Poll: What do you think of depression?

[DonMartin]

76.5% have had depression?
I cannot believe this.... I think some of you might be getting depression muddled up with feeling depressed.

Good point. It's like when people diagnose themselves with Aspberger's.

That, or were all finnish.

 

[triggrhappy94]

I know what you mean.
Last year I spent about 6 months in depression therapy.
And I'm still coming to terms with my Anxiety disorder.
It might all just be undiagnost manic depression.

You just got to ignore some people. To people who have never had to deal with it, it seems like people are just whining and bitching.

 

[emeraldrafael]

having suffered from it but pulling out of it, I think its something that happens to everyone on some scale. the difference is strength. If you let it control you for a long time, you're weak, and deserve whatever pain you get. its something that should be faced, head on, and either beaten or beaten by. Thats why i dont believe in help with depression. its a solo thing, and if you cant beat it alone, you didnt beat it.

EDIT: as towards the people who say get over it... I ahve to agree with them. I know when i was depressed, i was miserable, and I never want to feel that way again. I felt powerless, unable to help those that had come to rely on me as their emotional rock. I tell anyone who's depressed to get over it, cause honestly, you should. though I try to sound a bit more sincere.

... though when the topic of suicide comes up with it, I lose sympathy and interest.

 

[Woodsey]

Lots of people self-diagnose it, makes them look stupid. Other people actually have it, I imagine it feels like being welcomed to The Suck inside your head. I have never had it.

Those are my thoughts on the matter, all for free, just for you.

 

[Daniel Allsopp]

I tend to ignore it if I don't know the person. I care a little more if I do.
I think a large part of why people tend to dismiss it on the internet is because of the growing fad of people self-diagnosing themselves with mental illness as an excuse for being socially inept. Although it's usually something other than depression that people say they have. Aspergers is a popular one.

Sadly, people dismiss aspergers because it is not easily understood. I have aspergers and have experienced dismissals first hand. It took years of stress to get me diagnosed, with my mother being told it was her fault I was socially inept.

While I myself have experienced depression once in my life, I'm still stuck with paranoid personality disorder and it's kind of a sucky thing to have mostly because it leaves me uneasy and unstable at times. Emotionally it kind of leaves me horribly unfeeling...don't know why at times.

Concerning the main issue, I definitely recognize depression as a serious disorder and shouldn't be taken lightly. I hope that your depression is treatable and I pray for your condition.

Thank you for your concern. I've suffered depression for around 6 years, and nothing has really helped. I tried an anti-depressant (fluoxetine) in the past and it made me worse, but I am going to try other anti-depressants soon.

I think there is a lot of misconception of depression in the general public, especially of depression in young people as it can often get dismissed as teen angst or being over dramatic. I found this out myself a few years ago when I went through a period of severe depression. Thankfully that's mostly behind me now, and I never ever want to have to experience that again. Anyone that has to live every day with depression gets major respect from me because it must take some serious courage.

It's a lack of courage that keeps me alive, I am too afraid of pain and consequence to take my own life. As for the misconception, most people haven't experienced depression first hand and think that ordinary "down" feelings are depression. It's a bit like the flu, people feel so bad they are convinced they have it, but it's just a bad cold, and because of that we have "man-flu", used to describe men exaggerating a cold.

76.5% have had depression?
I cannot believe this.... I think some of you might be getting depression muddled up with feeling depressed.

"Encountered" doesn't mean "experienced", they may know people who suffer(ed) depression, as evidenced by above posts.

 

[teqrevisited]

I have a suspicion that I've been diagnosed as depressed, given the medication I've been prescribed. It wasn't explicitly stated, just presented as "Try these, see if you feel better." though the medication has one or two other uses, they seemed to bear no relation to my current state which lead me to that conclusion.

My take on it is as long as I don't lose myself and think too much about the things I don't have the power to change I'll be fine. Overthinking as a depressive can be quite a destructive downward spiral.

 

[000Ronald]

A lot of the people in my family have been diagnosed as having depression. Hell, I've been diagnosed as having depression, although I was only twelve at the time.

