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Depression And Selifishness


debrand

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Yet another depression sufferer here. I fall into the category of depressed people who do damn little for themselves, but who ALWAYS make the effort for other people in their lives, no matter how hard it may be. Tell me again why that's selfish.

Exactly this. I'm also one of those people who has a hard time functioning in the depths of depression, to the point where I have days where it's a struggle to even get out of bed. But if I know anyone who is depressed, who is unhappy enough to confide in me, I'll do everything I can to try and help that person feel better and reach a solution. Because life really sucks sometimes, sometimes a lot of the time, and I've always believed it's best to do what we can to help each other get through the bad times.

And Hane, is it wrong that your selfish gallstone story made me laugh? :D I hope you administered a correction to it using the Pearl Method so that it will be less difficult and spoiled. After all, if you train up a gallstone in the way it should go, even when it is old it will not depart from it.

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I like this thread. It is like an "It Gets Better" thread for depression. I also have been depressed. Several times. And today I feel proud of myself and full of life. Don't be afraid to ask for the support that you need. If they won't give it to you, ask some one else. It. Gets. Better. It really can.

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Sadly, it's not just fundies with this attitude. Atheists can be shmucks about this too: anythingbuttheist.blogspot.ca/2012/05/top-ten-mental-disorders-that-arent.html

Does anyone say that diabetes doesn't exist, because we don't have a perfect pill with no side effects to cure it? Or because part of the treatment involves diet and exercise?

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I'm intears right now, because so many of you gr what I've been trying to say.

Also, if I was suicidal, people's definition of help, in the past, has not Ben all that helpful.

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I'm intears right now, because so many of you gr what I've been trying to say.

Also, if I was suicidal, people's definition of help, in the past, has not Ben all that helpful.

Same here, Trynn. I'm thankful I'm alone in my office and no one can see me. My heart goes out to the woman who was told she was selfish...my depression led me to think I was selfish regardless. I cannot imagine what it would have done to me to hear that from someone. To everyone battling their own depression, my thoughts are with you. It's such a struggle and even when meds and counseling help, it's still a long road. I remember thinking I would never feel anything again and then feeling EVERYTHING one day...it was just overwhelming. Best wishes to everyone.

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Boy, I'm late to this discussion but I just wanted to say thanks, and give hugs to all of you who suffer from depression, anxiety, etc. I've suffered with it all my life and finally got the right diagnosis and treatment about 20 years ago. It's still a challenge for me but the good days now outnumber the bad. Anyway, I appreciate you all talking about your depression issues and I wish all of you the very best. We're stronger than we even know.

And precious_one, rock on!! Seroquel added 100 lbs to me and trying to lose it is so difficult! Glad to hear you're doing so much better. :)

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May healing thoughts go out to everyone who is suffering. I hope you can all find peace. I'm probably going to come off as an asshole over the next few paragraphs so you might not want to read.

TW:suicide on the next few paragraphs where I express anger and call people selfish assholes.

As someone who used to live with a parent who suffered from depression, I have to say that it is difficult, at best, to see where the "line" between selfish person & depression is. Is the selfishness (and yes, I'm going to call that parent selfish) just a character flaw or is it a symptom of the illness? Or is it both? Which actions can be excused because of the illness and which are inexcusable because he is just a selfish asshole? Actions speak a lot louder than words. All the lipservice in the world can not make up for the fact that he was too selfish to even try to act like a human being. I'm sorry, but no matter how depressed you are, it does not excuse stealing. Nor does it excuse doing literally nothing for days on end and expecting other people to wait on you. It does not excuse broken commitments. It does not excuse the fact that you have obligations to your family. Asking to borrow money for medication, and then not taking it? Not cool. Asking for rides to therapy, but not going? There is no excuse. If you had cancer, you wouldn't skip treatment because you are too sick. Oh, wait, he did exactly that. Crying about how no one likes you? Well, don't be a dick. Everyone has given him chance after chance after chance to act like a human being but now it's all "depression, you can't be mean to me" even when no one is being mean. Mearly pointing out that he's not following the doctor's treatment gains nothing but scoffs and anger. Pointing out that people care about him and would like to see him alive for longer just makes him angry. I can't handle it, and while I understand the concept of depression, I have to say that it IS selfish when it's obvious that he's not even remotely trying to think about something or someone else. Futhermore (and this is 100% the worst thing I've ever thought, much less written), if he was actually as depressed and suicidal as he claimed, why didn't even ever attempt? Honestly, it would have saved us a lot of drama over the years.

