Depression

[ramonmercado]

I have suffered from "major" depression and it is possible to enjoy yourself even when you are in the depths. Occasionally a good show, film etc will temporarily light up the darkness.

Yes, I smiled when I was out sick, suffering from depression. That did not mean that I was fit for work.

 

[Timble2]

However, if you're well enough to go out and be photographed having (apparently) a good time, and post the results on Facebook, it has to raise questions about whether you're fit to work.

A bit like those people who are off with say, back trouble, and get photographed running a half marathon.

 

[ramonmercado]

However, if you're well enough to go out and be photographed having (apparently) a good time, and post the results on Facebook, it has to raise questions about whether you're fit to work.

A bit like those people who are off with say, back trouble, and get photographed running a half marathon.

When you suffer from depression your judgement is also likely to be impaired. My trickcyclist encouraged me to get out and enjoy myself as part of bringing my existence as close as possible to normal.

I honestly don't think there is any comparison with those who have "backtrouble" and who pull cars with their teeth.

Btw, when I was in a Psychiatric Hospital, patients were not discharged for laughing.

 

[OneWingedBird]

In what is thought to be the first case of its kind, Cheltenham Borough Council accused Christine Laird, 52, of “fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation” at the High Court.

The first case to go to a high court perhaps, but otherwise i'm sure it happens plenty. A former employer tried to use that as a reason to dismiss me, though in that instance, they didn't dismiss me for that inasmuch as they dismissed me for no specified reason in the end.

 

[Quake42]

The first case to go to a high court perhaps, but otherwise i'm sure it happens plenty. A former employer tried to use that as a reason to dismiss me, though in that instance, they didn't dismiss me for that inasmuch as they dismissed me for no specified reason in the end.

The issue here wasn't that she was dismissed though - the council was suiing her to repay salary and benefits because she hadn't disclosed when applying for the job that she had previously been treated for mild depression. Unsurprisngly, the case was thrown out.

 

[Anome]

However, if you're well enough to go out and be photographed having (apparently) a good time, and post the results on Facebook, it has to raise questions about whether you're fit to work.

A bit like those people who are off with say, back trouble, and get photographed running a half marathon.

When you suffer from depression your judgement is also likely to be impaired. My trickcyclist encouraged me to get out and enjoy myself as part of bringing my existence as close as possible to normal.

Let's face it, if going out to strip clubs was all that was needed to get over depression, then I'd have been cured ages ago.

Seriously, a one-off incident does not indicate a remission. You can't tell from a couple of photos whether she went home and had a breakdown from having been around people and being ashamed at the whole incident. Or maybe she tap-danced all the way home. You can't diagnose depression or the lack thereof from photos. You can't really diagnose anything reliably from photos alone, even a bad back.

And then there's the ethical issues around whether her employers ought to have seen the pictures in any case. (Apparently they were hidden from public, and the company had to "break-in" to see them.)

 

[Yithian]

Mrs Laird filed 25 official complaints to the Standards Board for England, of which one was upheld.

She also filed an application for a restraining order banning Mr McKinlay from entering the first floor of the council headquarters...


[...] Mrs Laird pursued separate legal claims against the council and Mr McKinlay, but failed and incurred costs of more than £90,000.

Personally, these facts tell me pretty much all i need to know in order to decide who is most likely in the right.

 

[Quake42]

Personally, these facts tell me pretty much all i need to know in order to decide who is most likely in the right.

You omitted the rest of the paragraph which puts a rather different spin on the situation:

Her time at Cheltenham was marked by a series of disputes with the authority and Andrew McKinlay, its Liberal Democrat leader, with allegation and counter-allegation of inappropriate, obstructive and bullying conduct.

Rather than Ms Laird causing difficulty to innocent parties, it seems clear that both sides were throwing copious amounts of mud at each other. I wouldn't be too quick to blame the employee.

