Depression

[FoxyPV]

On 24/09/2021 at 12:35, pmcla26 said:

I feel like everything I can't control goes wrong, and everything that I can control I fail at.

 

I just want to be a better person but don't know where to start. So many bad habits re drinking, smoking, going out etc. that I want to change but don't think I'm mentally strong enough to say no. I say I want to change, but I do enjoy all of these things too, but the mistakes I make and regrets far outweigh the enjoyment of things. 

 

I've got unresolved hurt that I haven't come to terms with and hide away and try to resolve by getting pissed and stoned. I then take shit out by doing stupid things, hurting the people that love/care about me most. I feel so guilty and bad all of the time and I've let my best friend down big time recently and don't know if they'll forgive me as it's not really just a mistake. I'm a mess and miss the old person I used to be. 

 

Just feel like I'm on an endless quest for being content. Not even happy, just content, but I hinder myself from being able to by not breaking the cycle I'm in. I've tried to get help before but don't find anything useful as it's all just very much "stop everything and take these tablets" and I can't do it. Has anyone got any advice on how to start making things happen in a positive sense, positive thinking or good habits (like exercise for example, I play football twice a week and that helps)? 

 

I feel like I'm not a bad person but I just lack guidance and make bad decisions, but the longer I carry on the way I am I feel closer and closer to the former. Everything is just so far from how it used to be. 

I've sought help recently for my drinking habits and sometimes just the very act of talking to a professional or guidance counsellor can help spur you to make minor achievable improvements which encourage you to make bigger ones. 

 

Regarding exercise, make sure it's fun and doesn't add any pressure to your life. I was in the best shape of my life and competing at a decent level but constantly suicidal and whilst I enjoyed it the pressure I put on myself added to my despair.

 

Good luck to you and keep us informed

[Buce]

Woman successfully treated for depression with electrical brain implant

‘Stunning’ neuroscientific advance gives hope to those with mental illness not helped with drugs

 

A woman with severe depression has been successfully treated with an experimental brain implant in a “stunning” advance that offers hope to those with intractable mental illness.

The device works by detecting patterns of brain activity linked to depression and automatically interrupting them using tiny pulses of electrical stimulation delivered deep inside the brain.

 

The 36-year-old patient, Sarah, said the therapy had returned her to “a life worth living”, allowing her to laugh spontaneously for the first time in five years.

Although the therapy has been tested in only one patient – and would only ever be suitable for those with severe illness – the success is seen as hugely significant. It is the first demonstration that the brain activity underlying the symptoms of mental illness can be reliably detected and reveals that these brain circuits can be nudged back into a healthy state, even in a patient who has been unwell for years.

“We haven’t been able to do this the kind of personalised therapy previously in psychiatry,” said Katherine Scangos, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), who led the work. “This success in itself is an incredible advancement in our knowledge of the brain function that underlies mental illness.”

Prof Rupert McShane, a consultant psychiatrist and associate professor at Oxford University, who was not involved in the trial, said: “This is a stunning demonstration … which points to a way of examining the biology of the abrupt slumps into despair that can be so destructive.”

Between 10% and 30% of people with depression do not respond to at least two drug treatments – equivalent to about 2.7 million people in the UK.

During the past two decades, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been used to treat tens of thousands of patients with Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. However, several trials for depression have ended in disappointment. A major challenge is that the brain does not appear to have a single “depression area”; several interconnected areas can be in play and these can differ between people.

“We’re starting to recognise some of the complexity involved in how mood is regulated in the brain as a network,” said Prof Edward Chang of the University of California San Francisco, the neurosurgeon who treated Sarah.

A meticulous, personalised approach paved the way for the latest advance. In an initial phase lasting a week, a temporary brain implant recorded a wide range of activity while Sarah regularly logged her mood on a tablet. A machine learning algorithm was used to identify a telltale pattern of activity in the amygdala region accompanying Sarah’s lowest points.

Through trial and error the scientists identified a closely connected brain area, the ventral striatum, where a tiny dose of electricity appeared to have an immediate and profound impact.

“When I first received stimulation I felt the most intensely joyous sensation and my depression was a distant nightmare for a moment,” said Sarah. “I just laughed out loud. It’s the first time I had spontaneously laughed or smiled … in five years.”

