Are you depressive? Find out [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

jumpy

06-24-10, 08:03 AM

lol 'Computer says 'no'.'

I think krashkart has it right.

But something else occurs to me:
Interesting how a reaction to people with serious mental health issues presents itself. Like when you see someone with a terrible physical affliction, a natural reaction is to avoid that person. A bit like the instinct animals have for one of their own who is sick; often that individual is shunned or outcast.
Regardless of how you may think rationally, on some base level there's a hint to keep away from this person, they could be bad news.

Oddly enough, it was my instinctual answer to being informed that my ex had hidden her depression from me, right up until things had started to get serious between us.
I have acquaintances who suffer mental health issues, but I am not 'best friends' with them due to their changeable behaviour and inconsistency of disposition - some days they are ok and others they are just plain hard work.

Maybe this sounds unhelpful, but it is my personal opinion that those who have clinical depression, or any number of related conditions (ie bi-polar etc) that are conducted with professional medical and psychiatric help*, always give back less than they take from you where friendships are concerned. This is true on so many fundamental levels if you have a relationship with someone like that.

Perhaps if I had not had feelings for her (not to mention that at the time we had just moved in together) in the way that I do, then I might have chosen differently... but now I fall into the trap of second guessing the past! That in itself is an indicator to me that something is not right (thanks krashkart :rolleyes: ) with how I feel I am doing six months down the line from the end of nearly a decade where my focus was entwined with that of another so completely, that I still have to correct myself when I refer to 'we' instead of 'I'.

By that logic, does that mean that I am now 'hard work' to those around me? :haha:

aaargh!

I think if we had to rely on a computer to help solve situations like that, then we are doomed lol Can you imagine it:

Welcome to microsoft help and community support centre.
Pick a task:

keep your medication up to date with Meds Update
find compatible individuals and self help groups
undo changes to your life with Self Medicate & Exclude Loved Ones So You Can Rediscover Yourself
use Diary to view your life and diagnose when you ****ed it up badly

Maybe they taste a little like ozone? I dunno
no no, that unique burning electrical appliance smell that you can also taste; a combination of melting plastic and acrid solder, unknown in origin but the harbinger of something expensive and recently expired.

* I include this description to differentiate between them and the rest of us who manage to assimilate most of life's little meanders along the way.

SteamWake

06-24-10, 09:25 AM

A case study

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svDDWGin4QQ

frau kaleun

06-24-10, 09:31 AM

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1137/4730477568_ff2fc93661_m.jpg

Betonov

06-24-10, 09:47 AM

there's ''depression'' and there's depression

right now I am ''depressed'', having very bad moments in one day. but nothing a friend and a beer and a redhead will solve.

but then theres the real depression. very dangerous. sometimes a pill is all that prevents somebody from jumping offf a bridge. Had problems with depression in my youth. was suicidal. but it wasnt a psychiatrist and medication that cured me. It was very simple. I got a dog and my focus shifted from suicide to walks.

We're simply becoming to overdependant on pills except simple cures like a hobby or friend

Weiss Pinguin

06-24-10, 09:49 AM

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1137/4730477568_ff2fc93661_m.jpg
http://usernomics.com/images/Clippy-Goodbye.gif

Not even Clippy is immune :nope:

jumpy

06-24-10, 09:55 AM

^^
lol

Skybird

06-24-10, 10:33 AM

sometimes a pill is all that prevents somebody from jumping offf a bridge. Had problems with depression in my youth.
Also possible that somebody was too exhausted to commit suicde - until he got that pill that made him doing it. ;)

Indeed, no joke. One of the most dangerous paradoxical effects in psychopharmacology. You get warned of it in every psychopathology course. you see the patient improving, you think he's become better - and then all of a sudden he jumps out of the window. The treatement charged his battery just enough to make him doing the deed that before he did not have enough energy left to do. Great day for all staff.

frau kaleun

06-24-10, 10:37 AM

We're simply becoming to overdependant on pills except simple cures like a hobby or friend

I agree to the extent that sometimes a pill can be an "easy out" for someone who simply wants to "feel better" without exploring or addressing the causes of their mental/emotional situation.

But the human mental/emotional/psychological "system" (for lack of a better word) - the human mind, heart, and soul and the complex interactions of each with each - is such a mystery. Much can be explored and deduced and hypothesized about but at best all we have and all we may ever have is an ever-growing collection of maps of the territory (which may be infinite). One particular map may lead this individual to a place of health and wellness whereas for another person it proves useless.

IMO the only "cure" that is worthwhile is the one that works, and this varies greatly from person to person. Whether this is because the root cause of depression varies, or because one person's mind/body responds differently to the same root cause, or what - who knows? (Maybe the experts do, but I sure don't.)

My father was diagnosed as "manic depressive" in his mid 50s, what would now be called bipolar (and severely so) I guess.

His depressive episodes went beyond "being really sad" and if they were set off by any particular external life event, it was certainly not evident to those of us around him.* At the lowest point he would usually become completely divorced from reality. I remember one time he didn't get out of bed one morning and when we checked to see why, he stated that he was deaf, dumb, blind, and completely paralyzed. When it was pointed out to him that he could obviously see, hear and speak to us, and was moving around somewhat in the bed while doing so, he'd just respond "I know but..." and still insist that he could do none of the above.

And it's true that people with mental health issues, including depression, can't give back their "fair share" in a relationship - but most of the time they simply don't have it to give whether they want to or not.

I remember my sister once saying something that rang so true, but I had never thought about it until she said it - that in spite of everything we went through with our father, we still thought of him as our "good parent" because no matter what, we always knew he loved us and would do anything for us if were able to. The fact that he often wasn't able to didn't change that.

It's also a sad commentary on our mother, but you'd have to have lived with her as well to understand it - just google Narcissistic Personality Disorder and that'll give you enough of a clue, lol. What's been hard to accept is that given her own "issues," she probably did the best she could as well, although that doesn't make her any less toxic or us any more willing to continue dealing with it.

It is one thing to have sympathy for someone who suffers from some mental or behavioral disorder, but when it's a matter of choosing between your own sanity and wellbeing and the other person's need to use and abuse (even if they can't help it) - eh, the choice is clear.

I often think all the studying I've done of human psychology was as much a matter of self-defense as curiosity. At least I've got a couple decent maps of the territory. :O:

*Edit - actually the first one was, or seemed to be. His initial "nervous breakdown," as they called it in those days, happened after his employer transferred him to a job in another facility. This required the sale of our house and half our land and a move to another state. After that though there never seemed to be any obvious event/trauma that led to a depressive state.

Weiss Pinguin

06-24-10, 11:03 AM

I dunno how I feel about pills for your head. I know people (not personal friends, but parents of friends/family friends/people I know etc) who have been prescribed that kind of medication for a while, and it seemed to work for them. (Then again I don't know how serious things were for them :hmmm:) But personally, I wouldn't accept them unless I had no other choice, if then.

frau kaleun

06-24-10, 11:26 AM

It is difficult to be one that can't give everything that he wants to give, and have enough presence of mind to know that it is hard on the people in his life, too.

I remember when I saw "A Beautiful Mind" - it was probably the first time I felt I understood some of what it must have been like for my father to be "on the inside" of what he was going through. He was an extremely intelligent, capable, honorable person who had absolutely no desire to do any kind of harm to anyone, much less those he loved. Of course most of his major "episodes" occurred when I was still young and living at home and I know that it was all I could do then just to survive as intact as possible myself - but I look back now and wish I had been able to understand it more from his perspective.

Just forget I wrote any of that. krashkart strong. Not gloomy jellyfish. :-?

You get hugz and cookeez anyway. :D

http://images.free-extras.com/pics/k/kitten_hug-1451.jpg

http://www.myhomecooking.net/chocolate-chip-cookies/images/chocolate-chip-cookies.jpg

FIREWALL

06-24-10, 11:47 AM

Also possible that somebody was too exhausted to commit suicde - until he got that pill that made him doing it. ;)

Indeed, no joke. One of the most dangerous paradoxical effects in psychopharmacology. You get warned of it in every psychopathology course. you see the patient improving, you think he's become better - and then all of a sudden he jumps out of the window. The treatement charged his battery just enough to make him doing the deed that before he did not have enough energy left to do. Great day for all staff.

Or he jumped out the window after he saw his bill. :eek:

Betonov

06-24-10, 02:42 PM

Also possible that somebody was too exhausted to commit suicde - until he got that pill that made him doing it. ;)

Indeed, no joke. One of the most dangerous paradoxical effects in psychopharmacology. You get warned of it in every psychopathology course. you see the patient improving, you think he's become better - and then all of a sudden he jumps out of the window. The treatement charged his battery just enough to make him doing the deed that before he did not have enough energy left to do. Great day for all staff.

