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They? No. Myself? I think it's just paranoia caused by the combination of alcohol and Prozac.
The paranoia plays on delusions that I experience, but that's a whole other story.
Depression and Anxiety Thread
- Thread starter JohnBM01
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They? No. Myself? I think it's just paranoia caused by the combination of alcohol and Prozac.
The paranoia plays on delusions that I experience, but that's a whole other story.
HenrySwanson
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Whatever the scientists say about Prozac, I can’t rate it highly enough for my own problems, although I’d rather be non-medicated, but that’s not an option at the moment. It certainly helps to suppress the disire to self destruct.
As for a deeper reason, there’re certainly a few but not anything I really want to focus on right now. Let’s just say it involves women and I’ll leave it at that.
Yesterday I had so much stress that I became lightheaded (dizziness, vertigo or whatever you call it) on three occasions. I also kept thinking; "this life has to over as soon as possible".
Yesterday late afternoon everything started to get better and in the evening I was my funny self again. Pfff, what a life. My next incarnation must be much better.
Yesterday late afternoon everything started to get better and in the evening I was my funny self again. Pfff, what a life. My next incarnation must be much better.
I have known this for quite some time now. It is nice to see that clinical trials look promising.
https://universityhealthnews.com/da...pressants-found-to-be-as-effective-as-prozac/
https://universityhealthnews.com/da...pressants-found-to-be-as-effective-as-prozac/
HenrySwanson
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Thanks for posting this. A few comments on the first study:
1. It's a study from 2013/4
2. The number enrolled is very small - only 60 and these were divided among 3 treatment arms so only twenty in each group
3. As such even though the group given both Prozac and curcumin had better outcome results, it wasn't statistically signiciant (i.e. it couldn't be ruled out that it was due to chance).
4. Prozac scored higher than curcumin alone in remission and "excellent" responses (it's not indicated whether this was statistically significant)
5. There's no placebo AKA "dummy pill" to test against - arguably the greatest flaw in the study design and one that the authors acknowledge.
As such, it's hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from it. Further reading however leads to this study which is a meta-analysis - meaning it looks at a number of studies. It found that:
Curcumin appears to be safe, well-tolerated, and efficacious among depressed patients. More robust randomized controlled trials with larger sample sizes and follow-up studies carried out over a longer duration should be planned to ascertain its benefits.
* Emphasis is mine
Take from that what you will
HenrySwanson
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Does anyone else experience a significant improvement when spring finally takes over from winter?
I've had this experience more frequently the last 10 years.
The winter is relatively long, cold and dark in my part of the world, some years both literally and figuratively.
After a particularly difficult one I tend to get a feeling of relief and optimism when spring finally breaks out.
The warm weather, the extra hours of sunlight and the feeling that nature is waking from its slumber tends to rub off on me.
Anyone else get this feeling?
I've had this experience more frequently the last 10 years.
The winter is relatively long, cold and dark in my part of the world, some years both literally and figuratively.
After a particularly difficult one I tend to get a feeling of relief and optimism when spring finally breaks out.
The warm weather, the extra hours of sunlight and the feeling that nature is waking from its slumber tends to rub off on me.
Anyone else get this feeling?
Hello fellow GTP'ers. Yesterday I didn't take ashwagandha and I slept from 11 pm until 7:50 am. My experiment went as I thought I'd go. Ashwagandha is a good thing but if you're sensitive to everything (literally everything), don't take too much or during the day.
I took one at 8 am to see if I can fall asleep this evening as usual instead of staying awake all night and fall asleep in the middle of the night or early morning.
I took one at 8 am to see if I can fall asleep this evening as usual instead of staying awake all night and fall asleep in the middle of the night or early morning.
HenrySwanson
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A few points on it:
- It's again a small number of participants, but they acknowledge that this is because it's a preliminary study
- There's no placebo again
However the results do show that it is as effective as Prozac, although the test was only for 6 weeks and there was no follow up and therefore no opportunity to look at long term outlook/remission.
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- JMarine25
Just keep going strong, everyone. Try to remain positive. Maybe seek help from others or with supplements or therapy if depressed. We are going to have our ups and downs. Especially if the latter holds true, you must be strong enough to deal with such transgressions and low points in your life. Just one thing- DO NOT LET DEPRESSION WIN OVER YOU.
HenrySwanson
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Just did the phq 9 to see how my depression is and scored 15 meaning it's "moderately severe". I'm going through a lot at the moment as I'm contemplating whether to follow through with my degree into employment or take a "lesser" job but I'm still surprised at my result
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First time ive seen a thread or discussion like this and not felt like part of the club. I've come a long way.