As someone who has an in law who committed suicide, I have to say that, suicide is the easy, selfish, lazy way out of your problems. If you need attention, be there, so people can give you attention. If you have money problems, those problems don't disappear because you are dead. You just created work for the people who loved you and cared about you. You don't have to deal with anything anymore, but all the people you left behind, all the people who cared about you and begged you to seek help and to talk to someone, well, they are dealing with it. All the people who you said you loved and claimed that you cared about and you couldn't "handle" it? Yeah, great. You don't have to handle it. It is ABSOLUTELY selfish in nature to kill yourself and claim that you did it out of love. It's not love. If that's not selfish, I don't know what is.

My coworker's husband committed "medical" suicide earlier this year. Again, while I understand the fact that he didn't want to fight for life, I think what he did was completely, 100% selfish. He had just gotten out of surgery, where doctors and nurses worked their asses off to keep him alive. All so he could ask, during a lucid moment, to be taken off of all machines. He had a 50% chance of a full recovery, and something like 90% chance of full recovery with small issues (needing PT for longer, having to opp for the pat downs in airports, etc). He was, literally, just too lazy to want to go to PT. In his case, I mostly blame the doctors for not seeing his depression earlier and prescribing medication. But in that moment, when he made that choice, he was 100% selfish and only thinking of himself. Not his kids who have to live without him, not his wife who has to support two kids without his pension or health insurance.

/rant

Anyway, sorry to piss anyone off. I absolutely understand that it's a chemical imbalance and no one wants to be depressed. But I think we have to do something more to remove the stigma of treatment, and to make sure that treatment in available for everyone. And I think that people who aren't compliant in their treatment should be mandated to impatient care until they are well enough to understand the importance of it.

I also think that medicine should be free so that people can focus on getting better and not on what they are costing their families. How many suicides could we prevent if people didn't have to worry about the cost of chemo?

Better research - more focus on mental illness in medical schools so doctors can recognize it.

Also, safer parks. Exercise is a huge component of mental illness. People are designed to move, not to be sedentary. It's got to be a huge contributing factor to the upsurge in diagnoses of mental illness. Keep people moving and they will be happier. Get people the medicine they need at a low cost. Better access for all people, regardless of income level, to healthy safe foods.

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Here's the thing. When I went through a major depressive episode, was suicidal and was hospitalized, someone telling me I was selfish would not have suddenly made me say, "Oh, can't have that, gotta get happy!" First, I'm not certain I would have even taken in what I was being told, as my brain was so overwhelmed with how I was going to do myself in that I couldn't process anything. But, even if I could have, it would have just made things So. Much. Worse.

I wasn't selfish; I was sick. 20 years later and 17 years off antidepressants, I'm no longer sick. But I am selfish...with my time, with my resources, with my energy. Having boundaries is critical to my mental health, and it's up to me to make sure they're strong ones. I really think that any Higher Power who loves me wants me to keep it that way.

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When people are suicidal they usually just cannot think clearly. I know I really, truly believed that my death would ultimately be a good thing for everyone and that suicide was the rational choice.

For me, after years and years of those thoughts they finally got so bad that I felt like I just had no options left. I had a serious suicide attempt followed by a series of hospitalizations and eventually realized that no matter how I felt suicide just couldn't be an option as long as I had a family, but even then I still felt like suicide was the logical choice in all other respects. It made my depression so much worse to not have that "out" to think about anymore, but I stayed alive.

