Depression, sedation, and wot i learned from it

[lobelia321]

I was on sertraline for 6 months. It is a mind-altering drug. During that time of sedation, my emotions were changed in various ways. They were sedated emotions. This was, initially, fantastic as the sedated emotions replaced depressed emotions, and my depressed emotions were totally out of control.

(Note to them as wot don't me well: These pills were not sedatives in the medical horse-subduing sense. That's just the word I like to use -- that, or tranquillisers, or les pillules. *g*)


Sedated emotion
Excess emotion was taken out from everyday events.

E.g. I got an email from my line manager, accusing me of doing something wrong, formulated in a disrespectful manner. Before sedation, this would have sent me into a spiral of angst, resentment, indignation, sleeplessness, self-accusation, self-denigration. With sedation, I looked at it; felt a little bit bad for one minute; identified where the line manager was projecting his own anxieties onto me; remembered why I had done the 'wrong' thing I had been doing and recalled the reasons for doing it; recognised that the 'wrong thing' was actually a trivial matter; and emailed back, apologising in a polite tone. I felt pity for the line manager more than anything else, and I moved on.

I could devote just the amount of energy needed to each task, and no excess emotional energy.

What I learned from this
I went onto the tranquillisers because my job was making me depressed. The job depression is now fixed. What I learned from my sedated semester, is that my institution is still crap but I'm not crap.

This was a crucial lesson to learn. The place can be crap: I don't have to be crap. I spent one morning doing meaningless administrative tasks, caused by managerial incompetence and misplaced nitpickery. Before, I would have fumed at the mouth about this and despaired over the waste of my time. This time, I sat in an empty computer room, with the sun shining through the window; it was quite tranquil; I could do the menial tasks easily (they were very menial); and I thought:

I haven't wasted my time. I've wasted their time.

If they want to pay me for menial tasks that are way below my professional ability: fine. I'm doing a mindless task and I'm getting paid a professional salary for it!

Tick the boxes
This was something my counsellor told me. And it worked for me. Some colleagues at my crap institution are responding by skiving off. This, I learned, was not me. This was making me depressed. It put me in a mindset of 'oh shit, have I not done something important?' So when the incompetent managers blamed me for xyz, I was put in a panic.

I learned to tick the boxes without the excess emotion. I learned to look at things that have to be done, identify the important priorities according to me (e.g. preparing lectures, marking student work); I identified the important priorities according to the crap institution that were totally low on my own list of priorities (e.g. reformatting a document from point 11 to point 12) -- and then I did the crap priorities first, without angsting and fuming. This worked very well in getting managers off my back.

Own up.
This was something else my counsellor told me. This is why I apologised in that email I mentioned earlier. This has been an important lesson. It is connected with being good.

Being Good
I think depressed people often want to Be Good. At least, I want often to Be Good. So if I'm told by someone else, e.g. husband, line manager, about something 'wrong', my reaction will be defensive.

I am learning to say 'okay, that was stupid, sorry' (allowing myself to be Not Good and forgiving my own mistakes, and thereby also being forgiving of others' mistakes) or to say 'no, this is not something wrong, these are my reasons for it' (without apologising, cringeing, being accusatory, being annoyed, and so forth). That is: owning up.

No negativity.
My counsellor forbad negativity in the workplace. She cautioned me to avoid being sucked into the vortex of rumour-mongering and negativity-gossip. This is rife in my institution because it's so crap. She said, 'ask people what movie they saw over the weekend'. This felt fake at first but I think it's a good strategy. Sometimes it's unavoidable, and sometimes it's important, to share thoughts about the crapness, but it can spiral out-of-hand.

What is, in fact, good about my job
I like teaching the students, and I'm good at it. I've come round to a position where I try not to teach them what I feel I ought to teach them or what's written on the official document but just what I find fun. That makes me enthusiastic and self-confident. So even when I forget my notes at home (which happened once), I can still go in and do something.

The hours are flexible. If I changed jobs, I wouldn't find such flexible hours as academe offers very easily.

The pay is a professional salary with annual leave, sick-leave and a pension.

Most of my colleagues are, in fact, okay. It's just the 4 to 5 very bad managers who are the bad eggs.


Face reality
This is something I read in Gwyneth Lewis's book about depression. She thinks not being depressed is not about being happy but about facing reality. You can, however, only face reality if you can identify what reality is.

To me this is connected with:

The trap of feeling what I ought to feel
This is, for me, the biggest single cause of depression. I do what I think I ought to do. I do what I think is expected of me. I hide those things that I do that I think will cause disapproval. I try to feel the way I ought to feel.

