A question on depression

skintchick

absolutebounder wrote: »

I have to disagree here. A child of 6 has an undevelloped mind and giving mind altering medication would probably have been extremely harmful.
How do you know you were depressed at 6? Depressed compared to who or what? Unhappiness in kids is not uncommon. Assuming parents are not being cruel unhappiness often springs from envy or jealousy because little johhny cant rally understand that his parents cant afford nike trainers like the lad down the road and johhny gets bullied and the lad doesnt coz he is cool etc.
Skinty I have seen your photies and you are a stunning woman but from what you write I am not certain you realise it as much as others. You seem to focus sometimes more on what you dont want and because the unconcious mind doesnt do negative very well one ends up with what we dont want becoming reality. This is why I dont like the depression support thread. Everyone is focusing on being depressed and so they maintain their depression. It is more of a support depression thread.
Also I have to disagree that there is no cure.

It was at 13 that the doctor suggested meds - it would have been OK at that age, but my mum said no.

Mu has said I was clearly very depressed as a young child - not sad, but properly depressed.

I think the main problem with depression is that it causes you to think negatively. I try not to but it can be very hard.

And thanks for the compliment. I don;t believe I am stunning (maybe average on a good day) but thank you.

absolutebounder

skintchick wrote: »

It was at 13 that the doctor suggested meds - it would have been OK at that age, but my mum said no.

I still think your mum was right Drugs tend to do at best mask the problem at worst make it worse still

Mu has said I was clearly very depressed as a young child - not sad, but properly depressed.

I think the main problem with depression is that it causes you to think negatively. I try not to but it can be very hard.

I certainly agree that it causes you to focus in the wrong direction but that doesnt mean you cant correct it

And thanks for the compliment. I don;t believe I am stunning (maybe average on a good day) but thank you.

Skinty On this forum I am often blunt and sometimes controversial but unless I am fooling around I tell the truth and I write what I am thinking. Take it from me as far as looks go you are stunning and if your personality matches your looks your hubby to be is a lucky man. Im sure if he didnt want you there would be a queue miles long (with saucepot at the front:rotfl: )
The thing is though you must learn to love yourself and then you can properly love someone else. If you sit down and think of all the things you have in life you will probably work out that you have a lot less reason to be depressed than most others. You live in a beautiful part of UK so you should be surrounded by life at its best but you have to remember what you focus on is likely to become reality so aim high.

Lita_Ford

I know someone who had been on medication for many years and has had several attention seeking suicide attempts. She always made sure she timed the attempt so someone would save her but unfortunately the last one went wrong. Her partner comes home from work at the same time so half an hour or so before he returned she took an overdose but he ran into an old friend and got delayed. By the time he got home she was dead.
I am wondering if medication helps or caused her to be attention seeking or even increased her depression. The amount of time she was on it tells me it wasnt having much affect.

absolutebounder

Lita_Ford wrote: »

I know someone who had been on medication for many years and has had several attention seeking suicide attempts. She always made sure she timed the attempt so someone would save her but unfortunately the last one went wrong. Her partner comes home from work at the same time so half an hour or so before he returned she took an overdose but he ran into an old friend and got delayed. By the time he got home she was dead.
I am wondering if medication helps or caused her to be attention seeking or even increased her depression. The amount of time she was on it tells me it wasnt having much affect.

Depression can be very attention seeking in its nature. Self harm and half hearted suicide attempts are attention seeking. Occasionally it all tragicaly goes wrong. Many depressed people deny being attention seeking but the condition does make them very introverted. If you listen or readd what depressed people write it is I this and I that and everyone else is so hard on them etc.

mirco

BallandChain,

I think you can't make it this easy... you can't just come and say that "there is a chemical imbalance in the brain" and its always been there...
Chemical balances are beeing changed all the time... and so depression does.... or why do you think there is a different median age for every mental disorder?
Look at Depression Facts or Depression Myths

trace_567

A suicide attempt that doesn’t work isn’t always attention seeking. But believe me it often gets deemed that way. I’ve taken several overdoses over the years, and well almost all have ended up in the eyes of others to be attention seeking. Yet hand on my heart not a single one was anything of the sort.

I’ve take two types of OD’s over the years. The variety with real intent to die, and one that is much harder to explain. I took it after having taken 2 previous ones. I had found that I developed a pattern, after an od I felt “better”. Of course I found this out by accident because the 2 before failed. I reached a point where I just didn’t know how to go on, I knew taking an od would give me a boost, almost a clearing out of the feelings bringing me down. I didn’t care either way if I lived or died, but didn’t take it with a definite intent to die. But equally was not after attention. It was at the time a need I had in order to go on.

However all others were with intent to die, but for various reasons failed so always get deemed attention seeking. Even those that could of in fact have killed me.

Depression and suicide together are very complicated. Sometimes people will take an overdose which in the eyes of others is “attention seeking”, because of what they took, when they took it, where they took it etc. Whilst forgetting that depression can make people too depressed to in fact kill themselves. Its been found I believe that people sometimes actually kill themselves when the depression is lifting. This is because they then find the energy and motivation to make a more serious suicide attempt. Serious in terms of success rate, rather and serious in terms of how that person feels.

Nobody takes an overdose without knowing that they risk death or serious permanent damage to their body. It is a risk they choose to take because of how they feel.

What happens in the time (minutes, days or hours) before the attempt can shape how the attempt takes place. Sometimes there may have been a more serious plan in place, that doesn’t happen because something flicks the switch that pushes you too far. When its done on a almost spear of the moment the attempt can appear as attention seeking, because in effect it was not made to not be found in time etc. But that actually doesn’t in itself mean the attempt was attention seeking. Depression can hamper if you like a genuine suicide attempt due to almost laziness or necessity to die right then, with no time to move yourself somewhere you won’t be found. Or no energy to do so etc.

This is of course just my opinion, based on my own experience of depression and suicide attempts.
There is really only one person who can ever answer the question of a suicide attempt being genuine or attention seeking, and that is the person themselves.

cally1978

OMG, bit shocked at some of the answers on here, quick question??

Lack of serotonin= depression

Lack of thyroxine- thyroid disorder

Both hormones

So do we tell people with thyroid disorders to get over it, pull yourself together etc??

Just my personal view x

cazac71

Depression can also run alongside an undiagnosed PD (Personality Disorder), i was diagnosed with BPD 2 years ago, after having my 1st bout of depression at the age of 11, and was given Tamazipan,and being on AD`s since 16 yrs of age, i was finally told at 34 the BPD was fuelling my depression.Luckily now i`m in Therapy (Long term) and although i struggle, i`m slowly getting to grips with it. I dont think you can be cured of depression/PD i think its more to do with learning to live with it, its not all about chemical imbalance, its also to do with your pattern of thinking.

Caz

absolutebounder

cally1978 wrote: »

OMG, bit shocked at some of the answers on here, quick question??

Lack of serotonin= depression

Lack of thyroxine- thyroid disorder

Both hormones

So do we tell people with thyroid disorders to get over it, pull yourself together etc??

Just my personal view x

I will try to answer for you

Depression and the neurochemical serotonin are now strongly linked in most peoples' minds, especially since the advent of SSRIs - the most famous being Prozac - which are widely thought to work by blocking the re-uptake of serotonin from the releasing neuron.
(The big mistake here is assuming that lack of serotonin causes depression, and therefore drugs are the long-term answer. It's like saying that you need drugs because you are hungry, rather than just eating.)
If an episode of depression causes a change in your serotonin level, this can have an effect on your pain threshold too. Because serotonin helps keep 'pain gates' closed, a lack of it can make you feel more pain. (Back pain is very common amongst depression sufferers).
Serotonin also helps modulate sleep, which is another explanation for the sleep disturbance encountered by those with depression.
So this also explains why people can get such immediate relief from drugs - serotonin is so strongly involved in sleep regulation, pain perception and mood that an increase can have a huge effect. The danger of course, is becoming dependent on drugs instead of tackling the root cause of the depression.
And also, all anti-depressants work by suppressing REM sleep, which as you now know, will lift depression. Again, however, this is treating a symptom, not the cause.
Dopamine is also shown as a potential cause Short-term surges of dopamine are normally associated with feelings of pleasure. But abnormally high concentrations of the chemical messenger are linked to schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, and other psychiatric disorders.
The brain makes these chemicals as a result of thought. Low serotonin levels are found in rotating shift workers but not all of those are depressed.
The big trouble with chemical treatment of depression is that these neurotransmitters are made and used in varying amounts every time we think so it is impossible to correct the ballance acurately. The other problem is the subjective nature of it. One womans cold is another mans flu. In the same way a suicidal day for one person is just taken as !!!!!! happens by another person

cazac71

It makes me wonder if being on all different types of AD`s, and for long periods of time, completely f*ck up the brain chemicals in the end anyway! I`m only on mine now because they are hellish to come off of, i keep trying but the withdrawals are awful, the tabs themselves dont do anything anymore, but then ivebeen on these oes 4 years now.

Caz