It's nice.

it is so very hard to live with people who are depressed. understanding does help.
maybe you can convince her it is in her own self interest to help him cope. or at least to be more careful to stay out of the vortex.

It still is to some extent.

I remember sitting with the dean of my university the first time I was "asked" to leave college in 1979. Nothing was written down, it was all hush-hush. "Take some time off," the dean said and I knew if I didn't I'd be expelled. Nobody wanted to taint me with the "crazy" label and screw up my future prospects, but they didn't want me around either.

It's very nice to be out of that closet and to know that other people, even very celebrated people, have suffered the same troubles.

What I'm not sure of about with this slide show is that some of those people crashed and burned. I like to think with modern meds and therapy, of which I've benefited greatly, many more of us will avoid crashing and burning and live entirely "normal" lives.

I'd like to see a slide show of people who take "crazy meds," get good modern therapy, and live as happy, functional, even celebrated adults in this modern world.

You've expressed some of my thoughts on looking at this material. Some said they recovered and I found myself wondering what that meant. Do they still take meds or were they 'cured'...I've been wondering if I did the wrong thing by stopping my anti-depression meds. I thought I was doing well but now I'm wondering.

It is nice to see that my experience hasn't been as 'fringe' as I thought.

This is a good group of people here and I'm glad I found you.

... break the habits of thinking that were keeping them down, or maybe therapy for PTSD , and then they ease off their meds essentially "cured."

That ain't me. Without meds I inevitably revert to the dark paranoid nightmare place. I've got one foot in that world now because I quit (against doctor's advice) a med I don't like the side effects of. I feel like I've got more latitude to experiment than some people because even at my very worst I've never been a danger to myself or others. Well, except when I stopped eating enough or I ran until my feet bled... but these days I like to think people around me would notice such things and intervene. I'm not a loner living in my car or shack, or a funny looking guy in the library who doesn't talk, and I haven't been for a long time.

But I'm never "cured." When I do quit meds the downward spiral is inevitable. Same as if I quit my asthma meds I can't breathe. As a stupid teenager I'd "forget" or deliberately try to tough out the asthma without meds and inevitably end up in the ER, a few times in a hospital room. It didn't matter how stubborn or determined I was, without meds asthma kicked my ass. It's scary to think about now. That could have killed me.

Ask my wife, if I offer advice, run away!!! But I do have experiences to share, mostly of the "here's a stupid thing I did" variety. If I quit taking "crazy meds," gradually or cold turkey (and I have), sometimes I'm not the first to notice the consequences.

Yeah, we could probably have fun swapping stories on what not to do!

I remember the wonder of my first script for Prozac...OMG...it was unbelievable. I had a life!!! The sun shone and birds sang!!! Where did the artist go??? I missed that part of me!

Life is strange..

For example, the part about not eating and running until your feet bled. August 2012, check, did that.

"I'm not a loner living in my car or shack, or a funny looking guy in the library who doesn't talk, and I haven't been for a long time."

That line also really resonates with me on several fronts, where I was, where I could have gone if I had given up and let this consume me, and the new direction I am moving in. I was the weird nerd with poor social skills who muttered to himself and was terribly afraid to even say a simple hello to someone because I felt inadequate. My ultimate fear over a mental illness diagnosis wasn't that it could be fatal in terms of suicide, but that I was going to lose everything in life that I have and literally be that homeless man in the shack until I either died on the streets or got myself thrown in jail over some act of desperation such as shoplifting some medication or food.

My mother is the only person in real life, except for paid and HIPPA-bound healthcare professionals, who knows the truth. When I told her the entire story, I gave her the option of asking me to leave and go out on the streets, because of what transpired. She was surprisingly ok with it all. Last week, I told her how I wanted to get some new suits, start dressing better for work instead of the casual look I always wore, and she surprised me and said to go get what I needed and put it on the joint household MasterCard as my Christmas gift from her. So, last Saturday night, I went out and ended up buying four suits, a couple of sportscoats, a new topcoat, a couple of pairs of shoes, and some new ties. I actually ended up buying two really inexpensive Marc Anthony suits at Kohls that I thought were just as nice as anything I saw at Macy's or Nordstrom for four or five times the price. I wore one of those Monday with a new shirt I had in storage for several years, new tie, new shoes, even new underwear. When she saw me, I told her this look was the opposite of the Cass Corridor look I was afraid would be my life (the Cass Corridor is Detroit's most infamous drug and crime neighborhood with tons of homeless). I also told her that I was running as fast and hard away from that dark future scenario and trying to write my own future in a much more positive way.

Agreed, never cured, just managed. Right now, the lamictal seems to be doing a great job, and at $16.69 for a month's worth of pill, is the bargain of a lifetime if it keeps me in a world where I blend in a hell of a lot better with the Saturday night pre-Christmas shopping crowd at Somerset Mall than I do with the crush of homeless milling around the shelter waiting to be let in out of the cold Michigan December night.

Bright future or dark future, I see it as a choice now, not a fate. Roadbumps, sure, I expect some, but I know what to look out for now before a pothole the size of a dinner plate turns into a life-shattering all consuming sinkhole.

