Depression

Wrong type of roids but, uh, good to know.

I did 1000mg of cortasteroids for 5 days. While I was doing it, it was great. I could have worked out in the field or shop for 10 hours a day for at least those 5 days. About 2-3 days after I finished I was pretty much hating life. Couldn't hardly move I was so sore, sore in places I literally never even felt before.

Troll_sl said:

I fucking beat it.

Several months ago, I'd tried going to a gaming meet up. Just board games and people having fun at a local bar. But I had a panic attack and noped the fuck out. That's what made me realize I needed help. But I went back tonight and I had a ton of fucking fun.

I was still nervous at first. But I got into it. And I met some great people. I'm feeling fucking pumped.

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I never have panic attakcs, but at age 43 I've planned my whole life around avoiding people in general. For 25 years I worked at home being self employed. For about 10 years of that I lived in a town of 112 people and the only person I saw on a regular basis was my landlord who would come out to the place and work in his shop (rural deal with lots of land and he had a shop out there). I shopped at walmart at night like 3am and in a small town there's not many people there.

I recently had to move to a city with about 800,000 people in the metro area for a new job that really paid more than I deserved. I guess the stress early on of finding a place to live while I was commuting 1-1/2 hours a day in the winter, sucked it was dark when I left for work and dark when I got home. Plus the normal stress of a new job and it was turnaround season meaning I was working at the office some weekends and some late hours.

Eventually I had a shingles outbreak which they say is due to stress. After that is was pretty downhill but really wasn't related to depression, but I damn near died.

Anyway never really looked at it as being depressed. To me the most anti depressing thing for me is to not be around other people. The Dr.s put me on anti depressants to combat the probleams I was having (like being told you have massive brain damage and will never walk again or use your left arm either - which was BS I'm expected to make a full recovery and now I'm about 98% back to normal) but I really couldn't take any they tried, all of them had side effects I couldn't put up with. The biggest one that several had was the feeling of being uptight. Kind of hard to explain but my shoulders would tense up and stay like that all day unless specifically tried to relax.

Anyway, so maybe I am depressed.

Damn what happened, a motorcycle accident?

One way to stave off depression is exercise. Which with physical therapy, you have plenty of.

And I mean... if ever there is a valid fucking reason to be depressed, being temporarily physically crippled is a pretty good reason. Depression is not an inherently fatuous thing.

Shingles in your 30's is pretty fucked up.

bixxby_sl said:

Damn what happened, a motorcycle accident?

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No I literally got shingles. Then in response to the virus I got ADEM which is temporary and related to MS. It produces lesions in your brain (now gone on the MRI) and they short circuit which partially paralyzes you. It also causes your brain to swell which confuses you and makes you dizzy. I also went partially blind due to the brain swelling impacting the optic nerve. The immune systems attacks your nerve cells and I had intense itching/pain in most of my skin.

It can be fatal and it's known as the vaccine disease cause kids get it more often after a vaccine. Eventually I did start to feel better and they gave me mass steroid infusion (after I finally got it diagnosed) and the reduced the nerve deal.

Just one of those things. It took 4 neurologist to diagnose it and even when I went to the ER after I had it diagnosed no Dr. on staff had ever heard of it.

So my fucking medication kinda stopped working.

Felt so bad today, I broke down. I was doing so well, too. Appointment on monday to talk to my GP. Fuck, I was hoping I'd never feel this way again...

Alright, fuck it. As embarrassing as this may be, and disregarding the high chance that I will either be met with ridicule or sheer apathy, I need to get this off my chest somewhere regardless. This might not be about depression strictly speaking, but it can?t be far off.

I have been living as what might as well be called a recluse for the last 7 years. God damn, that IS embarrassing AND pathetic when you see it written out like that! Ah well, no turning back now.

So yeah, I don?t even know where to begin with this. Please bear with me if you decide to read this. I quit high school when I was 17. Pretty much burned out on that thanks to years of bullying which has left me what I?m guessing to be emotionally scarred to the point where I don?t have any self-esteem to speak of. Ever since then, and I?m 24 years old right now, I?ve been living with my parents and younger sister, keeping myself busy with gaming and other worthless bullshit. I gradually, over the course of 3 years, also cut all ties with the two remaining friends I had left from high school out of pure shame of my situation.

