unsaved wrote:if someone gobbles a whole bottle of their happy pills--the overdose is treated without prejudice and then the mental health people are called.

Help save a life, and swallow the whole bottle yourself.

DazeyDiver wrote:you are seriously fucked. you should seek professional help.

It's people like unsaved that lead to the violently mentally ill. This notion that mental illness equals weakness and is something to be ashamed of destroys people their families, and it's bullshit. The fact that his 21-year old mind thinks it can wrap itself around such a complex issue is laughable.

You know, when I was 21, I had a nervous breakdown. I didn't know what to do because my family is unbelievably repressed, so I hid at the apartment of some friends, watched Cartoon Network, chain smoked, and played a keyboard for 3 days. Trust me; it's not as Howard Hughes-y as it sounds.

My mother eventually found me and had me "voluntarily" committed. My roommate was from 30 miles north of my town and had tried slitting her wrists because her father was sexually abusing her and she wanted out. She claimed to be gay but really, I think she just hated men at the time. I saw her in a grocery store in Green Bay once holding hands with a guy. We signed contracts to not have contact with one another outside the hospital, so we just smiled knowingly as we passed.

I took smoke breaks in the outdoor area of the shelter with pretty much everyone there (bizarre how popular smoking is among the mentally ill). We talked about our treatments and lives and the thing that surprised me was how little compassion and support anyone had gotten. Their families, the psych ward workers, their friends...no one lifted a hand to help them, told them they were capable and worthy of being happy, tried to assist them with getting their lives in order.

One day, the 14-year old suffering the sexual abuse at home and I hatched a plan for her to get out of her situation. The 40-year old lady in the co-dependent relationship with her husband realized she could start a business if she was willing to put in the effort, and that her husband was full of shit. The teenage boy who just constantly played piano actually exchanged words with a living and breathing female. The old man with the fedora who had been in there for 6 months laughed. Do you know why this happened?

I cared about all of them. I was empathetic and listened and didn't give a fuck if they saw blood-thirsty demons in their beds. I tried to rationalize the blood-thirsty demons away for them. Their doctors tried to put them on medications and ignore them.

unsaved--when I think of you, I think of the asswipe who held me down on the bed at 5 AM for a blood sample as I screamed because I had no clue what was happening, seeing as I had just woken up. You weren't especially mean or kind; you didn't care at all. You looked at me like I was an animal. You were just doing your job.

enframed wrote:

Ekkssvvppllott wrote:I dunno... That advice about "toughing up," getting excercise, eating well, going out more and all that, I find it to be slap in the face, at least when it's suggested as some kind of panacea for depression.

I can feel it in my body sometimes, and it ain't no stomach cramp.

i don't mean it as a slap in the face when i say "get some exercise, change your diet, etc." and i hope no one took it that way.

exercise and diet DO have an have effect on seratonin levels.

+1

Training for a marathon got me off of SSRIs.

YMMV, OC.

I wish that I could find a full-time job as a fisherlady out here. I'm pretty certain that the physical activity and the distraction of being on a fishing vessel would save me from the depths of dythemia or bipolar disorder or whatever the fuck I have. It's sort of my dream job, if anyone happens to know a fisherman from the Bay Area. *wink wink*

enframed wrote:

Ekkssvvppllott wrote:I dunno... That advice about "toughing up," getting excercise, eating well, going out more and all that, I find it to be slap in the face, at least when it's suggested as some kind of panacea for depression.

I can feel it in my body sometimes, and it ain't no stomach cramp.

i don't mean it as a slap in the face when i say "get some exercise, change your diet, etc." and i hope no one took it that way.

exercise and diet DO have an have effect on seratonin levels.

Don't worry, it wasn't taken that way.

There is no doubt exercise and the right diet can help.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:

DazeyDiver wrote:you are seriously fucked. you should seek professional help.

It's people like unsaved that lead to the violently mentally ill. This notion that mental illness equals weakness and is something to be ashamed of destroys people their families, and it's bullshit. The fact that his 21-year old mind thinks it can wrap itself around such a complex issue is laughable.

You know, when I was 21, I had a nervous breakdown. I didn't know what to do because my family is unbelievably repressed, so I hid at the apartment of some friends, watched Cartoon Network, chain smoked, and played a keyboard for 3 days. Trust me; it's not as Howard Hughes-y as it sounds.

My mother eventually found me and had me "voluntarily" committed. My roommate was from 30 miles north of my town and had tried slitting her wrists because her father was sexually abusing her and she wanted out. She claimed to be gay but really, I think she just hated men at the time. I saw her in a grocery store in Green Bay once holding hands with a guy. We signed contracts to not have contact with one another outside the hospital, so we just smiled knowingly as we passed.

I took smoke breaks in the outdoor area of the shelter with pretty much everyone there (bizarre how popular smoking is among the mentally ill). We talked about our treatments and lives and the thing that surprised me was how little compassion and support anyone had gotten. Their families, the psych ward workers, their friends...no one lifted a hand to help them, told them they were capable and worthy of being happy, tried to assist them with getting their lives in order.

One day, the 14-year old suffering the sexual abuse at home and I hatched a plan for her to get out of her situation. The 40-year old lady in the co-dependent relationship with her husband realized she could start a business if she was willing to put in the effort, and that her husband was full of shit. The teenage boy who just constantly played piano actually exchanged words with a living and breathing female. The old man with the fedora who had been in there for 6 months laughed. Do you know why this happened?

I cared about all of them. I was empathetic and listened and didn't give a fuck if they saw blood-thirsty demons in their beds. I tried to rationalize the blood-thirsty demons away for them. Their doctors tried to put them on medications and ignore them.

unsaved--when I think of you, I think of the asswipe who held me down on the bed at 5 AM for a blood sample as I screamed because I had no clue what was happening, seeing as I had just woken up. You weren't especially mean or kind; you didn't care at all. You looked at me like I was an animal. You were just doing your job.

Good post Mandroid +++++++

Mandroid2.0 wrote:I wish that I could find a full-time job as a fisherlady out here. I'm pretty certain that the physical activity and the distraction of being on a fishing vessel would save me from the depths of dythemia or bipolar disorder or whatever the fuck I have. It's sort of my dream job, if anyone happens to know a fisherman from the Bay Area. *wink wink*

Think that Fisherman's Wharf place might have any?

Colonel Panic wrote:I was on Zoloft for about a year and a half, and I didn't feel it did me any good. The thing that eventually got me out of my depression was rediscovering things I enjoyed doing and keeping busy. Accomplishing small things and going on to bigger challenges, that's what eventually worked for me.

Did you have severe withdrawal symptoms? I know someone who got off the stuff and she went through hell getting it out of her system.

I've read elsewhere that exercise for people with mild depression is a superior treatment method than these drugs.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:The fact that his 21-year old mind thinks it can wrap itself around such a complex issue is laughable.

I didn't say I was 21 years old, I said 21 years experience.

As for the rest--big yawn, tell that shit to your therapist. Everybody's family is fucked, and mine was no different (crazed born-again parents)--but I knew at an early age the way out was to go to work, not sit around and watch cartoons.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:God. I fucking hate babies.

unsaved wrote:

Mandroid2.0 wrote:The fact that his 21-year old mind thinks it can wrap itself around such a complex issue is laughable.

I didn't say I was 21 years old, I said 21 years experience.

As for the rest--big yawn, tell that shit to your therapist. Everybody's family is fucked, and mine was no different (crazed born-again parents)--but I knew at an early age the way out was to go to work, not sit around and watch cartoons.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:God. I fucking hate babies.

Hello, Matthew W. I've missed you!