Battling Depression

[Bram]

I do not suffer from this.

But I found out recently that two of my cousin’s children (a Junior and a Senior) both dropped out of high school due to depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

And my other cousin, who is dear to me, has barely worked in the five years since graduating college.

The high school kids both have therapists, and the older one is now on meds as well.

Any suggestions for being a helpful or supportive family member?

Heard the quote, “sympathy not solutions,” which I will work to keep in mind.

[Shapecharge]

Bram...not being a smart ass here...watch the last episode of "Real Sports" on HBO. There's an portion that specifically talks about what you just asked and some very promising treatment.

[syaigh]

Lonliness is a a big problem in that age group. I listened to a podcast about it last Fall. Here's an article about the podcast, might give you some insight: https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-p ... -milkshake

[Bram]

Bram...not being a smart ass here...watch the last episode of "Real Sports" on HBO. There's an portion that specifically talks about what you just asked and some very promising treatment.

Shape, just for clarity:

Was that episode 9 or 10 from this season?

Thanks Syaigh, I read the words on your link and that looks like a great resource. Sad to see the impact of the digital world/social media and it’s association with loneliness :(

[Fat Cat]

Remember first that you cannot change people. You can provide tools that people may use to change themselves.

That said, you are in a uniquely well-suited position to provide them with tools to overcome mood problems, because the prescription is exercise.

Check out this book:

It was written by a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and provides a great deal of backing data. The author, John Ratey, MD, has compiled great research with each chapter addressing specific conditions such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, stress, menopause, and aging. And, he conveys how exercise improves all those conditions.

He goes into great detail about how (cardiovascular emphasis) exercise boosts the levels of various neurotransmitters, hormones, and proteins which in turn positively affect our overall health and cognitive capabilities including memory, learning, mood regulation.

[Shapecharge]

Bram, it aired on November 24...the current one if you go to the Real Sports website.

[Bram]

Bram, it aired on November 24...the current one if you go to the Real Sports website.

Thanks Shape! Appreciate the suggestion — Just wanted to double check :)

[Bram]

Excellent!

Thank you, Makena!

Looks like a great read :). Bought a copy for the parents (one is a PE teacher) and ordered a copy from the library.

The family with the struggling kids recently bought a Mirror (home fitness device) and one of those kids has begun using it.

I’ll see if I can get some sort of Zoom workout going with the other battlers (they are each 500+ miles away).

[Bram]

Syaigh,

Would you recommend the parents listen to the podcast or the whole family?

They are curious, thanks again!

[Bram]

And my cousin (the PE teacher) is excited about the book, thanks Fats!

[Bram]

And set up a Zoom yoga with one of the kids for a few hours from now.

Thanks everyone!

Other suggestions appreciated!!

[Fat Cat]

Excellent!

Thank you, Makena!

Looks like a great read :). Bought a copy for the parents (one is a PE teacher) and ordered a copy from the library.

The family with the struggling kids recently bought a Mirror (home fitness device) and one of those kids has begun using it.

I’ll see if I can get some sort of Zoom workout going with the other battlers (they are each 500+ miles away).

I hope it helps. Here is a lengthy study to the same effect you may find interesting while you wait for the book: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3674785/

Summary and Bottom Line

In summary, exercise appears to be an effective treatment for depression, improving depressive symptoms to a comparable extent as pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Observational studies suggest that active people are less likely to be depressed, and interventional studies suggest that exercise is beneficial in reducing depression. It appears that even modest levels of exercise are associated with improvements in depression, and while most studies to date have focused on aerobic exercise, several studies also have found evidence that resistance training also may be effective. While the optimal “dose” of exercise is unknown, clearly any exercise is better than no exercise. Getting patients to initiate exercise ---and sustain it – is critical.

[Turdacious]

Some of the Karen Rievich stuff you studied on resilience might help.

[Bram]

Some of the Karen Rievich stuff you studied on resilience might help.

My notes on that class are on a dead computer (currently being fixed), but there are a few takeaways in my mind.

Namely, depression is eminently treatable, but only if the depressed person seeks or participates in the treatment. The post-college cousin has this additional burden (too depressed to tackle it).

Got him through 6 minutes of yoga today, which is better than 0 :)

Thanks FC for the link. Will continue promoting/including them in exercise

[syaigh]

Syaigh,

Would you recommend the parents listen to the podcast or the whole family?

They are curious, thanks again!

I would have the parents listen first and decide. They do talk about suicide. I listened to it with my daughter after I listened for the first time. It was a good conversation starter.

[Bram]

Ok, thank you — passed on your thoughts to them!

[Fat Cat]

This thread is really about you, isn't it Bram?

