Depression.

Depression is a horrible illness and sadly it has useless stigma associated with it that needs to be done away with. Fortunately, there is good medical treatment out there for it, and many people that would otherwise be non functional are able to take the medications and have a normal life. However, medication alone will not solve everyone's problems, some need psychotherapy-which is way more complicated than just taking a pill and is very good especially for those patients who have become isolated.

Support groups in 2nd life could be very useful to those, presuming that they are done in a nurturing environment and are positive to the idea of working with traditional medical care.

I once killed myself because I couldn't bear to read the forums any longer.. Now with my new undead prespective, I just don't care!

Don't EVER evaluate someone else's subjective experience for them, especially if you don't know them very well. These sorts of cutting remarks can be very hurtful in the most insidious ways. Suggesting that someone is not doing better despite their own self-report is highly inappropriate, and cruel.

I would like to point out FAR more people have been helped learning to cope with their depression with medication and therapy than with motivational thinking (professional or not) and self help gurus.

Hi Tulipe,

Depression can be caused by many things, some we arent even aware of. Someone else suggested checking you get the right sort of physical/metal/health/social balance. Its a really good place to start.

It could be your SL thats bringing you down, you could always try removing yourself from the group from the time being, or from SL for a while, just to check. If in doubt, seek some real life help. I dont mean go and see a Physchiatrist, even your local GP or just a really close friend or family member might be helpful.

Whatever you do, now you realise you have a problem, dont try sweeping it under the carpet and hoping it will go away. If things get really bad, please, please seek help.

All the best in tackling this problem, I hope you have someone you can turn to,

Chloe

sorry ananda i call them like i see them, which is why i used if and sounds like and usually when... I need and.... get the picture?


she may be fine, hard to tell lots and lots of things with strangers over the internet. nevertheless, she doesn't sound like she's doing to well to me. that's not cruelty, that's an observation from an outside person who has been there. sometimes ppl notice i'm sliding back down before i do. if she's doing well, it's unlikely to bother her much. if it strikes a nerve, she MAY want to think about it.

Well I'd like to apologise. I'm sorry for using the word 'depressed'. It obviously wasn't the right word to explain my feelings. I seriously didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings or start a long debate/argument and I definately didn't mean for it to upset people suffering from actual depression. Sorry

I have however been within SL for quite a number of hours over the last few weeks (over 12 hours the one day!). Due to my work shift pattern I often find myself with no one to talk to (friends at work, family at work/school). SL has suddenly given me a whole group of people to converse with. And then I found a group with interests new to me. The whole thing has become very addictive. I have no idea why as of yet. Anyway as my week off approached it's end and the night shift came closer I felt that horrible sickening feeling in my stomach and became incredibly down. I just wanted to get back into SL. It lasted pretty much the whole 12 hour shift. I'd had a few moments like that already over the last couple of weeks.

Anyway I'm on my second night shift now and I feel ok. I'm missing the conversation I have with my 'friends' in SL though. Perhaps I just overdid it. Perhaps it's something else?

Anyway I' sorry for upsetting anyone. Really didn't mean to

Worry not tulipe,

it -could- even be a mild depression, at any rate, you felt down and you checked in with ppl, as dubious as our qualifications may be probably it's mostly the combination of a neat new thing and a less than perfect rl. it happens, and usually passes.. you find a balance. i hope both lives turn out great for you 8D

-l

In my experience Molly, this is too fucking true.

I've had experience with shift work and the likes... I have one word for you -> SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder... pleas do a google on this, and see for yourself.
The remedy is as simple as a light therapy box. There are several models. It has changed my life.

Don't take my word for it. I did the research, and have used it for more than two years now...

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm

Actually......that's pretty damn accurate

well i think its more than that ---

its hopelessness when things are bad , but also when things arent

its sadness even when most people would be happy.

its not even being able to feel the happiness that you know you should.

its doubting all your feelings, and actions to the point you cant remember why you did anything.

its feeling useless even when you can mentally understand you have worth.

*****************************
As to how it feels, thats a start ...

It was a joke, trying to lighten the mood. But yes, I know what you mean. I have gone through a period of it, but I'm fine now.

I would add to this - it can be not even knowing what happy IS, if you go through your whole life with depression due to a biochemical disorder.

I have a really good suspicion that nobody here is a professional, but I will ask anyhow.

Is being worried to the point you feel sick, nearly every day, a sign of something similar to depression?

It uh, happens to a friend of mine.... (ok, yeah ya got me).

thats Anxiety and yes i think it often accompanies depression - and the medications treat both at once.

ohh you know what happiness is all right

you just cant seem to grasp it , like smoke wisps through your fingers.

Although what you may mean is theyve never experienced happiness , or love - and i think there are many in that catagory.

when i cried at my wedding, it wasnt tears of joy: it was later , alone - and it was becuase i felt i should feel .. more than i did.

Good advice, but why the unpleasantness at the beginning?

It IS hard, sounds like you have a difficult work schedule and youve found a fun activity and more importantly fun people who you have a lot of common with.