So, yeah, it's a real thing, and it's nasty. Seek out help, and when I say help, I mean other people. Keeping it to yourself may only seem to be hurting you, but it's hurting everyone around you, too.

 

[Daniel Allsopp]

Where's the option for "have been or am currently diagnosed with depression?".

I wanted the four core options for simplicity, and for clarity of the result.

I have cyclothymia, which is (as Stephen Fry, a sufferer of it himself, so elegantly put it) Bipolar Light. I am currently coming out of a depressive episode, or at least I hope so, so I'm answering this poll differently than I would two weeks from now or two weeks before now.

During depressive periods, I accept depression. It's so overwhelming I cant think of anything else, and I fully sympathize with anyone experiencing it. No matter which state I am in, however, I know how painful depression is and can be.

During "manic" (Cyclothymia doesnt get as manic as bipolar, hence the quotation marks) periods, though, I consider depression a thing of the past, something you can get through and ignore. I know, of course, how wrong I am, but I still think like that. I even laugh and am embarrassed with myself, thinking Ive wasted so much time being depressed.

So depending on when you ask, Ill give a different answer. But at least I am aware of that.

The human mind is, for all it's brilliance, very flawed. It out right refuses to accept anything that it cannot understand, which is why so many people deny things that are proven in favour of things that they always thought were right. That is why it takes so long for changes in the world to be accepted, those who reject the change have to be bred out. As such, same-sex relations will only be fully accepted once everyone who knew any different is dead. Humans living for such a long time is a fault in that we evolve slower than we would if we lived a mere 10 years, but I suppose we must live a long time so that the brain fully develops.

 

[Seanfall]

I think it's odd that so many of those 'anti-depression' pills have 'may cause thoughts of suicide' as a freakin side affect. Yeah...gee that helps.

 

[Daniel Allsopp]

A lot of the people in my family have been diagnosed as having depression. Hell, I've been diagnosed as having depression, although I was only twelve at the time.

So, yeah, it's a real thing, and it's nasty. Seek out help, and when I say help, I mean other people. Keeping it to yourself may only seem to be hurting you, but it's hurting everyone around you, too.

I am very open about my condition, everyone who knows me knows about it. Still, the help I have received has been lacking.

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

They told me I have it, I still think it's bull shit in SO MANY cases. My cure? Work out and cheer the fuck up. I get that it's a proven medical thing, but I think about eighty percent of those who think they have or are diagnosed with depression don't have it.

 

[000Ronald]

I think it's odd that so many of those 'anti-depression' pills have 'may cause thoughts of suicide' as a freakin side affect. Yeah...gee that helps.

Depression is caused by a chemical imbalince in the brain. The pills work to fix that, but it's kinda wonky at best. It's still better than nothing.

A lot of the people in my family have been diagnosed as having depression. Hell, I've been diagnosed as having depression, although I was only twelve at the time.

So, yeah, it's a real thing, and it's nasty. Seek out help, and when I say help, I mean other people. Keeping it to yourself may only seem to be hurting you, but it's hurting everyone around you, too.

I am very open about my condition, everyone who knows me knows about it. Still, the help I have received has been lacking.

Well tell them you don't feel they've been supporting you, and that you need help. They may find it annoying, but if they care about you, they will help (or at least try).

 

[Daniel Allsopp]

I think it's odd that so many of those 'anti-depression' pills have 'may cause thoughts of suicide' as a freakin side affect. Yeah...gee that helps.

I haven't been taught anything on psychology or medicine, so this is just my theory. I think that those medications inhibit parts of the brain to "dull" certain feelings. You'd probably feel depression less, but you'd be insensitive, and suicide would no longer seem "bad".

 

[Wilko316]

Honestly it upsets me.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I suffer from depression because of the neurological and pain condition on my right hand, neck and torso... I can't sleep properly, I am unable to use my right hand properly and I am in constant pain and most of all I am losing my ability to play video-games... And If someone says that is a bad excuse of not doing stuff because I am depressed, I welcome them to join my world and see how shit it is to live like this, a world in which the simple task of using a spoon/fork/knife or hold pen properly is a fucking achievement...