This is still a huge trap for me. It went away during sedation. I found it easier to identify reality under the influence of les pillules. I could own up more. 'Today I spent five hours playing Sims2.' I could say that and not feel bad. Now I'm back to struggling with that kind of thing. Because my depression-prone mind tells me 'Sims2 is frivolous; you oughtn't to be frivolous; you ought to be doing a Useful Thing' -- best not to tell anybody about it, and then it will be as if it hadn't happened.'

Not feeling what I ought to feel but facing reality and admitting what I actually do feel is the biggest task I struggle with.


Moving forwards
When I'm depressed, I get trapped in time. Moments are like honey and keep me glued in them. So I will play Sims (to reuse that example) and then stick with it, even when the fun has gone out of the game. I don't seem to be able to move out of a moment. Time becomes treacle. Then I end up feeling very bad: 'another day wasted'.

When sedated, I was able to spend a morning doing something, then thinking 'hm, that was dumb, I didn't really want to be doing that', and move on. I would use even short half-hours to go into Caffé Nero and do something else. I could do what Flylady preaches: You're not behind; jump in where you are.

This has to do with the next obstacle:

Trusting myself
I find this very difficult. I find it hard to trust myself to jump up and do something else with my time. I think, 'I'm trapped here forever; I've wasted a morning; I'm hopeless; I may as well not bother trying anything else', and so forth.

When I was on the anti-depressants, I found myself saying to people 'yes, I seem to have a gift for writing; I'm really quite good at it.'

Wow! In my non-sedated state, I find it very hard to admit (and to feel) that I can do something well.


Why did I decide to come off the anti-depressants?
The job thing had been fixed. The limited range of emotion was starting to be a hindrance, no longer a help. I didn't care whether t'h was here or away. I had zero libido. I had lost the Yearning. I felt that the Yearning was necessary to be creative. I felt disconnected from what I was writing; it felt mechanical.

I didn't burst into tears when I saw athletes winning something or other, or when I heard a sad story on the radio, or when the music swelled up in a movie as a little boy is reunited with his mother. Normally, I always burst into tears.

I realised that it is more important to be me rather than to be happy.

This was a revelation. I had always really wanted to be happy. I don't know whether that's a specific lure for depressed people: the lure of happiness. I didn't understand what self-help manuals, spiritual gurus from the 1960s and agony aunties meant when they said, 'just be yourself'. I did (do) not know what it is to be myself. (This has to do with identifying reality and feeling only what I ought to feel. So the lure of 'being myself' never held much interest. It was always the lure of 'being happy'.

I was surprised to see that towards the end of the 6 months I was missing my old 'self', and that I was attached to this old 'self', with all its problems.

It's not about happiness; it's about life being meaningful
I read this in a book at my parents' house and it made an immediate impression. I think that's true (for me.)

One thing about being prone to depression is that I don't trust myself to feel bad. It's easy being happy; I can do that. Then, the next day, I'm feeling low. Immediately, the fear kicks in 'oh, no, I'm depressed again'. I don't trust myself to come out of it. I find it hard to deal with non-depressed normal lowness. Often, I can't even identify it; I recoil in horror and feel 'happy' as I ought to feel, so I'm not facing reality, and things go pear shaped.

Also, unhappiness connects you to humanity. Doing what feel I ought to be doing makes me look down on people who're not feeling as they ought to be feeling. Plumbing the depths and allowing my own mistakes and miseries, makes me forgiving of other people's mistakes and miseries.


One important characteristic of depression, I think, is the way it makes a person

feel both abject and superior at the same time.
When depressed, I feel 'I'm a speck of useless dirt; it's all my own fault'.

But I also feel 'I'm at the centre of the universe; nobody is as miserable as I am'. There's a strange hubris about depression. It makes me self-absorbed and self-centred.

I'd like to turn the depression around and turn it into melancholy -- which is a positive, connecting-to-humanity state of mind.

Connect with people
This is something I had learned during my previous bout of depression in 2003. I need to see people.

When depressed, I shut myself off. This is very bad for me. I need to make an effort and organise meetings.

When sedated, I lost the Yearning. So it was nice to see people. But if I didn't see anybody, I didn't care, either.

