BS: So what do you eat when depressed?

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 10:48 PM

Sharon...

Stay away from my wife!

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 11:33 PM

I scarf old pizza cruste from bewteen the kushuns on the sofa, eh? Ushualy it's about 1 to 3 weeks old, but once I got a piede that hadda hav been there for a t least a year I figger. it was kinda mnouldy too. Later I barfed, but I figger that was the skunky beer most likely. My brother Don wouldnt drink it, so you know it was real far gone. I have seen shittier times, but I am not sure when...xcept the weekend in jail, and there was no beer atall. I mean none! It was brutal, man! the company was no treat eether, eh? Buncha flippin' losers.

BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: DougR
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 12:42 AM

Well, Clinton, you don't have to worry too much about calories then, do you? :>) DougR

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: mousethief
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 02:08 AM

Campfire,

Could be -- I'm not in the medical profession, just a regular customer thereof. I defer to your experience.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 03:52 AM

Special deluxe combo pizza and a beer.
Cures everything.

Don't eat anything vegetarian or healthy. It'll just make you more depressed.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 08:36 AM

I'm not too sure about reserving the word depression only for the medical use of the word. I'm pretty sure the word was around to describe everyday sadness, and was then taken up by the medical profession (to replace the word melancholia which was used previously). So I don't mind when people use the word to mean they are a bit down in the dumps. What does annoy me is when people hear of a person who suffer from clinical depression and then say "I'm depressed too" and liken their state of temporary sadness to clinical depression. Because that blurs the line too much, and when people find out I have depression, they assume its just like when they are sad, but a bit worse. Maybe its the medical world that should invent a new word for it, to overcome the confusion.

When explaining what depression is like to someone who has never experienced it, I like to borrow from a book by Professor Lewis Wolpert (a scientist and clinical depression sufferer) called "Malignant Sadness". He likens depression to cancer. Cancer is normal cell division, where something has gone wrong and it becomes out of control and deadly. In the same way, depression is ordinary sadness which has become malignant and out of control. Cancer is nothing like ordinary cell division, and depression is nothing like ordinary sadness.

I'm glad to have provoked a discussion about this subject, if even one person understands a little more about the condition. My grandad had bipolar disorder which means that all of our family are at a greater risk of mood disorders such as depression. I have suffered since the age of 18 at least and my brother and several other relatives are sufferers too.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: GUEST,Midchuck upstairs
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 10:02 AM

I have the same reaction to people who try to stop me from using "depression" to mean simply "feeling sad" as I do to people who try to stop me from using "gay" to mean "happy and frivolous" or from using the male third person pronoun to include both sexes when I'm talking about any one of a group which may include both sexes - to wit:

"Look, s***-for-brains, this is the way I learned the language, from my English teachers in school as well as from reading, and it's the way I'm going to go on using it as long as I live and can speak. If you don't like it, go p*** up a rope."

Of course, I'm too inhibited to say so in those terms - but that's my secret thought...

Peter

P. S., in answer to the original question - whatever I can find, that I like. But Clinton probably had the most constructive suggestion.

P.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 11:11 AM

Well you obviously were not too inhibited to say it here....

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: mousethief
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 11:11 AM

Very enlightened, Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 03:03 PM

Shit, I'm screwed big time here, I fit ALL those descriptions for depressed and then some!

Bring on the marshmallows.....

LTS

Actually no, they melted and now I have a REALLY sticky keyboard....

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 03:04 PM

And I thought I was getting better!!!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 05:21 PM

Midchuck - p**sing up a rope is a thankless endeavour, and nets no useful result whatsoever. It's almost as bad as being depressed, but it doesn't last nearly as long, so I suppose in some ways it is preferable, if one had the choice...

It's my impression that a lot of mudcatters are depressed lately. I wonder if I'm right about that?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 05:26 AM

Little Hawk - maybe its just that finally people are getting the message that it is just an illness and we don't have to hide it or be ashamed. So more people are willing to talk about it. Maybe it is also because winter is just over, and a few of us have SAD (seasonal affective disoder) which I have - and are starting to come out of depressions enough to be able to talk about it.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 10:53 AM

At least pissing up a rope makes your hands warm for a while......

OK so now I know I'm ill and not just mad as a bag of snakes, what do I do about it without resorting to the happy pills again? I really need to know because I'm running out of chocolate here, and the big plate of stew didn't help any.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 12:09 PM

Liz: If your depression tends to be in winter, buy a light box.

Other things which reduce the risk of a depressive episode are exercise, having a supportive social network, talking about your problems rather than bottling them up.