Mind you, I?m not necessarily a TOTALLY lazy guy. I have made some attempts to get out of this slump. I went from 300 pounds to 240. I been done with smoking for over 2 years now. I half-assedly searched for a job. I went to adult schooling for a year, during which time I made exactly one acquaintance thanks to my social inability (I spent a year there, and I hadn't stayed in the school building a single time during lunch, out of sheer fear of being social. Instead, I walked around town, alone). I attempted higher education, but I dropped out after a month (got sick for a week, had to stay at home, had flashbacks to the time where I would stay at home during high school out of fear of being bullied, saw myself going down the same path of social ineptitude again, didn't dare show my face at school again afterwards). I spent about a month or two landscaping a piece of land my dad bought, digging out a dozen trees and making it viable for farming.

Back in January of this year, I spent about a month or so on Khan Academy, seeing as I'm trying to get my GED through home schooling. I got pretty far in as well during that time, to the point where I nearly passed the math?s exam. After about a month though, I hit this brick wall.

The thing is, every time I try to do something, I have this enormous amount of anxiety constantly looming over me. Or otherwise stated, I?m unable to deal with the fact that I?ve essentially fucked my life up to the point where I won?t ever be able to make up for those 7 lost years. And it?s tearing me up inside, to the point where I feel panicked whenever I try to start studying, or have to show my face in public, or do basically ANYTHING that doesn't occupy my mind 100%. Mind you, not panic attacks or some such. That?s something I haven?t ever been diagnosed with.

Anyway, now I?m at this point where it?s either do or die, and I?m thinking it's going to end up being the latter. NOT SUICIDE BY THE WAY, perhaps I should have picked a better idiom, but I don?t know any. I have a history exam in about 3 week for which I haven?t even opened my books yet. Every time I try, the vastness of my screw-up dawns on me, and I panic at the idea of how much SHIT I have to catch up on. Not only in terms of what I need to teach myself when it comes to study material, but things like eventually being social again. Actually learning how to make friends. GETTING A GIRLFRIEND for god?s sake. Altogether learning to be a functional member of society again. And all of this needs to get done by August 2015, seeing as I?m planning on signing up for Computer Science classes then. Oh right, have I mentioned that I need to teach myself the required maths for that as well? That?s kind of a side-question. Is something like that even possible?

Anyway, am I just lazy? Is that it? Do I just need to grow a pair and get my shit together? The fuck do I do? Where do I go from where I?m at? I have this nagging feeling that I might be too far gone to be salvageable.

Apologies for the melodrama.

Heckler_sl said:

planning

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Stop over analyzing and just do what you can when you can. Take your time and focus on short term achievement. When you fail at something try again or go for something else. All of your shame and embarrassment garbage is about as productive as an imaginary asian friend that doesn't like you. There's no real reason to worry.

There are a lot of issues in that post. The first one is you're so far "behind" because you haven't failed. I know, that sounds weird, but think about something you are good at. Just one thing. Now think about how many times you failed in the process of getting good at that thing. You say you landscaped some land for your dad, that is a skill. How did you learn it? How many stupid things did you do in the process that were wrong? Do you do those things anymore? So for the last seven years (and more before that) you've avoided putting yourself in a place/situations where you could fail. Because failure feels bad. But it is also helps you learn. Learning any skill involves failure. Being social is a skill. You have to go out and fail to get good at it. But you can learn to be social. You can learn enough to pass the GED. You can go on to college. You can do these things. If you think about something you learned to do well, think about how often you failed but eventually got it, you can think of each social situation where you fail and get embarrassed as a lesson. It will get better, because you're learning, and you know it will get better, because you know that is how it worked when you've learned other things. You got better at them.

I've been wondering how you guys feel about video games and depression?

I work in a school so I get regular long school holidays, every time I get one I end up feeling like shit. In fact this also counts for the weekends. I was feeling better than I ever have two months ago, then I basically woke up yesterday wondering where the fuck the summer went. At first I put it down to being tired from work or having unstructured days.

The thing is that I can't really play many games while working since I have to do a lot of prep at home, so when I get my weekend/holiday I go into hardcore gamer mode. Also when I was treated for severe depression a few years ago it was in the middle of a major WoW hardcore raiding binge with me stopping raiding as part of the recovery. I basically end up like a zombie playing games for 12+ hours a day and even though I gave up raiding I often put that amount of time into single player games. Is my focus on these games contributing to or even causing depression? I started at 7 so there is 20 years worth of not knowing what I'm like without this hobby.

