were the victim of bad psychiatry. I am willing to put down $200 that if you tried an SSRI for four months and got up to the appropriate dose and perhaps adjusted your tolerance of side effects at least for a while, that you would not take the $200 because you would think me and say wow this has changed my life.
are used to deal with debilitating anxiety and I tried every natural remedy out there and I made huge improvements. But once I went on medicine and I realize it was so severe that at some point yoga and cognitive behavioral therapy is just not enough. and when I took them it felt amazing. It felt like finally I was not trying to jam up the river of anxiety and depression, but rather, the river had run dry. I felt stupid for not doing it earlier. For thinking that I could solve it all on my own when I didn’t have to. we know that a huge number of people who are prescribed psychiatric medications and their disease actually affects their perception and tolerance of medication. Therefore it’s necessary to power through. 3 weeks is not long enough to begin feeling the benefits of the medication but just one week after taking the medication you will feel the side effects. Medications are very complicated
yes, you have a brain disease. If you didn’t know that then I think we’ve got a lot of psychoeducation to do. The issues you mentioned about doctors not being able to measure things in a scientific way is exactly correct. It’s guesswork and it’s very efficient. We don’t want to know those pintails. We want to know whether the patient is getting better or worse. that’s what’s important
Interesting post, although controversial and for the most part, unwelcome. As a hyper sensitive depressed person, I, like many others, don’t care for the attitude with which you convey this information, but I do agree that so much of what I ( I, me, not “everyone”, just ME) deal with is cognitive in nature as opposed to chemical/physical, and I can alter much of it by tweaking my outlook on MY life and MY situation. It is extremely challenging, but it does provide relief. Thanks for posting this.
How are you, Once?
Hi CD, doing well, thanks.
Glad to hear it. Rooting for you, as always.
thank you for your reply. I’m sorry that my attitude and manner of speech in this post is unwelcome. I can see how being told literally that you don’t know what’s good for you doesn’t feel good. unfortunately my goal is not to make you feel good. My goal is to set you on a path of recovery that snaps you out of this downward spiral. and do you people, meaning depressed people of which I was one and therefore can speak from experience, are stubborn, arrogant, and believe that they have the answers. Because it’s there b and do you people, meaning depressed people of which I was one and therefore can speak from experience, are stubborn, arrogant, and believe that they have the answers. Because it’s their body. they don’t. They know nothing about their neurochemistry, they know nothing about psychiatry, they’ve never practiced in psychiatry. in fact most of them are still in the Stone Age and don’t even believe in taking medicine. you’re dealing with cavemen here you have a disease that literally prevents them from doing things that will make them snap out of it . snapping out of it to be clear is a period of 6 months to 2 years and requires a lifetime of happiness maintenance.
I typed out a response, but I can’t seem to post it for some reason.
Hi Angel of Life.
I don’t believe you know as much about the science as you think you do. I accept that it’s unlikely I’ll be able to convince you of that. I don’t feel like investing the time in tracking down meta-analyses on the limited effectiveness of SSRIs, especially since it’s unlikely you’ll even consider them .
If you want to look into it, start with Ben Goldacre. He’s a doctor, journalist, and specializes in debunking bad science like homeopathy. He’s well regarded in among skeptics.
Google Washing The Numbers, Selling The Model.
Also ‘Big P harma’s Big Betrayal.’
His essential point is that trials showing the effectiveness of SSRIs have been massively over-represented, while those showing no effect/negative effects are largely buried by the companies producing the pills.They tend to only publish favorable studies in peer reviewed journals, which skews the data. This has allowed such companies to make massively over-exaggerated claims about their effectiveness, which have been passed on to the media, and the medical establishment. Many psychiatrists see such results and presume they represent a genuine reflection of the pills effectiveness. They’re only being shown half of the evidence.
Please note that I’m not saying such pills are useless. For a few (like yourself), they really do seem to have a marked effect. But we don’t really know why this is. The idea of all depression being down to a ‘serotonin imbalance’ is largely unproven.
Others may receive small placebo-like benefits from taking the pills, which is great. Still others experience no real change. Many experience unpleasant side effects with no benefit. Some experience extreme side effects – a few even seem to kill themselves as a result of taking the drugs. And we don’t really know why the drugs have these markedly different impacts on different people.
All I’m saying is that it’s mixed. SSRIs are not some universal cure for depression (like a vaccine for a virus.) They are more like a useful (though sometimes risky) treatment option, that helps a few (for reasons we don’t fully understand.) That’s where the science is right now.
Your evangelizing is overblown. I know you’ll dismiss anything I say as biased/depressed reasoning, but please, at least try to examine the evidence from a neutral position. That’s the essence of skepticism, and the basis of science.
You’ve benefited, and that’s great, really it is. But trying to shove that onto other people, when the techniques you’re proposing are demonstrably far less universally effective than you seem to believe, is really kind of galling.
Imagine your cancer was of a rare variety that can be cured by a simple pill. And you came up to other people with different types of cancer, which were much more complex and difficult to treat. And you loudly proclaimed that if they only took the pills you did, they would be cured. And they told you that they’d tried the pills for months/years, and it hadn’t made any difference to their cancer. And you responded by telling them that they hadn’t been taking the pills right. That they hadn’t given them enough of a chance. That they were being overly negative about the pills and their side effects. Now imagine it was you being told that by me. How would you feel about that?
Please note that in my own case, the initial side effects were intolerable – I was literally shitting blood. I was subsequently on different SSRIs for at least 6 months. I think I gave them a fair shot.
Sorry about chopping that up into so many comments by the way. Apparently P harma is a censored word. Weird.
It’s so sad I’m still gonna kill myself.
I wish I lived with someone like you, you seem understanding.
College is going too kick me out pretty soon if they haven’t already. Failed exams, missed lectures. How are you supposed to attend lectures when you know you are going to commit suicide. My “Friend” is up my ass why I’m not in college.
The only time I’ve been happy s when I remember suicide is always an option.
Sorry for the grammar. I only posted this to tell you, you seem like a person who has experienced depression and I know you have helped lots of people.
I failed again (partial suspension e rope snapped, I really almost succeed). I lost my memory for like 20 minutes. Now my parents know(IDK how).
I just need too find another way out.
My mum thinks I joined cult, it’s weird when you’re really fucked up somebody think that.
I had a friend I met in the hospital after I was baker acted for the second time due to a suicide attempt. He tried to hang himself and the same thing that happened to him happened to you. Maybe it’s a sign, I don’t know. Hang in there… No pun intended.