Employment disputes, particularly at a senior level, can become extremely unpleasant and if the employee ends up having to make dozens of repeat complaints it is very often because the organisation concerned is determined to ignore what is being alleged and appears to close its eyes to the obvious.

 

[Yithian]

You omitted the rest of the paragraph which puts a rather different spin on the situation:

Her time at Cheltenham was marked by a series of disputes with the authority and Andrew McKinlay, its Liberal Democrat leader, with allegation and counter-allegation of inappropriate, obstructive and bullying conduct.

Rather than Ms Laird causing difficulty to innocent parties, it seems clear that both sides were throwing copious amounts of mud at each other. I wouldn't be too quick to blame the employee.

Employment disputes, particularly at a senior level, can become extremely unpleasant and if the employee ends up having to make dozens of repeat complaints it is very often because the organisation concerned is determined to ignore what is being alleged and appears to close its eyes to the obvious.

I acknowledge what you say, but:
a) These complaints were taken to the 'standards board' - presumably an external body. 24 out of 25 were rejected. Is that not telling?
b) There paragraph you quote seems only to suggest it wasn't all one-sided. That's accepted, but of course, merely disputing the claims of this woman would be reported as counter-allegation.
c) Seeking a restraining over work issues is stupid and counter-productive (as it appears she realised).

Perhaps there's more to it; although I'm inclined to think not. It's famously difficult to sack public-sector workers unless they are actually criminals. This woman sounds like a malingerer who - because she was an unpopular employee - relied on dragging everything out as far as possible and really irritating her employer. This kind of behaviour does tend to make one disliked by those around them. I'm not all that surprised she was depressed. I've read several cases in the news of disgruntled employees becoming embroiled in long-term disputes and then going on long-term sick leave as they are suffering from stress as a fallout. It's not always the employee's fault - certainly not - but all the numerous attempts at (failed) formal action make me highly suspicious.

 

[Quake42]

This woman sounds like a malingerer who - because she was an unpopular employee - relied on dragging everything out as far as possible and really irritating her employer. This kind of behaviour does tend to make one disliked by those around them. I'm not all that surprised she was depressed. I've read several cases in the news of disgruntled employees becoming embroiled in long-term disputes and then going on long-term sick leave as they are suffering from stress as a fallout. It's not always the employee's fault - certainly not - but all the numerous attempts at (failed) formal action make me highly suspicious.

You may of course be right. I just tend to be highly sceptical of employers who demonise an employee who is in dispute with them. I've seen a number of examples of hardworking, popular staff suddenly being accused of poor performance or conduct, generally on completely spurious grounds and almost always by a new (or newly promoted) manager who sees the existing staff member as a threat. When this happens a sort of groupthink seems to consume the employing organisation, which is usually incapable of admitting they have made a mistake, and will instead choose to string things out and make increasingly bizarre allegations against the employee who has dared to challenge them.

The organisation concerned can be private or public sector, it doesn't seem to matter - the pattern is always the same. And, as you say, the stress of this dispute often makes thiose involved with it ill.

All I'm saying is don't be too quick to rush to judgement in the case of Ms Laird.

*Edited for typo

 

[Yithian]

All I'm saying is don't be too quick to rush to judgement in the case of Ms Laird.

Okay. Point taken. As it is, we're slightly at the mercy of the reporter here. I don't know how many of the facts we have.

 

[MsQkxyz]

However, if you're well enough to go out and be photographed having (apparently) a good time, and post the results on Facebook, it has to raise questions about whether you're fit to work.

A bit like those people who are off with say, back trouble, and get photographed running a half marathon.

When I was quite severely depressed I always put on a happy face around my friends. Alternatively, if I know someones depressed Ill work hard to make them smile. Its not a cure obviously, but hopefully brings some temporary relief (-:
There wasa study/s i believe into the way people smile and which types of smiles are found on people who are truely internally happy. The smiles which represented a truely happy soul involved some extra work from the muscles aroound the side of the eyes if I remember rightly giving the subtle appearence of an extra twinkle...