My friend was such a case. Was on medicine for depression, just started to look promising. Then one day we hear he jumped in front of the train

I was lucky. Gazed into the abyss but a labrador pulled me back

UnderseaLcpl

06-24-10, 03:20 PM

Are you going to eat all those, krashkart?

krashkart

06-25-10, 01:22 AM

Are you going to eat all those, krashkart?

Here ya go.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=179&pictureid=2313

UnderseaLcpl

06-25-10, 07:45 AM

Thanks!!!

edit-Damn! I forgot to enable cookies!:damn::wah:

Weiss Pinguin

06-25-10, 08:40 AM

Thanks!!!

edit-Damn! I forgot to enable cookies!:damn::wah:
That's okay, these cookies are horrible...

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/879/cookiebiteweb.jpg

... Oh yeah, you should definitely stay away from them. :yep:

Skybird

06-25-10, 09:15 AM

That's okay, these cookies are horrible...

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/879/cookiebiteweb.jpg

Exactly these type of cookies are available in German supermarkets, too, usually being sold as typical "US cookies", kind of a typical American speciality. Actually I like them very much, beside the typical German "Butterkeks" I prefer them to any other.

:D

http://estb.msn.com/i/69/BE53C734DCE77ED072FEC6101D86DE.jpg

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 09:51 AM

http://estb.msn.com/i/69/BE53C734DCE77ED072FEC6101D86DE.jpg

http://blog.rifftrax.com/wp-content/uploads/homer-drooling.jpg

That reminds me I need to go to Jungle Jim's. And buy Butterkeks.

Betonov

06-25-10, 12:01 PM

mmmmmm butterkeks....

interesting how one can come from suicide to butterkeks, god is telling us the means to save the world:

COOKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 12:24 PM

mmmmmm butterkeks....

interesting how one can come from suicide to butterkeks, god is telling us the means to save the world:

COOKIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The cookies are for dessert only. For main course you must have

http://img.webmd.com/dtmcms/live/webmd/consumer_assets/site_images/articles/health_tools/natural_cold_remedies_slideshow/istock_photo_of_chicken_soup.jpg

Known by kindly grandmas everywhere as the cure for damn near everything.

Betonov

06-25-10, 12:54 PM

ahhhhh, chicken soup

maybe we should rename the thread: world saving cuisine

but of course, are you depressive? find out the three cures for it in this thread: talk, humor and food

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 01:02 PM

ahhhhh, chicken soup

maybe we should rename the thread: world saving cuisine

but of course, are you depressive? find out the three cures for it in this thread: talk, humor and food

Funny you should say that because when I read about you and your doggie I thought "sometimes it's just a matter of finding a meaningful connection to something."

And talk, humor, and food can all be powerful ways of finding and sharing that connection. :yep:

Weiss Pinguin

06-25-10, 01:04 PM

And talk, humor, and food can all be powerful ways of finding and sharing that connection. :yep:
Especially the food :D

Betonov

06-25-10, 02:07 PM

Funny you should say that because when I read about you and your doggie I thought "sometimes it's just a matter of finding a meaningful connection to something."

And talk, humor, and food can all be powerful ways of finding and sharing that connection. :yep:

the doggie grew into something that's the size of a horse, but still cute nevertheless. the solution is simple, but people seem unable to find that meaningful connection to something. is it the golden cage of technology or the drive to aquire material possesions that seperates us from the social life that helped humans survive and evolve.

It's interesting that poorer societies have less depression than wealthy since they have less and are not as material oriented and therefore spend more time with eachother than aquiring wealth. a contrast beetween some poor children playing football on a grass allways having a smile on their faces and some rich kids looking like their someone killed their mother, being pale as vampires never seing the sun thats not on their PC monitors. And there is harder and harder to get someone to actually go backpacking to the seaside for a couple of days. Either they want to go to a 5 star hotel with internet connection or they are saving money for a fancy car or a playstation :damn: :mad: ....this rant felt good

come on, a car rusts to nothing within years, but an adventure with a redhead by the seaside is something not even god can take away from you

And Weiss Pinguin, food is the root and beginning of all pleasures, a good date always involves a dinner, a good night out always includes a kebab. And remember women, face powder will get our attention, but cooking powder makes us to stay

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 02:35 PM

And remember women, face powder will get our attention, but cooking powder makes us to stay

And for making you go away, a little itching powder in the underwear drawer works wonders! :O:

Weiss Pinguin

06-25-10, 02:46 PM

And for making you go away, a little itching powder in the underwear drawer works wonders! :O:
Only when we decide to change our underwear ;)

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 04:15 PM

Only when we decide to change our underwear ;)

Well this is going to be a problem since the longer you go without changing it, the more desperately I want you to go away...

Castout

06-25-10, 05:06 PM

I think if a person got depressed over "internet" he need some serious real life help:D. I just wonder if this "treatment" will ever going to work, and my answer is NO.

Well it wasn't designed to find people who got depressed over the internet but to find depressed people in the internet.

I'm not sure how the computer could differentiate between depression which is a long term condition with short term stress or anger burst.

As long as the software doesn't get law stamp that obliges people diagnosed to seek help it's okay otherwise it could get abused.
And by all means the software could not tell what caused the supposed diagnosed depression. A post war traumatic stress disorder or a man depressed by poor job environment or one's facing difficult financial situation or depression over long term abusive treatment
or having just lost someone you loved which is normal.

Sailor Steve

06-25-10, 05:27 PM

I'm currently taking pills, just as an experiment. I'm manic depressive, but not to the point I would use the term 'bipolar'. I know they're the same, but I picture the latter as being the extreme. I have swings that last for months sometimes, and I always have to ask the question: Did my divorce depress me, or did the depression cause it. Both are probably true, but how do you determine which is which? At the time I didn't even know what depression was. When I read something, I said "That sounds familiar."

So I'm not sure if the pills are helping, or if I'm just in the middle of an upswing. Or both.

As to suicide, I went through a major crisis when I was twenty-one, and I seriously considered suicide, as in contemplated and meditated on all the ins, outs and angles. I finally decided that it wasn't something I wanted to do for several reasons. Since then every time a doctor asks if I have suicidal thoughts the answer is an emphatic "No". It's not denial either, it's just something that isn't going to happen.

I've never studied psychology, so I can't really debate or discuss this intelligently. Something in one of the above posts just made me feel like sharing.

CaptainHaplo

06-25-10, 05:36 PM

Betonov

06-25-10, 05:38 PM

I've never studied psychology, so I can't really debate or discuss this intelligently. Something in one of the above posts just made me feel like sharing.

you don't have to study psychology to tell your point of view. The one positive side when it comes to these forums is the anominity of posters. What you say cannot be used against you because we don't know who you are. Plus if you have a problem, there are many people here that know how to help and are willing to help, something your rela life friend might not be able because he would also keep his problem a secret.

And for making you go away, a little itching powder in the underwear drawer works wonders! :O:

I work in a yacht construction industry. I sand away fiberglass every day. Fiberglass itching powder is something I get into my underwear and every other wear everyday. You are going to have to use guns to get a yacht maker to go away :O:

Castout

06-25-10, 05:50 PM

Guys, the timing of this is ... really odd. But it hits really close to home.

My lady, the love of my life - is going through a bout of what I can only term a depression. Its been building for over a year, and she hasn't been able to shake it. The problem is, its now caused her to do something that has, in essence, destroyed every bit of trust I have had for her. She needs help, but she refuses to get any at all. That decision by her is devastating me, because I can't begin to rebuild with her because she isn't willing to rebuild herself.

I am at a loss watching the woman I love go spiralling downward, and basically without my actions, taking the rest of the family with her. I am now trying to salvage the remains of my family while trying to save her from herself. I am totally lost here, and so if any of you have ideas on how I can help her see that she needs help to get back to being herself, please share them. Right now, she is miserable and yet refuses to seek help, either together or independantly.

I am not one to ask for help, but when its something or someone that is vital to your life and means the world to you, you do all you can.

The last thing you would want to do is to aggravate the feeling of helplessness or further drain her self confidence.

You could try encouraging her, making the effort to help her gain more self confidence. Love helps a lot too I believe.

You need to make her feel strong, strong and confident enough to seek professional help in the end. Don't aggravate her feeling of helplessness by forcing her to seek psychiatric help or add abusive treatment. Often depressive mind feels that they are alone. So be with her and let her know that you are with her, fully supporting! Spend time together quality time a lot.