Of course youre going to be a bit down when you cant be with them... or even just being in SL doing something you enjoy.

Hang in there.

Exactly. That is true if you ever had the happiness before.

But if you have a biochemical imbalance, and have had it all your life, you don't even understand what it is or how it feels - how people can laugh in carefree abandon at a movie, for instance - until you have the imbalance corrected. Unless you have felt it before, you don't know what you have missed.

coco

just a platitude from a stranger, it's true; but..

hang in there. you have a right to a reasonable chance at happiness, the thing many take for granted. do get help, and if your help isn't helpful, chuck'em and try someone else. if you have a supportive person in your life, enlist their help in fighting for you even when you're frozen. if not, gather your strength when you can and try again.

there are lots of treatments out there- meds, therapies, even ECT and some brand new things are coming along. every month you make it is a new chance something will come along that will enable you to fight your way out from under this monster. nothing works for everyone and it can be so hard having a hard-to-treat case. but don't give up, there is a life out there somewhere for you. it'll still take work, but i believe they'll find something that makes it possible for all of us, if we can just hang in there long enough...

Hmmmmmmmm, depression this and depression that, take this pill, follow this regiment of uplifting sermons, seek this professionals dogma.....................

Ok, so maybe you are not "happy", life isn't very rewarding, no one see's you smile. Your feelings are not the same as everyone else's feelings.

Is this what modern life has evolved to? Everyone must act and feel the same as everyone else or there is something clinically wrong with you??? Your physe is so messed up, perversed, out of order; we are just going to have you removed from service until we cure you. Go take your purple pill, eat a shroom.

I just don't get it. Were cavemen depressed??? Were the hippies depressed??? Were the baby boomers depressed?? Why are the baby boomers children, and the follow on generations so damn set that there is something wrong with them that needs to be cured with the magic pill? How did people get through the great "depression" without support groups and professional counseling??

I must have missed the mark somewhere, took the wrong turn in life, refused to put on my blinders, and kept my tin foil hat firmly in place. I would be much much much more inclined that the term clinical depression is a self serving, self creating, diagnosis created by the drug and medical industries, than I would be so inclined to believe that society as a whole cannot function in any meaningful manner without the guidance of the professionals and medicines.

Ok, some days are happy days. I would be real suspicious of anyone that said they are happy everyday. Anyway, happy is just a feeling, and feelings are controlled by they body. But I don't and will not believe that there is some physical thing in anyones body that could prevent someone from smiling, laughing, being happy once in awhile. Anyone who says otherwise, has obviously misplaced their tin foil hat and fell for the ruse.

Take baby steps, smile, laugh. I think you will like this new feeling, and if I know anything about the body, it will fool you into doing the thing it likes. If you want to feel good about yourself, stop believing what everyone else is telling you to believe, and start believing what you tell yourself. If you catch yourself telling yourself to feel bad and never smile, then stop it.

Anyway, quit worrying so much that something is wrong with you, get your tin foil hat on, go have a good talk with yourself. Maybe even smile at yourself for being so silly.

Ummm, you may have made some good points, but yes, I do think you missed the mark.



Hell yeah, many Baby Boomers get depressed. So did many of their parents. And their parents' parents. And so on. It is not a modern invention. Consider the biblical strictures against suicide, for example. Either people got depressed then, too, or somoene did a great job reading into the future.



Yeah, I used to think like that, even when I was in the middle of a bout of depression. Thought that right up to the night where the mounting piles of pain were too much and I placed the plastic bag over my head. My husband, who I will be *eternally* grateful to, intervened. I was put on medication and found a therapist and noticed the difference within a month. So, I guess I could be smug and skeptical and potentially suiciadal, or humble enough to realize I really do have a problem but be increasingly content and alive. Guess which choice I made?



You know what then? You are very, very fortunate. I wish no one ever fell so far down that smiling becomes a herculean effort. But if you haven't been there, you just don't know, do you?

And frankly, the "buck up and smile a little" crap (and it *is* crap if you're really depressed) is more than just patronizing. It's cruel. Nothing like telling someone who wants to end it all that it's their own damn fault for wanting to end it all. Niiiice.



Comes off as an insult. Sorry.

with all due respect brian, go away.

there's a difference between life is perfect, and even between life sucks atm, and depression.

yes depression did exist in the past. many ppl drank, or did drugs, or engaged in selfdestructive behaviors, probably. i imagine some of the people who volunteered for risky assignments in various realms were probably depressed and had little to lose.

it may well be true too much is made of it now, but it does exist as a real and serious disease, and maybe more ppl will be reached when it stops being a dirty little secret.

in my own family over the past 100 years there were severals suicides and alcoholics among my grandmother's older brothers. that was after cavemen but way before hippies.
just because you don't have cancer and more is made of it these days doesn't mean it didn't exist long ago either. don't be a jerk.

i can tell the difference between bad things happening in my life and being depressed. when i'm not depressed, i know it will pass, when i am, it seems like it's always been and and always will be, awful.