I just erased a paragraph because it's hard not to make this long, but in short I was hospitalized again at the beginning of the year, but this time at a different hospital, where they actually found a medication that worked for my depression and diagnosed me with a thyroid problem and OCD (a big component in my suicidal thoughts). They medicated me for all three and the anti-depressants started working pretty quickly and eventually the others kicked in as well, and I did about two months of an amazing intensive outpatient program. Five months later I feel like a different person. I'm not depressed anymore after a lifetime of severe, chronic depression, the once-constant suicidal thoughts are nearly gone, and compulsions don't rule my life quite as much.

It feels like a miracle after thinking I'd be dealing with this the rest of my life. The doctors at the last hospital wouldn't try other anti-depressants after SSRI's didn't work because they assumed nothing would work for me because it had to just be a personality disorder (but because I didn't quite fit into any of them I got the PD-NOS, "you're messed up and we don't know why" diagnosis) and I was headed for the morgue anyway. Some of the employees at the other hospital were amazing, but a lot of them casually talked with each other and once even joked about expecting me to end up dead because apparently the doctor voted me most likely to actually kill myself or whatever. I found out later that he told the staff that unlike most suicidal patients he sees, he fully expected me to actually be dead within a year. So that was encouraging, but the doctors I see now don't think there's any personality disorder involved, as all my symptoms but some of the OCD stuff are gone with medication., and I'm actually looking forward to life now.

Believe it or not, I am trying to make this short, but I can see I'm not succeeding. Regarding being suicidal, now that I'm actually happy to be alive and can imagine a future, it really horrifies me to think I ever even considered killing myself, let alone actually attempted it. But the thing is, I'm incapable of thinking rationally when I'm suicidal. I recently couldn't get a prescription filled on time and had to go about a week without medication, and even in that time I felt those thoughts slipping back. I don't want to die now and it terrifies me to think that I could feel suicidal again someday and forget that I ever wanted to live. Hopefully though I'll get better at getting treatment before it gets that bad again.

Depression and spirituality is a hard topic for me because I grew up being taught that mental disorders were strictly spiritual matters, either the result of demon possession or just plain sin. Depression is sin, eating disorders are sin, shyness and anxiety are sin, etc. I started feeling really depressed at 8, though I never told anyone until it all boiled over about two years ago, and over the years I prayed so hard that I wouldn't be that way and I tried to find peace and comfort in reading the Bible like I was supposed to, but it only got worse and worse while I had to listen to every spiritual authority person in my life say that mental problems were essentially the sufferer's fault. Medication and secular therapy were bad, even sinful.

At least now my parents have come around, though they did give me a book on mental illness and demon possession when I was first hospitalized, and they'd still rather me not take medication (except for the thyroid issue--that's physical so it's okay). It's so frustrating after years of prayer to still be told that if I'd just take my problems to God he would resolve them, but they really are very supportive now even if they don't agree with everything. It also turns out that my dad has very similar lifelong issues and thinking patterns, so it seems like there is a strong genetic component. I know the stigma is just as hard on family members, too, as families don't get nearly the support they would if the issue were physical so they're left dealing with it all on their own and often unable to tell anyone.

I was actually thinking about starting a topic about what Rick Warren has been doing regarding mental health. I'm not a huge fan of his, but he has been speaking out about mental health since his son died of suicide a year ago and with his influence I really think he could effect major change in the Evangelical community on this issue. He hosted a big mental health conference earlier this month and I've only listened to a couple sessions, but it was everything I wish I had heard in church growing up. I believe it would save lives if churches were better informed on these issues and the stigma was lessened, so even though I might not be a Christian anymore, I really like what he's been doing. You can watch all of the conference videos here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIDSO5LF3RteManoNsTXzqQ

Jeez, I really wanted to make this short but it's probably the longest post in here. I really appreciate everyone else sharing their experiences as well. Mental health issues are so common, but you tend to feel very alone with them since they're still mostly kept secret.

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Sadly, it's not just fundies with this attitude. Atheists can be shmucks about this too: anythingbuttheist.blogspot.ca/2012/05/top-ten-mental-disorders-that-arent.html

Does anyone say that diabetes doesn't exist, because we don't have a perfect pill with no side effects to cure it? Or because part of the treatment involves diet and exercise?