This is why I lost all interest in LJ. My commitment is still not up to my pre-sedation levels. It's the Yearning that makes me want to write fiction, that makes me want to put Sheppard's mouth on the genitals of the wraith, that makes me want to comment and post on LiveJournal, that makes me want to drool over footballers and their elegant, Armani-coated, silver-templed managers, that makes me want to watch silly television series for the odd glimpse of Jocelyn Rutger, and because these things connect me with other people who want all these things, too!

Have a fitness routine
This is what they all say, and it's true. I have to keep remembering this.

I go to L.A. Fitness once a week, and it's important. And it's good to walk into town; it's not 'more convenient' to take the car because walking allows my body to move, and I can read en route or listen to podcasts.

What I love
This is very difficult for me to access when I'm feeling low. So here is a top-of-my-head list for me to remember:

• sitting in a café
• writing in a café
• reading a novel I really feel like reading (that is, not one that I 'ought' to feel like reading; learn to trust my guts here, not my mind: judge books by their cover all the time)
• the sun (I tend to forget that I feel better as soon as there's a sunny day; I blame gloominess on myself, not on my latitude)
• walking in the desert of the Red Centre of Australia
• extrapolating from the previous: walking
• seeing a Bollywood movie
• seeing a Bollywood DVD

Other things that make me feel better:
- meeting people
- connecting with people
- seeing people I tend to forget while depressed or sedated (the two PHs, CCO, SvdV, CCE, JW/S, t'sister, t'parents, t'K-Ss, MR even)
- seeing old friends (CMc in France, CM in wherever she now is, JMc in Paris)
- making an effort to visit people, even if it involves booking a flight
- doing a writing workshop
- going to t'aah conference used to make me feel great but I haven't tried it since 2006
- going out with t'h, away from family routine
- going on a family holiday (actually, this could possibly go in the 'I love' section, except that the planning and travelling process tends to freak me)
- going to art can make me feel better but 'tis a bit fraught still
- having a bath with candles and the laptop propped on the loo, playing a streamed BBC Radio Four broadcast of either Just A Minute or The News Quiz or Bookclub or Open Book or A Good Read

Final words
That's all that I can think of now. I'll do updates-to-self as I think of them. One thing I've left out is my current in-between and unsure state vis-à-vis my vocation. That shall be left for another post.

Don't get trapped in time. Keep moving forwards. Keep busy!

Trust your guts. E.g. even if you bought the 'wrong' book, it'll still be the 'fun' book because you bought it with your 'guts'. This to be extended to other areas of life, too (such as: Do we move to Stanford, California? Do we move house or get an extension?)

Let others be. I was totally good at this when sedated. Now it's all about the nagging and the getting-irritated again.

Don't assume about others. 'I won't tell x this because x will think I ought to be feeling someway else.' This is assuming that x will think this. This is mistrusting others as I mistrust myself. Remember that in the past I've told people stuff (I write online fiction) and they haven't minded; they've even sometimes been interested.

And even if they do mind: learn not to mind myself. Tell them, anyway, because it is good for the soul.

Avoid resentment. (My counsellor said that resentment was my prime emotion when I first came to see her last January. I hadn't even realised. It was eating me up. Apparently!)



Hm, that's about it. Turned out kind of long. :-)

Comments

[blythely.livejournal.com]

I wish I had written something similar for myself when I'd come off ADs, but this will suffice just nicely for all those lessons learned - which are sortof applicable to everyone introspecting a bit about themselves, I think. You've articulated them so well, thank you :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying I've articulated them well. The truth is I've been meaning to note this down ever since the first day of non-sertraline. Then I got withdrawal symptoms and shrieked and smashed the phone and the front door (withdrawing is expensive!) -- hm, I totally forgot to write about how the emotions rushed back in and caused pandemonium.

And I've forgotten a lot of what I meant to say initially. And then had to piece it back together. And finally I thought, if I don't write whatever scraps I have now, I never will!

[lambourngb.livejournal.com]

This was very thoughtful and mirrored a lot of my own experience with depression, withdraw from livejournal, medication, etc. I never thought to call it "the Yearning" but that's a perfect word for both creative process and the pull of life.

I didn't burst into tears when I saw athletes winning something or other,

Honestly, I thought I was the only person who did that. I believe I dread the Olympics a little this year because I know I will get caught up in that, even if I have no connection to the person who is winning previously. I'm also stubborn and refuse to shy away from a trigger-moment.

I'm 4 years away from medication and I still have to do my "homework" every day that my old therapist proscribed. It's hard but worth it. Once I made the decision that *I* was worth the change. *hugs to you*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your response. It is really nice to note that something I basically wrote for myself (and felt a bit self-indulgent and navel-gazingly about) can find resonance with others. And you also withdrew from LJ? It's a funny side-effect, isn't it? Not much mentioned on the medication bits of paper.

