HUZZAH! Banned from Rentech.com!

[J. M. Pescado]

Danni, it is refreshing to hear a success story, I wish there were more of them. Post-partum depression is real and dangerous to the health of the mother, thankfully it has gained some wider acceptance lateley. That was another area where women were told to "just get over it". I swear, I am getting so sick and tired of these words.

Pah. Depression is just another excuse. If you're depressed, IGNORE IT, and IT WILL GO AWAY. Honestly, what is it with people and dredging up anything they can to justify their lack of impulse control?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Wait till you get it!

[Kitiara]

I have been diagnosed as bipolar. I also have been told (at different points of my life) that I am both clinically depressed and chronically depressed. I live without medication (and frankly my life ought to depress anyone, but nevermind). My days are often bumpy but I navigate them just fine. I understand that there are varying degrees. Having known a taste of how bad life can feel, I sympathize with anyone who has the real deal, but that doesn't mean I understand giving up.
 Depression is chemical. You can fight your way out, but it's never easy. I respect anyone who has been diagnosed and is Still Here.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Exactly the point!  Anyone can get Depression (just as anyone and everyone occasionally gets depressed) and there are some people who fight and some who give up.  From my own personal experience, it's the ones who accept the doctor's medication who often give up, as the very pills that they say will help leave you feeling too tired to even try to fight your way back up.

Ten years ago I went to the doctor  because I felt ill.  I have an underactive thyroid (caused by medical treatment!) and my previous doctor had lowered my dosage, which was really why I felt ill.  The doctor asked, do you think you might be depressed?  to which I replied, yes, I'm depressed because I feel so ill.   So I was told to go and take anti-depressants, (which don't go well with a thyroid condition!) and in no time at all I was so bad I had to give up work.  All I'd actually needed was an increased thyroxine dose and a little time for it to start working!  But that isn't in the medical textbooks - time is not a medicine!

[Renatus]

JM, your misanthropy is taking over your intelligence.  First an amazing lack of understanding of Darwinism, and now an amazing lack of understanding about how human brains actually work. Unless of course you can actually willfully control each and every chemical your brain produces, in which case I suggest you start teaching others this amazing skill so you have one less thing to be misanthropic about.

Oh, wait... then you'd have less to complain about. 

[gali]

JM, your misanthropy is taking over your intelligence. First an amazing lack of understanding of Darwinism, and now an amazing lack of understanding about how human brains actually work. Unless of course you can actually willfully control each and every chemical your brain produces, in which case I suggest you start teaching others this amazing skill so you have one less thing to be misanthropic about.

Oh, wait... then you'd have less to complain about.

Oh, yes, JM is right - if you WANT to get out of depression, you CAN! You have to FIGHT it, by different decisions you make, like not rubbing in it too much, and search to be always in company of supporting friends. You can overcome it for sure - no matter what the shrinks say.... Think positive....

[Renatus]

Oh, I'm not saying that if one is depressed or has some other sort of issue of that sort, one is basically helpless in the face of it and screwed. Taking charge of oneself, doing research to find options, and then implementing these options is how one gets on the road to recovery. I should know - clinical depression runs in my family and I've dealt with it in myself for 13 years.

However, one cannot simply wish away or just 'get over' something caused by the production, or lack thereof, of chemicals in the brain. People do not choose for this to happen, and cannot simply decide one morning, "Oh, I think I'm tired of being depressive/bipolar/schizophrenic, so I think I'll just stop." I would have cheerfully chosen to simply 'shut off' all of the horrible, crushing feelings I had to deal with, but it isn't a switch, any more than any bodily illness can be shut off like a switch.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Renatus, you are quite right, there is an enormous difference between clinical depression and "feeling depressed".  The first is as much an illness as cancer, the second is merely a state of mind which it is quite possible to get out of by thinking positive thoughts.

It is therefore extremely wrong and misguided of doctors to diagnose clinical depression when it is simply that the patient feels depressed - the very treatment they give you then causes a misbalance of chemicals in the brain!!!  Unfortunately doctors here in the UK seem to think anti-depressants are the magic cure-all and don't realize, despite all the warnings from the valium era, just how much harm they can do to some patients.

[Hairfish]

I've been fighting depression and mania most of my life, and didn't even know about bipolar disorder until I was diagnosed with it in late 1989. I've since become "rapid cycling," which means my moods swing more often, anywhere from several times per hour (worst) or several times per month.