I love how it's just a list with no reasoning behind it, too. Lucky little list maker never dealt with a narcissist, I see. :P

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Snipped for Brevity:

As someone who used to live with a parent who suffered from depression, I have to say that it is difficult, at best, to see where the "line" between selfish person & depression is. Is the selfishness (and yes, I'm going to call that parent selfish) just a character flaw or is it a symptom of the illness? Or is it both? Which actions can be excused because of the illness and which are inexcusable because he is just a selfish asshole? Actions speak a lot louder than words. All the lipservice in the world can not make up for the fact that he was too selfish to even try to act like a human being. I'm sorry, but no matter how depressed you are, it does not excuse stealing. Nor does it excuse doing literally nothing for days on end and expecting other people to wait on you. It does not excuse broken commitments. It does not excuse the fact that you have obligations to your family. Asking to borrow money for medication, and then not taking it? Not cool. Asking for rides to therapy, but not going? There is no excuse. If you had cancer, you wouldn't skip treatment because you are too sick. Oh, wait, he did exactly that. Crying about how no one likes you? Well, don't be a dick. Everyone has given him chance after chance after chance to act like a human being but now it's all "depression, you can't be mean to me" even when no one is being mean. Mearly pointing out that he's not following the doctor's treatment gains nothing but scoffs and anger. Pointing out that people care about him and would like to see him alive for longer just makes him angry. I can't handle it, and while I understand the concept of depression, I have to say that it IS selfish when it's obvious that he's not even remotely trying to think about something or someone else. Futhermore (and this is 100% the worst thing I've ever thought, much less written), if he was actually as depressed and suicidal as he claimed, why didn't even ever attempt? Honestly, it would have saved us a lot of drama over the years.

I don't discount underlying selfishness or lying, and people still have their base personality even if they are depressed. I don't think anyone is trying to say that people who are depressed are really saints and nothing they do is their fault, just that suicide rarely "feels" selfish to someone who has suicidal ideation, it's actually quite the opposite. Most of the time it seems like the least selfish thing you could do - you can tell you're dragging everyone else around you down with you and it seems like a kindness to remove yourself from their midst.

But people, even depressed people, can be assholes. And some people do use depression and threat of suicide for attention - but that doesn't make it inherently selfish, it just makes those people assholes. In my experience, many people who are truly suicidal don't want the attention at all. I know in my case all of my focus was on how I could do it in such a way that my family would think it was a terrible accident (in my case purposefully crashing my car) so that there wouldn't be that guilt. I don't know if anyone looked at the blog I linked to, but one of the truest things she said, IMO, was that she didn't want to kill herself, she just wanted to not be alive anymore.

Anyway, I'm not expressing myself well, but what I'm trying to get at is that people absolutely have the right to protect themselves from abusive people in their lives, even if those abusive people have an underlying mental illness. Treating a mental illness can be extremely hard, but refusing to treat it would be a deal breaker for me. If I had a person in my life who was making my life miserable but was unwilling (not unable) to seek, and be compliant with, treatment I would be issuing ultimatums all over the place.

Depression or any other mental illness isn't a "get out of jail free" card, but most people are not doing the things they do under the effects because they want to.

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Suicide is NOT the cowards way out. When I was considering it, I was scared to DEATH of dying, but I truly believed my death would benefit everyone, and that I was being selfish by being too cowardly to pull the trigger. For me, at least, suicide would have been an act of bravery.

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Suicide is NOT the cowards way out. When I was considering it, I was scared to DEATH of dying, but I truly believed my death would benefit everyone, and that I was being selfish by being too cowardly to pull the trigger. For me, at least, suicide would have been an act of bravery.

I was always taught that one of the huge warning signs of suicide was feeling like a burden on others and that their family and friends would be better off without them. When a patient is talking about how better off their family would be if they committed suicide, it should send alarm bells ringing.

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Sadly, it's not just fundies with this attitude. Atheists can be shmucks about this too: anythingbuttheist.blogspot.ca/2012/05/top-ten-mental-disorders-that-arent.html

Does anyone say that diabetes doesn't exist, because we don't have a perfect pill with no side effects to cure it? Or because part of the treatment involves diet and exercise?

I almost didn't click on that link because I knew ADHD would be on it. Yep. It was.

