I licked depression, so can you

[El Brujo]

From about the age of 10 up until my mother died from cancer a couple of years ago, I struggled on and off with depression. Drugs didn't help, but writing did, at least for me. Nothing can beat depression like knowing that you have something real that you want to do with your life. Now first-time authors are coming to me and asking me to edit their books for them.

 

Last week I found out I have Avoidant Personality Disorder, but this too can be cured. It was only after I made up my mind a few weeks ago that I want to get into event hosting, that what I was really doing was a sort of self-prescribed immersion therapy.

 

I wonder how many other shy guys (and shy women) in fact have AvPD... as long as others don't make negative comments to us, AvPD is highly treatable. You just have to want to change.

[FitChick]

Oh, please. All of these "disorders" never existed before. It was called your personality or having a normal reaction to life events. People did what you did. Found a way to cope and overcome. Every year they put out a new list of these disorders and diseases. I'm surprised it isn't a disorder to step with your left foot first instead of your right. Just another way to market mood altering pharmaceuticals.

 

The British medical association or whatever it's called, finally put their foot down when the American shrink branch labeled normal grief as a disorder. Someone you loved died? Here, take this pill!

[Maleficent]

Oh, please. All of these "disorders" never existed before. It was called your personality or having a normal reaction to life events. People did what you did. Found a way to cope and overcome. Every year they put out a new list of these disorders and diseases. I'm surprised it isn't a disorder to step with your left foot first instead of your right. Just another way to market mood altering pharmaceuticals.

 

The British medical association or whatever it's called, finally put their foot down when the American shrink branch labeled normal grief as a disorder. Someone you loved died? Here, take this pill!

 

…there is a lot more to mental health than just coping and overcoming life events.

 

Mental illnesses existed - we just didn't know about it.

 

Of course, for someone who has no idea what it's like to be truly depressed, it's really hard to understand.

It's like trying to explain to a 5 year old how much a broken leg hurts.

[Imported]

Did it taste like snozberries?

[fiftyofsomethin]

Oh, please. All of these "disorders" never existed before. It was called your personality or having a normal reaction to life events. People did what you did. Found a way to cope and overcome. Every year they put out a new list of these disorders and diseases. I'm surprised it isn't a disorder to step with your left foot first instead of your right. Just another way to market mood altering pharmaceuticals.

 

The British medical association or whatever it's called, finally put their foot down when the American shrink branch labeled normal grief as a disorder. Someone you loved died? Here, take this pill!

 

Yeah these disorders did exist, but the people who had them were either forgotten, sent away to an asylum, or put to death in some cases.

 

Now of course they aren't always that bad but for a while people would even cut open a mentally ill person's head and try to cut out part of the brain in hopes it would fix it.....

 

Modern science has a very defined and legitimate purpose. Conspiracies don't help progress.

[Feelin Frisky]

People who dismiss medicine judge the world using themselves as the standard. Flaws are the norm, not the exception. There are good meds that help people who want to overcome something that is inhibiting them and telling them medicine is a hoax is bad and wrong advice. I advise people experiencing recurrent unwanted emotional and behavioral problems to never go screwing around with herbs and "natural"--that stuff is what people used before there was real medicine and it's not regulated, is usually a toxin that has drug-like properties which does harm to other organs because it is not specific and made and tested for years by scientists for known ailments that not every lay person has heard of. I caused harm to myself by using such bad advice. I even walked into Wal-Mart yesterday and saw a new product called "Sleep Water". I looked at the ingredient and it was gaba-amino butyric acid which did terrible things to me. Supplements turned off my ability to make my own GABA and that trapped toxins in brain cells that resulted in panic and general anxiety that kept me awake for weeks on end.

 

No body beat depression either. It's a chemical problem, it's not just sadness or hopelessness. You overcome chemical problems by changing your chemistry, not just doing things. That's an illusion that you beat depression. If you had it at all, you can only say you're doing well these days but don't assume you've beaten it forever. It's a sneaky, electro-chemical inefficiency that can come one slowly. You don't have to take medicine to fight it, but you do have to fight it by doing something to not let it take over. And that could be by succeeding at something you enjoy.