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The Black Dog Thread

Started by Grugz, 02 January, 2016, 09:54:32 PM

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Grugz

... There a few of us on the board who have or are suffering from that nasty little bugger called depression.
I want this thread to be somewhere we can come and talk to fellow like (not in their right) minded chaps and chapesses!
  No nastiness or name calling ,that's what the political threads for ,just come and if you are able vent,rant or just come for a virtual cuppa,choccy bicuit and hug.

don't get into an argument with an idiot,he'll drag you down to his level then win with experience!

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,26167.0.html

Proudhuff

I've chatted with someone who 'Human Givens' helped a lot, so I have got a couple of books on it, they are a bit evangelical for my liking but I'm a dorr east coast Scotsman so I think that of everyone ;)
DDT did a job on me

JayzusB.Christ

Never heard of that before!  Just checked the website there; I'm always a bit put off by the word 'holistic' but I'm keeping an open mind.  Any chance you could give us a bit more info on it, Proudhuff?
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

richerthanyou

I'm always up for free hugs.

Come and get me :D
(  ゚,_ゝ゚)   

Jim_Campbell

There was a large black dog in my local pub last night. Cheered me up no end. Ironically, it seems black dogs are an excellent antidote to the Black Dog.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

richerthanyou

Could anything be better that listening to the song Black Dog as an actual Black Dog walks into the room?

I don't think so.

-Rich
(  ゚,_ゝ゚)   

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 28 January, 2016, 07:06:59 AM
There was a large black dog in my local pub last night. Cheered me up no end. Ironically, it seems black dogs are an excellent antidote to the Black Dog.

Cheers

Jim
Dogs are in general very theraputic to be around, cats as well. When my two cockers aren't running around like bedlam they're such chilled personalities to just sit and pet when the big bad cloud of anxiety creeps back in.

Prodigal2

I was recently mugged (for attention) by a boxer pup while out on a black dog stroll. The loveliest, ugly little pooch in the world. You couldn't help but laugh.


TordelBack

#8
Okay, I give in.

I've resisted medication for so many years now, reasoning that I'd be better learning to manage depressive episodes myself than have to depend on a chemical prop, something I've always have a fear of. And to an extent it's been working, I'm better at recognising the signs and communicating them, and trying to at least batten down the hatches before I go under, and serious episodes seem to be further apart and shorter.

But this past few weeks, despite being aware of my rapid descent, and identifying no clear cause whatsoever, I've just kept sliding. I've managed to remain civil to my loved ones, I haven't snapped at anyone,  I've dragged myself into work six days a week and staggered around, but everything else, EVERYTHING else has been a nightmare.  I've been unable to complete the simplest task (including two important contracts that I've now totally screwed) to deal with bills, phonecalls and emails, to prepare a meal, to be remotely supportive or helpful  to friends and family or even respond to them,  to stop feeling like a sucking black pit in my thorax is devouring me every single minute, sleeping or waking. I am effectively dead inside, a lumbering barely-functioning zombie that smiles and says 'good morning' and chats cheerily about the weather (or the Prog) even though everything behind my eyes is a howling wasteland and I'm as much use to those around me as dead battery.

I'm trying every coping mechanism I have ever heard of, or have had any success with in the past, and all it does is turn me into a Potemkin village of a person. I think, finally, I need to go down the chemical route, but I can't even seem to manage tackling that.

Allowing that no-one here is a doctor or an expert, and I'm not going to act on anyone's advice, what are my likely options here once (if) I do approach my GP? What sort of drugs are prescribed these days, and what do they do?

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Tordelback on 28 January, 2016, 12:20:41 PM
Allowing that no-one here is a doctor or an expert, and I'm not going to act on anyone's advice, what are my likely options here once (if) I do approach my GP? What sort of drugs are prescribed these days, and what do they do?

You may be waaay past this point, or you may already be using them, but have you tried St Johns Wort tablets? It's not quackery, I promise. I have a friend who's an industrial chemist by trade and refused to try them for years, believing prescription remedies were the only realistic answer (but also refusing to take those as well!) but when I finally persuaded (OK, bullied) him into trying them, his partner commented on the improvement within 24 hours.

It certainly won't do you any harm, and it may take the edge off a little.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

TordelBack

Cheers Sharky!  No, wait... Jim?  Confess I always assumed St John's Wort was quackery, mentally filed right next to 'homeopathy' (although critically not actually under homeopathy). But sure I'll give it a shot. Right now, I'd scoff communion wafer if I thought it'd help.

JayzusB.Christ

I know how you feel.  I take Lexapro (or a far cheaper non-brand analogue thereof).

I came off it a few years ago, during my blissful few months of travelling Asia; and it was easy in that environment - no withdrawal or anything.  I thought I'd never be depressed again.  I came home, though, to no job, money, home nor crazy but fun Thai girlfriend, and the onset ofboth  a cold Irish winter and middle age, and was plunged into a terrible pit of depression like I'd never had before.  Sometimes it was difficult to even walk a few steps; such was the effort it seemed at the time.  I wanted to die.

Going back on Lexapro helped me to rebuild my life again.  I still take it these days, and while my life is far from a blissful idyll, I haven't been depressed since then - I have aspirations and ambitions and take pleasure in simple things.  To the best of my knowledge hasn't affected me in any adverse way, except for the nuisance factor of having to buy it every month and take it every day.  (It was my mother, also a sufferer, who first recommended medication; when I was in my early 20s - as she says, 'You'd take medication for a sick liver, so why not for a sick mind?'). 

That's my experience anyway; obviously it doesn't work for everyone but it has been a major helping hand in my life.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

TordelBack

Good stuff, JBC, that's exactly the kind of info I'm after. It's hard to believe I'm so fecking ignorant when I've been dealing with this for more than 20 years, and too regularly in the past 10. 

I've only twice visited a GP about it, once in my very early 20s when I was prescribed a 'tonic' containing amphetamines, that I liked entirely too much and actually led me on to taking speed (but that's another story), and again in my late-30s when I was simply advised to knuckle down and 'not let it define your life'. Which I've been trying to do ever since, although quite frankly that's exactly what it has done. When you find yourself binning your phone and sleeping in your car to avoid your own family and friends, as I did a year or so back,  I think that definitions are moot. 

So time for a change.

paddykafka

Quote from: Tordelback on 28 January, 2016, 12:54:39 PM
Right now, I'd scoff communion wafer if I thought it'd help.

Well, 1.2 Billion Roman Catholics in the world can't be wrong, you know.

But seriously, Tordel, I do hope that you'll get through this latest bout of the Black Dog. I'm not in any position of expertise - bar my own long, ongoing struggle with Chronic Anxiety Disorder and other various mental health gremlins - to offer advice. But if you do feel the necessity to go down the chemical route, just bare in mind that it can cause it's own share of problems with regard to side effects of the medication on some individuals.

If you have a good and sympathetic GP who actually LISTENS to you, then that at least is a good start in terms of appropriate advice and support for your particular circumstances. I wish you all the best in any event and take care.

Cheers - Paddy

TordelBack

Thanks Paddy, wise words. I'm not rushing into medication willy nilly wity no thought for side-effects - I've seen plenty of those.  I just want to get a sense of what is out there, after blanking the whole idea for so long. I'm basically giving up the illusion that I'm even holding my ground against this thing that seems intent on laying waste to my life just as I've almost put it back together again.