As the mother of four kids, I am qualified to say that my oldest was not simply an active little boy. A story about him at three probably best expresses his level of spontaneous activity.

By the time he was three, I had learned to keep my son close to me most of the time. I knew that other mothers didn't have to watch their children so closely but I couldn't figure out why. One day, he was in the bathroom with me as I was doing my hair. The bathroom was very small and the toilet was beside the sink. He stared into the toilet and I asked him if he had to use it. He said no and I looked into the mirror. My gaze off him was probably less than a minute. When I turned back, he had his head in the water and lifted back up to show his dripping hair. Yes, he dunked his own head in the toilet water. My reaction was what you'd expect. "Why in the name of everything did you just dunk your head in the toilet." His response was, "I don't know."

It took me years to admit my son had a problem and even when he was diagnosed with ADHD, people assured me that the diagnosis was incorrect. My son must just need more discipline, I was a bad parent, teachers were bad or any other reason beyond that my son had something wrong with the physical wiring of his brain. I am very ashamed that I didn't listen to my gut reaction that the doctors who diagnosed him were correct. It would have saved both my son and me a lot of needless guilt, anxiety and wasted time trying to fix him.

On the positive side, his own son is definitely ADHD and I don't see my son making the same mistakes that I did when I was a young mom.

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I don't discount underlying selfishness or lying, and people still have their base personality even if they are depressed. I don't think anyone is trying to say that people who are depressed are really saints and nothing they do is their fault, just that suicide rarely "feels" selfish to someone who has suicidal ideation, it's actually quite the opposite. Most of the time it seems like the least selfish thing you could do - you can tell you're dragging everyone else around you down with you and it seems like a kindness to remove yourself from their midst.

But people, even depressed people, can be assholes. And some people do use depression and threat of suicide for attention - but that doesn't make it inherently selfish, it just makes those people assholes. In my experience, many people who are truly suicidal don't want the attention at all. I know in my case all of my focus was on how I could do it in such a way that my family would think it was a terrible accident (in my case purposefully crashing my car) so that there wouldn't be that guilt. I don't know if anyone looked at the blog I linked to, but one of the truest things she said, IMO, was that she didn't want to kill herself, she just wanted to not be alive anymore.

Anyway, I'm not expressing myself well, but what I'm trying to get at is that people absolutely have the right to protect themselves from abusive people in their lives, even if those abusive people have an underlying mental illness. Treating a mental illness can be extremely hard, but refusing to treat it would be a deal breaker for me. If I had a person in my life who was making my life miserable but was unwilling (not unable) to seek, and be compliant with, treatment I would be issuing ultimatums all over the place.

Depression or any other mental illness isn't a "get out of jail free" card, but most people are not doing the things they do under the effects because they want to.

I sought treatment not because I thought it would work or because I thought I deserved to get better. I sought it because my partner, who had a ferocious bout of depression about 20 years ago, said, "The way you are treating yourself is scary and borderline triggering to me." I didn't want him to hurt or be frightened.

My partner is both very kind and very smart, and he was able to leverage my care for him into getting me to care for myself. I feel lucky to know him, because my family of origin is not helpful in that regard-- some of them feel that suffering is the human condition / makes you a better person, and that therapy and other forms of self-care are indulgent.

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*snip*

And Hane, is it wrong that your selfish gallstone story made me laugh? :D I hope you administered a correction to it using the Pearl Method so that it will be less difficult and spoiled. After all, if you train up a gallstone in the way it should go, even when it is old it will not depart from it.

Yes, thank you--I have administered a correction to my gallstone, and now it is asymptomatic and gives me no trouble.

(On a serious note: My doctor pointed out that it's just one big gallstone--instead of a bunch of little ones that could get into my bile duct--and giving me no trouble, so why take it out? He said that most cases of gallstones are asymptomatic and people don't even realize they have them.)

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For anyone who is looking for an awesome (and hysterically funny) description of what depression feels like, I highly recommend hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

I love Hyperbole and a Half, in this she's so spot on about no longer being able to rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions during interactions. The illustrations are hysterical.

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