Comments on: This Blog Made Possible by Bupropion

By: Doug Hughes

Doug Hughes — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:39:19 +0000

Been There – Done That. I used Wellbutrin. Kudos to Maha for a daring post, and my sincere well wishes to all who recovered & are recovering. Anyone who may be suffering and reads this should know from the venerable list of commenters – they are not alone. And there is hope and help.

By: Donna

Donna — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:10:42 +0000

Oh, what a good post. As I read the text and the comments, my heart just kept expanding to the point where I wished I could bear-hug everybody.
When I was in my late twenties and my world fell apart because my marriage failed, I went through what I ever after labeled my hell week. [I cannot imagine living in that for more than a week. Geez.]
I just dropped into something that I guess was a brain fizz disfunction and didn’t even realize something was profoundly wrong…. until I was driving the car and drew blankness: I suddenly couldn’t remember how to turn the car or stop the car, I was in acute anxiety knowing I had to get that car stopped, which somehow I did do, shaking like a leaf. The acuteness passed enough for me to drive home to our farm house.
For some days, I was alternately weeping and walking around like I was dead. I had the most profound conflict inside. The conflict went like this: I needed attention and help, but if I spoke of what I needed, then somebody would give me what I needed ONLY because I asked for it, which meant [to my ego] that it was no good anyway…..and besides, I realized I was so bad that I deserved nothing from anyone, and I should impose no more on anyone, but even my silence could be an imposition. If I spoke, somebody would feel like they were to listen, but if I didn’t speak, that also might put pressure on another. This conflict was unbearable and stalled me into agonizing muteness if I was in the presence of a possibly helpful person.
Much of that week is still a blur, but I remember lying on the ground in the rain one night, weeping and flailing my arms onto the earth. The hell week ended when I went to the basement of the farm house and broke my self-image ‘adult goody-two-shoes’ pattern by methodically throwing every last canning jar [dozens] against a concrete wall…..I suppose I safely shattered that glass instead of myself.
The calmness that followed allowed a most healing logic to replace my despair. I realized that all of my attempts to make myself loveable [slim down the hips, cook better meals, etc, etc] would never bring love to the actual ‘me’, which was, well…. imperfect. What a relief to give up all that wasted energy of trying to be something I wasn’t.
Like I said, I cannot imagine living in that kind of place for any length of time, which is why my heart so responded to this post. As the Aussies say, good on you all.

By: Beware The Man

Beware The Man — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:33:44 +0000

[...] [...]

By: freD

freD — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:18:35 +0000

Interesting how “A-list” conservative pundits don’t seem to be showing any depressive symptoms or are admitting to being medicated. You’d think with all the expanding horrors of the Iraq which they helped cause, or with the phenomenal discrepancy between hopeful expectations for the Bush administration and with the actual results that this would be a major issue.

Is there something about the way their brains work that’s not “normal.”

By: maha

maha — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:48:08 +0000

Ian -- A Technorati search of the URL usually works, but for some reason it's not working right now.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:03:38 +0000

Maha, I’m sure you know about my own battles. Flunked out of two colleges because of anxiety/depression, saved in the end by Prozac combined with a very good therapist.

Is there a good way of finding out everybody who has linked to that Chris Rose piece? I’d like to see what people are saying…

-me

By: moonbat

moonbat — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:59:57 +0000

Bonnie: What you raised is off-topic, but is important. McKibben is spot on. There’s much that could be said about it, I’ll try to be brief, and share my own 2 cents:

1) Western culture, led by the American experiment, has been the forerunner in emphasizing individualism over community. There is always this tension between the two in any society, but in America, the rights of the individual are paramount. Not so in Confucian cultures, or in third world (poor) countries, which have much to teach us in this regard. I recommend TR Reid’s “Confucius Lives Next Door” for the Asian example. He speaks specifically to this point.

2) Mother Teresa was once asked where she saw the greatest poverty. She said it was in the loneliness in the eyes of people here in America.