Some things that helped me;
Eating better. Even soon after I started trying to cook for myself more and eat properly, as well as eating with my family and friends more, I became markedly less irrational day to day. This was actually really hard to keep up. Sometimes my brain didn't see the point in sustaining my existence, id eat as little as possible, bland food that took no prep, just to get it out of the way. Now I'm going out of my way to try new things, learn to cook, my body is a lot happier with me. I get so much more energy throughout the day, and when I have it I find it hard to sit around and not use it.
Go outside. I live in the countryside and think this is a better option for people who do rather than citydwellers. I personally have always found cities claustrophobic and stressful. The difference in air quality between boarding the Isle of Wight Ferry, and then stepping off a train into London when you've been sealed in the train for a couple of hours - It's like breathing stale water. Get outside, even aimlessly. Walk, explore, make your body work. Get tired. Physical fatigue can win out when your brain doesn't want to let you sleep. God, the sea is good. If you have access to it, and there is a day that water is mildly palatable, get in there. It's invigorating. Some people have never seen it. Some people would kill for a tranquil place to spend an hour.
Smoking weed. Ah, the biggy. Be honest with yourself. What's your relationship with drugs? Drink? Do you enjoy drinking, smoking as much as you do? Is it the same as when you started? I had to face these questions, and the answers were bad. I thought my smoking habit was relatively healthy because I didn't drink, and alcohol is what will kill you, right? But a huge portion of my waking hours were based around weed, either getting it or burning it. I had no time left in my brain to think about myself, things I want to do and achieve, and as soon as I did have the time, I was stoned and distracted, and probably thinking about pointless ****. Now I smoke in only a few situations; a party, where I still much prefer smoking to drinking, I am a very embarrassing drunk which I consider a lucky strike as I'm unlikely to ever have a dangerous relationship with alcohol. I smoke after, and only after, a hard day's work. Those days I have to myself I no longer wake up and roll a joint. That just writes your day off. Trust in your own company, learn how to have a good day with yourself.
Finally, I stopped trying to heal the world. I think growing up in a time with archives of information at our fingertips, news stories spreading in moments that used to take days, has had a profound impact on our generation. We've concerned ourselves with all the great problems of the world - the injustices, struggles, great problems we face, have been in front of us, unfolding before our eyes in closer proximity than any other time in history. Kids discuss the economy, social reform, geopolitics from a younger and younger age and it's my personal belief this has been a factor in the skyrocketing of mental health issues. I tell myself this - I am who I am, where I am, and this is what's in front of me. There are problems everywhere, globally, nationally, and locally. Very few of them can I actually affect. So those that I can't, I try to focus on the positive. I try to believe there are good people in powerful places. Good people aren't loud. We focus on the loud, and therefore the bad, while good people keep the world just about ticking away. Not through any concerted, grand effort, but by dealing with what they know, what's in front of them, and what they can realistically affect. I can't do anything about disenfranchised youth, unemployment, war, famine, but I CAN do something about some things. I can clean up my room, I can help my family and friends, I can make my voice heard about local issues. So I did some of these things, started litter picking the footpaths around me, not for any compensation, just to see them look nice. I helped a friend take apart a whole mobile home sat decaying on his land, and refused when he offered to pay. That process, of putting in physical work and seeing tangible results as we reclaimed a huge patch of land that he can use to grow all sorts of things, that process itself was payment enough.
There will always be wobbles. Bad days happen. Sometimes for no reason. But you can and will take control of your thoughts and by extension your life. And this life is worth it. This place is so wonderful we still can't make sense of it after thousands of years, endless progress, probing, questioning, proving ourselves wrong. I want to be around to see what else we are wrong about, what surprises are around the corner. That's not how I used to feel. Everything was so predictable, I'd been promised I would do great things and go far, I failed, on my own terms. (i was a very smart kid and a not very smart teenager). But I'm young, **** knows what is in store for me, for the world.
I appreciate this post might not help you. I can't guarantee what works for me will work for you, but if even one of you thinks one part of this post was valuable, then it was worth writing.
Some things that helped me;
Eating better. Even soon after I started trying to cook for myself more and eat properly, as well as eating with my family and friends more, I became markedly less irrational day to day. This was actually really hard to keep up. Sometimes my brain didn't see the point in sustaining my existence, id eat as little as possible, bland food that took no prep, just to get it out of the way. Now I'm going out of my way to try new things, learn to cook, my body is a lot happier with me. I get so much more energy throughout the day, and when I have it I find it hard to sit around and not use it.