I am a total sap for the Olympics! As soon as those athletes step up onto that little podium and the flag unfurls and the anthem starts playing -- I am a puddle. But it's also what I love!

I am very interested in what you say about being 4 years from medication and needing to do 'homework'? Could you tell me what homework your therapist prescribed? Mine left the county at the same time as I came off the medication so I feel as if I've been released into the wild.

very long comment ahead, sorry. (1/2)

[lambourngb.livejournal.com]

I was browsing friends-friends lists and came across your post. I think what pulled me in was the "learned from it" portion. I am a slow learner when it comes to myself. I practiced some very negative habits, all the way back to the point where I was a child and it took about 2 years of steady psychotherapy in order to start to change those habits.

And you also withdrew from LJ? It's a funny side-effect, isn't it? Not much mentioned on the medication bits of paper.

First my depression said, "there's nothing you could possibly contribute that anyone cares to hear." Then the medication said "Hey, who cares?" And that was true. I just simply did not care. About anything. Value of my life (not suicide, just felt I was boring), value of talking to someone online. I was existing in this grey zone, and I was fine with it.

I am very interested in what you say about being 4 years from medication and needing to do 'homework'? Could you tell me what homework your therapist prescribed?

Medication has come a very long way in four years. I suffered from both depression and anxiety. I would not want to get out of bed, get dressed, go to school, go to work, etc. Then I felt extreme anxiety over the fact I missed school, work, life and feel paralyzed to make a decision that invited censure. I missed a class, I was going to be punished (in my head, at least). So the best way to avoid punishment, was to stay home and curl up with a story online. I lost lots of time that way.

When I first made the decision to see a therapist, it was related to school and needing a leave of absence without being tossed out. I got a referral from my university, the student health program gave me 2 weeks trial of a drug called "Paxil" and the name of a psychotherapist who was in semi-retirement with a private practice. Paxil was I guess one of the first drugs to try and bridge that gap between depression and anxiety. Most anti-anxiety medications previously had a side-effect of fatigue, which a depressive-personality had no use for (I had plenty of reasons not to get out of bed).

My psychotherapist was very old school, I guess. He handed me a questionnaire (1-5 on how positive/negative agreement certain statements had) and a homework assignment to write my biography. He wanted to know every significant and insignificant relationship in my life, broken down by age, etc. That was a lot of navel gazing, I can tell. *g* After a lot of discussion, we narrowed down what my primary problem was, and that was self-punishment. I simply did not want to let myself off the hook for anything. Impossible standards. I put myself in situations I knew I would fail, I had a lot of internalized anger (so internalized, I really thought I was easy-going!) and I would just beat myself up.

My homework most days was counting little victories. If I couldn't make it to class, at least I got up, showered, and cleaned my house. If I couldn't manage to clean my house, at least I showered and put on makeup. The minor victories of going to a coffee house off-campus (at least I was out of bed), the major victories, attending class and participating in discussions.

I learned what true passive-aggressive behavior meant to me. I learned you could self-injure metaphorically (to make the discovery that I was making myself miserable just so I could feel something... rocked my whole world.) Routines became very key to me. I learned I had to eat regular meals, I had to make a plan every night that involved getting up and going to school, and later work. I felt like I was a child again, laying out my clothes and packing my lunch the night before. The more time I gave myself to prepare in the morning, the easier it was to accomplish what I set out to do. Being late was my biggest excuse for not doing something at all.

Other "homework" included saying or feeling five positive things about myself each day. Sometimes it was as simple as "You got dressed" or "Those are really very pretty earrings." If I didn't reach my goal of five things, well, I learned that one positive moment was better than none. I learned to shutdown or at least stop reacting to the self-punishing voice inside. That was probably the hardest part.

very long comment ahead (2/2)

[lambourngb.livejournal.com]

My therapist passed away suddenly from a heart attack four years ago. He had no receptionist, did everything himself, so it was very hard when I came one day to his office and found his door locked. The office security desk said he hadn't been in for three days, and since he always called me if he had to cancel, I knew something very bad had happened to him. I read his obituary in the paper.