I no longer take medication. Mainly because it never worked, or when it did, it made me feel "flat," and then stopped working after a few months. You might say I gave up...or you could say I learned to live within my limitations. I'm still here.  I've tried a couple of times not to be here...but both of those times were while I was on medication what was supposed to prevent such desperation. I finally caught on!

I think anyone who benefits from antidepressants and/or mood stabilizers should take them. But if you've taken every type there is like I have, and have never had real relief, it's time to reconsider, and possibly adjust your life to accomodate your unique needs. If you ignore it, it won't go away. However, I think that sometimes fighting it is the worst thing you can do.

(Note that I'm in an extremely LUCKY situation: I don't have to support myself financially, as I'm married to a most exceptional man. I feel great sympathy for anyone who lives with depression or bipolar disorder who must fend for themselves. I don't know how they manage to do it...)

[ZephyrZodiac]

Unless they have family nearby who are supportive, a good doctor and good social welfare services, I don't think they do "get by".  In this country we hace so-called "care in the community" which basically means you have to try to commit HK about 3 times before they'll admit you to a hospital, and unless they think you are a risk of it, you get no back up whatsoever!

[laeshanin]

Teenager are not physically ready for children; everything is still growing and developing. The risks of complications in teenage pregnancy is very high. Prematur birth is just one of them. 34 % of pemature birth is in the 15 - 19 year old range, as opposed to 9% in the 30 - 34 year old range. Aside from premature labor, teenagers ages 15 - 19 have increased risks of anemia and high blood pressure as well. Teenagers in that age group also are at greater risk to deliver babies with low birth weight. Those babies can suffer anything from lung and respiratory distress, vision loss, serious intestinal deficiencies, to bleeding in the brain.

An added risk is the risky behavior that teenagers are prone to engage in. They are more likely not to be mature enough to take proper care of themselves while carrying a child. The initial risk is therby increased in significant proportion.

Genetically speaking, an older mother and father are really not genetically defective parents. True, sperm and the oocyte have been manufactured/stored for a longer period of time, but it is generally surmised that if they are rendered defective, it is due to environmental forces, and not the age of the mother/father. Parents over 35 are ususally advised to consider anmiosynthesis to test for Downs syndrome, but the majority of Downs syndrome children are born to women in their twenties.

Absolutely. Many moons ago it was de rigour to grab your wife while she was a mere babe, and this happens still in some developing countries, somewhere around the age of 13. Consequently, many babies were stillborn and/or their mother died also as a complication of the pregnancy. Nubility does not mean a teen is developed enough to bear children. The other injuries that a young female of this age may receive such as fistulas between vagina and bladder don't bear thinking about.

As for genetics, well, while it is true that older women are more likely to have a child with Down's there is no other evidence to suppose that the younger you are when you breed the less likely there are to be any defects. I remain, therefore, unconvinced.

I fully advocate an education that spells out the responsibilities of bringing a life into this world. NO holds barred, as too often teens see a child as a lovely toy that can be played with then put away somewhere in a cupboard. Sex education needs extending as merely having the mechanics does not necessarily go with responsibility/understanding of the issues. What about love? Indeed, what about it?

[laeshanin]

Clinical depression is an illness and a very serious one to boot!

Don't wanna hear that it's all about being lazy and disinclined to try harder, not unless that someone wants a nice hard slap...

[ZephyrZodiac]

Exactly right!  And as for the people who say, It's all in your head! Too darned right it's all in your head, but that doesn't mean you're imagining it!!!!

[PlaidSquirrel]

Ten years ago I went to the doctor  because I felt ill.  I have an underactive thyroid (caused by medical treatment!) and my previous doctor had lowered my dosage, which was really why I felt ill.  The doctor asked, do you think you might be depressed?  to which I replied, yes, I'm depressed because I feel so ill.   So I was told to go and take anti-depressants, (which don't go well with a thyroid condition!) and in no time at all I was so bad I had to give up work.  All I'd actually needed was an increased thyroxine dose and a little time for it to start working!  But that isn't in the medical textbooks - time is not a medicine!

