Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[CLKD]

Mown grass
Air that I breath
Leaving on a Jet Plane ………. but I don't feel the memories

It's like if someone tells me that they are suffering from a cold I know how the symptoms can make *them* feel, I don't feel the dry mouth, itchy nose, sore eyes unless I have the Germ …….. 

[GypsyRoseLee]

I'm exactly like you Dorothy (that's the 2nd time I posted that tonight). When my mood is very low I can look at photos and 'know' I felt very happy when they were taken, but I cannot feel any inner echoes of that happiness. It's like there is a mental block stopping me experiencing any feeling of joy, pleasure or optimism. Instead there is just a flat deadness tinged with a knotted anxiety.

Before now I always assumed depression was just feeling very, very sad. But it's not like that for me. Instead it's just an absence of emotion, just a flat empty nothingness. Actual sadness would be much better.

Then it goes away, and it's like all my inner lights have been switched back on. I feel hope, pleasure and excitement and it almost frightens me because after feeling so low, it's almost overwhelming.

[Dorothy]

GRL, that's twice you've been exactly like me.  You should be worried.  Very, very worried.     

You are so right about depression - I am so glad I didn't have it permanently and feel so sad for those who do.  I've felt 'depressed' before, but that was a whole different thing.  At least it's given me a better understanding of what it is like to suffer this way.

[Ju Ju]

I was depressed throughout my childhood. It was like having a blanket over my head. I do recall happier moments eg Christmas wonder, but I didn't really know what happiness was. I remember looking out of the window at college at not a particularly inspiring view, say probably when I was 19 and experiencing a good feeling. There was no particular reason other than I was where I wanted to be and away from where I didn't want to be. I believe the new feeling was happiness. It comes from within. It's always there, but depression stops you from assessing it. What causes depression? Certainly in my case it was caused by circumstances and as it was in my formative years, has caused physical and health issues. But in others there is a physical cause eg manic depression, which cannot be explained by life experience.

[CLKD]

Manic depression isn't 'physical', no depression is. 

Depression is either situational (clinical) or caused organically in that the brain doesn't make the 'right' chemicals to keep the brain healthy.  I have both  .  Clinical depression is similar in that the person is in situations that they can't alter, so they begin to feel low and frustrated; add to that not eating properly or drinking too much alcohol or ……. the brain doesn't get supported so it becomes depressed.  Organic depression can be sudden onset. 

I was also depressed after I'd been on The Pill for 9 years, after 11 I had to stop taking it.  HORMONES  .  Since 1989 I have had organic depression; in that without daily medication I would dip after 22 months …….. until I can't get out of bed.   

My Dad had manic depression.  He would work continually for hours/days at a time with hardly a rest: his day-time job followed by pursuing his hobbies into the early hours ……. then he would be hit by depression so deep that he couldn't get out of bed  .  He did have in-between moods, which is why I HATE the words 'bi-polar' because most sufferers have in-between moods as well as the intense lows and highs where they could fly to the moon and back!

[Ju Ju]

What I mean by physical is that manic depression/ bi polar is not necessarily caused by environmental experiences. I'm not an expert on depression, but I understood that it could be inherited. I was diagnosed with just clinical depression, with what is now called OCD. Which is why I have been able to recover to a great extent away from the situation. What causes organical depression? Why won't your brain make the correct chemicals? Is it something you were born with? When I have bad IBS symptoms, I get low emotionally, not to the sererity of depression. I was told it was because I have a low store of serotonin, which is manufactured in the gut. If that is the case, doesn't it make it a physical symptom? However, IBS, like asthma is a somatic illness, which may originate from emotional causes and certainly can be triggered by emotional causes as well as physical causes. Yep, I'm confused!

Whatever.....depression and anxiety are horrible conditions to deal with. I would never want to go back to my childhood, but the experience has made me stronger and more empathetic.

[CLKD]

Depression and OCD aren't the same  but can be inter-connected, inter-dependant.  My depression manifests itself alarmingly.  I get really scared when it stays around for more than 2/3 days  and it's usually brain centric.  I never understood how seretonin can be 'made' in the gut but is what the brain requires, dopamine springs to mind too.

I get U - re manic depression.  As far as I understand from my family history, it is un-connected by environment in that it isn't a 'learnt' illness (though that was thought for years) but may be genetic or be Bcause the brain's chemicals have gone wrong.  I suppose one can be born with not being able to make the 'correct' chemicals ….. not thought of that possibility as I didn't relies until recent years that young children can be depressed. 

It would be nice to think that the more depression is talked about the more medics would be interested in finding treatments but mental health is way down on most budgets where ever in the World we live :-(. 

My IBS can be triggered by stress.  Due to my being anorexic-type from age 5 …… we're interconnected after all.

[limpy]

Manic depression isn't 'physical', no depression is. 

Depression is either situational (clinical) or caused organically in that the brain doesn't make the 'right' chemicals to keep the brain healthy. 

 


Err - the "right" chemicals not being present sounds like a real physical thing. Chemicals can be measured therefore they are physical.

[CLKD]

That's physics        ……….    that's how it is known that the brain ain't making the 'right' or enough chemicals but it doesn't make it physical ………. the - oh can't think of the word  - result will have to do: the result of not enough chemicals in the brain = organic depression.  Clinical depression manifests itself in a similar way due to situations people find themselves in.  Now of course I can't think of a similar 'physical' condition to explain the difference  . 

For me physicality is headache, gut ache, anxiety, stubbed toe ……..

[limpy]

That's physics

It's Chemistry or even biology - it's real but I don't think it's physics. Physics studies things like electro magnetic forces things like electricity, light and gravity

[CLKD]

  ……….

don't get me started on gravity, I fell off my slippers earlier   

I could explain it verbally  but find it more difficult to put down on the page what I need to share >sigh<

[limpy]

I'd always taken physical as being real or actual. Would that suffice?

[babyjane]

Oh once again your posts are so helpful. I have nausea and a churning stomach and am off my food.  I was sure that it was side effects from my ADs after 6 weeks even though I am feeling better, but seems it could be a flare of my IBS and that could be down to anything, just the stress of being medicated, a busy weekend, starting therapy............the list goes on.  I don't really want to stop my ADs as I am starting to feel a wee bit better and it has been noticed and commented on 

'Serotonin is made in the gut'.  I didn't know that.  My meds are SSRI which up serotonin.  Would that be enough to upset my gut?

[Ju Ju]

Perhaps that's why we talk about having gut feelings.

[booboo]

I wish I could stop worrying about what might/could happen - ie health stuff ...I find when I am stressed my mind seems to gravitate towards negative thoughts & I can convince myself that only bad stuff and all I worry/think about is going to happen... I loathe the way my mind works & all the anx - sometimes I just don't what it feels like to really relax and not be/feel fearful..