OT: Despair

[Atrocities]

A while back Tom Cruise had some kind of altercation with some new reporter about depression and the "accepted" cause for it and many mental health problems.

While I did not see the airing of this interview for myself, I did note that there was a lot of hoop'la'do about it and that many mental health professionals wigged out over what he was saying.

I know first hand how mental health professionals seem to group all mental health issues into one large catagory, "chemical imbalance." While there is no real way to test for this, they often prescribe a morid of medications ranging from RIDDLIN to PROZAC.

I was prescribed such a medication for a sever bought of depression in 1999. This medication later was proven to have caused severe damage to the pancrease and liver. As a result of having taken this medication my pancrease failed and I lost a kidney. I am now plagued by diabeties, excessive weight gain, and boughts of fatigue that often last for weeks. Oh ya, and depression.

At the time I had no idea just how bad things would get or that the people I trusted to help me were little more than witch doctors using me for experimintation. While I was precluded from seeking major damages, one cannot sue an HMO, I was given some help best described as squat.

So when Tom Cruise went off on what has now been characterized as a rambling incomprehendable rant about the Psychiatrist profession and their habitual bad habbits of prescribing medications to just about any one who makes the mistake of walking through their door, it made me think a bit. So I did some research and what I found scared the utter hell out of me. One must be very, very careful now and seriously weigh the pros and cons of taking any medication prescribed by a psychiatrist. I think the best thing would be to say "use at own risk" and if it helps you great, but what is it really doing to you?

I think Tom might be right, it just might all be a huge scam designed to hook us all on pills that none of us really need.

(For extreme depression, some anti-depressent do help keep you from acting upon impulses, so don't count them all out. If your in a bad way, better to be alive then not. Take the pills but becareful.)


More Info Be advised that this also a scientology link... So take the info with a degree of skeptisim. (Not all of what they say is BS, judge for yourself at this point.)

[dogscoff]

Re Atrocities & anti-depressants:
Anti-depressant medication can work and it is a very valuable tool to be used against a truly hideous condition.
Forget cancer & AIDS, depression is the true plague of the 21st century.

Anyway, anti-depressants are not the only tool, and are not ideal for long-term use. They're good for giving you a little stability while you address the causes of your depression, but I do believe they are addictive (even if 'only' psychologically addictive) and can mess you up. There can also be side effects, so they should only be prescribed with care, and with an eye to working on other solutions (like counselling, exercise, diet and lifestyle changes) to the depression in the meantime so that one day the meds will be no longer necessary. Your doctor should help you with these things when prescribing the meds. If s/he doesn't, and seems to be offering the drugs as a complete solution, then consider going to a different doctor.

On another note, many sufferers of depression (although I think this is only good for mild depression) swear by St John's Wort. You can pick it up at any health food shop. Apparently it reduces depressive feelings without damping other emotions in the process. However it does have its own side effects and doesn't mix well with some other drugs, so research carefully.

EDIT: Just realised how old this thread is. That was a very stealthy bit of necromancy, AT.

[Atrocities]

Forget cancer & AIDS, depression is the true plague of the 21st century.

You will get no arguement from me.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Atrocities said:

You will get no arguement from me.

I disagree.....

Cancer is bad, yes, but we DO have ways to cure it, albeit you don't hear a lot about them. Radiation treatment, chemotherapy, yes there are people who do it all and still die but there are also enough people who take those therapies and live. It's a very nasty disease, but not a plague per se.

AIDS, well, the scourge of the third world, people die by it every day, this is a true plague, but a plague of the third world.

Depression is the plague of the first world.

I've been depressed, and contemplated killing myself, but I didn't have such a deep depression as I've read about in this thread. I wholeheartedly agree that depression is a rather terrible affliction, but when people say it's a worse plague than AIDS, well, think about this: How many people die as a result of depression (suicide, carelessness, etc.) every year? And how many people die of AIDS every year?

QED.

[Atrocities]

Cancer, Aids, Depression, they are all horrible. To many of us have lost family to all of these.

I wish I could resolve the thingsthat cause my depression. I know that there is really no way that I will eve know peace. To much bad history in my life. I know that I, like so many others who fight depression, regret and dispair are our life long companions. The might have beens, what ifs just eat us up a little bit each day from the inside. I have so many regrets in my life that I honestly don't know why I don't punch out and call it quits. Perhaps I am a coward, perhaps I am just hanging on to the thin hope that there is always hope. To many regrets, not enough good memories. I doubt any medication could ever make it all better. So we suffor, but for the most part, we go on.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Atrocities said:
Cancer, Aids, Depression, they are all horrible. To many of us have lost family to all of these.

I wish I could resolve the thingsthat cause my depression. I know that there is really no way that I will eve know peace. To much bad history in my life. I know that I, like so many others who fight depression, regret and dispair are our life long companions. The might have beens, what ifs just eat us up a little bit each day from the inside. I have so many regrets in my life that I honestly don't know why I don't punch out and call it quits. Perhaps I am a coward, perhaps I am just hanging on to the thin hope that there is always hope. To many regrets, not enough good memories. I doubt any medication could ever make it all better. So we suffor, but for the most part, we go on.