In a second round of minimally invasive surgery, a permanent device was implanted, with a tiny battery unit embedded in her skull, to detect the “depression signature” activity in the amygdala and automatically deliver stimulation to the ventral striatum.

This happens about 300 times each day, equivalent to about 30 minutes of stimulation. The electrical pulse is not accompanied by any sensation, Sarah said, aside from a subtle feeling of alertness and positivity.

“The idea that we can treat symptoms in the moment, as they arise, is a whole new way of addressing the most difficult-to-treat cases of depression,” said Scangos. She hopes the work will also help dissolve the stigma that “comes from the black box nature” of depression.

Sarah described a life before the treatment in which she barely moved, no longer had opinions and “only noticed what was ugly in the world”. After five years of suffering, she had run out of treatment options. The profound effect of the implant confirmed to her that her depression was rooted in brain biology and “not a moral failing, but a disorder that could be treated”.

The device costs about $35,000 (£26,000) and is an adapted version of one normally used to treat epilepsy, called the NeuroPace RNS System. The UCSF team has already enrolled two more patients and hopes to recruit a further nine to assess whether the technique can be more widely applied.

Prof Eileen Joyce, a professor of neuropsychiatry at University College London, who is leading a trial using deep brain stimulation for OCD, said: “The results are genuine and significant. It’s a remarkable piece of translational clinical neuroscience. I’m not sure that anyone else in the world is doing that at the moment but I’m sure they will in future.”

McShane said that while the method would not be widely or immediately applied, “if I was a medical student thinking about which field will show exciting developments during my working life, I would be clocking this as a reason to be considering psychiatry”. The findings are published in the journal Nature Medicine.

[urban.spaceman]

Job interview this morning... wish me luck...

 

 

[HighPeakFox]

6 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

Job interview this morning... wish me luck...

 

 

Good luck!

[urban.spaceman]

It went well!!!

 

Gonna need a lie down now.

[Paninistickers]

2 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

Job interview this morning... wish me luck...

 

 

Not that this has anything to do with it, but as an introvert and someone who just naturally exudes a stand offish vibe (what's the opposite to someone who lights up a room and has a magnetic personality btw?....whatever that is, I'm.it) , I find the telephone the most comfortable place. It's face to face I need the rocky stuff for. 

 

I'm urged at work to 'network', do face to face, do zoom instead of telephone ....I avoid it all if I can. All the well honed , well paced social skills I have on the phone tend to evaporate in person.

 

Anyways, glad the interview went well! 

[FoxesDeb]

51 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Not that this has anything to do with it, but as an introvert and someone who just naturally exudes a stand offish vibe (what's the opposite to someone who lights up a room and has a magnetic personality btw?....whatever that is, I'm.it) , I find the telephone the most comfortable place. It's face to face I need the rocky stuff for. 

 

I'm urged at work to 'network', do face to face, do zoom instead of telephone ....I avoid it all if I can. All the well honed , well paced social skills I have on the phone tend to evaporate in person.

 

Anyways, glad the interview went well! 

Haha you sound like the male version of me 

 

I hate the phone as well as face to face though, email and text make me happy. That pic Urban posted is me, I very rarely actually answer my phone, I need to prepare myself and then ring people back. It's rubbish then when people don't answer when you've proper psyched yourself up! 

[foxfanazer]

2 weeks of feeling relatively OK and then out of nowhere it just whacks me right in the face again. No real reason for it either  I've been a little bit under the weather so maybe that's added to it but feel so low today. And it's always on a day when I've gotta put a brave face on it as I've got my kids tonight 

[ajthefox]

1 hour ago, Paninistickers said:

Not that this has anything to do with it, but as an introvert and someone who just naturally exudes a stand offish vibe (what's the opposite to someone who lights up a room and has a magnetic personality btw?....whatever that is, I'm.it) , I find the telephone the most comfortable place. It's face to face I need the rocky stuff for. 

 

I'm urged at work to 'network', do face to face, do zoom instead of telephone ....I avoid it all if I can. All the well honed , well paced social skills I have on the phone tend to evaporate in person.

 

Anyways, glad the interview went well! 