Some of us need the *happy pills* because the chemical imbalance we have is too strong to be overcome without them, but if you don't like taking artificial anti depressants, St John's Wort has been proven to work as well as any of them and has fewer side effects (and you can buy it in health food shops). But if you do take it, you have to be careful with any other medication you are on. SJW enhances liver function, so that your body processes chemicals faster. This leaves the contraceptive pill less efective, and you may need higher doses of other medication to get an effect which causes real problems if you come off the sjw and suddenly the levels of other chemicals rise and poison you.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: BobP
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 12:23 PM

Best mood improver is Post Raison Bran.

Two Jethro size bowls and you feel like new. Replacement therapy for when you're blue.

Shoots the canal like a shell from a bomber.

In no time flat your healthy and calmer.

Now go down for a brew or a straight shot of gin.

If your problems return just start over again.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Amergin
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 01:24 PM

bullshit

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Bert
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 01:52 PM

Comfort foods...
Bread pudding, the real dark English bread pudding. All sweet and lots of spices.
Shepherds pie.
Fish and Chips.
Fresh baked bread, with lots of butter and blackberry jam.
Baked potato, with lots of butter and with salt.
Gooseberry crumble.
Treacle pudding.

Feeling better yet?

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Kim C
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 02:43 PM

I been depressed since my dad died in August. I was already on the way there anyhow. Have had it off and on since childhood. Never did anything stupid because of it (except drink too much, but sorrow knows how to swim!), usually worse around That Time. So next time I see my Dr. we are having the PMDD conversation. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 03:10 PM

Amergin - What does bovine excrement have to do with it?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 03:18 PM

Yeah, I was wondering that, seems that no matter how serious the question and how genuine the response, someone always comes up and dumps on it.

Not everyone gets the same effect from anothers' suggestions, but there is no need to dump on it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 03:19 PM

Yeah, I was wondering that, seems that no matter how serious the question and how genuine the response, someone always comes up and dumps on it.

Not everyone gets the same effect from anothers' suggestions, but there is no need to dump on it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: SINSULL
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 03:25 PM

KimC - don't wait. Go and start taking care of yourself.
Bagpuss - no drug, including St John's Wort has been proven to work in all cases. That's why there are so many different options and also why, if you are clinically depressed, you need professional help. Been ther; done that.
CarolC - Thank you triggering a whole new pepressive episode for me! Whi the hell loses weight when they are depressed? That's obscene!
Mary, who also gained weight with an overactive thyroid.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 03:36 PM

"Don't stand so close to me."

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 09:41 PM

Sorry SINSULL, it's just the way my body works. Can't help it. I still gain weight if I eat too much of the wrong things. It's just that my stomach can't handle food very well when I'm depressed. I get nauseous.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Matt_R
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 09:44 PM

That's weird. I haven't thrown up in 12 years. October 1989 to be exact.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 09:51 PM

Matt, you know the exact date? Must have been some barf.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Matt_R
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 10:01 PM

No, I just remember because it was 2 months after we moved to Augusta, Georgia. "Back To The Future" was making it's debut on television. I wanted to watch it, but was too sick, so I had to stay in bed. :-(

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Apr 01 - 05:50 AM

Matt, that is just scary, not only do you remember the boik but what was on TV too!!

I've barfed due to stomach upsets, but not for a year or more..... but when I was pregnant..... Oy vey!!! morning sickness morning, noon and night!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 06 Apr 01 - 08:53 AM

Sinsull, I know that there is no antidepressant that works for everyone. I know it because I have been on several different ones trying to find the right one. But each of the antidepressants give an improvement in about 2/3 of depressive episodes. Cognitive behaviour therapy has a similar success rate, other 'talking therapies' slightly lower. CBT in conjuction with anti depressant drugs is particularly effective. ECT - though much maligned - gives an improvement in about 80% of cases where all other treatment has tried and failed.

I use st johns wort (and aromatherapy) to prevent depressive episodes. But because you buy it over the counter, I am wary about increasing the dose above the standard dose (I usually need a higher than standard dose of any anti depressant). So if I feel it isn't enough, I then go to the docs.

I also lose weight when depressed - over the last year while my depression has been waiting for the right drug, I have been down to 7 stone. But the drug I am on now (mirtazapine on top of venlaxaxine) has given me a huge appetite. I do nothing but eat my way through the house all day.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: Amergin
Date: 06 Apr 01 - 05:13 PM

Sorry, LTS, for daring to speak my mind. I crashed after a two week upswing, the other night and this upheaval is very wearing. I have been dealing with this shit since adolescence and when I saw BobP's post it just struck me in the face. I get tired of people just telling me to cheer up or to get some exercise. You'll feel good then, they say. I am also tired of people telling me to smoke grass or to take a drink, that will get you good, they say...and no it does not. I am just bloody sick of this shit.

Subject: RE: BS: So what do you eat when depressed?
From: GUEST,diva
Date: 06 Apr 01 - 05:17 PM

usually chocolate, but anything goes!!!!!!