Go outside. I live in the countryside and think this is a better option for people who do rather than citydwellers. I personally have always found cities claustrophobic and stressful. The difference in air quality between boarding the Isle of Wight Ferry, and then stepping off a train into London when you've been sealed in the train for a couple of hours - It's like breathing stale water. Get outside, even aimlessly. Walk, explore, make your body work. Get tired. Physical fatigue can win out when your brain doesn't want to let you sleep. God, the sea is good. If you have access to it, and there is a day that water is mildly palatable, get in there. It's invigorating. Some people have never seen it. Some people would kill for a tranquil place to spend an hour.
Smoking weed. Ah, the biggy. Be honest with yourself. What's your relationship with drugs? Drink? Do you enjoy drinking, smoking as much as you do? Is it the same as when you started? I had to face these questions, and the answers were bad. I thought my smoking habit was relatively healthy because I didn't drink, and alcohol is what will kill you, right? But a huge portion of my waking hours were based around weed, either getting it or burning it. I had no time left in my brain to think about myself, things I want to do and achieve, and as soon as I did have the time, I was stoned and distracted, and probably thinking about pointless ****. Now I smoke in only a few situations; a party, where I still much prefer smoking to drinking, I am a very embarrassing drunk which I consider a lucky strike as I'm unlikely to ever have a dangerous relationship with alcohol. I smoke after, and only after, a hard day's work. Those days I have to myself I no longer wake up and roll a joint. That just writes your day off. Trust in your own company, learn how to have a good day with yourself.
Finally, I stopped trying to heal the world. I think growing up in a time with archives of information at our fingertips, news stories spreading in moments that used to take days, has had a profound impact on our generation. We've concerned ourselves with all the great problems of the world - the injustices, struggles, great problems we face, have been in front of us, unfolding before our eyes in closer proximity than any other time in history. Kids discuss the economy, social reform, geopolitics from a younger and younger age and it's my personal belief this has been a factor in the skyrocketing of mental health issues. I tell myself this - I am who I am, where I am, and this is what's in front of me. There are problems everywhere, globally, nationally, and locally. Very few of them can I actually affect. So those that I can't, I try to focus on the positive. I try to believe there are good people in powerful places. Good people aren't loud. We focus on the loud, and therefore the bad, while good people keep the world just about ticking away. Not through any concerted, grand effort, but by dealing with what they know, what's in front of them, and what they can realistically affect. I can't do anything about disenfranchised youth, unemployment, war, famine, but I CAN do something about some things. I can clean up my room, I can help my family and friends, I can make my voice heard about local issues. So I did some of these things, started litter picking the footpaths around me, not for any compensation, just to see them look nice. I helped a friend take apart a whole mobile home sat decaying on his land, and refused when he offered to pay. That process, of putting in physical work and seeing tangible results as we reclaimed a huge patch of land that he can use to grow all sorts of things, that process itself was payment enough.
There will always be wobbles. Bad days happen. Sometimes for no reason. But you can and will take control of your thoughts and by extension your life. And this life is worth it. This place is so wonderful we still can't make sense of it after thousands of years, endless progress, probing, questioning, proving ourselves wrong. I want to be around to see what else we are wrong about, what surprises are around the corner. That's not how I used to feel. Everything was so predictable, I'd been promised I would do great things and go far, I failed, on my own terms. (i was a very smart kid and a not very smart teenager). But I'm young, **** knows what is in store for me, for the world.
I appreciate this post might not help you. I can't guarantee what works for me will work for you, but if even one of you thinks one part of this post was valuable, then it was worth writing.
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19/27 for me... seems fair.
If self debt in your ability to see through your degree, and build on it, is something that's in your head, I think that will be reflected in the scores.
HenrySwanson
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Nice 👍I scored 3.
Sorry to hear. How long would you say it's been that bad
I've actually passed the exams and so will graduate next month but I'm not convinced I have the abilities to be in the job the degree qualifies you for. But yes I agree, it definitely is skewing my score.MatskiMonk
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Long enough for two separate groups of people to express their concern that I may be suicidal, which I'm not, but work and financial pressure over the last couple of years is clearly taking its toll. I'd expect the score to have been solidly in the teens for about the last... 25 years or so though.
If you don't have to put anything on the line to follow that career path, I'd say go for it. It depends on the degree, but as an employer I'd always stress that qualifications are only half the picture, experience is the other half - and you can't get that unless you go for it. If you can walk away from the job in 12 months time and simply go to a 'lesser' job then, you'll be doing so having learned more, having applied more, and having experience that those around you in 'lesser' jobs won't have. Just my two cents.
Thanks.
It is actually less than 3 to be honest. More like 1.
I did the test again, in English this time and was completely honest and scored 1 (=normal). I also did the test and answered how I should have felt during my severe clinical depressions (had 6 so far) and I would have scored 27.
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