I had to make a decision after I grieved. Did I continue on with someone else or could I make it on my own? I chose the middle path, I found another doctor, a psychiatrist this time, to continue my prescriptions until I could wean myself off, but I left the "talk therapy" to myself. I realized I was smart enough to out-think myself, if that makes sense. Therapy made me self-aware, so all the bad habits I instilled in myself as a child, I worked to replace with the good habits. Walking around the block, eating regularly, pre-planning all my departures from home, watching for my self-sabotage and forgiving myself when I back-slid, all part of my "homework".

Happy for me wasn't going to be like the movies, with the swells of music and the bright sunshine on my face, happy was knowing I was doing a good job at being me. I didn't qualify my successes to myself with words like "anyone could have done it" or "it was no trouble" even if I did use those words to others. I had punished myself enough, and there are a lot of negative people in the world who would think nothing of holding onto me and pulling me under. I had to stop making their job so easy. *g*

It's really hard to form a good habit, but once it's there, well it's all muscle-memory and emotion-memory. Emotion-memory is what I call that break from the roller-coaster that medication brings, I "know" that the neural pathways and connections can carry something other than dark, bleak, why bother feelings. So I just keep going, and the minutes keep adding up to good hours, good days, good weeks, etc.

I hope my experience helps some, just as yours has helped me process exactly what it was I learned.

Re: very long comment ahead (2/2)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for your long and detailed response. That is really interesting and helpful. It's great to have a comment like this to Memory alongside my own post because one can pool resources. How awful about your therapist dying! And the thing about not making people's jobs easier by undermining yourself before they even try it: that is really good to remember. I found that, surprisingly, awful line managers would actually shut up and take on board what I said if I said it.

E.g. when asked last year how many research essays I would mark, I said 20. My colleagues then said 30 or 40, and I may have felt guilty (but was sedated). The manager turned to me and said, 'are you sure you have a full workload?'. I said, 'yes', and shut up. And he turned away and took it on board and didn't question me at all.

That was an important moment. If I respect myself, they will respect me, too.

[an-sceal.livejournal.com]

I was pointed here by a friend, and your descriptions of the ways depression and depressives tangle with work really gave me a lot to think about.

Good luck on your journey. Thanks for sharing.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Wow, a friend pointed you. That is so nice. My previous really bad bout of depression wasn't about work, it was about my mother -- and I threw away my medication that time after a month. Counselling /therapy ended up fixing that completely. So when I went back last year I told the counsellor, 'I'm not here about deep-seated traumas or family or anything; I just need concrete help with coping with my workplace.'

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

This is really good and I recognise so much of it.

I think depressed people often want to Be Good.

Yes, very much so. I become obsessed with whether I'm a 'good person' or not, and any and all transgressions carry the same weight of 'badness'.

I don't trust myself to feel bad.

Yeah, every time you're a bit fed up, you think "Omg, no! It's come back!" I spent a long time fearing this, exacerbated by the fact that my doctor told me that if I 'slipped back' again, I should consider going back on teh pills permanently.

When I'm depressed, I get trapped in time.

This is probably what I identify with most in what you've written. Getting stuck. It's a horrible feeling.

feel both abject and superior at the same time
Yes, this also leads to getting stuck, because you get trapped in a cycle - "I am the worst person who ever lived/my sadness and badness is so important and awful!/but how could I ever be imortant? I'm nothing/believing in my own imortance is yet another sign of how bad I am..." etc etc.

Normally, I always burst into tears.
Me too! Music, poetry, adverts... I missed crying at things, it's one of the things I like about being me.

Oh, best post this comment, I've got to go home!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Shels.

It's important, I think, to realise that these are all shared symptoms. Feeling depressed can be very isolating. It's that whole self-absorption hubris again: one can't believe that anybody is feeling this. I think it's probably important to keep reminding myself: these are symptoms, just like flu symptoms. That's all.

Hope you got home well! :-)

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this.

When I'm depressed, I get trapped in time. Moments are like honey and keep me glued in them. So I will play Sims (to reuse that example) and then stick with it, even when the fun has gone out of the game. I don't seem to be able to move out of a moment. Time becomes treacle. Then I end up feeling very bad: 'another day wasted'.

This is exactly where I am right now.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*hugs you* (Not that that's going to be of any use... *sigh*) Well, we must just keep battling on!!!! (And somehow or other, we do.)

:-) Here, have a liquorice.

[junalele.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thanks for sharing. And even though I'm not depressed (somehow I managed to find my way around that one), still a lot of thoughts for me to think over. :D

It's the Yearning ... that makes me want to drool over footballers and their elegant, Armani-coated, silver-templed managers...
Heh. So that manager needs to get involved in the epl again to help with your yearning.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

epl? What is epl???

