Depression Learning

Appropriate place to post?

Question:

I don’t know if this is appropriate to the "shyness" group…maybe "loneliness" or "depression" would be better….. But personally, I’d love to see the progress reports.   Do us a favor, though, Chris.  Use the return key to shorten those lines.  I got a whopper of an eyeache following those long lines to the right of my screen as they meandered and ambled and strolled and limped and got a second wind and jogged along until we neared the Pegasus 51 planetary system and ran out of oxygen.  Appreciate it.  Thanks. I hope you look into some counseling…..for direction, for what seems to be a possible depression, for motivation.  The fact that you can’t hold a job and have been dependent on the "dole" and on Mom is not healthy for a man of your age. I can understand not being sure what you want, I can understand having a hard time finding work, I can understand the debilitation of depression, but if you’re able-bodied, you should be able to find something that pays eventually… ….something!….so that you can be independent and have better self-esteem. Luck to you, Chris. Mir

Response:

In article <54oj7d$…@news.emi.com>, ccl…@vicon.net (Alex Clark) wrote: > Unless you can trace everything about your > depression back to experience, and know for a fact that you weren’t > depressed at all before those experiences, you might easily be depressed > because of a physical ailment.

Actually, it can be worthwhile even if you can trace the depression back to an experience.  As you accurately point out, brains tend to reinforce themselves with feedback, and medication can help you get out of the feedback loop.  I know it helped me.  I don’t find it necessary or desirable any more, because I used the boost to do some deep work. > The first is a behavior, and behavioral therapy can be relatively quick > and simple. The second is experience, and unless you’re good at > forgetting there’s not much to be done for it. The third is an emotion, > which might be treatable with drugs, cognitive therapy, or (if you have > lots of time) old-fashioned psychoanalysis, or which might be dependent > on experience.

Excellent advice.  I think that a combination of all these things might be useful.  Social problems tend to be rather nontrivial, and navigating social situations is far from simple.  So, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able just to snap your fingers and automatically be better.  It takes some work. Not all of these things require lots of money.  Behavioral therapy, cognitive-emotive therapy, and psychodynamic therapy can all be done effectively by yourself, and there are quite a lot of books available. — Eric Pepke Supercomputer Computations Research Institute Florida State University pe…@scri.fsu.edu

Response:

ANON-Announce: yes Hi everyone, A quick introduction, and a suggestion I’d like some feedback on. I’ve been lurking here for a couple of months. I thought of posting early on, but I’ve been through such a depressed kind of phase that anything I wrote would just have been a bleat – not much use to me and probably the last thing any of you would want to read. I looked at this newsgroup in the first place out of idle curiosity, and because I consider ’shyness’ as at least part of my problem. If I give you a rundown on the gross outer facts of my life, I think you’ll agree ‘problem’ is a small word to use. I’m a 33 year-old male, and really I have nothing – no home, partner, hardly any friends (3 close ones, by correspondence because of distance), no job, no regular social contacts, no income. I have hardly ever worked – one short-lived position when I first left school, a few temporary jobs here and there; altogether I don’t think they have summed to more than 1 working year. I have had some education, a Uni de! gree obtained by a rather tortuous route (a series of attempts each starting with high hopes, and mostly ending with unhappy droppings-out). I had no girlfriends until I was 27, and at 28 I was lucky enough to meet the woman who was to become my partner for the following 5 years. It ended last year, largely because she couldn’t cope with my unhappiness and isolation, but despite its temporariness I consider the relationship to have been a success (she is still probably my closest friend). My present situation is rather unusual. I had until recently been living in England, on the dole and languishing in a terrible state after splitting with my partner. Now I’m overseas, having been ‘rescued’ by my mother, who is good enough to have let me stay with her whilst I attempt to do some postgrad research at a Uni here. This I started in July, full of hope at the thought of a completely new start; but since then the usual pattern has taken hold. I felt out-of-place and exposed amongst all the happy and capable-seeming young students, I couldn’t concentrate on my work at all, and gradually the number of days when I could drag myself into doing anything at all has declined. Of late, I’ve tended just to lounge at home, watching TV (I hate TV!), full of hopelessness and self-contempt. This has really put me at a pass. My only chance now of finishing my course is by making the most determined effort immediately; otherwise I will have to make a depressed retreat to England (b! ecause my student visa depends on my making satisfactory academic progress), where I have no home and no real chance of work. It’s so hard to make myself get on with things, as there’s no real ‘point’ to what I’m doing (no serious chance of me ever finding work at my age, lots of doubt about what I can contribute), other than just the need to do *something*. Sorry about this long ramble. The point is this. I’ve hatched the idea that I would like to make what I think of as one last effort to pick myself up (’one last’ because with each defeat I’ve had in life I have had ever-stronger temptations towards suicide; eventually it’ll become irrisistable). I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do a periodic ‘progress report’ and post it. It would be good for me to knit my thoughts into something outside of myself (so many years of solitary agonizing!), and it might be interesting for some of you as a case-study of an attempt at change (you may even find it encouraging if I’m at all successful). I would envisage my postings to include my reflections on the inevitable doubts and failures, of course. The feedback I’d like regards whether or not this would be appropriate in this newsgroup. I am certainly shy, though I’m doubt that this is the core of my problem (there are other elements – indecision, restlessness, lack of will, never knowing fully what I want, etc). What do you think? How long should I make my postings (was this too long, for example?). Oh, by the way, I’ve sent this anonymously, feeling that I need this if I’m to be completely honest. I don’t have the wonderful capacity for openness of, for example, Eric Pepke (but then again, he’s achieved something with his life, maybe making him feel less defensive than I do?). Is this OK? ‘Migrant’ just refers to my current position. Call me Chris. Best wishes, Chris. PS. My apologies if this post has appeared more than once. I’ve been experimenting with ways of posting anonymously, and my newsfeed isn’t reliable enough for me to be sure which have/not worked. — For more information about this service, send e-mail to: h…@anon.twwells.com   — for an automatically returned help message ad…@anon.twwells.com  – for the service’s administrator ano…@anon.twwells.com — anonymous mail to the administrator

Response:

In article <199610232342.QAA17…@mailmasher.com>, migr…@mailmasher.com says… >Sorry about this long ramble. The point is this. I’ve hatched the idea >that I would like to make what I think of as one last effort to pick >myself up (’one last’ because with each defeat I’ve had in life I have >had ever-stronger temptations towards suicide; eventually it’ll become >irrisistable). I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do a >periodic ‘progress report’ and post it.

If you think this might be your last attempt, make it a good one. I see that you don’t refer to any psychological counseling or treatment–this would be worth looking into. In fact, I would recommend that you try going to a biopsychiatrist. Unless you can trace everything about your depression back to experience, and know for a fact that you weren’t depressed at all before those experiences, you might easily be depressed because of a physical ailment. And if the cause does turn out to be physical, no determination or desire to change will make the slightest bit of difference. Treatment, including self-treatment (such as an "attempt at change") can hardly be expected to be useful unless the   diagnosis is accurate. So first do everything you can to find out why you are depressed, and then you should have a much better chance of recovery. > … I am certainly shy, though I’m doubt that this is the core of my >problem (there are other elements – indecision, restlessness, lack of >will, never knowing fully what I want, etc). …

One thing that you don’t mention by name, but that is a common thread in much of what you describe, is procrastination. You seem to be putting off work, social acitivities, decisions, etc., until later. I would suggest that unless a physical cause of depression can be found, this might be the most crucial aspect of your condition. If your depression results from experiences of failure, and the failures result from a habit of procrastination, and that habit is fueled by depression, then it would seem that the way to break out of this cycle is to learn to stop procrastinating. This kind of cycle has three components, each one of which (in the short term) leads to the next, as follows: procrastination –> failure –> depression –> procrastination The first is a behavior, and behavioral therapy can be relatively quick and simple. The second is experience, and unless you’re good at forgetting there’s not much to be done for it. The third is an emotion, which might be treatable with drugs, cognitive therapy, or (if you have lots of time) old-fashioned psychoanalysis, or which might be dependent on experience. So the simplest problem to tackle is procrastination. That means getting up right now and getting things done before the last minute and/or getting behavioral therapy to help you to do so. If this strategy works, the depression should eventually go away, unless it has a physical cause. But if you can’t do this, then you’re stuck with the much messier and more uncertain problem of getting your depression diagnosed and treated and hoping that this treatment will get you back on track. Alex Clark