 

54 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

Haha you sound like the male version of me 

 

I hate the phone as well as face to face though, email and text make me happy. That pic Urban posted is me, I very rarely actually answer my phone, I need to prepare myself and then ring people back. It's rubbish then when people don't answer when you've proper psyched yourself up! 

It's only the last couple of years I've realised that a lot of social situations, particularly bigger groups, make me really quite anxious.

 

Sometimes it feels crippling, even when I'm with people I know quite well. I want to be part of a conversation but the words just don't come to me. It really gets me down sometimes. 

[Crinklyfox]

2 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

2 weeks of feeling relatively OK and then out of nowhere it just whacks me right in the face again. No real reason for it either  I've been a little bit under the weather so maybe that's added to it but feel so low today. And it's always on a day when I've gotta put a brave face on it as I've got my kids tonight 

The quick answer is that there are always ups and downs, whether a person suffers from depression or not, the trick is to recognise that and understand that it's likely that you'll feel better tomorrow.

 

One matter worthy of further thought though - and I'm taking this from my own depressive experience.  I used to be guilty of predicting the future, usually seeing problems that weren't really there, and getting low as a result.  Example:

 

1.  I messed up at work

2.  So my manager is not going to be happy - I'll probably get reprimanded or worse

3.  So my chances of getting promoted in the future are out, as is my chance of a decent reference if I leave.  I could even get fired.

4.  So I'm stuck where I am and my career is finished or I'll be out with no prospect of a decent job.

 

A reasonable person would assess the chances of that sequence happening as very low, but a depressed person can see it as a certainty.  So unless we're very careful with our thoughts and make efforts to see things objectively, depression can take hold.  I'm not suggesting that this happens to you, but it's worth bearing in mind when things look black.

 

And I hope that your time with the kids tonight is enjoyable.

[filbertway]

3 hours ago, FoxesDeb said:

Haha you sound like the male version of me 

 

I hate the phone as well as face to face though, email and text make me happy. That pic Urban posted is me, I very rarely actually answer my phone, I need to prepare myself and then ring people back. It's rubbish then when people don't answer when you've proper psyched yourself up! 

Imagine how the people in your situation feel when they ring you 

 

Edited 7 October 2021 by filbertway

[Phil Bowman]

7 hours ago, ajthefox said:

Sometimes it feels crippling, even when I'm with people I know quite well. I want to be part of a conversation but the words just don't come to me. It really gets me down sometimes

I can really relate to this. I know exactly that feeling of wanting to say something, even knowing you really should say something, but just being completely unable to think of any words. I always thought I was just shy; was a very long time before I twigged that it can be part of depression.

[GeorgeTheFox]

I have a video call interview that i need to do tomorrow. Im sure it is pretty much an inevitability because I have all the qualifications for the job but I am still bricking it... not sure I can waffle through the passions by stating how much I give a **** about our summer signings 

[urban.spaceman]

Really struggling to stop the usual self destructive behaviour. I know where I want to get to but I'm finding it really difficult to get back on track

[HighPeakFox]

13 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

Really struggling to stop the usual self destructive behaviour. I know where I want to get to but I'm finding it really difficult to get back on track

Choose a tiny, menial task. Just one. 

[Crinklyfox]

1 hour ago, urban.spaceman said:

Really struggling to stop the usual self destructive behaviour. I know where I want to get to but I'm finding it really difficult to get back on track

You can get to where you want to be.  You've done it before, you've cut out the drink, done Hadrian's Wall and got yourself into a better place than you were in.  It helps if you have someone to talk to, to share your feelings.

[TAFKA Castroneves]

8 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

Really up and down at the min. My girlfriend and I of nearly 3 years split up last month, we'd been together since last year of secondary school and had been friends before that - it's been tough to swallow. She's blocked me on everything and it's just weird going from living with someone every day to not even a text or a phone call. I miss her but it's my fault, I can't have too many complaints over the split. 

 

On the upside, since the split I've lost a stone and been working out a lot, cut out week night beers, walking more to and from work instead of getting public transport, doing really well at work and had some good nights out with mates - I just feel a bit lost adjusting to it all though. I don't know if I'm better or worse off, one moment I feel fine and the next moment I'm thinking about the memories and in pieces. 

