depression and other mental disorders

Somehow a thread about writing levels turned into a discussion of ADD and Depression and so forth, so in the interest in getting that thread back on topic, I have slid the discussion over here. Perdita, I hope you don't mind.

perdita said:

Sweet, I was going to PM but perhaps this will be of interest to others.

This para is from the UK site:

"A depressive disorder is a "whole-body" illness, involving your body, mood, and thoughts. It affects the way you eat and sleep, the way you feel about yourself, and the way you think about things. A depressive disorder is not a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away. People with a depressive illness cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help over 80% of those who suffer from depression. Bipolar depression includes periods of high or mania. Not everyone who is depressed or manic experiences every symptom. Some people experience a few symptoms, some many. Also, severity of symptoms varies with individuals." [me: 'appropriate treatment' is not merely meds.]

UK site

NIMH: Women and depression

The U.S. NIMH is a very fine site and has information for all concerns. Just in time (I mean that literally) I discovered that educating myself was the best thing to do for myself. Then I educated my family and my best friends.

take care, sweetie,

Perdita

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I'll bet the big shocker for most people is that you don't have to be *sad* to be depressed. I happened to be reading a checklist at a time when I wasn't even considering that I might be depressed- but I knew that I had been in the past and that was why it interested me- and I realized that it described me. It's not even about your emotions necessarily, like you said- it's your whole body. It's as if your body is producing 'downers'- and I guess you could say that *is* what's happening. Some people want to think that they have so much 'free will' that the chemical processes in our bodies don't effect them. But if that were true, we'd never experience puberty, not to mention about a billion other processes that our hormones control and regulate.

sweetnpetite said:

Some people want to think that they have so much 'free will' that the chemical processes in our bodies don't effect them. But if that were true, we'd never experience puberty, not to mention about a billion other processes that our hormones control and regulate.

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Everyone's different

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm one of the most willful people you're ever going to meet. My willpower is like a solid little ball of energy that I can feel in the pit of my stomach. I've felt it there for years. Ever since I've been able to make conscious memory. It burns bright and hard and fierce and I have never yet seen it dimmed.

And using that willpower, my body does what my brain tells it to. It always has done, and it always will do, until the day I die. The day I run out of willpower is the day I stop being who I am.

To use your example, if you're talking about the physical changes that occur during puberty, then sure, I went through those. But as for emotional changes, or emotional imbalance caused by hormone levels - I've never experienced those.

Up until recently, my emotions were on an on/off switch. I turned them on and off at will. I directed emotions that I didn't want to feel into a little box and stored them up, converted them into energy, to Will.

I have always decided whether I should feel sad, or happy, or angry, or upset, or jealous, or any other emotion I should feel.

p.s. Edited to add - What I do with my emotions probably classes as a a mental disorder all of its own

Re: Re: depression and other mental disorders

raphy said:

I have always decided whether I should feel sad, or happy, or angry, or upset, or jealous, or any other emotion I should feel.

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Sweetheart, I am the opposite here, but would not choose to be otherwise. Your statement is frightening to me.

Also, I do not believe there is such a thing as "willpower". Explain it to me. I know what people usually mean by it, but it's like a metaphor for an abstraction to me. Seriously. One does something or one doesn't, and there are reasons or explanations, but it can't be "will power". No one is born with "will power" and it cannot be created. That's what I believe. And of course I am not speaking philosophically.

Perdita

Re: Re: depression and other mental disorders

raphy said:

I have always decided whether I should feel sad, or happy, or angry, or upset, or jealous, or any other emotion I should feel.

p.s. Edited to add - What I do with my emotions probably classes as a a mental disorder all of its own

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Seriously Raphy, you've missed one hell of a roller coaster.

Gauche

Re: Re: depression and other mental disorders

raphy said:

Everyone's different

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm one of the most willful people you're ever going to meet. My willpower is like a solid little ball of energy that I can feel in the pit of my stomach. I've felt it there for years. Ever since I've been able to make conscious memory. It burns bright and hard and fierce and I have never yet seen it dimmed.

And using that willpower, my body does what my brain tells it to. It always has done, and it always will do, until the day I die. The day I run out of willpower is the day I stop being who I am.