It's not cowardice to face life. Living is hard. Dying is easy.

[Atrocities]

AT, I'd be careful what you believe when you read a Scientology website. Their beliefs are rather...different from those of most people.

Oh I take it with a huge - huge - grain of salt. But given what had happened to me, how the medication hurt me so, you cannot discount everything that is said.

I do not subscribe to their - scientology - religion, but their statements, supported by some facts, regarding the mental health profession with there seemingly "pescribe the world" philosophy does have some merit.

[dogscoff]

AIDS, well, the scourge of the third world, people die by it every day, this is a true plague, but a plague of the third world.

Depression is the plague of the first world.

This I agree with. I should have said it first time around, and for that I'm sorry.

but when people say it's a worse plague than AIDS, well, think about this: How many people die as a result of depression (suicide, carelessness, etc.) every year? And how many people die of AIDS every year?

QED.

From a little limited googling of Uk statistics, suicide appears to be at least as prolific a killer as AIDS. However it there seems to be quite a bit of difficults for organisations to compile statistics on suicide (which kind of emphasises the points I make later). Here are some links to get you started:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nscl.asp?ID=7441
http://www.avert.org/statindx.htm

Even without statistics though, my point is that there is a hell of a lot of research and awareness about AIDS. (In the 1st world) You can get yourself tested for AIDS quickly and cheaply pretty much anywhere in the 1st world without any hassle. If you're diagnosed, there are all kinds of treatments available which may still not offer a cure, but nowadays can make life entirely livable for a long time. What's more, the disease is easily preventable by abstaining from certain risky activities. Huge education campaigns to educate people, dispel myths, combat stigma and prevent the spread of AIDS have been very successful, so most AIDS sufferers will be not only receiving support but actively doing their best to avoid passing the infection on within a short time of contracting the disease. As a result the number of sufferers in the western world is relatively low. Furthermore, with the amount of cash going into research a cure is bound be discovered sooner or later.

Depression, on the other hand, often goes years undiagnosed. When it is diagnosed sufferers are often treated unsympathetically by friends, family and even medical professionals. There is a very real stigma and a massive amount of ignorance surrounding depression. What's more, many of those doctors who do recognise the seriousness of the problem think they can just push a few pills down the patient's neck and say it's cured- but as stated in previous posts treating only the symptoms is counter-productive. And although it may be only a small minority depression sufferers who die of suicide, many many more suffer for years, their relationships, families and jobs may be ruined. While depression is (arguably) curable, it does everything it can to protect itself: Sufferers withdraw from the world, they push away those people who would help them and often feel too tired and hopeless to take any positive steps toward getting better.

My main beef with depression though, is that it is not a virus or a bacteria that can be physically attacked and overwhelemd. Unlike with AIDS, where the causes (unsafe sex, drug abuse) are recognised as unhealthy and are discouraged, the causes of depression are an integral part of the society we live in. Contemporary western society is constantly making more and more unreasonable demands of its population. Many people can't stay financially afloat on a 40 hour week any more. Most families need both parents as wage-earners just to keep the bill-collectors of their backs. Young men and women are forever assaulted by bombarded and unobtainable expectations of glamour, cool and wealth. Thanks to advertising, economics and media, without even knowing it most people in the 1st world today are living under a weight of pressure that their great-grandparents could only have imagined, and this isn't even widely recognised as a problem. Wages are falling. Taxes are rising. Services are failing. Wealth and power are gravitating ever further away from the larger part of the population. Humans beings are increasingly seen as commodities within economic systems, their needs and rights nothing more than obstacles to be broken down or bypassed. And yet as ignorance and apathy reach epidemic proportions most people don't even bother to vote any more, and all the time we're being told that this is the shining new future that previous generations dreamed of. Society and community are crumbling, caught in a vicious circle of apathy and self-loathing and feelings of powerlessness, victimisation and misrepresentation. You could argue that Western Culture itself is depressive, if you wanted to get particularly poetic about it. That's why more and more people are getting depressed, and that's why the 21st century will see depression on an unprecedented level. The scary thing though, is that will take nothing short of a social revolution to reverse the trend. If it isn't already, depression will be the plague of the 21st century (in the first world).


</rant>

[Hunpecked]

Thanks, dogscoff, for that ray of sunshine.

[Raging Deadstar]

Considering I do voluntary work on a telephone helpline to give emotional support to distressed and suicidal people you'd think I'd know these statistics.

*rummages*

Ok, These are World Health Organisation estimates and statistics.

They believe in 2005 AIDS claimed between 2.8/3.6 million.

They believe that since the millenium Suicide has claimed between 750,000 - 1 million people a year.

Cancer claims 7 million a year, with 11 million newly diagnosed cases every year, estimated to be 16 million by 2020.