 

I don't really know what the point in this post is, I just feel like I'm keeping a lot of shit bottled up and I just don't know what I'm really feeling right now. I wasn't happy before but I don't know if I'm better or worse now - I just feel weird and the up and down-ness of it all is becoming a bit overwhelming :/ 

 

Mate there is a massive purpose to your post, you’re talking about it even though you are at a place where you’re hurt and trying to push on and trying to make sense of it all, much better to just speak about it here even if you feel you’re just waffling, waffle away - it’ll help others as well who have been in similar positions and don’t quite understand either. It’s a win win.

 

Getting straight on the exercise is a fantastic first physical step 👍 with relationships coming to an end there’s a big adjustment period emotionally and like you say with your life as something which was a big part of it suddenly isn’t there anymore, which no matter how overall it was is very difficult.

 

It will get better, you’re grieving at this time and you are doing all the right things it seems. Balancing that exercise, being with friends, working and also allowing yourself to be honest with your emotions through the next x amount of time is all good stuff. Talking here was another step for you. 

 

Eventually those memories will be viewed fondly again as well, I look back at the times my ex girlfriend and I had now with lots of affection as they were great, but I wouldn’t be with her today as we both moved in different directions with our lives. You’ll eventually be off in another direction and who knows the exciting places that can lead. 

 

Until then check in here let me and others know how youre doing 👍 we got your back

[TAFKA Castroneves]

Just now, pmcla26 said:

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement, really means a lot

Anytime mate, you’re not on your own and all the best with it 👍 

[kingkisnorbo]

Happy to have found this little corner of FT. Never thought it would have existed. I started a course of therapy around 6 weeks ago and I’ve really managed to get a hold of some of my anxiety/depression issues as a result.  
 

Happy to recommend a clinic/specialist if anyone needs the help👍🏽

[Strokes]

why is everyone dying?

can’t turn the page.

[HighPeakFox]

13 minutes ago, Strokes said:

why is everyone dying?

can’t turn the page.

What's up, fella? Please tell us. 

[Big Dave]

 

https://www.leicspart.nhs.uk/contact/urgent-help/?fbclid=IwAR0XHhRqixIAs1nGmCeREjoRCRjFhzMCw0uYziEMA1yxACrC0P087LTZL5Q

[TAFKA Castroneves]

16 hours ago, Strokes said:

why is everyone dying?

can’t turn the page.

 

The world has become a very difficult place the last few years mate, you aren’t alone with that. There’s been not just one pandemic, but two - one physical, one mental. If you want a private talk gimme a PM, I’m sure I speak for everyone where I say this is a safe place to talk, however I understand sometimes things need to be private, the offer is there though bud 👍 🦊 

[Ian Nacho]

Tough day the other day. Everything went wrong, and even the one thing that seemed to go well eventually went wrong. Harder to take when it's multiple people letting you down which is the thing that went wrong.

[TAFKA Castroneves]

9 minutes ago, Ian Nacho said:

Tough day the other day. Everything went wrong, and even the one thing that seemed to go well eventually went wrong. Harder to take when it's multiple people letting you down which is the thing that went wrong.

 

I had a lot of that in my life a while ago mate and it’s still occasionally happening, but somehow - and quite frankly I don’t quite know how it’s happened 100% - I’ve found a way to deal with these things better. I think perhaps for me it was something which sounds a bit daft but I started listening to Meditation videos on YouTube, it kinda centred me more as a person with what I could and couldn’t control for lack of a better term, made me more at peace with others for letting me down, I don’t meditate every day as I’m not fully into it but I do now and again just sit there with my headphones in and switch off from the world and just soak it in - I feel much calmer and more relaxed personally as a result. Might not work for you as it’s very dependant on person to person, but your post resonated with me as something I’d experienced and managed to find something that helped me. I without a doubt feel a much more chilled individual nowadays, things are much more water off a ducks back and how can I be there in the right way for people, I think it’s made me more compassionate and open ironically which in someways were things I personally feared. 

 

I also think logically its been weird times for everyone the last few years and it’s affected everyone beyond what we just see and hear and experience. Perhaps im just waffling I don’t know 😂 but as always we are all here if you even just want to get it off your chest as it will relieve that specific pressure 👍 all the best mate 🦊