 

[rynner2]

Depression targeted in government policy shift

The government is preparing to announce a major shift in mental health policy in England with a new emphasis on tackling and preventing depression.

The 10-year strategy is expected to call for better identification of those most at risk and wider access to psychological therapies for patients.

Depression or anxiety affect one in six people at some point in their lives, yet only one in four is in treatment.

It is not clear what, if any, funding will be available to back the plans.

Professor Louis Appleby, the government's mental health tsar, said at any one time one in six people were struggling with depression, but only a quarter of those people were in treatment.

He said: "We need to be better at preventing depression, better at treating it and better at reducing the impact of depression."

Professor Appleby said depression affected physical health, raising the risk of conditions such as stroke, and the likelihood that people would not seek treatment if they became ill.

He said it was important to tackle the issue as early as possible, for instance, by providing the right atmosphere for children to thrive and build self esteem at school.

The World Health Organization warned in September that in 20 years' time more people will be affected by depression than any other health problem.

The strategy, to be published on Monday, is expected to say that depression is as big a problem as heart disease.

Sources say the ambition of the plans to prevent and treat depression are unprecedented in Europe.

etc...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8396147.stm

 

[ramonmercado]

Call me a cynic but I reckon part of the campaign will be to target people claiming sickness benefits due to depression and find them capable of work. Problem solved!

 

[rynner2]

Why 'Black Dog' is linked to depression:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/petsh ... -dogs.html

 

[OneWingedBird]

Call me a cynic but I reckon part of the campaign will be to target people claiming sickness benefits due to depression and find them capable of work. Problem solved!

Going back maybe 2 years, i got a 4th generation photocopied letter from the jobcentre telling me that studies had found that getting back to work could help with 'depression type illness' Came with some other blurge from them that mostly went straight in the bin.

 

[ramonmercado]

Call me a cynic but I reckon part of the campaign will be to target people claiming sickness benefits due to depression and find them capable of work. Problem solved!

Going back maybe 2 years, i got a 4th generation photocopied letter from the jobcentre telling me that studies had found that getting back to work could help with 'depression type illness' Came with some other blurge from them that mostly went straight in the bin.

Getting back to work does help. But first of all you have to be fit enough to return. I was lucky in so far as I had an existing job to return to and they were understanding. But throwing someone off sickness benefit and expecting someone to find work is more likely to rsult in people ending up homeless and will drive some to suicide.

 

[rynner2]

Magnets could be new drug-free treatment for depression: research
Magnets could hold the key to a treatment for depression in people who have not responded to drugs, research has suggested.
By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor
Published: 7:25AM BST 04 May 2010

A study has found that people who had magnets applied to their head to activate certain parts of the brain were more likely to report their depression lifting than those treated with a similar device without a magnet.

The research conducted by a team at the Medical University of South Carolina, in America, involved 190 people who were depressed and who had not responded to medication.

Just under half were randomly assigned to receive the transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy which involved wearing a helmet like device that applied a magnetic current to the front section of brain for around 37 minutes a day for three weeks.

The others wore the same helmet for the same duration but the magnetic field was blocked.

The study was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Afterwards depression lifted in 14 per cent of those who received the real magnetic treatment compared with five per cent who received the sham treatment.

It mean the transcranial magnetic stimulation was four times more likely to successfully treat depression.

It was calculated that 12 people needed to be treated with the device for one to be cured of their depression.