To use your example, if you're talking about the physical changes that occur during puberty, then sure, I went through those. But as for emotional changes, or emotional imbalance caused by hormone levels - I've never experienced those.

Up until recently, my emotions were on an on/off switch. I turned them on and off at will. I directed emotions that I didn't want to feel into a little box and stored them up, converted them into energy, to Will.

I have always decided whether I should feel sad, or happy, or angry, or upset, or jealous, or any other emotion I should feel.

p.s. Edited to add - What I do with my emotions probably classes as a a mental disorder all of its own

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Now to me that's just sad. I can't consider that to be a genuine emotion. Sounds more like rational thought desguised as emotion.

Why would you decide to feel sad or jealuos? Can it really be jealousy if you dont' feel it spontaneously? Have you never been overcome by emotion? Do you have children? I can't imagine watching my child come into the world and NOT being overcome by emotion. I wouldn't even want to be that in control. I think it misses the whole point of being human.

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perdita said:

Sweetheart, I am the opposite here, but would not choose to be otherwise. Your statement is frightening to me.

Also, I do not believe there is such a thing as "willpower". Explain it to me. I know what people usually mean by it, but it's like a metaphor for an abstraction to me. Seriously. One does something or one doesn't, and there are reasons or explanations, but it can't be "will power". No one is born with "will power" and it cannot be created. That's what I believe. And of course I am not speaking philosophically.

Perdita

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I guess you could maybe call it 'stubbornness', but I don't think that term really fits.

If I want something. I go out and and I get it, and proportional to how much I want it is how far I'll go to get it. If I've made up my mind that I'm going to get something, nothing or no one will be able to talk me out of it, or get in my way.

I used to be a full-contact tournament martial artist, and a bouncer, and one of the things people used to know about fighting me was that I would never quit. Short of an actual physically debilitating injury like a broken leg, I would always keep on coming. That's willpower. That's the ability to never stop, never quit, never give up.

To never be beaten.

That's what willpower is to me.

raphy,

something really bad happened to you once.

I can tell.

Re: Re: Re: depression and other mental disorders

gauchecritic said:

Seriously Raphy, you've missed one hell of a roller coaster.

Gauche

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So they tell me.

I will say this, which is why I said in my post "Up until recently" .. I am currently in love with a wonderful woman. However, being in love with her does not feel like an emotion to me, it is a state of being.

She can cause unbidden emotions in me, like the way my heart stops when she says "I love you", but as for the rest of the emotional spectrum, it's still pretty much business as usual for me.

Re: Re: Re: depression and other mental disorders

sweetnpetite said:

Why would you decide to feel sad or jealuos?

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I don't know, I haven't felt sad or jealous in a very long time. Feel happy most of the time, and when I'm not happy, I'm just well, normal, I guess

sweetnpetite said:

raphy,

something really bad happened to you once.

I can tell.

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Maybe. But I happen to like the man I am right now, and I certainly wouldn't change who I am for the world. I love being me

Re: Re: Re: depression and other mental disorders

I'd like to add that I think its fine not to be *ruled* by emotion. To choose not to dwell on the negative. But I think absolute control over your emotions (like an on/off switch) is self deception. Someday the emotions that you have denied will be uncovered and they will have turned to poison. It's possible to stuff your emotions, but that doensn't make them disappear.

sweetnpetite said:

Now to me that's just sad. I can't consider that to be a genuine emotion. Sounds more like rational thought desguised as emotion.

Why would you decide to feel sad or jealuos? Can it really be jealousy if you dont' feel it spontaneously? Have you never been overcome by emotion? Do you have children? I can't imagine watching my child come into the world and NOT being overcome by emotion. I wouldn't even want to be that in control. I think it misses the whole point of being human.

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sweetnpetite said:

I'd like to add that I think its fine not to be *ruled* by emotion. To choose not to dwell on the negative. But I think absolute control over your emotions (like an on/off switch) is self deception. Someday the emotions that you have denied will be uncovered and they will have turned to poison. It's possible to stuff your emotions, but that doensn't make them disappear.

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They don't disappear. They get converted into the energy that drives my will.

