Can we all agree?

Post #393,442 by rcareaga 8/20/14 2:31:13 PM Reply	Can we all agree? Can we all agree (easy as this might be to propose outside of the slough of despond) that should we any of us find ourselves careening down the greased slope of clinical depression, we will maintain at least the intellectual awareness that the worst of it, while chronic, is still intermittent, and that friends are standing by to talk one through it? A human being tends to believe that the mood of the moment, be it troubled or blithe, peaceful or stormy, is the true, native, and permanent tenor of his existence ... whereas the truth is that he is condemned to improvisation and morally lives from hand to mouth all the time. —Thomas Mann This is difficult to remember at the time, but it bears reinforcement. I've taken an hour this morning away from my normal duties to survey GF's contributions to our discussions. We've lost much, and if you, my auditors, will forgive a dollop of vicious mean-spiritedness here, it's a hell of a world we have going here when Greg Folkert perishes by blunt force trauma and a useless excrescence like Foreman Klucking Nitwit remains out there sucking up food, water and oxygen.
Post #393,443 by malraux 8/20/14 2:44:57 PM Reply	While I completely agree with the sentiment... It's not always that easy: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html One of my sons is in the grips of depression right now. Fortunately he is not (or so he claims) suicidal, but we would never have even known about the depression itself had he not clued us in. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #393,444 by Another Scott 8/20/14 3:05:56 PM Reply	That's rough. So many changes happen to youngsters that it's amazing that all of them don't suffer depression - especially these days. Best of luck to him, and kudos for enabling him to let you know! Allie is a genius. I hope she's doing well in the battle with her demons. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #393,450 by malraux 8/20/14 3:33:04 PM Reply	Thanks. All kids are mental. Some of them grow up to be slightly less mental. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #393,463 by Andrew Grygus 8/20/14 5:07:49 PM Reply	Yes, I remember my last depression . . . . . (early 20s). I was right in the middle of being really, really depressed (and fantasizing about how if I offed myself the world would be so very, very sorry it hadn't treated me better - tears would be shed). Then the realization hit me -just how much I was enjoying swimming around in this toxic swill of self pity and world blaming. I haven't been able to get up a good depression since - just can't take it seriously. Sure, I can get mildly dejected now and than, but I certainly wouldn't call it depression.
Post #393,445 by rcareaga 8/20/14 3:15:28 PM Reply	Oh, I well know Been there; didn't do that. There's bipolarity in my family history. To the extent I've shared it, the syndrome has been low-frequency: the manic phase generally manifests itself as a few weeks of undifferentiated glowing well-being; the depressive as a prolonged sense of numbness, unhappiness and anxiety. In the 40+ years since I attained my full growth, I've had two or three full-blown manic episodes, which were scary in retrospect but done with in under twelve hours, followed each by crashes during each of which self-slaughter appeared in the light of a perfectly reasonable coping strategy. In the profoundest of these, which fortunately took me from sea level to the Marianas Trench and back in just 24 hours, I would have been perfectly prepared to take my own life, but lacked the energy to effect this project. Part of the operative despair had to do with the fact that at the center of this crisis I had contrived to make almost the entire cast of my former support network somewhat reluctant to intervene. I don't mean for this to sound sordid: I'd merely become rather high-maintenance. In the event, of course, I endured that dark night of the soul. I wish to fuck that Greg had as well. cordially,
Post #393,449 by malraux 8/20/14 3:32:26 PM Reply	Glad you managed it My brother-in-law is full blown needs-to-be-on-assistance bipolar. My son gets a bit of the manic and a lot of the depressive. He's significantly higher functioning than his uncle, but it's still crippling at times. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #393,455 by Another Scott 8/20/14 3:48:45 PM Reply	Suspected as much from your evident talent. It's probably a stupid truism, but it seems to me that great artists often have to fight demons to get their art out. Apparently people who fit in well with their environment don't feel the need to sweat and agonize over works that cause people to think differently. Imagine that. :-) Glad you made it, and continue to struggle though this mess we call life, with the rest of us. Cheers, Scott.
Post #393,471 by gcareaga 8/20/14 7:34:41 PM Reply	Re: Oh, I well know For me depression is low amplitude, long wavelength. I spend more time below the horizon than above it, but seldom far enough below that the experience is more than moderately annoying nor so far above that those subjected to it think I've gone farther than usual off my nut. This part of your support network is reachable 24/7. If you ever decide to check yourself out without first checking in, I will kick your corpse's ass.
Post #393,483 by Another Scott 8/21/14 12:56:58 AM Reply	:-)
Post #393,505 by rcareaga 8/21/14 2:01:21 PM Reply	not to worry That was 27 years ago, a dreadful confluence of ill-fortune, sundry circumstances appearing (some new, others flaring up anew) on the same weekend. I was not yet thirty-five, and the direst issues seemed at the time as though something over half my life had come to naught. Perhaps they had, but the period so negated looms less large from here, and I have attained heights of physical cowardice I could only have dreamed of back then. If I ever go by self-slaughter, it'll only be because the impending alternatives are direr by any rational calculation. cordially,
Post #393,446 by mmoffitt 8/20/14 3:16:40 PM Reply	Right you are. My younger brother lost his battle with mental health issues at the tender age of 25. He and my parents had been at my home for the week prior to his suicide and I saw him the last full day he was alive. I knew he was ill, and to some extent, how ill. But even I was not prepared for the events that unfolded the day after he left my home.
Post #393,448 by Another Scott 8/20/14 3:20:15 PM Reply	:-( Condolences.
Post #393,451 by malraux 8/20/14 3:34:15 PM Reply	Sorry to hear that. We monitor my son pretty closely, but he's 20 and out of the house more than in these days. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #393,457 by mmoffitt 8/20/14 4:09:16 PM Reply	Thanks, guys.
Post #393,452 by boxley 8/20/14 3:35:09 PM Reply	don't let a doc with the drug "abilify" anywhere near him bad things happened with my daughter during her depression treatment Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #393,454 by Another Scott 8/20/14 3:44:29 PM Reply	:-(
Post #393,456 by malraux 8/20/14 3:57:58 PM Reply	Thanks for the warning. http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/03/abilify.use.questions/ Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #393,464 by crazy 8/20/14 5:21:41 PM Reply	Used to fulfill info requests on it. List of side effects is huge.
Post #393,460 by drook 8/20/14 4:54:30 PM Reply	I had a roommate on old-school lithium He said it knocked the highs off the mania really well, without doing much for the lows. That's why his compliance was spotty. -- Drew
Post #393,461 by malraux 8/20/14 4:57:37 PM Reply	That's lithium all right Bipolars with depression need something besides lithium for depression. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #393,472 by pwhysall 8/20/14 7:38:28 PM Reply	There are two things that are unarguably cunts. One is cancer. The other is depression. Fuck them both in the ear with a rusty chainsaw.

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