I never had depression but I had massive anxiety issues caused by hyperthyroid problems. Before my surgery I had to take so many things to "fix" my thyroid levels and I was all messed up. I was on Ativan then. After the surgery I was even more messed up. They kept trying to force me (told me if I wouldn't medicate they couldn't help me) to take something like Paxil. Eventually they wore me down and I've been taking Buspar for the last 4? years. It did not "cure" my anxiety entirely but I think that eventually my body became used to the new thyroid levels and that did help. Plus turned out my para-thyroid had been damaged and I've got to take two big assed Citrical every day for the rest of my life. That fixed a lot of physical weirdness that they all assumed I was imagining (hell half the time I thought so too. I was convinced I was going insane.) before a specialist caught it.
Problem is every time I want to quit taking the Buspar I get cold feet. I did quit once for 3 days but it made me all emotional and my mom started having health problems (her thyroid was doing nothing and she was on the verge of psychosis but once she got a thyroid replacement perscription (and gave it time to work) she got all better) so I went back on it which made me feel all whacked out for 3 months. So now here I am on an anti-anxiety med I may not even need (might even be better off wthout it) but I'm too afraid of feeling like I did before to go off of it. For two years I've been thinking about going off it and always think "now is not a good time."
My point is doctors will use that crap to fix just about anything even when the real problem is staring them straight in the face and then the patient is stuck dealing with the problems the "quick fix" caused.
Although I medicate I am a strong believer in dealing with your problems the old fashioned way. Whip it's ass one day at a time.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I have had to deal with thyroid problems since I was ateenager, so I can understand what you've been through.  Trouble is, treatment was sort of worked out donkeys' years ago, and doctors just assume that there's no better solution!  And anti-dpressants are positively dangerous, in my opinion, if your thyroid levels are below what they should be!

[J. M. Pescado]

JM, your misanthropy is taking over your intelligence.  First an amazing lack of understanding of Darwinism, and now an amazing lack of understanding about how human brains actually work. Unless of course you can actually willfully control each and every chemical your brain produces, in which case I suggest you start teaching others this amazing skill so you have one less thing to be misanthropic about.

So your chemical imbalance makes you feel depressed. Fine. You know why this happens, so you know this is simply a wiring problem. Ignore it. Simple enough. It's not fatal, it's merely a nuisance. You can overcome it. Unless the problem will actually kill you, as opposed to make you feel unpleasant, then IT CAN BE IGNORED. I, for one, am tired of people using their "feelings" as an excuse to justify their poor impulse control. If I simply indulged every single random pointless urge that I had, I'd probably be in prison.

[Renatus]

Why on earth didn't I think of that astoundingly wonderful idea before? I'll just ignore all of my problems and they'll go away!

Unfortunately, JM, it doesn't work that way. Like most problems with a physical cause - even if you are talking mechanical objects and not living things - ignoring a mental problem does not make it easier to deal with, as the problem will continue to worsen, and the person often ends up self-medicating with substances or behaviours that compound the problem still further. Furthermore, some mental issues (schizophrenia comes immediately to mind) when left untreated can lead to irreversable brain damage.

If you have some data by some actual scientists, JM, then I'd be happy to read it and see if it refutes what I've been saying, and if it has, I'll adjust my opinions accordingly. Otherwise, I'm going to to stick with my opinion based on scientific data by scientists and continue to find opinions based on how you want the world to be completely unfounded.

[ZephyrZodiac]

No doubt Pescado finds it amusing what happens when schizophrenics who haven't been diagnosed or who refuse their medication go out and kill innocent children in a primary school before blowing themselves away!

[SimsHost]

I suspect that what's missing from JM's analysis is that wetware can be misconfigured and damaged just like any other system.    It's the most complex system in the human body, with more failure modes and effects than any other system.

By its nature, wetware is open to software damage through its sensory channels.  There doesn't seem to be any virus scanners on the input channels, either.  (Though it might help to disable the buttons for CNN and HBO on your television remote.)

Quite often, the core software is not adequate to deal with damaging influences at the rate they happen.  That leads to the phenomena that pshrinkologists attempt to categorize as mental diseases.  The damage can reprogram the core software so mental problems usually take longer to heal than physical ones, often as not enduring longer than the physical system itself.  (That is, quite often the person can't be completely healed before the body dies.)

Even worse, the core software seems to have been produced by a team of the worst of the Microsoft and Electronic Arts programmers working overtime on a Sunday morning after an all-night party that involved enough ethanol to float a battleship!

[Sandilou]

JM:

If I simply indulged every single random pointless urge that I had, I'd probably be in prison.