Religious life may work wonders too and prayers, often enough, work maybe not immediately but work nonetheless in the end(in my 30 years of living only twice I've had my prayer answered immediately so I guess God doesn't like instant answer or He doesn't like me well enough to give me more of those LoL). If not consultation with psychiatry your wife may be willing for example to talk to a priest.
She needs someone to talk to, someone that she could trust. That someone doesn't have to be a psychiatry if she's not comfortable with one.

She needs to feel and believe she's stronger than whatever causing her to be depressed hence the need to cultivate feeling strong inside(to find her strength again) and to make her problems smaller that is to let go or change perspective.

CaptainHaplo

06-25-10, 05:59 PM

I am doing what I can, but "quality" time is something that is really hard to do. It literally HURTS to be near her right now. It wouldn't hurt so badly if she could look at me and tell me that she regrets what she has done. But instead all I get is "I made a mistake, get over it." - which leaves me little hope for a long term reconcilliation.

I told her today that I am willing to stand by her, if she is willing to help herself. I see how the state she is in and have asked her, what can I do, what can WE do, but ultimately it has to be HER that does. She doesn't want to make that choice. Its like she would rather stay unhappy, she would rather throw everything away that I know she holds dear, she would rather let this destroy every bit of her life, than do something about it.

I just .... don't understand.

Betonov

06-25-10, 06:00 PM

I am not one to ask for help, but when its something or someone that is vital to your life and means the world to you, you do all you can.

and listen to her, she will give unintentional clues to her problems
watch her, if she is near the cause of the depression or near something that makes her feel better she will change her mood
open eyes and open mind

CaptainHaplo

06-25-10, 06:15 PM

Betenov, I know what the root cause of this is - well - at least MOST of it. The thing is, parts of that cannot be changed without her taking action - which she won't do.

She is 43. She is slap in the middle of a "mid-life" crisis, jobless, not happy with herself physically (though she has made great strides there), the job situation for her is extra hard because she has 6 years of work history with 2 companies where she was let go for no fault of her own, which is a problem for her to explain. She has a 20 yr old daughter, as well as our 5 year old. She was devastated when she went to a concert with her daughter and all the 20 something guys checked out her daughter instead of her. She used to be fairly heavy, and I would put my arms around her and remind her that she was beautiful (and she was - to me at least) and I would get told to stop lying because she could see herself in the mirror. Now that she has dropped 45 lbs, if I do the same thing its because I am "jealous" that she gets looked at. She is unhappy because she isn't able to be as independant as she has always been, she can't be 20 again, she has the responsibilities of a family, she still wants to lose more weight, she can't find a job, etc. She just can't go do all those things she could when she was 20 and didn't have the family responsibilities. Its all built up, and add in that she and I have different styles - socially and in parenting, leads us to where she is now acting like a fool. Add in alcohol (a depressant) which she won't address, and I am really lost as to how to get her to see what she is doing to herself, and everyone else.

I mean, as for the job stuff, she had the idea to get a medical certification as an office manager (she has a degree in Business Admin) and its like a 1 yr thing. She was all for it, and now, she finds every excuse not to pursue it. The fiery, energetic woman that she used to be is just .... gone. Don't misunderstand, she is still a great mother, doing all she can for our kids, but its even starting to affect her there too. That is something I can't let happen, and combined with her recent actions (online cheating), I am torn in two. If only she would be willing to see that she CAN do, and that to get back to that ability of being able to do - she simply has to be willing to take the steps needed to get there. I even told her that if she is willing to do that, then I will stick with her and then when she is closer to herself, we can discuss the US part. But if she won't take that step, I don't know that I have a choice......

I just want her better - but if she won't do it for herself, I can't. What do I do?

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 06:17 PM

As to suicide, I went through a major crisis when I was twenty-one, and I seriously considered suicide, as in contemplated and meditated on all the ins, outs and angles. I finally decided that it wasn't something I wanted to do for several reasons. Since then every time a doctor asks if I have suicidal thoughts the answer is an emphatic "No". It's not denial either, it's just something that isn't going to happen.

I went through a major depression when I was just a bit younger than that. I too considered suicide and spent many sleepless night figuring out how to make it "work" to my satisfaction. The only acceptable plan I could come up with involved saving up enough money to move far away where no one knew me, and then do so, and make no friends or relationships there, and then wait until everyone I'd known before had forgotten I existed, and then... I don't know. Sneak onto a ship and then jump overboard before I was discovered, far enough out to sea so that I'd never be found.

And of course all of that was patently impossible for me to accomplish, lol. The thing was, I told myself, I didn't want anyone I knew and cared about to have to deal with me doing away with myself. I didn't want my family or friends or coworkers to come looking for me and find me dead and have to clean up the mess or deal with settling any of my unfinished business or be sad or whatever. I just wanted OUT with no unfinished business, no loose ends, no evidence that I'd ever existed... and at some point I realized that what I really seemed to want was not to die but never to have been born at all.

And for some reason, that changed everything. I mean, you can make yourself die, but you can't make yourself not be born and you can't undo all the connections that have been established as a result of being alive in a world full of other living beings, so trying to do that just didn't make any sense. (Remember what I said about connections up above?)

I have never been in that kind of shape since, not even close (knock wood). And with my family history, I keep a fairly close watch on my mental/emotional state... I'm not fretting about it every minute, but I pay attention to anything that looks like a "trend" either up or down. I do periodically go into something I think of as "hibernation" mode, when I become less social and keep more to myself as far as I am able to given my job and other obligations. But it's never a matter of being sad or hopeless or what I think of as "depressed." And sometimes I'll catch myself getting a little more "hyped up" over something than would be healthy if it went too far. But, either way, eventually a certain balance is restored.

That's one thing that gives me some comfort, is that I'm *aware* of where I'm at. My bipolar father never was. When he was in either the manic or depressed state, it didn't matter how high or low he went, wherever he was at the moment was IT - and to him it was his "normal" state and he'd never been anything else and you couldn't convince him otherwise.

I've never studied psychology, so I can't really debate or discuss this intelligently. Something in one of the above posts just made me feel like sharing.

AFAIK things like bipolar disorder now fall more into the category of "medical" conditions, and the treatment seems to focus more on the pharmalogical/chemical end of things than the purely psychological. Altho those types of treatment may also be used and prove helpful... I'm a few years out of the loop on these things. Most of my personal exploration has been in the realm of psychology alone, and for the most part in Jungian psychology and the works of those who expanded and extrapolated from his initial ideas. Mostly it's just helped me make sense of my own experience and articulate it to myself in a way that resonates for me.

Betonov

06-25-10, 06:23 PM

I mean, as for the job stuff, she had the idea to get a medical certification as an office manager (she has a degree in Business Admin) and its like a 1 yr thing. She was all for it, and now, she finds every excuse not to pursue it.

that just might be a solution. working again, earning her own money is going to do good for her self-esteem. might start a chain reaction that will pull her out. even the 1 year she will spent getting it will do her good. now how to get her to get that certification.

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 06:58 PM

If only she would be willing to see that she CAN do, and that to get back to that ability of being able to do - she simply has to be willing to take the steps needed to get there. I even told her that if she is willing to do that, then I will stick with her and then when she is closer to herself, we can discuss the US part. But if she won't take that step, I don't know that I have a choice......

I just want her better - but if she won't do it for herself, I can't. What do I do?

That's the thing, no matter how much love or support you offer - you can't make someone change, or get help, or admit that they need help. It's no different than someone in denial about a drug addiction or other self-destructive behavior. And in her mind, she may not see what she is doing as self-destructive at all (and it's her "self" that's in question there, so as long as she's legally competent to decide for herself she has final say in the matter). But she will have to see that, if nothing else, it threatens to destroy what you have together.

IMO the only healthy thing you can do in a situation like this is what you are already doing - offer your continued support, provided she is willing to address the problem that is destroying your ability to offer it. If she's not willing to do so, she's made her choice. She may come to regret it, and soon enough that reconciliation is still possible... but maybe not. You can't put your own life and wellbeing on hold for that indefinitely.

I know how hard it is to come to terms with the fact that whatever the destructive behavior is, it currently means more to the person than what they stand to lose from it, namely you and the relationship you hold so dear, and which they themselves may claim to value so highly.

My sister and I went through this with our mother and in the end we just had to walk away and leave her to the consequences of the things she said and did. She will probably never understand why and certainly would not admit to it even if she did. In her mind she should be able to continue right on with the same type of behavior and we should just put up with it, because in her mind there's nothing to put up with. No amount of explaining to her how terrible the effects of her behavior are has ever been sufficient (believe me, a lot of people tried).