[Bedlam 0-0-0]

You might look into microdosing psylicobin or lsd. I have heard the Pollan's book on the subject of psychedelics is pretty good but I have not read it. I have battled persistent depression. Exercise helped keep it under control or at least at lower levels but it was quite bad for a while. During that time I went on lexapro for 10 months. It flattened the depression and everything else which I did not like. I weaned myself off just about the time I lost health insurance so I looked for another answer and came to psylocibin. I did not microdose at first but used large doses once every week or two for a few months. The trips were not pleasant as they let me experience both the harm caused me and the harm caused by me which resulted in a sort of metanoia. Though I was not always successful I did my best to bring what came to me into my daily life, otherwise tripping would just be a party time and not so much a weird kind of sacrament. I will say that I was always alone during these usages and I did not interact with anyone nor use anything in the digital world. I mostly lay in bed or lay in a bathtub which was a whiteman's sweat lodge. After a few months I just microdosed prn. After a while of that I seemed to get on track and had no need for it for a few years. I still microdose when I feel my mind getting in a rut and stuck on loop. It pops me out of my self pity and gets me back on track.

The large doses (an eighth up to a quarter) bring up a lot of emotional detritus but can be pretty depersonalizing which can be dangerous for some people. Medium doses less than an eighth to maybe 2g allows a person to have a foot in both worlds and is not so depersonalizing...there is no loss of who you are or loss of boundaries of who you are. A lot of people talk about killing their ego which is stupid and can lead to problems. One needs an intact ego to function in life. The medium dose allows a person to both have things come up at a lighter level than the full dose but also I think it is easier to digest and integrate what comes up. With large doses often one doesn't remember what came up because so much came up. The microdoses seem to edge a person away from a self centered view and allows for a change of state. I find the microdoses often make me sleepy and I usually sleep well afterward. I found at any dose the aftereffect was that I could feel love and gratitude.

I have not mded lsd but from what I have heard it is speedier. It seems to give people a lot of energy and focus. Maybe that is good for people who can't seem to get motivated. I don't know but maybe you will run into someone who can advise about that and the type of personality that is best on mding of lsd.

I have done some mdma which seemed helpful. I read that in the rave scene people talked about black mondays or something like that where they felt worn out due to the mdma dumping serotonin and there being a need to replenish. I never experienced that but maybe if I used it more than I did I would. Something to keep in mind.

Of the three substances psylocibin, lsd (only macrodosed this) and mdma I prefer psylocibin. It worked immediately for me at whatever dose I used unlike the ssri lexapro I used which took a month to build up and flattened my emotional affect. Psylocibin seems to get the monkey off my back and allows me to get back to being me.

Of course all this shit is dangerous but not more dangerous than staying in a rut that leads to one's feet dancing 2 feet off the ground imo.

These things might help at least the older one to be able to step out of his shell and get a job too. It's important to work, have a schedule, have people depend on you, be a part of a team and even if it is a shit job like a stupid busboy, it gives you a running chance to have a couple drinks with a waitress you work with and release your balls. And speaking of releasing balls, this might sound weird but if I were talking to this fellow, I would recommend to stop jerking off. This provides 2 things, 1 self control, 2. motivational power. If you don't jerk off, you will have more energy, you will have a growing motive force that impels you to go out in the world to stack some cash and find a honey.

One last thing that might help is just to walk a bare minimum of 30 minutes a day. 45 to 60 is better. This provides exercise but it doesn't stress the heart, it allows the heart to relax a little because part of the burden of motivating the blood in the blood bag is performed by the squeezing of the bloodvessels by the leg muscles. Taking a long walk is better than sitting and meditating for most people imo. Meditating is good and all but walking is better. Nobody asks if they are walking right, they just do it. Everybody asks how to meditate right and gets caught up in the minutia that shouldn't be there. Walking allows the mind room to just bring shit up and let it go. The maintenance of keeping the physical body upright and not hit by a car is the mantra. For men it is helpful in my eyes because it is in a weird way a substitute for conquering land or exploring. It can be an adventure (I have seen some weird shit and got in some weird situations just walking around). Just moving your body on its own is in some way mentally beneficial. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... depression

So in short the answer to depression is to get a job, walk to work, do droogz, try to fuck the waitress but avoid spilling your seed on your keyboard if she says no (keep the qi brah). But seriously, good on you for helping. I wish your people the best as depression can be a terrible thing to struggle with.