I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday and uninstalled every game on my PC. Today I feel great after having done exercise, watched TV with my housemates, sorted out my diet and cleaned my room - things I was having trouble getting done these past few months achieved in a day.

It would be interesting if others were being impacted in the same way by gaming.

Chris_sl said:

I've been wondering how you guys feel about video games and depression?

I work in a school so I get regular long school holidays, every time I get one I end up feeling like shit. In fact this also counts for the weekends. I was feeling better than I ever have two months ago, then I basically woke up yesterday wondering where the fuck the summer went. At first I put it down to being tired from work or having unstructured days.

The thing is that I can't really play many games while working since I have to do a lot of prep at home, so when I get my weekend/holiday I go into hardcore gamer mode. Also when I was treated for severe depression a few years ago it was in the middle of a major WoW hardcore raiding binge with me stopping raiding as part of the recovery. I basically end up like a zombie playing games for 12+ hours a day and even though I gave up raiding I often put that amount of time into single player games. Is my focus on these games contributing to or even causing depression? I started at 7 so there is 20 years worth of not knowing what I'm like without this hobby.

I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday and uninstalled every game on my PC. Today I feel great after having done exercise, watched TV with my housemates, sorted out my diet and cleaned my room - things I was having trouble getting done these past few months achieved in a day.

It would be interesting if others were being impacted in the same way by gaming.

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See the South Park episode that made fun of WoW for why playing too much video games is bad. Seriously though, while it can be argued that playing video games is more mentally stimulating than say, watching TV, either of them taken to excess is just plain bad. I was hardcore addicted to Everquest the first year it came out, and it utterly crushed my academic performance for an entire semester. I was in bliss playing, but underneath that superficial feeling was the depression that I was alienating family "to grind XP" and stunting my future career possibilities.

You need to turn gaming into a "reward" rather than a hobby/addiction. For every time you go to the gym, give yourself 2 hours of game time. For every time you get a productive chore/project done, again do likewise. Take all the things that you'd rather not do, because you'd prefer to game, and turn them into things that allow you to play.

Yeah does sound very familiar, even the escapism as a teenager stuff. I was actually enjoying the shit out of Path of Exile when I realised what I was doing and uninstalled after playing it all day.

I've found I've been playing fewer and fewer games as I generally feel better. Not out of any conscious effort. I just don't have much desire, anymore. In fact, aside from some flash games during the long, eight hour suck at work (you can only do so much to keep yourself occupied, when there's nothing to do for 7 of those hours), I think I've played maybe an hour or two in the last couple of weeks.

And I'm not really missing them. I think how much I used to play may have just been another symptom of depression. I'm not saying games are bad. Not at all. Just that it was an... outlet. Something to do to feel less bored and less wasteful, even if just barely.

Also, got my Effexor dosage upped a bit, and my mood has stabilized for now. Not feeling the swings as I was before.

This isn't going to be true for everyone and you can't simply make a blanket statement, but I believe that video games and depression go hand in hand for a lot of people. The one thing video games do is let you "escape" the real world and then you don't have to deal with the depression right away. Years ago when it was affecting me really bad, I spent a LOT of time playing Everquest and then WOW while depressed. Those games let me get away from the real world but I had no real human contact and the depression was still there gnawing away at me in the background. Eventually it hit a bursting point where I knew that playing video games 95% of my free time wasn't healthy.

I never gave up video games completely. But once I got help, I found that I didn't NEED to play as much as I was. I cut way back on my WOW time (eventually I quit it all together) and no other MMO has sucked me in to the point where I was going to spend all waking hours playing it. Video Games are still my #1 hobby but I've learned to get the important stuff done first and I can put them down again after only playing for short amounts of time.

Dabamf_sl said:

How are you handling side effects? Effexor has some pretty gnarly ones

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The biggest side effects I've been having are sweating and an increase in my nervous tics (my legs bounce if I sit still). Also harder to reach orgasm. But the Os are stronger, so kind of not a bad trade off.

I used to have a bit of trouble sleeping, but that's gone away. And hopefully these mood swings will be fixed once I get my dosage adjusted properly. If not, I'll have to see... hopefully if I can manage it with therapy, I won't need Effexor forever.