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raphy said:

They don't disappear. They get converted into the energy that drives my will.

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still sounds too rational to me. Are you a person or a 'bot?

'dita where did you go?

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sweetnpetite said:

still sounds to rational to me. Are you a person or a 'bot?

'dita where did you go?

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*grins*

Y'know, you wouldn't be the first person to ask me that question. My ex-wife used to say it to me all the time.

I'm a person. I feel. But I do it when I want to, how I want to. My head rules my heart, just like my head rules everything I do. I lift my arm when I want my arm to lift, just like you do. And... to put it very simply, you can extend that control to every facet of being a human being, if you wish to.

Now, I'm very aware that not very many other people wish to. But if you wish to, then you can.

p.s. edited to add - Yeah, it does sound very rational. But I am a rational thinking human being. I have the higher brain functions that allow rational thought and complex concepts (like this)..

I personally don't think anything can be 'too' rational.

Different people are different in every way. Me? I have to side with Perdita on this. Half of the time, I don't know which way is up and which way is down, I'm a VERY emotional person, and yes, I probably do let me emotions rule me, which isn't always the best of things.

My hubby on the other hand...he's more like Raphy. I've never in the 14 years that I've been with him have seen the man shed a tear, not at funerals, not when we almost ended our marriage...never. He's just not emotional. It took me a very long time to understand that, because I thought, he just didn't have a heart. When things would be really sad to me, he would try and make me laugh, and I would say, "How can this not effect you?!" He would always answer, "Because I don't let it."

That always stupified me, how someone could have so much control over their feelings. But, he does, and I love him just the way that he is, emotionally deprived or not. That IS who he is, and seeing as though I am the total opposite, we blend well together

Re: Re: depression and other mental disorders

raphy said:

Up until recently, my emotions were on an on/off switch. I turned them on and off at will. I directed emotions that I didn't want to feel into a little box and stored them up, converted them into energy, to Will.

I have always decided whether I should feel sad, or happy, or angry, or upset, or jealous, or any other emotion I should feel.

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So you say that you can sit at home and say "Hey, today I'm gonna be happy."

Sorry, but no dice.

I think I flaunted my point of view on this in some other thread, the one about your novel, but I'lll rather repeat myself than having it unsaid:

I could never in a million years reason like you do. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand it. Why? Because you seem to dismiss emotions as something detatched from you.

It is my firm belief that we are emotions. They are the core to our beings, the very essence that makes us human. Without them, we are nothing, and we might as well give up the ghost.

Around our emotions you wrap the rest of your personality, shaped from within by emotional content, and from the outside, by the rest of the world. A part of your personality is your willpower.

You might say that due to a strong will you are doing a good job in not letting emotions take control over your appearance and desicions. Like QuirkyK said about the hubby, who doesn't let his emotions affect him. I'll buy that, but I'll never buy that they arent there, or are magically transmogified into something else

I understand what you are trying to communicate, I am the same way (these days, wasn't always, my will has been working out). But the thing is, my strong willpower is a product of emotions. Feelings of pride, confidence and security. And as such, better equipped to deal with the other emotions that are constantly triggered by the life I plough myself through.

/Ice - psychobabble hat on

ps.
Oh, I too thought I stayed the same and never let no hormones affect my emotions during puberty. That was, until my folks told me just what a regulat teen wreck I had been those years.

Ice-dude, just a clarifying question:

You say "no dice", and then you say a few lines later "you could never reason like I do" ..

Just wondering, when you said "no dice" did you mean that you didn't believe me, or that it couldn't be something that would apply to you.

I promise you, my friend, I truly do do the things I've talked about.

And within me, emotions *are* detached from me. My soul is who I am. And all I can say is that I guess that soul is one who favours highly rational thought.

Everyone else's mileage, apparently, varies *grins* .. (except for QurikyK's hubbie )

what are you afraid of?

raphy,

it is my belief that you are not in control of your emotions.

you are afraid of them.

and fear is an emotion.

that fear is causing you to try to control them

therefor you are being ruled by the emotion of fear

fear and pride

--sweet, with her psychobabble hat on

Re: what are you afraid of?

sweetnpetite said:

raphy,

it is my belief that you are not in control of your emotions.

you are afraid of them.

and fear is an emotion.

that fear is causing you to try to control them

therefor you are being ruled by the emotion of fear

fear and pride

--sweet, with her psychobabble hat on

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*grins*..

