Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainReaders of my infrequent ramblings here may remember that I struggle daily with depression, Murka's most common and least-understood mental "illness".
It's chronic, in that I have suffered numerous episodes in the last 25-odd years. Some times I could resolve it by myself (usually with a Damn Good Rogering and change of Enviroment) but 3 times in the past I've had to resort to therapy and drugs to stay functional.
Last time, they finally put me on Tri-Cyclics, which pretty much flat-lined my emotions. I wasn't really depressed anymore, but I sure as hell didn't see much to be happy about. Oh, the Prozac we tried before the Pamelor was a trip, seems I experience the anger side-effect from it, i.e. I felt so good and full of pep and rage I actually DID want to tear people's heads off and shit down their necks...
So this time we're trying other SSRI's, since Fluoxetine makes me pissed-off, big doses of Welbutrin give me tremors, and Lexapro doesn't do much. So my sawbones decides we're gonna try the 2-pronged assault. Welbutrin and Lexapro together. Yeah, just like peanut butter and chocolate...
Must be working. I really feel flat-lined. Bush? Fuck'im. Iran? Oh, that's too bad. Immigrants? Get a Green Card, assholes, and bust the employers that hire 'em for $2 an hour.
Can't get excited about anything. now I know how it must feel to be part of Wall-Mart Nation.
I expect I'll be seeing my first NASCAR race soon...
What's worse? being depressed, or just not giving a flying fuck about anything?
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I guess that's kind of an understatement. It is funny (not in the ha-ha sense) how little we actually know about psychotropic-and for that matter, others-medications compared with how often we need them. Hell, lithium bicarbonate has been the treatment of choice for individuals suffering bi-polar mood disorder for over 100 years and we still don't know it's mechanism of action.
It's not that the research isn't being done; it's that the questions are so incredibly complex. A lot of that has to do with the way research is designed and individual differences in people. Take clinical trials for meds. Most studies exclude people from participation if they're suffering from comorbid disorders (that is, disorders in addition to the illness of investigative interest). Part of the reason is ethical in that they don't want to take someone off all their meds to examine the effect of the drug that they're researching, but part of it also has to do with confounding the results - they want to be sure that their drug is effective for a certain disorder.
What's more, every drug effects everyone a little bit differently. I used to take fluoxetine and I didn't suffer any side effects, but that's just me. Perhaps my liver metabolized it a little bit faster, perhaps my stomach broke a lot of it down before I absorbed it into my plasma...who knows.
But I digress. What I wanted to point out is that there is a gigantic disconnect between the patients seen in doctor's offices and the patients studied in clinical trials. The patients that come through the office I work at (I'm not a doc, by the way) typically have a problem list that has 6-7 illnesses and are on 4-5 different medications.
In your case, I'd say it's a rock and a hard spot. I'm not one to say which is better - the flat affect or the depression. Both are pretty bad. I've dealt with depression, but never had the 'flatline' effect that I've heard people talk about so I can't really compare them legitimately. But I do know that I hated the depression...my whole world was broken. If I had to chose between that and 'flatlining', I would take the drugs in a second.
What does work best for most people, however, is a combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. But, you probably already knew that.
Take care.
I've been depressed at various times in my life before so I understand how it can just devastate a person. Hang in there. Even if depression is an illness that isn't well understood today, there is research going on all the time and what we know about the brain has progressed enormously in just the last couple of decades. I have to think depression will become more and more treatable in the future. Until then, if faced with a choice between flat affect and depression I'll take the flat affect any day. At least it keeps you going.
But in the meantime, should you need anything, you know how to get in contact with us. Even if we're hundreds of miles away, at least we can be a friendly voice.
for me the flat affect was a central part of the depression. So this makes me wonder if only part of your depression is being treated (the flat affect might be coming from the depression instead of from the meds).
As you know, different drugs can have very different effects. I wonder if further manipulating the meds would get you a full remission? I hate to say that-I know the thought of trying more meds always made me want to shit down the doctor's neck. Just a thought. I hope things turn around for you soon.
And what I'm calling apathy is actually a normal healthy perspective on things?
I know I hurled enough cuss-words at the radio this AM at Rumsferatu and his lieing about lieing, so I'm not a TOTAL zombie...
Took a bike ride last night and caught myself smiling really BIG 1/2 way into it..
And what if you're convinced the world is going nuts and is getting ready to implode, and it actually *IS*? That's not crazy, crazy is going to Wally-World and buying SUVs like it's Business as Usual.
Round and Round it Goes...
I get depressed a lot, but I think it's over sane things, things I ought to get depressed about. Stuff I write here about all the time, but the stuff that gets me really depressed I tend not to write about. The Barton thing was an anomaly. Normally with something like that I'd just keep it inside because really there's only so much anger, so much outrage that I can feel before I go numb. And it seems to be hitting us all hard, all the time now
And like you I'm not without my moments. Anyone who knows me, in real life or on the net, knows that I have a wicked twisted sense of humor and that's one of my primary coping mechanisms. As awful as things can be, and often are, these days sometimes the only thing you can do is crack a joke.
I don't know guy. Like Columbia in Rocky Horror, our goal seems to be to "stay sane inside insanity." That's a tough nut to crack.
A VERY apt analogy there!
I know about the sense of humour.
We're going through ANOTHER re-org here, only this time with threats of redundancy, and my comment was "Hey, I'm not worried, I got a medical paper-trail! All I have to do is walk around downtown buck-assed naked with a Zuchinni hanging out of my butt and that's 3 hots and cot, guaranteed, and maybe some kick-ass drugs for SURE!"
Round and Round it Goes...