Oddly enough I find myself enjoying games again that not long ago I was utterly sick of. WoW and Battlefield mainly - single player games I still have a very short attention span because there's no one to share the experience with. I know what it is, too - the whole false accomplishment thing. I can set goals, and achieve them, and feel like I'm doing something. BF and WoW are loaded with such things. I know it's bullshit, but at least I'm also making small strides forward (well, striding in circles) in life as well. (to no result as of yet. The only progress I can really claim is that I no longer feel like getting up and leaving every single minute I'm at work, and I feel like I could probably tolerate full time if I had the opportunity.) And in these games there's some small social outlet where I can amuse myself by making myself or others laugh. Those two things are what I play for. That said, I do want to succeed at the actual game so it's not much of a laugh to consistently suck, heh. It's the odd fuckup that I find funny - not 50 of them in a row.

Mostly I just spent far too many days looking for other things to do, for some kind of outlet, to no conclusion. Too many weekends torturing myself to the point where I just slept all day because I couldn't come up with anything. As self-destructive as gaming can be, it's still better than THAT fucking misery. At least I can turn to gaming or watch a stand-up comic on youtube or something instead of just saying "fuck it I'd rather just sleep."

Really, I'm not in a better place than I was when I realized how miserable I was. The symptoms are just masked better. But at least I can fucking enjoy SOMETHING, goddamn.

Sigh but in worse news I seem to have another medical issue that is going to have to be addressed. Except it's the kind of thing that I will put off as much as I can and I'm lucky I have to see my doc every few weeks for my meds. The meds have a side effect of triggering or worsening things like internal bleeding issues - and there's no doubt that I have an issue there, to the point where I'm feeling pretty sick now. But of course, the process of diagnosing such a problem is an uncomfortable, embarrassing, unholy terror for an avoidant. Hell, the leading cause of death for avoidants is likely ignoring some sort of medical issue. It's such a frustratingly self-destructive way to exist - yet now being fully aware of it has changed nothing for me yet.

Ugh. I have work to do, but I can't stop rambling about this shit now that I started.

Kreugen_sl said:

Mostly I just spent far too many days looking for other things to do, for some kind of outlet, to no conclusion. Too many weekends torturing myself to the point where I just slept all day because I couldn't come up with anything. As self-destructive as gaming can be, it's still better than THAT fucking misery. At least I can turn to gaming or watch a stand-up comic on youtube or something instead of just saying "fuck it I'd rather just sleep."

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I can relate to this feeling. My depression issues went away over the past year, largely due to exercise and such. When I was depressed I would hammer out some time in WOW just because it would alleviate thinking about anything else. Basically, mind was able to go blank and forget about everything outside of the game.

The only issue with that is I started doing this to the point of avoiding doing other items (work, social life, etc.). Thankfully I caught it and reigned it in. Now I am more in line with the managed video game approach from above. I just run through a quick checklist any time I am about to kick back and play for a while. Dishwasher empty? Laundry done? Worked out for the day? If I feel like I accomplished enough I play however long and the best part is there is no guilt about it. Highly recommended.

I just spent some time reading the previous few pages. Most folks here that feel like they're recovering from some video-game related depression have stated one common thing:

"Uninstalling and giving up games has helped"

I understand this method may work for a lot of people, but I just want to identify that not all addiction treatments are for everyone.

Just a small example - "Alcoholics Anonymous" uses an all-or-nothing type approach. To the extreme that they even distribute "1 hour tokens". My mother, and I'm sure millions of other individuals, were never able to successfully adapt to this addiction-repression style.

Ubiquitrips I think provides some enlightenment here, that I very much agree with:

Ubiquitrips_sl said:

Dishwasher empty? Laundry done? Worked out for the day? If I feel like I accomplished enough I play however long and the best part is there is no guilt about it. Highly recommended.

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Treat yourself with things you love. There is nothing wrong with you, and nothing wrong with your favorite hobbies, tastes, habits... just don't let them consume your life. The struggle is that you need to be your own self-motivator and coach. If you want to bust out of work and hop on BF4 - just do your best to stick a couple goals between the drive home and the PLAY button.

Maybe it's something as simple as unloading the dishwasher, or spending an hour with your friends. Maybe eventually it allots you time to find interest in other hobbies or do something really productive.

Hopefully by the time you're clicking PLAY it's because you feel like you deserve it.