Your partner may be dealing with something that could be helped with medication and/or counseling, but again she's got to seek those things out willingly.

Even more importantly there's your child, and you have got to keep yourself together for that reason alone. No matter how much you want to help your partner, she's an adult and has to be responsible for her choices. The child is an innocent bystander and you've got to be fully there for him/her (and probably even more so now) and that is VERY hard to do if you're mired in an ongoing codependent relationship with someone who's not able to play a positive role in your life together as a family.

Man I wish there were something better to offer someone in this situation. It's a nightmare for you, I know. You certainly have my sympathy and understanding and as much of an ear as I can offer here, for what that's worth.

Goes without saying - HUGZ. For your little one too.

CaptainHaplo

06-25-10, 07:12 PM

Thank you all for the support. I am ok - I can handle whatever this may throw at me. I am working on the things I need to do for the kids - my son is 10 and I have custody of him (previous relationship). My 5 year old daughter is the real sticking point. I have been through one UGLY custody battle, but it may come to that. I can only offer unrestricted access to our daughter, but my lady is in no way able to really care for her in the state she herself is in. While that includes financially (if and the way it looks now - when I leave), it also revolves around everything else. The biggest struggle I have is knowing that I can't make her get the help she needs, and yet walking away to save the rest of the family as best I can while knowing she needs help is only going to send her further into this horrible situation.

Honestly - that may be the thing I am struggling with the most. I know I can (and will - if I must) do what is required. But how can I do that when it hurts the woman I love so much even worse than she is now? Its honestly one ********d up situation. I swear it would be easier if she was suicidal or homical, then at least she could be made to get the help she needs. I have called a number of local outreach places in an attempt to get advice, and they all said the same thing. If she isn't willing to get help, and she isn't a danger to herself or anyone else, there is nothing I can do.

Thank you all again for the support. If you occasionally talk to "The Man Upstairs", I would appreciate if you have a word with Him about this. I know He has a plan, but I ain't real happy with it. Acceptance of it and being happy about it are 2 different things.

Being powerless to help someone you love sucks.

Torvald Von Mansee

06-25-10, 07:19 PM

I could tell you what I really think, but I don't think any of your would really care.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go listen to some Nick Drake.

UnderseaLcpl

06-25-10, 09:11 PM

I could tell you what I really think, but I don't think any of your would really care.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go listen to some Nick Drake.

Sounds like someone needs a HUGZ!:DL

frau kaleun

06-25-10, 09:15 PM

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/4/8/grouphug128521554971127946.jpg

Sailor Steve

06-25-10, 10:24 PM

@ Captain Haplo: I don't know what to say. When I was a boy I had issues with my stepmother (looking back I'd say more was my fault than I used to want to admit). My dad sent me to therapy. I clammed up, and that lasted maybe two sessions. When I was married my wife and I ended up in joint therapy. I clammed up, and just made things worse. When I ended up divorced I wouldn't talk to anybody about it, and a combination of factors just made it worse (I could tell a whole novel there).

It's only after being divorced for twenty-five years and homeless off-and-on for four that I've agreed to talk to somebody, and that was mainly because a VA rep told me it might increase my chances of getting a VA pension. Now that I've been seeing a therapist she told me after three sessions that I seem to have a real grip on my condition if not my willingness to work, and on the one hand she doesn't think she can do me much good but on the other she asked me to come to her group sessions because she thinks I could help some of her worse-off people there. Go figure.

The point is that it has taken decades and special circumstances to get me to talk to people freely, and I now do because I've come to realize that I don't have any more to lose, and none of this embarrasses me anymore. I can't help with your situation, but one thing I have learned is that depression involves a lot of guilt. When my wife left me I didn't feel any lost love, because all I felt was guilt. I knew she had done the right thing. In fact I once commented that I would leave me too if I could. No, not suicide, just a wish that I could be somebody else.

I was pragmatic enough to compare deeds and words. I could see that I didn't love her the way I should, but that made me just feel more guilt. When she left me I was relieved in a way, because it let me off the hook for having to expose my family to my evil any more. Someone once asked me what depression was like, and I responded that World War Two ended five years before I was born, but it was all my fault. Silly, but it was as close as I could come to explaining what it feels like.

I'm going out on a limb here, and I could easily be totally wrong, but if your lady is feeling anything like I felt, she can't talk to you, because if she opened up you would realize that she is the most evil, vile person who ever lived. You don't realize how bad she is, and if you ever did you would drop her like a hot potato. If you do leave her you will confirm her own doubts and prove her right. I'm not saying you shouldn't, or you should. Only you can determine that. I'm just trying to help you understand what may be going on inside her head.

I don't know how to help you reach her, because I don't know what it feels like to be on the outside looking in, and every person is of course different. If my wife had stuck around longer it may have just made things worse, so I don't blame her a bit for doing what she did. I'm pretty introspective, so I'm always questioning and seeking my own identity. Someone else may not see the options and may not be as stable in that area. I have no idea what any action of yours may do to her. I just wanted to try to help you understand a little of it.

Skybird

06-26-10, 04:53 AM

Without going into details and without adressing anyone here personally, I just say this.

What the wide public means when saying "depression", usually is a form of feeling blue and down. The clinical term "depression" - is a completely different callibre. And a clincial major depression is something that has the potential to cost lives - that of the patient and that of relatives as well. We are not talking about a temprorary state of feeling down. We talk about a person that whose automatic self-destruction program has been triggered, for whatever the reason.

The causes for depression are still not nailed down to a known set of blueprints, we have more or less reasonable assumptions only that seem to make sense - that'S all. We assume that it is a combination of genetic vulnerability, and environmental stimulus (or an excessive reaction to such a stimulus: for example sadness over the death of somebody turning into a depression that lasts on). Sometimes it even may be genetics alone. People vulnerable to clinical depressions, statistically suffer an average of 3-4 major strikes or phases during their lifetime. This is nothing you can people help by talking to them, helping them by your presence and meaning well with them. This disease is malicious, and potentially lethal. It is a major threat, nothing to make jokes about or saying that one thinks it all is just talked up nonsens and people could become well again if only thy would want that and get pushed a bit.

We ahve also reason to assume that our ways of living and our patterns and systems of social interaction play a role, inter-cultural comparisons seem to hint at that. Also, people doing meditation seem to be less vulnerable.

If somebody is depressive in a clinical understanbding, let go the assunption that your family can handle it all alone. Go and find professional help. I am no friend of drugs and pills, but I know that there are times when they are needed, and can really do good work in easing symptoms and suffering. As long as the depression is not caused gentically only, of cours epills do not adress the roots of a depression. Thus, psychotherapy also should not be a taboo. How it helps, in the end we do not really know. If I am strictly vulcan, I mjst say that at least when I studied and was busy in psychology, the data basis we had did not even allow us to make a statement like that psychotherapy helps at all against depression. Of course that gets claimed all day long, but in the end the data that got collected only gives more or less signfivant correlations between getting a therapy, and a decrease in suffering from depression'S symptoms. Maybe the depression fades becasue of the therqapy, maybe it fades all by itself and therapy has nothing to do with it.

But it can not hurt to try psychotherapy once depression has been diagnosed. And drugs, there are good ones, and there are bad ones. And as you expect,. the better ones usually are more expensive. Some have side-effects, others not. when people say that they feel as if an alien apttern, a foeeign peroianlity or reaciton scheme has been put on top of their own opersonality, then something is wrong. I know from one case in my closest family, that otzher drugs can work better. In case of this relative of mine, the medication only eases the feeling of fear, and keeps it distant. The fear is still there, but is stays distant enough to not become a threat to present thinking - thus: no panic - thus: no breakdown. Life quality has improved, the disease is still there, but can be handled and kept in check.

Often, that is the best you can hope for in case of major depressions: no total healing, but keeping it in check to a degree that life is worthwhile and symptoms do not constantly need to be takne note of every day or even every week.

And this, I personally think that depressions can have a lasting effect on people's personality, in other words: they make people change, anf these chnages stay even when a derpressive episode is over. the longer an epsidoe lasts and the more intense it is, the more likely it is, i wuld say, that this change in personality takes place. Thus it is in an affected person's best interest to get diagnosed for depression and get adequate treatement as early as possible. Do not simply ignore it, for whatever excuses you have - they are foul excuses.