Response:

Hi everyone, A quick introduction, and a suggestion I’d like some feedback on. I’ve been lurking here for a couple of months. I thought of posting early on, but I’ve been through such a depressed kind of phase that anything I wrote would just have been a bleat – not much use to me and probably the last thing any of you would want to read. I looked at this newsgroup in the first place out of idle curiosity, and because I consider ’shyness’ as at least part of my problem. If I give you a rundown on the gross outer facts of my life, I think you’ll agree ‘problem’ is a small word to use. I’m a 33 year-old male, and really I have nothing – no home, partner, hardly any friends (3 close ones, by correspondence because of distance), no job, no regular social contacts, no income. I have hardly ever worked – one short-lived position when I first left school, a few temporary jobs here and there; altogether I don’t think they have summed to more than 1 working year. I have had some education, a Uni degree obtained by a rather tortuous route (a series of attempts each starting with high hopes, and mostly ending with unhappy droppings-out). I had no girlfriends until I was 27, and at 28 I was lucky enough to meet the woman who was to become my partner for the following 5 years. It ended last year, largely because she couldn’t cope with my unhappiness and isolation, but despite its temporariness I consider the relationship to have been a success (she is still probably my closest friend). My present situation is rather unusual. I had until recently been living in England, on the dole and languishing in a terrible state after splitting with my partner. Now I’m overseas, having been ‘rescued’ by my mother, who is good enough to have let me stay with her whilst I attempt to do some postgrad research at a Uni here. This I started in July, full of hope at the thought of a completely new start; but since then the usual pattern has taken hold. I felt out-of-place and exposed amongst all the happy and capable-seeming young students, I couldn’t concentrate on my work at all, and gradually the number of days when I could drag myself into doing anything at all has declined. Of late, I’ve tended just to lounge at home, watching TV (I hate TV!), full of hopelessness and self-contempt. This has really put me at a pass. My only chance now of finishing my course is by making the most determined effort immediately; otherwise I will have to make a depressed retreat to England (because my student visa depends on my making satisfactory academic progress), where I have no home and no real chance of work. It’s so hard to make myself get on with things, as there’s no real ‘point’ to what I’m doing (no serious chance of me ever finding work at my age, lots of doubt about what I can contribute), other than just the need to do *something*. Sorry about this long ramble. The point is this. I’ve hatched the idea that I would like to make what I think of as one last effort to pick myself up (’one last’ because with each defeat I’ve had in life I have had ever-stronger temptations towards suicide; eventually it’ll become irrisistable). I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do a periodic ‘progress report’ and post it. It would be good for me to knit my thoughts into something outside of myself (so many years of solitary agonizing!), and it might be interesting for some of you as a case-study of an attempt at change (you may even find it encouraging if I’m at all successful). I would envisage my postings to include my reflections on the inevitable doubts and failures, of course. The feedback I’d like regards whether or not this would be appropriate in this newsgroup. I am certainly shy, though I’m doubt that this is the core of my problem (there are other elements – indecision, restlessness, lack of will, never knowing fully what I want, etc). What do you think? How long should I make my postings (was this too long, for example?). Oh, by the way, I’ve sent this anonymously, feeling that I need this if I’m to be completely honest. I don’t have the wonderful capacity for openness of, for example, Eric Pepke (but then again, he’s achieved something with his life, maybe making him feel less defensive than I do?). Is this OK? ‘Migrant’ just refers to my current position. Call me Chris. Best wishes, Chris.

Response:

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