3) It’s my belief (and that of others) that spiritual communities are the future. American hyper-individualism, based on cheap energy, isn’t going to be a viable strategy, nor is the endless surfeit of consumer goods at the expense of the planet’s health and the health of its people satisfying anyway. Many in the first world have moved up past materialism in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The next few decades are going to see the unfortunately painful transition to this kind of future, IMO. I’ve read that Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian sage from the early 20th century, said that America will become twice as poor but twice as spiritual.

Swami: Better living through chemistry, no? I self-medicated in this same way for a long time, and actually used our friend THC to find myself – I could write a book about that journey. I previously learned how to work with subtle energy, and THC enhanced my ability to see negative and stuck energy in my own field, which helped me get rid of it, which changed my life. A clairvoyant named Barbara Martin wrote “Change Your Aura, Change Your Life” along these lines, albeit without the THC boost.

Psychedelics, even mere THC, are powerful, sacramental, and can be very dangerous over time. It’s only through my knowledge of subtle energy that I knew how to repair the damage they cause to my own energy field, that I was able to stay out of a mental ward. I’m grateful for what I learned and for how I grew, but it was a very dangerous and risky voyage that I’m glad is over.

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:52:50 +0000

I have way too many thoughts on this subject; so will spare you. However, off topic, I found this quote that I thought was interesting and could use some good “Maha” analysis–not only by her but the thoughtful people who comment here. The quote is as follows:

The technology we need most badly is the technology of community – the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. Our sense of community is in disrepair at least in part because the prosperity that flowed from cheap fossil fuel has allowed us all to become extremely individualized, even hyperindividualized, in ways that, as we only now begin to understand, represent a truly Faustian bargain. We Americans haven’t needed our neighbors for anything important, and hence neighborliness – local solidarity – has disappeared. Our problem now is that there is no way forward, at least if we’re serious about preventing the worst ecological nightmares, that doesn’t involve working together politically to make changes deep enough and rapid enough to matter. A carbon tax would be a very good place to start.
Bill McKibben is scholar in residence at Middlebury College and the author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.

From:
How Close to Catastrophe?
By Bill McKibben
TomDispatch.com

By: Swami

Swami — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:32:01 +0000

This comment is made possible by tetrahydrocannabinol.

Whatever it takes to keep your wheels on. Realizing that there are varying degrees and different causes for different types depression, I think one of the biggest aids generally in combating depression is openness. There are those who have no understanding and who are quick to say..get over it, get out of yourself, or just get washed in the blood of Jesus and burdens of your mind will roll away. I’ve had a few battles with depression, so I do understand it. Years ago the Veterans Administration hooked me up on Paxil… for me, the side effects outweighed the benefit. First was the stigmatizing by others of not being of sound mind and the second was the physical effect on my mind. I would experience what I called “electrical storms” in my brain where there would be a fluttering sensation lasting for several seconds that would scare the hell out of me. I also would experience an audible sensation that was the equivalent of having an F-4 Phanton jet fly over your head at a low altitute and high speed. Scarry stuff!.. Now I self medicate.. and it works.

Oh yeah, another draw back to Paxil for me was the inability to experience an orgasm while using that drug..all systems would be up and running 110% except for the little something the occurs in the brain. Talk about frustration?

By: John Palmer

John Palmer — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:18:08 +0000

I hear people who have tried antidepressants say that the drugs suppressed their emotions and made them feel mentally foggy, which suggests to me they didn’t have the disease depression but just the common emotion of depression. If your brain chemistry and neurotransmitters are functioning normally, anti-depressants may make you feel worse.

Even if someone is depressed, the wrong drug can be harmful. Paxil made me a *lot* worse; Wellbutrin, however, has been a lifesaver.

Also, on SSRIs, I tended to hit a “living but numb” space. I wasn’t crushingly depressed, and I could live with it, the way a person can live with a chronic pain disorder, but I was very flat. It was very like depression, without the soul-crushing despair.

I should note, I have ADHD/inattentive, and that is tied to my depression. I have no idea where one drops off and the other starts. So, for “pure depression” you might be right. I don’t know. But a good or bad reaction to antidepressants isn’t diagnostic in either direction. (Of course, if an 8 month course of (fill in the blank AD) cures the complaint, then the patient will be deemed to have had depression… but a wise doctor understands that it could have been something else, as well.)