UnderseaLcpl

06-26-10, 06:58 AM

What the wide public means when saying "depression", usually is a form of feeling blue and down. The clinical term "depression" - is a completely different callibre. And a clincial major depression is something that has the potential to cost lives - that of the patient and that of relatives as well. We are not talking about a temprorary state of feeling down. We talk about a person that whose automatic self-destruction program has been triggered, for whatever the reason. Nice to see someone else who gets it. According to Ridley, Sky is right. Social organisms that percieve themselves as unneeded or unwanted tend to shut down and die. People aren't so different from the tissues they are made of in that sense.

As Sky mentions, therapy (and even psychotherapy) can be important in treating depression. Most of the drugs out there are reuptake inhibitors of some kind or another (serotonin is a big one) so they are aids but not solutions. All they really do is try to provide a "floor" for depression so you can't go any lower. You'll still feel bad, but it won't matter as much and you'll be more receptive to help... or at least that's how it is supposed to work.

I don't see depression as being a "disease" per se, but more of a self-perpetuating condition brought on by chemical imbalance. The imbalance is usually the result of a difficult or traumatic situation that has been "burned" into your neural pathways, and is associated with similar stimuli, one of those stimuli being the release of inhibitory neurotransmitters. In short, if something makes you feel bad, your brain makes you feel worse, which makes you feel worse, and so on and so forth. Ironically, the same hard-wired neural engrams which cause depression are often the only ones that keep depressed persons from kiling themselves, so the curse is also the salvation in some cases.

I have also struggled with depression in a form. Returning the topic of Sky's self-destruct mechanism, I turned mine on myself. My thinking was that you have to do that to be a good soldier; you can't be afraid of death. You have to face it, and I faced a lot of it - some of the worst deaths you can imagine. I'd always thought that when I came home I'd be able to turn the damn thing off again, but I can't. Thus, I had to come up with things to live for, and at the moment it is the well-being of my good friend and roommate. I can't die until she is taken care of. It would be a dereliction of duty. I also embraced the libertarian movement (as naive and idealistic as it can be at times) But it is something good to fight for, and I am a fighter. Sucks for you guys, as you have to scroll through all my political posts:O:

The cure to depression doesn't lie within yourself or a pill or a therapist. It is in the world around you, and how you affect it. You also have to accept that you may screw up from time to time, but if you truly try to act in the best interests of others they will forgive you. Unless they're a-holes, which is nothing to be depressed about:DL

Skybird

06-26-10, 10:22 AM

I tend to think of "boredom-feeling down-suffering clinical depression" (the more cognitive-caused forms of it that are not genetically hardcoded), as some kind of spectrum of one and the same phenomenon, which could be described as something like a substantial, very basic doubt about what the future brings, and life and one's own place in it. We humans, and maybe all higher life forms with a minimum of self-awareness, seem to depend on forming kind of illusions about how certain the future is for us to guarantee our ongoing personal existence, we have a will to bring things under our control or at least to think that things are under our control, since chaos would mean unsecurity that puts our survival - mentally as well as physically - at risk: and such future perspective could result in existential fears that are hard to bear.

The thinniest form of this existential fear is boredom, which means to not know what to do with one's time, and not to know how to use it, and for what purpose, what future to invest it. A lack of interest in ourselves becoming active.

The worst form may be a clinical depression that puts everything into question, and to a degree that even denies a sufficient ammount of justification for one's own existence. If one's own existence does not matter anyway and death erases all what we have been - why then maintain our existence any longer when it feels so bad?

One of the problems I always had with psychology as it is being taught at university (and which brought me into considerable conflicts in psychiatric contexts) is this: that I find it strange to strictly separate the spiritual needs of people, and their mental sanity and health in a classic psychological understanding. Spirituality to me is almost free from any meaning in the context of "religion", but means that man is by definition a lifeform with so much self-awareness that he knows about his mortality, and thus tries to add a meaning to his life that enables him to bear the finality (?) that his life necessarily will end sooner or later: that is when he dies. Thus man is not so much a being finding a meaning in life, but adding meaning (or constructing meaning) to life by himself, we do so because it is a vital necessity for us to "find" such a meaning in life. Where we do not do so, we either give up and fall into depressive states of minds, or we become destructive, either towards ourselves or towards others, but most of the time: towards both ourselves AND others. Heaven and hell, or the content of religions or other "systems" we subsribe to - in the end we form our heavens and hells all by ourselves, and we cannot escape to do so, since we necessarily depend on adding any form of meaning to our lifes. "Meaning" means: order/structure in a world and life we perceive as chaotic, and being beyond our control. Nevertheless seeing a meaning in it all means to adress a desperate need in ourselves to raise the illusion of at least a necessary minimum of control over our fate in a world that is uncertain and effectively beyond our control. We have no other choice than to be spritual (in this wide understanding of mine). We must give our existence a meaning. That is what characterises us as spirtual beings. And that is what makes devout believers of a religious faith believe. The content of the faith/dogma is not the important thing here. The mechanism itself is that marks the decisive feature. That is why this mechanism can lead to people believing in religious practices that are harmless or untrue, but also to can lead to people seeking fulfillment by believing in something like the Nazis' ideology, and that is why people can be fascinated by the meetings of huge crowds during a Catholic high mass - or by a bombastic NSDAP Reichsparteitag - or by the mood and breath of unknown mystery when exploring exotic religions like for example joining a Tibetan buddhistic meeting. All three things touch upon the same craving for meaning in humans, and since this craving is so basic in our nature, both things can stir quite some basic and archaic feelings - which then may get expressed during the event. Just imagine the many torches they used during Nazi events - it can't get more archaic than this. there was a lot of appealling to archaic sentiments in Nazi propaganda.

So-called superstitious behaviour in animols seems to indicate that many higher mammals committing to such behaviour patterns have such a need as well, and thus: may be aware of the two states of "existence" versus "non-existence". Lately, neurologists published experimental results indicating that the human brain has areas reserved for religious feelings that leave man no other choice than to form any kind of cognitive representation of what we would call religious beliefs doigma: ideas about deities, for example.

I prefer Viktor Frankl, founder of the so-called logotherapy and a survivor of the concentration camps, who put it so simple but so very true: "Man does not want to be happy - he wants to have a reason to be happy." Frankl refers to empirical findings that KZ-prisoners who still were able to maintain a basic inner conviction in all that madness and horror around them that their suffering and witnessing nevertheless fulfilled anything that added a higher meaning, a higher sense to it all. Such prisoners had better chances to surive and were more resistent to diseases and hunger, than prisoners who gave up all hope soon, and died earlier.

In German, we make a difference between "Seelsorge" and "Psychotherapie". The first is seen to be what church workers and priests usually do, the latter is reserved for psychologists and pychiatrists. I am not able to subscribe to that difference, to me the job of a good therapist is "Seelsorge" both regarding intellectual and cognitive as well as spiritual understandings of the term. Needless to say that this also brought me into conflicts with the dogmas of medical/psychologic therapies. Nevertheless, I gave courses in Zen-style meditation and Tibetan Kum Nye for several years, and often found myself being pushed by people into a position of a psychotherapist as well, a counselor for partnership and life issue, and a "priest". In all modesty I would want to claim that some people were irritated that I did not differ between these roles - but most people were extremely thankful that I did not separate these fields. This was especially true for those people who came to me from a clinical-therapeutical context before, and people who turned away from the church in dissappointement.

Psychotherapie is Seelsorge. Seelsorge is Psychotherapie. To differ between priests and counselors and doctors/therapists, is stupid and is at the cost of the client. this understanding is what makes the shaman maybe kind of an ideal role model for people working in these fields. You should be doctor, counselor, priest, psychologist all in one. That's how I always understood it. Needless to say that you hardly find a job with this kind of professional self-definition. I was lucky that I could afford to be consistent with my convictions, and thus quit the field (although some other reasons also played a role, but what I just explained in the above in principal was the major reason).

Skybird

06-26-10, 10:32 AM

The cure to depression doesn't lie within yourself or a pill or a therapist. It is in the world around you, and how you affect it.

Do not generalise this, please. It is veryliekly that some forms of depression are genetically triggered, and break out almost unaffected from your social environment and your behaviour. some of the neurochemical dysbalances that maybe can cause depressive episodes may be hardwired, or caused by chemical triggers (drugs, bad food habits).

You also have to accept that you may screw up from time to time, but if you truly try to act in the best interests of others they will forgive you. Unless they're a-holes, which is nothing to be depressed about:DL
Here it seems you mix the popular understanding of feeling "depressed" with a truly clinical definition of depression. That we have ups and downs, and spikes and minimums in moods, is natural, and part of and price for our human identity. A clinical depression does not mean this natural mood fluctuation.