Heh, and you know which manager I mean *g*

Thank you, sweetie.

[junalele.livejournal.com]

English Premier League. Yup. And of course, I know which manager you mean. He was Eurosport's expert for the Africa Nations Cup in teh football last month so I saw him in a few interviews. Heh.

You are so welcome. And really, I am so glad that you're feeling more connected to the Yearning again and thusly are around again more. :D

[pecos.livejournal.com]

Would you mind terribly if I took a copy of this post to save, just for myself. There are so many similarities between us that it's kind of scary, and a lot of the things you've written here I need to hear too, occasionally.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I would not mind at all; in fact, the opposite is true. I posted this here as a memory-aid to myself so if it can be a memory-aid for you, too, all the better.

Nice icon, hey. :-)

[ex-zarah5186.livejournal.com]

Two things:

1. Concerning the fitness routine, I think that above anything else, it's helpful if you pick a team sport (or at least to have two or three other people with whom you meet, like, twice a week or some such). Particularly at the beginning, when you're not good just yet and the routine hasn't settled, it's invaluable to have others who ask you, "hey, how come you weren't there last Tuesday?" (Not in a controlling way, but in a we-noticed-you-were-not-there-are-you-sick-is-everything-okay kind of way.) It keeps you going even when your inner laziness kicks in and tries convincing you that naw, right now, you really don't feel like going.
At least that's how I got into a good, healthy routine of doing sports at least twice a week, not counting bike rides or walks or some such. I really do think team sports are good for that. Also, if it's a nice team, even when you feel like crap, you'll go just in order to see the people. :-)

2. *hugs*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The combination of fitness and social life sounds a really good one. It hadn't occurred to me at all; I guess because I'm new to the whole fitness thing. I hate sports!! I do do yoga in a class once a week, and there people do get worried if you miss one or two weeks.

*hugs you back*

[travelingcarrot.livejournal.com]

This is a very embarassing comment to write and I'd be delighted if you deleted it the minute you've read it. But I think as part of my own struggly-journey-thingy I need to write it.
I've been reading your fic since I came into fandom in, omg, 2003 - that's five years! I've been reading your LJ since I created my account in 2004. I've always felt very drawn to you as a writer and as a person and have followed all your ups and downs and meanderings, but always from a polite distance because I see you as a bit of a Big Name Fan and myself as a bit of a nobody. When I read this post it was strange, because I haven't been through exactly the same things in terms of medication or experiences, but it was still as though I was reading myself. Maybe there are millions of people out there who feel the same way, but this post makes me feel that we are practically the same person, and I don't know how I am supposed to react to feeling like that other than to stop self-editing and just write it down and put it out there. So I have. :)
Thanks for this post, and all the others.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am not at all embarrassed, and the reason I won't delete your comment is that it's quite incredible to have all these people echoing my own thoughts. This is an excellent corrective to the depressive's tendency to think 'me me me and my unique misery'. I want to have all these comments in my Memories as well as my post, just so I know when next I need to remind myself.

It's so sweet of you to comment. I am really touched. Also, I am in no way a Big Name Fan, goodness me. Maybe a tiny, tiny bit way back in 2002 in lotrips but not these days... :-) But I take it as a compliment. *bows* Also, you are not a nobody!!!!!

[romanciere.livejournal.com]

This post echoed my experience in a lot of ways (though not all: I didn't withdraw from LJ, almost the opposite because it felt like Social Interaction without as much of the fear-of-failure, mild agoraphobia and social jitters). There is a lot of wisdom here and a sense that these are things you have learnt and can be accurate and eloquent about, in a way that doesn't happen if we're simply told things.

*bookmarks*

thank you for posting! And I am very glad you are in a better place than you were.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for commenting. Some of the things i wrote about I did glean from books but it's true what you say: reading it in a book is one thing, and experiencing it is another. Also, I've picked and chosen from the books I've read (which haven't been many; book on depression can be just too depressing...) so the things I've picked have resonated with my own reality. Interesting that you had the opposite reaction with LJ. I think people also react very differently to drugs, and to different kinds and quantities of drugs; so I'm sure it has to do with chemistry as well.

And today's radio news that anti-depressants are barely better than placebos?? *laughs very heartily* Only last year, I heard on the very same radio programme, that scientists are finding placebos troublesome; apparently, the don't act as a control at all because patients will immediately start responding to them as if they were medicine. Placebo u medical.

What a lovely icon, by the way.