Debate of the week: brain meds

[CoffeeCat]

My mother was telling me about how her Doctor complemented her once because most people on her age are taking some serious pills and she isn't. She attributes it to a balanced diet, daily excercise (she rides her bike about a mile every day), and taking vitamins.

Maybe before taking meds it's smart to make sure you're taking preventive measures first. I'm not an expert, but it sounds logical to me.

[Distracted]

Preventive measures for mental health...hmmmm. Lemme see if I can come up with a list.

Here's one, in no particular order:

A network of family and friends for moral support.
Some sort of faith in a higher power.
Regular exercise and enough sleep.
A job you find rewarding.
A hobby you enjoy.
Avoidance of the regular use of central nervous system depressants and stimulants for recreational purposes.

A caveat...some neurochemical conditions are hereditary. It's possible to do everything on the above list and still become mentally ill, so a person who's not functioning the way they feel they should function ought to see someone about it even if their life is "perfect" and they have no "reason" to feel the way they do. There doesn't have to be a reason.

[blacknblue]

Depression runs in my family. I take anti-depressants after spending practically my entire adult life denying I had a problem and trying to "suck it up". The difference is like night and day. I wish I had been man enough to admit I had a problem and go see a doctor twenty years ago. I could have avoided a lot of pain. I probably could have avoided becoming disabled at forty from self-induced stress.

[TPoptarts]

Hey when it's necessary it's necessary. I just don't think it's right that too often people classify like any kind of negative feeling that has a valid reason under the term "depression", I mean if someone hurts me I'd feel hurt. That's a valid feeling to feel. Why should I not feel that. It's not that I'm feeling that like without a reason or something, and it's not that if that someone instead of hurting me did a good thing for me I wouldn't feel good and happy and stuff. So yeah it sucks to feel hurt but it's still no depression. Depression doesn't have like a reason or anything. That's the kinda separation I'm talking about.

[blacknblue]

Hey when it's necessary it's necessary. I just don't think it's right that too often people classify like any kind of negative feeling that has a valid reason under the term "depression", I mean if someone hurts me I'd feel hurt. That's a valid feeling to feel. Why should I not feel that. It's not that I'm feeling that like without a reason or something, and it's not that if that someone instead of hurting me did a good thing for me I wouldn't feel good and happy and stuff. So yeah it sucks to feel hurt but it's still no depression. Depression doesn't have like a reason or anything. That's the kinda separation I'm talking about.

That is not necessarily true. Depression can also include what I call an amplified response to ordinary stimuli. In other words, what would make someone in good health hurt and depressed can also make a sick person hurt and depressed, but even more so. Sometimes a person can be borderline, just on the edge of falling off the cliff. In a case like that, making the right move to see a doctor at the right time can save them from actually falling. You don't actually have to be suicidal to be depressed. There are variable degrees of mental illness, just like there are variable degrees of fever, or headache, or toothache.

[Distracted]

Good analogy, BnB.

[TPoptarts]

That is not necessarily true. Depression can also include what I call an amplified response to ordinary stimuli. In other words, what would make someone in good health hurt and depressed can also make a sick person hurt and depressed, but even more so. Sometimes a person can be borderline, just on the edge of falling off the cliff. In a case like that, making the right move to see a doctor at the right time can save them from actually falling. You don't actually have to be suicidal to be depressed. There are variable degrees of mental illness, just like there are variable degrees of fever, or headache, or toothache.

Yeah but you don't have to be like "sick" to be hurting. I mean I wouldn't call an amplified emotional response reasonable because well it's beyond reasonable, it's amplified, duh. I was just talking about how like everything gets classified as "depression" even stuff that's like totally valid and reasonable and called for under the whatever circumstances. Like what my friend says that I'm "depressed" because I wear black clothes a lot. Uh right. She's like totally aware that I wear plenty bright colors when I go outside etc but she only sees me when I'm here, and well my black clothes happened to be like really old and torn and stuff so that's what I use as like "house clothes". Instead of the nicer looking red and pink and teal and purple and orange and white and green and whatever other cheerful non-depressing colors that I wear outside. Like really okay so it's black clothes. It's just a frelling color

[CX]

I just tend to like drak colors becuse they're very slimming. Plus dark blue and black are my favorite colors anyway.

[evcake]

A friend of mine once tried to give me this test where one chooses colors and that reveals your personality or some such. I love black, which apparently reveals me as a twisted individual.
Once on The View a guest asked Joy Behar something like: don't you hate it when you go to your closet and everything there is black? Joy looks at the guest like she's crazy and says: NO! That's me. Except in summertime.

So T'Poptarts - does somebody think you need an anti-depressant?

[TPoptarts]

Somebody thinks I need a lot of stuff.

As for the color thing I just think it's like totally demented to believe that you could tell someone's personality just from what colors they like. Like what the frell?? What so people aren't supposed to favor this and that color anymore because apparently it makes them such and such?? Yeah whatever. Dude what the frell is wrong with society. Oh and you know what the friend who thinks I'm depressed because I wear black clothes, her favorite color is black in general and also for clothes. Like talking about hypocrites. She says she likes to wear black clothes because it's like "elegant". Okay. I'm like totally not an elegant person but I like to wear my black clothes because they're comfortable. What elegant is better than comfortable?? "Comfortable" black is "depressed" but "elegant" black isn't?? I don't get it

[evcake]

Personally, I find black "empowering" in some way. Plus, nearly everything goes with nearly everything else.
And that test? The colors were all so ugly. Serious thought must have gone into choosing those murky shades. Yuk.

[blacknblue]

Thus, the necessity of actually finding someone who knows what they are talking about to get an opinion from.

[evcake]

Very true.

[TPoptarts]

Well actually in the pathetic course of my sorry excuse for a life I got taken to plenty people who supposedly know what they're supposedly talking about. Long story short my parents made me go because they wanted me to get the impression that everything really is wrong with me like they say and what's better than a professional telling me that. Thing is my mother has connections so they all know her and her and would like swallow everything she'd tell them about her "problematic kid". Dude. Seriously. I mean I'm sure there's gotta be like some good shrinks out there but those people were just digging explanations for anything out of their asses to basically tell me what my mother wanted to hear. And would never listen to one word I said. And I'm like totally not making excuses for myself here it's just that they were really, extremely so frelling totally WRONG. So kinda hard for me to trust any shrink and believe they actually know what they're talking about.

[evcake]

My mom tended to be more concerned with her own mental problems than mine - and she has plenty of 'em. Probably a good thing. Anti-depressants and teens, I dunno. One hears things. Anyhoo, she's been using mind meds for 60 years, and it looks like she'll make it to ninety, bless 'er I don't know how much differnce they made because she started when I was a wee tot. As for me, I spent a long time in denial. I don't know that anything is "easier" but the panic attacks much better.