Betonov

06-26-10, 02:16 PM

someone should write a paper out of what has been discussed in this thread
a breaktrough could be hidden somewhere

CaptainHaplo

06-26-10, 02:52 PM

An update for those that care to know....

Last night we had a major .......blowup. I caught her cheating wednesday, and thursday we talked and discussed working it out. She didn't ever give me a clear answers, but led me to believe that she was willing. I mean, why discuss it if your not. Last night I found out she is still talking to the guy.

Bottom line, my decision is made. As I told her just a little bit ago, I will love her always, but our relationship as a couple is over. To lie, get caught, and then continue it, is just something I cannot accept. I know she needs help, but she continues to refuse that, and therefore I have no choice but to push forward on my own for my children. I hate it, but it is what it is.

My online access will be limited soon enough, as I am getting things financially set (alot of which must wait till the workweek) and the rest of things as well, another place, another vehicle, etc. So don't be suprised if my posts come at differing times (like when I am at work) until things are settled.

@SailorSteve - thank you for helping me understand. The part I wish I could get to understand is that no matter what she thinks of herself, I (having been with her for 8 years) have seen her at her best and worst, and love her anyway. Unfortunately, I can't get through to her.

@Skybird - I understand what your saying - and I am just glad this destructive behavior isn't physical, though God knows its an emotional and mental hell, for everyone.

@Undersea - you also may be dealing with a bit of "survivors guilt". It's hard to shake, and your dealing with it well it sounds like. Still, if your not doing so, might want to talk to someone about it.

Thanks to all for the prayers, well-wishes, understanding imparted and yes - even the hugz.

krashkart

06-26-10, 05:25 PM

Here it seems you mix the popular understanding of feeling "depressed" with a truly clinical definition of depression. That we have ups and downs, and spikes and minimums in moods, is natural, and part of and price for our human identity. A clinical depression does not mean this natural mood fluctuation.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to explain this very well, but I'll try to add something.

When a doctor diagnoses someone with clinical depression they put their patient under observation and prescribe heavy meds. That part of the process could last several weeks, and might require that the patient be transferred to a long-term care facility. It takes a lot longer to recover from and requires a higher level of care.

It's not as much fun as the blues are. :dead:

EDIT

@Haplo - We'll be here, mate.

Skybird

06-26-10, 05:36 PM

Last night we had a major .......blowup. .
I cannot and will not comment on the details of your situation, since i simply cannot judge that situation that I do not know - and I must not judge it anyway. I only say that I personally tend to favour an end with horror to a horror without end, if that two are the only choices.

Good luck to you!

NeonSamurai

06-26-10, 07:44 PM

I am sorry to hear things are going so badly for you Hap. With out trying to analyze much, I don't think your wife is in a major depression. Sounds more like a lot of personal insecurity and other issues with growing older, not mental illness (though I wouldn't rule it out either). What she needs is counseling, IE someone to talk to about her problems with.

Anyhow I wish you good luck as well. If you need someone to talk to, I am always happy to listen, or read anyways.

CaptainHaplo

06-27-10, 04:46 PM

Thank you all for the support. I am actually pleased to report she is moving - slowly - toward taking some actions that will help her. What that will mean for her and I remains to be seen, but regardless it means that she is taking some action - rather than be immoble. No matter what happens between she and I - we have also come up with a plan to keep things stable for the kids.

If she gets herself on the right track - thats all I want for her. If that means she goes a different direction down the road, and it makes her happy, so be it. But then - she will be able to be happy, with me or with someone else or by herself - but the way she has been she couldn't have been happy.

Thank god she is taking a step. Its not the one I would have preferred - but it IS movement - and a big one for her. The first one is always the hardest. Keep her in your prayers if you pray - she has plenty of people (myself included) that love her and we will support her as long as she continues forward.

Because she is doing this - in such a way that keeps the kids lives stable as well, really means alot to me. It has let me be able to support her in this instead of having to choose between her and the kids. To say my heart is at least somewhat lifted would be an undestatement. There is hope for her. :sunny:

frau kaleun

06-27-10, 09:11 PM

Psychotherapie is Seelsorge. Seelsorge is Psychotherapie. To differ between priests and counselors and doctors/therapists, is stupid and is at the cost of the client. this understanding is what makes the shaman maybe kind of an ideal role model for people working in these fields. You should be doctor, counselor, priest, psychologist all in one. That's how I always understood it. Needless to say that you hardly find a job with this kind of professional self-definition. I was lucky that I could afford to be consistent with my convictions, and thus quit the field (although some other reasons also played a role, but what I just explained in the above in principal was the major reason).

Wow, you and I could not be more in sync on this.

Psyche does mean "soul," after all. And whether one speaks in terms of ego and id, self and shadow, or gods and demons... it is to me all an expression of a fundamental instinct or need to find some intelligible working map of the territory both within and without.

frau kaleun

06-27-10, 09:21 PM

@CaptainHaplo:

I'm glad to hear that something positive is happening with your situation, even if it's not what you would have preferred. I'll certainly keep you all in my thoughts.

jumpy

06-28-10, 03:42 AM

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.... but you can never use it to change your situation. C'est la vie, nest pas?

Look for strength in yourself. Most people are capable of handling what they must; not always easy choices. You may look back and think 'that was the wrong choice' but I say, if it was a choice you made at the time, it must have been the right choice then, or you wouldn't have made it. Forget undermining yourself with contradictions like that and put doubt aside, to do otherwise is to invite trouble to you mind and heart.

I guess the only thing I have to add is this: you can only help the people you love so far with situations like those described in this thread. They have to choose it for themselves. If they don't want to be helped (because they have to admit what is happening and all that that means about themselves and how they thing or feel about that) you cannot do it for them.
If you try and push them towards help, they'll only resent you for it. Chances are they will feel that way anyway, just because you are the closest person they can unload on. It's not fair, but depression and mental illness isn't.

The worse I saw my ex get, the more I wanted to do something to help her (it drove me to distraction).

I still wonder what happened to the beautiful, smiling woman who I fell in love with and planned such a different life than what we ended up with... On the outside she looks the same, but underneath I wonder if what I saw in her was ever there to begin with. There's certainly no trace of it now.
But such thoughts lead to the dark side and thoughts and ideas that are best avoided as much a possible, because they have no answers and dwelling upon them will only serve to bring you down. Best to forget questions from her... I'll never get the answers I want or need to understand. The sad part is neither will she.
Only thing left to do now is not to let myself be dragged down with her because of the way I feel about her.

Sometimes I can forget that I still lover her, but only for a while.

krashkart

06-28-10, 04:43 AM

^^ Was that pretty recent or a ways back in time? Took me probably six or seven years before I started letting the memories go. Glad I did, my health improved considerably.

jumpy

06-28-10, 07:37 AM

Skybird

06-28-10, 03:56 PM

Wow, you and I could not be more in sync on this.

Psyche does mean "soul," after all. And whether one speaks in terms of ego and id, self and shadow, or gods and demons... it is to me all an expression of a fundamental instinct or need to find some intelligible working map of the territory both within and without.
Yes, and certain religious traditions and teachings must be understood this way. For example the myriads of different Buddha aspects and dhakas and dakhinis they have in Tibetan Buddhism. If somebody conclude from these things beeing taught that we talk of really existing theistic deities, he already walked into a trap.

Unfortunately, both Nyigmapas and Kagypas (two of four existing Tibetan traditions that I examined at close range from within their communities) did not make this all to clear to the laymen and followers in the West, because letting them believe in more literal interpretations of these concepts made them more willing, obedient vasalls - who also payed a lot of money for useless "relics" and ritual items, and by their mere presence strengthen the cult. But the cult should not be that important. Only direct, immediate experience is important, nothing else. Only direct, immediate experience makes people change for their better. No teaching, no intellectual dispute can replace it, no book and no teacher can compensate for the lack of it, not practice and no ritual can enforce it. It remains to be a gift that is experienced, or not. Or in christian terminology: it remains to be a divine blessing, given undeserved. Systematically trying a practice, if it is adequate, only raises the probabilites in the practioner's favour - but it gives no final guarantee.

Not everything called "holy" is holy indeed. Not even in Buddhism - something that oh so many westerners with a spiritual hunger for the exotic ignore in their craving for "spirituality". Even the times when I called my student self a Chan Buddhist, are over. I am a spritual atheist and anti-theist, who practices his own kind of meditation that is massively influenced by Zazen (shamata, vipassyana), and Chan - and my own experience, and who has practiced martial arts intensivly (but doies no more since long). That is as precise as I could get to describe myself.