Ah, cara mia, you're entitled to that belief and again, you wouldn't be the first to say it. I can no more prove to you that you are wrong than I can fly.

I'm not afraid of them. I experience them. But I am in control of them, as I am in control of every other aspect of me.

raphy said:

Ice-dude, just a clarifying question:

You say "no dice", and then you say a few lines later "you could never reason like I do" ..

Just wondering, when you said "no dice" did you mean that you didn't believe me, or that it couldn't be something that would apply to you.

I promise you, my friend, I truly do do the things I've talked about.

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Honestly, and with all due respect, I think I've either misread what you write, or yes, I don't belive you. Or rather, I can't comprehend how it could be something that would apply to anyone.

Conscoius spitits are emotions wrapped in egos. Some have thin wrapping, some have thicker. Those with thick wrapping (you, I assume) rarely, or never, let emotions take too much control.

But don't tell me you don't feel. Then, friend, you are a robot. Or worse, eligible for public office.

Can you really say, on those days when everything rains, "Oh well, let's be jolly." And then just BE? I'll understand that if it involves some sort of self-trickery. You know; "always look at the bright side (inselrt whistle)". But that's stimulating emotions, not killing them.

It almost seems to me that, by definition, emotions are feelings that we can't control. Fropm my point of view, an emotion we can allow or disallow doesn't seem like a very profound experienc.

I wonder if Raphy isn't talking more about mood than emotion.

---dr.M.

Icingsugar said:

Honestly, and with all due respect, I think I've either misread what you write, or yes, I don't belive you. Or rather, I can't comprehend how it could be something that would apply to anyone.

Conscoius spitits are emotions wrapped in egos. Some have thin wrapping, some have thicker. Those with thick wrapping (you, I assume) rarely, or never, let emotions take too much control.

But don't tell me you don't feel. Then, friend, you are a robot. Or worse, eligible for public office.

Can you really say, on those days when everything rains, "Oh well, let's be jolly." And then just BE? I'll understand that if it involves some sort of self-trickery. You know; "always look at the bright side (inselrt whistle)". But that's stimulating emotions, not killing them.

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My friend, you are entitled to your opinion (re: conscious spirits are emotions wrapped in egos - not an opinion I agree with). And not being able to comprehend how I do what I do is not the same as disbeliving me *smiles*

Oh, and I've always thought I'd make a truly dangerous politician. Lucky that I hate politics, really

dr_mabeuse said:

It almost seems to me that, by definition, emotions are feelings that we can't control. Fropm my point of view, an emotion we can allow or disallow doesn't seem like a very profound experienc.

I wonder if Raphy isn't talking more about mood than emotion.

---dr.M.

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Oooh

That's the first time anyone's said that to me, Dr M. Mood/emotion.

I shall have to go away and think about that.

Re: Re: what are you afraid of?

raphy said:

I'm not afraid of them. I experience them. But I am in control of them, as I am in control of every other aspect of me.

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Ah, see, that is the focal point. Sorry about all the psychobabbly philosophical mumbo jumbo previously posted. Here comes the chorus.

You have emotions
You experience emotions.
You don't let emotions control you.

Word.

The rest, like those being "just another aspect" of you, is philosophic definitions. I could drag out a thead about those forever. I won't, because I'd start to sound like I was puffin' something after a while.

And we're both probably too stong willed to buy each other's points of view. Right?

Just to get back on thread. For all your will power Raph you as well as everyone else in the world could quite easily become 'depressed'.

A common symptom of mild depression is sleeping for much longer than necessary. Teenagers are noted for it. School holidays; sleep the day through because of a lack of regular stimulus.

Working with depression is very frustrating. There is nothing to be done for perfectly 'normal' people who just can't be made happy or interested.

Bi-polar (manic-depression) is a bitch to understand or anticipate and is most often controlled with a drug regime (as far as I'm aware). But I'm no expert.

Gauche