Poll: What do you think of depression?

[SinisterGehe]

I have the standard internet double-whammy of Depression and Asperger's. Unlike many, I have the government disability check, my getting kicked out of the Air Force for it, and the miles of paperwork to prove it.

I take Celexa and Welbutrin for my depression, though I think my depression is milder than most. But that might be the medication helping. Or not.

For everyone who thinks "I get bullied, and I think I'm really smart, I MUST HAVE ASPERGER'S" It doesn't exactly work that way. More than likely, you just grew up around assholes.

I fell you. I have the same thing going on, my Asperger's got diagnosed 10 years later than it should have been, no the fact that I have Asperger's gives me nothing more than open door to the support group and additional help if I can't get a job... I wish it could been diagnosed earlier so I could have received help in early school life. Now all the comfort it really gives me is an answer to the questions of "why do I act this way".
I got diagnosed when I got in to the pain treatment plan. Personality analyze and Behavior pattern studies are a protocol tests if you are classified as a pain patient in Finnish health-care system.

Just curious, what is our "thing"? Do you have the obsessive/skilled "thing" also? Or just the behavioral patterns?

And Also, I know what you mean by that last part in your post. In my school system there is a issue with the modern parents not accepting that a child might not be interested about school or people. First they get tested for ADHD if they don't have it they get tested for Asperger's, if they do not have that either then the parents want a some kind of a miracle pill so they can get the child behave...

Our "thing" is different from person to person. Mine is sports. I can tell you the winner, loser, score, and MVP of every World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Championship and NHL Stanley Cup ever played. I can talk for hours about sports without stopping.

I'm lucky, with Sports Journalist, I was able to turn my "thing" into a career. Some aren't as lucky.

I also flailed my arms when I was younger, which I've learned to control, and open my mouth and shut it randomly, which allows me at this point to dislocate my jaw at will.

Yeah I know...

My "thing"s" are music and philosophy, and I mean like hardcore obsessive, I try to restrain myself from trying to learn too many instruments the same time. I am happy that my music has reached some publicity with thanks to few small orchestras that accepted my material. I "understand" music so to speak. Also, my hearing is extremely good, I am not absolute on note tunes, but I can hear everything in music. I wish I could go professional, but I can not become professional player due to my neurological condition. I am hoping to reach professional level with something to do with music.
And philosophy, I love it, I hunger for it. Everything I do say, behave, the way I play music, how I create music and the ways I think are all driven so deep addiction of understand more and more about the meta-levels of everything.
I also have extremely ability to image 3D things, example when I was younger I could learn blueprints of any building and then rotate them in my mind by will to any perspective, I still can do it for some parts, but It has been kinda overrun by music, It has turned from seeing 3D objects, in to "seeing" music, when I listen music I see the piano chords, I see the fingerings of brass/woodwind instruments, I see the string player's hands on the neck of their instruments.
Tho all of my "things" are connected with the common factor of that I have to understand everything, I have to understand why the composer wrote this and that, what does that mean, why is this thing build like this. But understanding emotions? I could care less about that...

Tho, it came with cons. Issue with sociality, problems understand social contexts in speech and text - example I can not tell when someone is joking and when they are not or to "read between the lines".

I also have these movements I have to do when I am thinking about music or philosophy, I have to raise my hands and rube my eyes/nose and ears, I also have to close my eyes - which I been practicing to control since it is hard to read sheet music with your eyes closed .

Well, my friends and the shrinks/support group I been talking to say that these self-control things on most parts will become easier, so I am curious - do they? I been noticing that my obsessions and hunger for logic and organization keeps getting worse and worse... I don't know how old you are, but older than I am for sure.

SO how is your life? Did the other "side-effects" that you couldn't control get easier on you? Also if you don't mind, what kind of "side-effects" you had. (I say side-effects since I just can't come up with a better word, I am not native to English language so I lack some of the more complicated expressions)

 

[ilikepie59]

I had it for a couple of years, but a bit of medication and proper application of counselling and I'm now just a socially retarded introvert who doesn't get invited to parties. Not much has changed about my situation, but I do feel better about being a loner.

I think you just need to find your group of people. And social retardation is just lack of experience, so I urge you to socialize more. I mean if you're into games and I was in your neighborhood I'd be inviting you over to my house so we can get wasted off "Chex Mix", Pizza, Reese's Cups, and caffeine wile making gaming history. I would be down with that! What about you?

You know what? That would be pretty cool!
I'm guessing you're in America, so probably not with you specifically, but yeah. Thanks for the idea.

 

[Goldeneye103X2]

I haven't encountered it, but I can assume that it's not a good thing.

Everyone else at my school just dismisses it as an excuse to get attention.
Like, seriously, I went through a period of depression, and I just got bullied for it. No one at the school thought It was a bad thing, just an attention seeking ploy. Funny you should mention, it wasn't.

Nowadays, if anyone says they are depressed or something, it doesn't matter to me whether they're attention whoring or not. If they want attention, it's usually a good idea to give them some. Just to make them feel slightly better.

 

[UberNoodle]

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I agree with what you just said, and I appreciate your efforts in this discussion. It is refreshing to see posts like yours in a Web forum. Certainly, happiness is entirely relative and we tend to judge other's happiness by how we ourselves would respond to that other person's life. Yet, like they say, money can't buy love, or happiness, or whatever it is. Maybe it's both.

And yes, certainly we have the power to affect our neuralchemistry via thought. I was being facetious by suggesting that it is also possible that even those thoughts are also only defined by neural chemistry. That would be when a person is so far gone to their condition that they are blind to things which are painfully obvious to others. People in love are an example of this.

A family friend suicided many years back and "who would have known?" was the standard response to that. Well, he certainly did. Perhaps if hadn't had the textbook 'happy life' we all would have seen how he truly felt inside. And he apparently appeared to live that happy life until the moment he ended it. There are so many layers to us all - so many versions of ourselves all existing independantly and often against oneother. I feel that often the seeds of depression are sown by a clash between one or more of these selves. The trick is coming to terms with that and deciding which selves to listen to and which to ignore.

Anyway, I have enjoyed this discussion.

Cherio!

 

[JohnTomorrow]

Depression is a serious medical condition, and anybody who thinks otherwise clearly has no idea.

Its not just a mind-state, at least not all the time. Clinical depression can something be due to chemical imbalances created by the stressors of your life in your brain, which affect your emotions severely.

I love my dad so much, but failing at his career and having to move in with my sister and her new husband has put him in a deep depression. I understand completely where he's coming from (i suffered from depression back in high school to the point of suicide attempts, nothing serious and i'm better now, thank Odin), but it is so difficult for a non-depressed person to be around a depressed person. THey are constantly down no matter what you try, and that can sometimes get quite frustrating and aggrivating for the non-depressed person. They cannot wrap their head around why you are depressed when the objective you need to make yourself feel better are right in front of you -

Its not that you dont want to be happy. The exact opposite, in fact. Its that you cant physically bring yourself to make yourself happy. Like i said - its a medical condition which is treated by medicine and therapy.