Labels should not and must not stick to you. The steps of a ladder you have already used - you leave behind and do not think about them any longer. the boat is of use only as long as you still must cross the river - once you have, you leave it behind as well, forgetting it. All names and terms and concepts - are just chains to your mind preventing it from realising the essence. Free yourself from everything. If you meet Buddha - kill him. Hints - are not the object they point at.

"So follow me, and let the dead bury their dead." Jesus did not die at the cross for mour sins or in our polace, but to point the way each one of us has to accept if he wants to find freedom: to pick his own cross (burdens,. pai9ns and suffering resultijng from life), "and follow me". but if Jesus did not die for us but to point the way, we cannot "follow him", but must find our own way. That is the real meaning of Jesus' teachings: a declaration of religious independece from the theistic cult that Judaism has been before Jesus, a replacement of the psychpathic, narcissistic, hungry-for-revenge Vulcan-god of the Thora and the OT with the call to accept responsibility for your life and mind yourself - with all risks and chances that includes. Only that way so many of Jesus metaphors and teahcings make sense. If you take him literally, and do not get that he used smybols, you necessarily end up in theistic superstition and the stagnation resulting from phlegmatic attotude of mind and thouight that prevents real freedom and independence - with all coast and gaisn that brings.

Islam has not conducted that step. it's theistic conception equals that of the Thora and the OT, not that of Jesus - and see how trapped in primitivity, superstition and inability islamic societies have stayed since decades and decades. If you want them to chnage and improve, you must not save them from askijng quesitons about this deficits of theirs, but you must challenge them over their deficits so that they have a chance to become aware of them. that is why well-meant mutlicultural tolerance for islam andShria - is totally contraproductive, and produces right the opposite of what they intend. The developement in europe since decades, in all nations were Islam is present, proves my right, and the left and the islamophiles wrong. Jesus killed the old god of the Thora (that'S why he was such a threat to the pharisees so that they brought doom upon him), and the teaching of him has not much in common with the OT or Thora anymore. Islam must do the same: kill Allah, Muhammad and the Old islamic testament of Quran, authoring a new testament instead. That will not be a modern Islam, or a reformed Islam, or an euro-islam - it will not be any Islam anymore at all, but maybe carry the name of the leading figure in this developement. Like the four gospels replaced the OT in importance for the new-formed "christianity" (in principle a massively refomred judaism), the Quran must be repalced with something new, too, again resalting in the creation of something new that before was not there,. not even in roots. This new thing then maybe can be compared to the NT and the gospels - the Quran today only compares to the OT. And like the pharisees back then, islamophiles and Muhammeddan orthodx today raise furious, murderous resistence to this.

Islam, Quran, Sharia cannot be "reformed". They must be replaced.

frau kaleun

06-28-10, 04:53 PM

Only direct, immediate experience is important, nothing else. Only direct, immediate experience makes people change for their better. No teaching, no intellectual dispute can replace it, no book and no teacher can compensate for the lack of it, not practice and no ritual can enforce it. It remains to be a gift that is experienced, or not.

Labels should not and must not stick to you. The steps of a ladder you have already used - you leave behind and do not think about them any longer. the boat is of use only as long as you still must cross the river - once you have, you leave it behind as well, forgetting it. All names and terms and concepts - are just chains to your mind preventing it from realising the essence. Free yourself from everything. If you meet Buddha - kill him. Hints - are not the object they point at.

Exactly - or as one Zen saying puts it, "Throw the Buddha on the fire."

I like a tradition where the heresy is built right into the system, lol.

Of course when everything is equally sacred and non-sacred at one and the same time, the concept of "heresy" no longer exists in any meaningful fashion.

Or maybe the true "heresy" would be to sit and shiver for lack of fuel because you're too attached to the wooden image of the Buddha to toss it in the flames.

krashkart

06-28-10, 08:59 PM

She left me back in the beginning of december, krash.
After almost a decade together. So, recent enough to have made my life a total mess for several months.
I think in some ways I'm only just starting to get some aspects of my life back together ie. looking for work properly (recession here is crap) keeping regular sleeping hours, good food and exercise, getting out a bit with some mates.

But having said that, you recover on the surface, but underneath is still a mess... meeting someone else is so not even a glimmer of a thought of a suggestion.

Damn woman. (I'll stop there I think) :dead:

Sounds like it was pretty heavy. Might be awhile before that's totally out of your system, but you are taking proper steps to stay active in the world, which is very important at this stage. :up: That's gonna help out a lot in the long run. Stay strong and motivated. The more you do to improve your situation the less you'll have to work on when you meet the right one.

FIREWALL

06-28-10, 11:05 PM

Sounds like it was pretty heavy. The more you do to improve your situation the less you'll have to work on when you meet the right one.

That's some darn good advice. :salute:

jumpy

07-17-10, 11:32 PM

Following a post on another forum, then browsing GT for an unrelated thread that eluded me, I rediscovered this thread, and reading it back was surprised to see I had posted in it! :oops: :hmmm:

*shakes head in bemusement*

Anyway, as it happens, my post on the other forum is sort of relevant here too. (sometimes I think reality is playing games with me - the number of times there are innocent, and yet oddly inevitable connections, is just a little bit scary)

So, to summarise the other forum topic, the OP was thinking he was depressed, though he had some of the aspects of life I'd consider a boon.
There was lots of advice on things to actually do and some on what to focus on in general, attitude/outlook on life, that sort of thing.

Now, there's lots of good insight here over the last 5 pages (you know who you are), much of it from personal experience. As it happens with many stories, they are hard won and none of them have been easy. But much of what is said is already understood by all of us. Perhaps unconsciously when there's a crisis, but gradually it rises to the surface. Guided, as it were, by the words and voiced thoughts of our peers.

It is because of this, that I shall draw a conclusion of my own regarding perspective. Not the arty, drawing kind, but the sort of thing you tend to loose sight of when your life experiences a head on crash with something you have not seen coming and have no control over when it jumps up and slaps you hard in the face.

Sometimes it takes you a while to begin to see the bigger picture again. Perhaps you have to relearn how to see the world and your place in it after such... dislocation..?

The points I arrived at the end of the following quote are personal views I have held in high esteem for a long time, but it's only in the last week or two that I began to reaffirm them in the spirit that they were made, by not gripping so hard, that intimate grief that has been so all encompassing for me of late.

hmmm... I think I can say I'm in the same 'space' as a few of the posters here.

Following redundancy, then temping for a year, then the start of the recession and having no decent work/unemployed, to having my other half of nearly ten years leave me a crappy note telling me she needed to be by herself to sort her 'depression' (mental illness proper) - she took most of her stuff and left the house one afternoon in early december when I was out and now refuses to speak to or see me... apart from sending the occasional whiny txt 'hoping that I'm ok' :rolleyes:

I've had a pretty ******* **** six months to a year.

Biggest problem I've found is a sort of apathy or lack of direction (mainly due to my life and hopes and plans with her being turned upside down and an inability or unwillingness to assimilate this change).

Work is a problem for everyone looking for decent employment these days, so I'm not really stressed by it.

Fixing the damage left by a crazy woman is another matter, however. This, and the way I still feel for her, is not so easily solved.

But...

I'll say this: It's all in your head, fellas.

At face value, there's not much going for me at the moment.

Since the new year, my life has followed three stages to where I currently find myself.

Lamenting the loss of what was; looking back into the past and getting bogged down by memories of someone who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, for the good and the bad times, and the knowledge of what she became and eventually did to me (and my broken heart :rolleyes: ).
Looking at what I have now; examining what I don't have and thinking my life is rubbish, not being able to focus on anything that was not immediately in front of me, existing from day to day with no real view to tomorrow.
A Question poses itself: what do I do next? Make an effort to find a life, or at the very least, a job, for myself. Throw off the shackles of the past and look to what tomorrow will bring; be it good or bad.

Ultimately, I still miss her terribly. But on the flip-side to that to that, I don't miss her BS and her unstable and irrationally emotional disaster area mind-******* destructive 'I'm so vulnerable, please don't hurt me, but I'll hurt you because it's like watching someone else do the things I do' childish behaviour.

I can honestly say I am truly glad that she is not my problem any more. I still love her... but as the old cliché says 'love is blind', so I'm following my instinct and rational mind here and not listening to what my heart says.