I take Anti-depressants for 2 reasons, to relax my mind, release tension, help with depression and for the side-effect that the medication has: it increases tolerance for physical pain. I am getting pain counseling an psychological help to live and manage the physical and mental pain.

Tho there is different types of depression. I accept people depression if they really have a problem, but not depression like "My life is OK, I am healthy, I have friends, I have money and I have no real mental/health issues" - aka Emo depression... No one should play being depressed just because they can or want attention, it is not a thing to joke about really, it hurts people, it destroys lives and is a sign of real issues that should be dealt with.


But yeah: If you have a real proper issue to be depressed, I am OK with it, I might even try to help you with it since I know how it feels. But if you want to be depressed because you can or want attention I will slap you and tell you to act like a grown-up...

 

[Feralcentaur]

76.5% have had depression?
I cannot believe this.... I think some of you might be getting depression muddled up with feeling depressed.

The poll says encountered depression, not experienced or had.

 

[Daniel Allsopp]

Well tell them you don't feel they've been supporting you, and that you need help. They may find it annoying, but if they care about you, they will help (or at least try).

Friends and family are supportive, it's the "professionals" that provide no help. They are emotionless creatures that go through a standard routine. They do not try to understand you as a person and earn your trust so that you let them through your shell. They merely ask how you feel, and how they can help you, and give you useless advice like "regulate your sleeping pattern, go for walks".

It's like a child solving one of those peg and hole puzzles. Instead of carefully analysing the shape of the hole and the possible pegs, it simply rams each and every peg into the hole until one fits. And if one peg doesn't fit you just need to push harder, right?

 

[Ursus Buckler]

If you go to my sixth form school, chances are you'll be depressed. It's like a big Dementor built out of brick, sucking out every vestige of happiness from you. That paired with being useless with girls, isolated from my friends mostly... etc.
I suffer from it usually but there does come a point where you need to suck it up and move the fuck on. There's a time and a place for it, and frankly I'm sick of feeling like it. What does get on my nerves is that usually I complain for the sake of comedy, but people usually take it as me being over-dramatic and whiney... but I'm not. But yeah, I've been depressed for altogether too long now. I feel that it's time I just do my best to get out of this godforsaken school as quickly as I can, otherwise I really won't be truly happy.

 

[Daniel Allsopp]

I suffer from depression because of the neurological and pain condition on my right hand, neck and torso... I can't sleep properly, I am unable to use my right hand properly and I am in constant pain and most of all I am losing my ability to play video-games... And If someone says that is a bad excuse of not doing stuff because I am depressed, I welcome them to join my world and see how shit it is to live like this, a world in which the simple task of using a spoon/fork/knife or hold pen properly is a fucking achievement...

I take Anti-depressants for 2 reasons, to relax my mind, release tension, help with depression and for the side-effect that the medication has: it increases tolerance for physical pain. I am getting pain counseling an psychological help to live and manage the physical and mental pain.

Tho there is different types of depression. I accept people depression if they really have a problem, but not depression like "My life is OK, I am healthy, I have friends, I have money and I have no real mental/health issues" - aka Emo depression... No one should play being depressed just because they can or want attention, it is not a thing to joke about really, it hurts people, it destroys lives and is a sign of real issues that should be dealt with.


But yeah: If you have a real proper issue to be depressed, I am OK with it, I might even try to help you with it since I know how it feels. But if you want to be depressed because you can or want attention I will slap you and tell you to act like a grown-up...

It is possible to be depressed "for no reason", until recently I had friends and a girlfriend who loved me. I was with my ex for 3 years, yet during that time I was still depressed.

 

[Stilkon]

For some reason there seem to be a lot of Aspergers Syndrome references tied in to this.

OT: Saying depression sucks is an understatement. While on meds, I felt like no one was really there to help me. I now do my best to help others so that they don't have to go through the same.