Depression sucks.

[unixronin]

And there's not a lot more than that to say.

My parents know a psychologist who does disability evaluations in Spokane, Washington.  When the subject of my foot trouble and the continuous pain came up in connection with applying for disability, he said, "Of course he's depressed.  Everyone who's in constant pain is depressed."

I hate that it's so hard to find joy in anything any more, or find sufficient motivation to do things.

Comments

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

Too long have I lay alone,
Not knowing which way to turn...

Keep passing the open windows, man.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I KNOW I know that. But right now I can't place it.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Wait, yes I can.

And the lady would say that she'd had enough -
Oh, more fool me .....

And I'm not helping am I?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I'm caught up in my own worries and work that I'm not as supportive and just bring up more things for you to be depressed about.

Call Dr. Kelly, get a therapy referral. Talk to the podiatrist about the ankle and see if an orthopod needs to do the work. When's your next chiro appointment?

Have you e-mailed Chris Tella to tell him you are local these days? Who knows, USB Warburg might still be looking to hire.

Re: And I'm not helping am I?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, we're not really local enough to UBS to make it a practical commute. But he may have other things in the area.

I don't think I still have his contact information though. I might be able to track him down ... I'll have to give it a try.

Can't get the girls to say what they want for lunch., except Wen wants bread and we don't have any. Except, hmmm, hot dog buns I think....

Re: And I'm not helping am I?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

We have a consensus. Mozzarella sticks and french fries.

Re: And I'm not helping am I?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for you! And thbbbt for me as I had planned on making bread last night but sort of wimped out of it. I suck.

Re: And I'm not helping am I?

[lonewolf545.livejournal.com]

*fwap* Don't you go getting started too... Y'all have been dealing with a seriously unfun situation, with FAR more than your fair share of bad luck (and outright abuses, when you consider the insurance co in Cali). You can't be perfect all the time. Quite honestly, by the time I finish working each day and doing martial arts, I seldom get much of what I need to done each night, and this past weekend I didn't get ANY of the chores done that I had planned.

Re: And I'm not helping am I?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It still boggles me that CIGNA declared further treatment on my foot "medically unnecessary" at a time when I couldn't walk without my foot breaking open and bleeding.

"Oh, so this happens to everyone, hm? Normal, expected behavior? ...Uh-huh. Didn't think so."

Re: And I'm not helping am I?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I guess I just don't think that I deserve the slack-cutting. I should be able to do everything that I'm used to doing even if most of my day is now taken up by a job outside of the house.

We've always shared the chores. He does the cooking and baby care and I do everything else. Laundry and cleaning. The girls have their chores as well. Taking laundry to and from the basement. Dishes to and from the dishwasher.

I'm a survivor. All of those bad luck and abuses are things to overcome. That which doesn't kill me had better run damn fast away. And I haven't been responding that way like I should be to the laundry, the kitchen clean up, the baking, or the girls's room.

Re: And I'm not helping am I?

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

sounds nummy to me!

[plutosonium.livejournal.com]

I forget, are you on antidepressant(s)? There are so many out there that if you've had them before and they didn't work, it's worth trying a different one.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not, and frankly I don't want to be. My first experience with antidepressants was bad. My second was so horrific you couldn't get me to try them again at gunpoint. I have no fear of anyone's hell, because I've already been to mine.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

(The honest truth is, I probably still have post-traumatic stress disorder from the second time. PTSD never really goes away. You just .... learn to take most of the color and the sharp edges out of it, hide the dripping blood, and push it into the background most of the time.)

They are getting much better

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I have a good one now, after being on bad ones. It takes a while, but it's worth the effort. However, talk therapy is good as well.

Re: They are getting much better

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Trust me, those words raise the hairs on the back of my neck. I was there for the experiences he talks about, and that's similar to what they kept telling me when I said "really, we're getting some VERY SCARY side effects." No, give it time, oh, and try adding this. The nineth circle of hell was a great place, comparatively.

Sure there are people who really do have biochemical conditions they help. But anything that says "Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor" with Alaric is like saying "Here, take this cynaide..." The problem is that antidepressants are usually issued treat symptoms rather than actual causes. The cause here is chronic pain. Different from seratonin reactions.

Re: They are getting much better

[plutosonium.livejournal.com]

Not all antidepressants are SSRIs. I respect that he had bad experiences. However, there is a comparison in my mind to saying, for example, "The antibiotic Ceftin nearly killed me, so I will not take any antibiotic again ever."

Fixing depression due to chronic pain without fixing the chronic pain is still way better than chronic pain plus depression. (Not to mention that depression can exacerbate perception of pain.) The mental fog Alaric has mentioned is a classic symptom of depression, for instance. How much nicer would his life be right now if he could focus well enough to code?

Regardless of the method chosen (therapy, drugs, fun activities, sun exposure) I think treating Alaric's depression is an important issue right now. And given that depression leads to the inability to act, gentle or less gentle nudges from friends may be called for. (IMHO.)

I''m aware of the problem

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I've had both chronic pain and recurrant major depression. I had bunion surgery on both feet last year, in fact I had to have surgery on the right foot twice. I also had recurrent back and neck pain for years, although the back pain is down to twinges now, and my other pains are now manageable. Although they have mostly been by no means the same degree of pain, I know what it's like to be in so much pain that all you want to do is lie there and howl.

Yes, they are very, very different things. In my case, my depression has been with me in one form or another for 44 years. For me, saying dismissively that an antidepressant only treats the symptoms is as one said that unixronin shouldn't take anything for his pain because that only treats his symptoms.

Condescend much?

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Having been there for it, I second this.

I'm sorry

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I wish that I could help or that I lived nearby. Can you get some sun? It helps, believe me. It helps to reset that out-of-kilter part of your brain and even helps the pain a bit.

I understand the pain.

That sounds so damned lame. I want to be able to help and I can't, damn it. I grieve for you.

May you be helped soon.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I know what it feels like to be in constant pain. It's always at the forefront of your mind, and it just wears you out -- fatigue makes cowards of us all.

Two things help:

* Find someone to reduce your workload on stuff that exacerbates the pain or reminds you of it: cooking, cleaning, etc. Thanks Mom!

* Find activities that you enjoy not related to your disability, that push the pain out of your attention. It takes effort, for sure. I got into some OSS projects.

More here (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/chronic-pain/PN00048).

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It's always at the forefront of your mind, and it just wears you out -- fatigue makes cowards of us all.

Indeed. Very simply put.

Find activities that you enjoy not related to your disability, that push the pain out of your attention. It takes effort, for sure. I got into some OSS projects.

I've been trying to do more OSS work, but it's gotten to be that I can't muster the mental clarity for serious code work either. :( I haven't even gotten around to adding encryption capability into my own ICBM Perl client for ICB. (Part of that is that there's only a handful of people who've tried it, and I get no feedback on it ... I'm basically the only regular user of it, to my knowledge. What's the point in adding encryption if no-one else uses it to send encrypted traffic to?)

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to do more OSS work, but it's gotten to be that I can't muster the mental clarity for serious code work either. :(
I was the same way with my fibromyalgia-type thing. I did what I could: building writing RPM spec files, simple debugging and patches, etc.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's offered in your area, but there are programs in pain management that offer biofeedback training. I know a couple people who have had pretty good luck with them in dealing with fibromylagia and serious back pain (the serious degenerated disk variety).

[plutosonium.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my mom did a pain management program and it helped her quite a bit. Biofeedback was one of the elements of the program.