So, people have three choices in life:

spend your life looking back to what has been and gone - which is utterly futile seeing as you cannot change what has already happened.
waste your time and erode your self esteem by constantly looking at the negative aspects of your current situation and only focussing on how crap everything looks now.
set your sights on the future and what the morrow may bring. Don't worry about yesterday or today - learn from these if you must, but never loose sight of where you want to be going tomorrow, and perhaps most important of all; how you are going to get there...

Even more simplified: You can either say 'YES' or 'NO' to life.
The more you say 'YES' the more likely you are to find some purpose for yourself, a reason to say more than 'I simply exist' about yourself.

heh, enough of that, these beats always cheer me up no end (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v13JAf6Oohc) :D Leaving aside checking how my rhythm goes ( :03: ), perspective is seeing something for what it is and not being overwhelmed by it. Loose that ability and you will founder in love and in life.

Skybird

07-18-10, 04:26 AM

Those three choices at the end are fine and well, jumpy, as long as you mean with "depressed" not the real thing called "depression". Really depressive people do not have such choices. It's a pity that in English both terms of feeling blue (depressed) and being really ill (depressive) are so close to each other. In German it is less misleading, we use "niedergeschlagen" for "depressed" and "depressiv" for "depressive".

krashkart

07-18-10, 04:45 AM

If I may, where would an irrational lifelong wish to die fit in? Just curious because I'm seeing a lot of references to short-term bouts with blues and depression, but not much in the way of lifelong battles. In my experience I don't wake up one day and get in the saddle again - I've been wrestling with this intangible monster for most of my life. There's no way to accurately describe it. It's all-encompassing. It's everything I know.

Sorry to put it so bluntly there at the beginning. It's a part of the depression (or, depressive as preferred) that I know so well. :yep:

Jimbuna

07-18-10, 05:35 AM

Try to stay strong and focussed jumpy....and hopefully the passing of time might be a small crumb of help or comfort.

I remember back when you first made the forum aware of your situation so the simple fact your posting now is a sure sign your still troubled by the experience.

I wish you well and a speedy return to normality (if that is the correct term).

Good luck mate :up:

Skybird

07-18-10, 05:43 AM

to have ups and downs in rounds is normal, and is probably a price we pay for being self-aware beings with a self-reflective mind prone to dualising and polarising expereinces and perceptions we make. We pay this price, since we cannot avoid it. But the art lies in realising to what degree we help to trigger, to cause our lows and dampened moods and sentiments ourselves. Some of what we experience in lows, we cannot avoid, it is the price for being humans, and being alive. Possibly we can learn to keep this minimum as low a spossible, by realsijg how me create suffering and pain poursleves when polarising things and always immedtaely intellectuzally rating things and reacting to thing that we perceive - instead of just being aware of themn, taking note of the fact that they exist - and let them pass by our mental focus, without "doing with them" anything. Our Western civilisation is obsessed with always rating, allways reacting to "it", always forming an opinion on "it", thinking of it in terms of "worse" versus "better", and Freud even claimed that the link between perception and reaction is an unbreakable automatism that cannot be avoided, like a reflex. If he would have had a greater understanding of meditation practices, he would have known better. In these regards, the West really can learn some very important things from the Asian traditions.

What goes beyond the inevitable minimum of self-inflicted lows and suffering, we cannot avoid, is not necessary, and, from an outside perspective, is not needed at all.

However, "depression" is something different, a clinical term wioth a different meaning that what I adressed above, and thus this term should be left that realm, to avoid misunderstandings, or to avoid doing injustice to a person that indeed is seriously ill withiout it being his/her fault.

onelifecrisis

07-18-10, 06:40 AM

Depression, like all mental illnesses, is different for each person that suffers from it. My own depression began after a series of disparate events which, in the space of a month, broke many (all?) of my illusions about life, myself, and several people I thought I knew well. After that nothing was real. And when nothing is real, nothing matters.

@Jumpy
The only thing I would say is that I think music is almost magical. If music cheers you up then find a good radio station or two and have the radio on all the time! It's not a cure, but it certainly won't do any harm. :)

@krashkart
An irrational lifelong wish to die? :doh: That's... a new one on me... :hmmm:
I don't know what to say, except to point out that you don't know yet whether it is lifelong. :know:

@Haplo
I wish you both well.

krashkart

07-18-10, 07:09 AM

I don't know what to say, except to point out that you don't know yet whether it is lifelong. :know:

You didn't have to say anything. But, you are right. I'm not dead yet. ;)

CaptainHaplo

07-18-10, 09:07 AM

Thanks Onelife.

My situation has changed a bit, as has my mindset. I won't (and can't) go into detail publicly. But while the hurt will remain (at least for a good long time - I hear the rule is half the time you were with a person), I have found things (and had life hand me a few) to focus on that have kept my mind moving. Car stuff, the kids, job, etc.

As for "getting back in the saddle" relationship wise, I am not interested in pursuing one right now. Its to early for it to be healthy for me to do so, but in time that will come. Right now, there are plenty of things for me to deal with - and at least at the moment, I am finding that concentrating on those issues is rewarding enough.

jumpy

07-18-10, 05:13 PM

Thanks guys.

I think I'll emphasise the place my last post comes from... as horses for courses go, it is mine and the points I make in it, though generally related to others, mostly has meaning to me. If that makes sense, then you understand.

I've never thought I suffer from a clinical depression - I have up days and down days, but have never seen the need in myself or had it suggested by others to seek professional help. Much of the time it is a 'triumph of the will' that sees me through tough times, as it has in the past.

As far as my current situation goes... well, there's some stuff kicking about that I don't much like. But that's just the way it goes and comparing things now to how they were back in december is somewhat of an eye opener for me - my thoughts on finding perspective again are pertinent to that.

I think I can say I'm actually happy to be where I am now, in many respects. This vision has been some time in coming, I feel.

As I said: I'm truly glad that she is not my problem any more.

I'd be lying if I said none of what has happened doesn't still bother me, but rather than being all cut up, or angry about it, I find a mere irritation at the thought of it.... get me talking and I'll build up a head of steam lol but that's by the by ;)

I guess part of what I had to say reveals how I think about it, and I need to (and am) looking beyond it.

If you can say there comes a time when you have to turn the corner in your heart and your life, then for the last six months a little voice has been telling me to get on with the turning already dammit! I've seen it coming from a ways off, but have not felt I'm quite there yet... until the last week or two where my attitude seems to have shifted almost without me noticing it. So say the choices I outlined. They served me well in the past and will continue to do so.

On the whole I'm feeling pretty good most of the time and don't feel so much about recent events, to the point where I'm able to see how things really were and indeed are - metaphorical light of day and all that.

There's a few of you here I have talked with in open forum, and for that I'm sincerely grateful, to the members, and the forum at large for being such a welcoming place to be, for the people and the diversity of things of interest posted here. (all hail the onkle & subsim)

Skybird,
I've read many of your posts over the years I've been here; haven't we all settled down to chew through some weighty Skybird tome? (though I must add, you seem to be a little more... economic with your words now Sky? :O: ) And the disparity you illustrate between, shall we say, experiencing bad times and actually being ill describes the difference between myself and my ex almost as exactly as if you were talking about us.
Whilst I think life is tough at the moment, she lives in a world where things are very very different. A place that she can only leave if she wants to, but for whatever reason she cannot or will not. God knows how I tried to understand that. I think in the end, if it had gone on much longer it would have undone me.
So I have a sharp clarity when addressing those differences.

Krash,
When you say "It's everything I know" ....you have no idea you are speaking her words to me about six or seven years ago, when things were so very different between us and she was happy and well.
I think I fall into the 'short term' category. And there's no apology required for stating a truth as you see it. Of all my experiences over the last 9-10 years I learned to understand that, as much as I could, in someone close to me.
So, hehe, give that monster some beats from me too, eh? ;)

jim,
Ta, mate. It's still all there, but there's better things to be getting on with, after all... :yep:

OLC,
Music is indeed magical. If it's radio I listen to it's talky-speaky bbc radio4. But I do listen to a lot of music (I believe I have posted a few trifles of tunes in a thread here in GT *pretends nonchalance* :D) Good for the soul is music, very good indeed. Takes you some place good... out of yourself, don't it?

Haplo,
I know what you mean, fella.
I will say that having a job through all this would have helped keep my **** together no end. Some other necessity that would have kept the auto pilot running, instead of falling further than I would have wished and now having to climb back up.
Whatever you decide upon, see choice number three... if you know where you're going, even if there's some hard choices to be made, you'll be ok. Besides there's always subsim.

Any way, you guys owe me a cuppa, since mine has gone cold sitting here typing all this :rotfl2: