Epictetus

Hate is too strong a word, but I am not a big fan of movies that seem like amusement park rides: all flash and no substance.

Hi Tarquin and welcome to the Forums. You describe the horror and brutality of depression so poignantly, poetically and painfully. I can really relate to what you describe. I wish I had some good advice to offer you, but to be honest, I simply lack the wisdom. I hope you will find these Forums to be helpful to you. They have helped me a lot. - epictetus

Hi Ros, It's nice to meet you. Both depression and anxiety can be so cruel and brutal. There really are no words to describe them. I am so sorry you have been afflicted and for such a long time. Hopefully you will feel welcome and at home here on the Forums. I am 64 years old and am no stranger to anxiety and depression and in my case, panic attacks. I have also been gluten free for more than a decade. Hopefully you will make many, many friends here and feel part of our tribe. I am looking forward to reading your future posts. - epictetus

I am sorry that you are under such overwhelming pressure, David ! ! ! Wish I knew what to say to help.

Its awful to be alone when one doesn't want to and I can certainly relate to the fear of being alone. Exercise helps me when I need to feel more energized although depression can take away my motivation sometimes. I sure hope you find something that works for you, David.

Sad in Grand Rapids, Your sincere posts here are life saving to us here on the Forums. They help us to keep going by showing us again and again that we are not so isolated and alone with our anguish and suffering as we thought we were. That helps us. That saves our lives. So you are a great person in our eyes. I doubt if the people you might run into from AA are helping save lives as you are. You tower above most people. What you do and have done here justifies your entire life. You might be suffering from low self esteem but you have the highest esteem from us. There is an old saying that goes: "Whoever helps to save a single life, it is as if that person had saved the entire world." You are such a person. It is so good that you exist. Whatever has happened in your life before and whatever might happen to your life in the future, your whole life has been justified by the help you have given us. Your value and dignity as a person are invulnerable. We here on the Forums, are so lucky to have met you. - epictetus

@Andres1978 There's a scientific theory that is being debated about the connection between exposure of the brain to excessive stress hormones and brain damage in the two hippocampi of the brain. According to the theory, excessive exposure to stress hormones causes atrophy in the hippocampal regions and this produces changes in mood, appetite, motivation, energy [clinical depression] in those with a genetic predisposition to such damage. There is a 2 minute 57 second YouTube video summarizing the scientist behind this theory and the theory itself. Neurological disorders that cause excessive exposure of the brain to stress hormones, diseases other than clinical depression do cause depressed mood apparently. Stress can be obvious in the sense of trauma, but can also be insidious, such as an attitude of perfectionism, treating matters that are not of life or death urgency as though they were life or death and so on. Of course all scientific theories are subject to numerous caveats and limitations, such as size of study, duration of study, objectivity of study, confounding factors and new discoveries. You might want to see the short YouTube video I mentioned above. It is called "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers." It is 2 minute and 57 second long and is about the pioneering work of Dr. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University and the National Institute of Mental Heath in the USA. Just FYI.

Hi Andres1978, I can really feel for what you are going through as I have faced something quite similar myself. Since clinical depression is a neurological illness with psychiatric symptoms, you can find articles about this on the Internet and share them with your girlfriend. You might try keyword searches such as: - Hippocampal atrophy and depression - Depression and reduced regional cerebral blood flow and glucose metabolism [energy utilization]. - Depression and thinning of the cerebral cortex - Depression and reduced glia cells in the brain - Depression and atrophy of brain dendrites Because a picture is often worth a thousand words, you can search for . . . Depression and imaging studies. Many people do not realize that clinical depression is an illness just as Epilepsy and Parkinson's disease are illnesses. Do you think that perhaps your girl friend is unaware that depression is an illness? Sorry I cannot be more helpful. Hopefully others here will be more helpful than I have been. - epictetus

That does sound incredibly stressful, regularpal ! Since I have followed your others posts here, I have some knowledge of the back story too. Stress can be so awful especially if there are numerous sources of it converging simultaneously. My heart goes out to you ! - epictetus

"Too Late for Tears" (1949). It was an excellent film noir.

I also want to welcome you to the Forums, Matador19. I hope you will find this site as helpful to you as it has been to me. I was on Lexapro more than 20 years ago. I am on Celexa now. I was switched to Celexa when insurance wouldn't cover the Lexapro. I found the Lexapro very helpful to me although I had ups and down for about a year. How long has your "down" on Lexapro lasted? My experience is that stress can work against the effects of antidepressants. I imagine that gout can be extremely stressful. But I don't know. I sure hope your "down" on Lexapro gives way to an improvement very soon. - epictetus

I dreamt that I was dating an official at the United Nations. Odd dream.

Hi Andres1978, Welcome to the Forums. It is nice to meet you. As someone "who can't control their brain" myself, I can really identify with you. I hope you will find these Forums helpful to you. They have helped me a lot. I look forward to reading your future posts! - epictetus

Hi RegularPal, I can feel for what you are going through but sadly, I lack wisdom in the area of relationships. So I'm hoping you will get some good responses to your post. I am 64 years old now and have seen what many might call near-perfect relationships that didn't work. And I've also seen the most impossible and messy relationships work. Relationships seem mysterious to me, sometimes wonderfully so and sometimes painfully so. And usually some combination of the two. I do hope that things work out for the best for you! - epictetus

Last night I dreamt that I was in a public library that was in the middle of a saw mill. There was sawdust on the floor, the shelves and the books. It was not quiet like a library because there was the constant sound of lumber being run through large electric saws. There was also a lot of sawdust in the air and it was hard to breathe. I gave up looking for books and began sweeping up the sawdust on the floor. As soon as I swept up some dust it was replaced with new sawdust and I stopped sweeping because it felt futile. The librarians were all dressed like carpenters and painters. I saw a book I wanted to read but it was on a shelf too high to reach.