I'm sorry, but this really did make me laugh!  When I was growing up, mental illnesses were a middle class indulgence - poor/working class people couldn't afford to be ill; people just had to get on with it. Of course, many were ill, but were not given the opportunity to break down fully.  Family support propped up those that were not coping well. Some might argue that doing this only helps the symptoms without trying to find a cure.  But I would argue that medication does exactly the same thing.

In today's climate where families are much more spread out and the vulnerable are less likely to get family support, more and more people are being diagnosed and medicated.  Sometimes it feels like what were once considered idiosyncrasies are now getting formal labels so that drug companies can make money.  

The classic middle class 'made up' disorder for me was given to toddlers that wouldn't sleep through the night.  I remember my jaw hitting the floor when a work colleague told me that she was taking her three year old for treatment because she and her husband had not had a full night's sleep since he was born.   I have always been a full time working mother - I  have no idea as to whether my children ever had this disorder because I was too tired to find out - I slept through the night!  Sometimes people do seem to have too much time....

[SimsHost]

Yeah, what Sandilou said.  The other side of the coin is the number of doctors who profit from people's problems and the number of professionals who now provide the services that used to come from families.

The move toward reliance on drugs to alter normal human behavior really worries me, especially the tendency toward prescribing Ritalin for school children.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Ritalin is not good!  And hyperactivity in children is in my opinion excessive energy that needs to be directed, not suppressed!

However, I disagree with the notion that mental illness is a middle class disease!  Bethlehem Hospital in London (Bedlam) was full of people from all walks of life who were considered mad, or in our terms, they were mentally ill!)

[Renatus]

Mental illness as a whole isn't a middle-class problem, for certain; many working class or poorer folks end up having alcohol or drug addictions, abuse problems, or simply end up wandering the streets, homeless, because they can no longer function with day to day life at all. In the states at least, many of the homeless are quite mad, as due to a lack of funding people are turned out of mental institutions if the doctors think they won't be a danger to themselves or others.

However, sometimes people do go too far and try to make every behaviour that isn't complacent and compliant seen as pathological, usually in children. That makes me sick. It's not scientific or logical, it is selfish, and it may well cause future problems in the child if it is medicated unnecessarily. Furthermore, not every mental issue needs to be treated with drugs - oftentimes patience and behavioural therapy is what does the best job.

BTW ZZ, untreated schizophrenics can be very scary but are not necessarily dangerous. I had an apartment next to a woman in her 50's who was in the advanced stages... she did really bizarre things and would go off on scary tirades, but she never actually did anything threatening.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I agree not all schizophrenics are dangerous, but unfortunately there are some who definitely are.  We have had at least three massacres in the UK where the inquest on the perpetrator reached the conclusion that they were in the delusional stage of schizophrenia.  We have the same problem over here, that mental institutions have been closed and people moved into the community - to save money, and to sell the valuable building land the hospitals were built on! - and unfortunately "care in the community" does not always work, there is no compulsion on a mentally ill person to stay in a community home or to take there meds.  It's a lot easier too to look after people who are in one place than scattered throughout a city. 

Another thing to consider is that the siting of most older mental hospitals was in suburban, quieter areas, they had huge grounds which were a source of peaceful relaxation to people who were stressed and ill.  Living in a modern city with 24 hours a day traffic is not the best place for people to recover their hold on sanity!

[SimsHost]

However, sometimes people do go too far and try to make every behaviour that isn't complacent and compliant seen as pathological, usually in children. That makes me sick. It's not scientific or logical, it is selfish, and it may well cause future problems in the child if it is medicated unnecessarily.

That is a very succinct and eloquent expression of my fears about Ritalin.  It's one of my pet peeves, probably because it affected me personally.  My son's school administrators demanded that we have him evaluated and get him a prescription for Ritalin, otherwise they would throw him out of school. 

So, we had him evaluated.  In this case, the doctors concluded that he was a perfectly normal 10-year-old boy.  Personable, articulate, affable; no behavior indicating hyperactivity or any other sydrome like it.  His only problem was that happened to perform so well on IQ tests that his teachers were afraid of him. 

Our solution was to take him out of that madhouse and home-school him until he's ready for college.  Let him learn at his own rate and try to teach him to cope with the boredom of sitting through classes. That was a skill I learned early in life, but I really don't know how to teach it to someone else.  Darn.

In retrospect, we could have spared him all those visits with doctors and pshrinks; but he seemed to enjoy it so overall it was probably a positive experience for him.