[syaigh]

Bram, I can't find the original podcast anymore. But here is an interview with the guy from USC that they interviewed: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/l ... story.html

Looking him up lead me down a rabbit hole of other resources:
His articles: https://muckrack.com/varun-soni/articles
A book on teaching youth to reconnect: https://www.springtideresearch.org/prod ... eneration/

My daughter had a very tough time in high school. She did have a circle of friends that didn't go to her school, but she just didn't feel connected to anyone at her own school. Part of that was her personality (she's difficult like her mother), but also the fact that she is an empathetic thinker and most high school kids aren't. She is doing much much better in college, but it required that she decide to go out and meet people. It was a little less scary for her to do that at an institution where everyone is a lot more like her, but she's been very successful. I was terrified when they shut down the dorms a week into the school year because I was afraid she'd sink back into her pattern of loneliness, but we were able to get her off campus housing with some of her suitemates.

For the record, she has had some friends who were severely depressed and talked about suicide when she was in high school and that threw her into a bit of a tailspin of depression and anxiety, but we got through that with the help of a behavioral therapist. I am a big fan of this kind of therapy, she has had it a few times throughout her childhood, and instead of dwelling on the problems and subsequent emotions, it teaches you to treat those things as separate entities so you can decide how you are going to react to them.

[Fat Cat]

Of course all this shit is dangerous but not more dangerous than staying in a rut that leads to one's feet dancing 2 feet off the ground imo.

While I can't endorse taking psychedelic drugs as a way to treat depression without knowing the individual in question, Bedlam 0-0-0 makes some really great observations, and I have seen it work for the right kind of person: relatively stable, capable of introspection, ready to grow. That said, this quote is the ultimate truth of pharmacology. Everything comes at a price. People starting taking SSRIs and monoamine reuptake inhibitors for depression and become obese, sexless zombies. They may not feel depression...or anything else. Thanks, Doc! The cure is as bad as the disease in many cases.

In a perfect world, people would follow Mishima's advice for how he cured his own depressive and dissociative nature: sun and steel. After that, mild doses of psychedelics may be very legitimate avenues for personal growth.

[Bram]

This thread is really about you, isn't it Bram?

I get discouraged at times, but I generally believe that I have control over my life, and that trying different approaches will eventually allow me to achieve whatever I’m striving for.

When I have been depressed, I either stopped trying...or I had lost my faith in my ability to direct my life in a positive or correct direction.

[Grandpa's Spells]

You might look into microdosing psylicobin or lsd.

JMO, but it sounds like these guys are hitting a lot of the psychedelic risk factor bingo squares and I would try lesser interventions first. MD can be adverse for people with anxiety, folks with undiagnosed mental illness, and especially people in that age group with more serious mental illness (which is sometimes misdiagnosed as anxiety and depression).

There is also the "more may be better" thing that affects a lot of people in that arena. Tim Ferriss is the big popularlizer of psychedelic treatments, and despite saying the right lawyerly things, he has retroactively admitted some unbelievably stupid practices.

MD seems like a pretty solid option with people with mild depression or robust mental health. But I'd be incredibly careful advising someone else to go down that road with the symptoms described.

[Fat Cat]

This thread is really about you, isn't it Bram?

I get discouraged at times, but I generally believe that I have control over my life, and that trying different approaches will eventually allow me to achieve whatever I’m striving for.

When I have been depressed, I either stopped trying...or I had lost my faith in my ability to direct my life in a positive or correct direction.

I'm just playing, you don't seem like the depressive type. Everybody gets discouraged, shit it's 2020 ninja, everybody IS discouraged, but that's different than true depression.

In my humble view, which is 100% correct, depression should not be seen as a "mental" illness at all, but a physical one, the brain being just another organ of our bodies. Find me one person who is in the peak of health who suffers from long-term depression (not manic depression, which is different from depressive mood disorder).

Bottom line: depression is a sign that the physical organ of the brain is not functioning properly due to specific factors (e.g., poor nutrition, inadequate exercise, environmental toxins, unhealthy habits, damage, etc.). Only brain damage, such as CTE, is "untreatable". The rest can be rapidly addressed.

[Fat Cat]

But I'd be incredibly careful

I am Fat Cat's sense of utter shock and disbelief. The way you talk, walking down the hall is fraught with danger.

[Grandpa's Spells]

But I'd be incredibly careful

I am Fat Cat's sense of utter shock and disbelief. The way you talk, walking down the hall is fraught with danger.

Most of the LSD-panic that led to legislation revolved around a very small number of high profile incidents. They typically revolved around young people with undiagnosed mental illness believed exacerbated by LSD/shrooms.

It seems today that LSD/shrooms are non-habit forming, there's no lethal dose, and there are huge therapeutic possibilities, including for depression and addiction. The only people who seem to be warned off them are people with anxiety or young people who may have more serious mental illness under 30, for whom the side-effects can be years-long or permanent.

I'm saying starting with exercise is probably better than starting with something linked to inducing schizophrenia in a small category of people they belong to.