Last edited Wed Dec 12, 2012, 03:09 PM - Edit history (1)

At times, I think yes, it is good to know that many famous and successful people have had problems and gotten through them with life, career, and reputation intact.

And then I remember that I am not Catherine Zeta Jones or Billie Joe Armstrong who have unlimited resources for treatment, media fawning over them, and publicists to create the right spin to the stories of their meltdowns. Not in a jealous way, especially of Armstrong who is kind of a hero if mine for his politics and artistic talent, but on a pragmatic level because I know that most of us don't have that kind of support, which ultimately boils down to the same old thing, money and how our society treats people because of their socioeconomic status. And compared to a lot of average Joes so to speak, I've got it really good on this front, even with my crap insurance and my out of control spending, because if push comes to shove I can grovel for help.

As far as the embarrassment/stigma question goes, I am still deep in the closet in real life. I would die if someone found out. I keep thinking of what firewalls I have around this information, such as HIPPA, and hope it's enough. Yet I can't keep my mouth shut in cyberspace, it's like "I have got to get this out" - it really does help. I kinda think what I do online is a trial balloon for real life, that eventually I will be secure enough in all of this to slowly open up to a few people on a need to know basis.

People who haven't experienced it really just can't "get it" fully, IMHO. When I was at the hospital day program, a lot of the other patients were people with "unipolar depression" -- I guess that's the full clinical term for what I always thought of as just depression.

Many of them would talk about just how hard to impossible it was just to get up off the couch or out of bed, as if it were a physical thing, like they had been drugged with a paralytic agent or something along those lines. Or they would talk about not changing their underwear for weeks, or about not eating for days on end, not bathing, things along those lines.

And I really didn't "get it" in the sense that then, and now, I still wonder how a person could do that to themselves? And that thought is what is hurtful to people with this condition, because I, like so many people, haven't experienced their problem so I can't fully "get it".

As a corollary to that, all of them said they resented the platitudes of friends and relatives, who would say things like "well, if you would just try ..." Because there is something in their minds that just won't let them, and it is something they can't seem to change or control without a lot of outside intervention no matter how much they might want to.

And several of them said that they couldn't relate to my version of depression, either. For me, depression was always that "oh, why was I even born, why the Hell am I still alive?" thought pattern, but it never had a physical component. Even at my lowest points in life, I might allow myself to cry myself to sleep at night or for a nap, but I never just stayed in bed for hours on end. Frankly, an hour or two of that would be all I could take before I lost it completely and got up and did something out of pure nervous energy. My form of depression always was "God, I hate myself, I hate my life, I wish I were dead, but I better get out there and trim the privet hedge because it's overdue now." So, I would go out and trim the hedge, clean the garage, whatever, and it usually in the end made me feel better because I had accomplished something.

I guess it's like this, if I ever did decide I had to off myself in the garage, I would have to spend about four or five hours cleaning it first so I wouldn't be embarrassed after my departure from this earth by someone finding me cold and stiff in a messy, cluttered garage. And by the end of cleaning it, I would feel better and no longer want to do it. So I guess that explains my 47 years of existence and lack of suicidal intent.

Anyway, it's a beautiful sunny day in Detroit. I hope it is wherever you are, too. Enjoy life, I am these days a lot more than I have in a long, long time. Have lamictal, will travel. Forward!

I am one of the ones that the depression literally physically made me hurt. I think that is why the Lunesta commercial resonates with me so much. I don't take Lunesta, but I "get" the commercial where they say "depression hurts." I am on another medication, but it took many trial and error attempts with other antidepressants until I found the one that works for me. Before finding my certain medication that I take now, I could not love those butterflies in that commercial, even though I do love butterflies normally. Depression literally physically hurt. I felt it most in my chest. My heart and lungs are in good condition. The hurt came from the depression, not any other medical condition. I no longer feel that heavy, painful feeling in my chest and getting up out of bed is easier now. Although, I have to admit, my aches and pains from various injuries through the years (from my clumsiness) do make me make that stereotypical "old person" grunt sound when I get up out of bed or a chair, lol. But, at least I WANT to get out of bed now. I spent years so depressed that I did really want to get out of bed. I am so thankful I finally got the right diagnoes (plural) and my doctor helped me find the right medication for me. It has helped me make life better. It doesn't "cure" the depression, but it does give me better thought patterns than I used to have. I used to have negative thought patterns too.

it does look like a good idea. It could help him know he is not alone and that there is nothing to be embarrassed about.

I got some pop-up spam which I didn't like, but the material itself was supportive.

Saw a picture of Kurt Cobain in there and then I stopped. Not something I want my kids to relate to. Just my opinion though.

Famous, but not a good example.

because they all killed themselves. Not something you want to aspire to. I also have trouble with posthumous diagnoses like Beethoven, Dickens, and Michaelangelo. Unless they specifically spent time in an asylum like Van Gogh, or wrote of their troubles like Churchill, it's really just speculation.