Lead author Dr Mark George, said: "The results of this study suggest that prefrontal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation is a monotherapy with few adverse effects and significant antidepressant effects for unipolar depressed patients who do not respond to medications or who cannot tolerate them."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... earch.html

 

[rynner2]

How to beat depression – without drugs
A healthier lifestyle could banish the blues, says a new book
Jake Wallis Simons
guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 July 2010 22.00 BST

Dr Steve Ilardi is slim and enthusiastic, with intense eyes. The clinical psychologist is 4,400 miles away, in Kansas, and we are chatting about his new book via Skype, the online videophone service. "I've spent a lot of time pondering Skype," he says. "On the one hand it provides a degree of social connectedness. On the other, you're still essentially by yourself." But, he concludes, "a large part of the human cortex is devoted to the processing of visual information, so I guess Skype is less alienating than voice calls."

Social connectedness is important to Ilardi. In The Depression Cure, he argues that the brain mistakenly interprets the pain of depression as an infection. Thinking that isolation is needed, it sends messages to the sufferer to "crawl into a hole and wait for it all to go away". This can be disastrous because what depressed people really need is the opposite: more human contact.

Which is why social connectedness forms one-sixth of his "lifestyle based" cure for depression. The other five elements are meaningful activity (to prevent "ruminating" on negative thoughts); regular exercise; a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids; daily exposure to sunlight; and good quality, restorative sleep.

The programme has one glaring omission: anti-depressant medication. Because according to Ilardi, the drugs simply don't work. "Meds have only around a 50% success rate," he says. "Moreover, of the people who do improve, half experience a relapse. This lowers the recovery rate to only 25%. To make matters worse, the side effects often include emotional numbing, sexual dysfunction and weight gain."

As a respected clinical psychologist and university professor, Ilardi's views are hard to dismiss. A research team at his workplace, the University of Kansas, has been testing his system – known as TLC (Therapeutic Lifestyle Change) – in clinical trials. The preliminary results show, he says, that every patient who put the full programme into practice got better.

Ilardi is convinced that the medical profession's readiness to prescribe anti-depression medication is obscuring an important debate. Up to 20% of the UK population will have clinical depression at some point, he says – twice as many as 30 years ago. Where has this depression epidemic come from?

The answer, he suggests, lies in our lifestyle. "Our standard of living is better now than ever before, but technological progress comes with a dark underbelly. Human beings were not designed for this poorly nourished, sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially isolated, frenzied pace of life. So depression continues its relentless march."

Our environment may have evolved rapidly but our physical evolution hasn't kept up. "Our genome hasn't moved on since 12,000 years ago, when everyone on the planet were hunter- gatherers," he says. "Biologically, we still have Stone Age bodies. And when Stone Age body meets modern environment, the health consequences can be disastrous."

etc...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... hout-drugs

 

[ramonmercado]

One size does not fit all. I'll stick to my medication which has kept me stabilised. That and sessions with a psycho-therapist.

 

[_Lizard23_]

Gah, agreed.
If someone would like to find me an emotionally rewarding job with just the right combination of pleasant interpersonal interaction and physical activity in a place with adequate daily sunlight, sufficiently well-paid to allow me a restful home and a diet of salmon and seeds ... oh hang on ..... I wanna be The Catcher in the Rye suddenly.

"In an ideal world everyone would just feel better", says 'slim, enthusiastic' guy with lots of funding.

"I dare say", replies fat, lethargic, homeless, unemployed, insomniac alcoholic.

 

[PeniG]

The other five elements are meaningful activity (to prevent "ruminating" on negative thoughts); regular exercise; a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids; daily exposure to sunlight; and good quality, restorative sleep.

Friend of mine is bipolar, went through a prolonged and 100% debilitating period of depression about five years ago.

Right up to the time it hit, she held an engaging job in medical research; she had a boyfriend (whom she married during an interlude in the main depressive interval) and a large social circle of family and friends; she was active in science fiction fandom, gaming, and social activism; she ran a Live Action Role-Playing Game; always had a craft project in hand; got regular outdoor exercise, including working her horse, gardening, and birdwatching; she ate a good diet; she did absolutely everything right.

And she still fell into a depression so bad that when the house behind the one she was in burned down, she couldn't get herself out of bed - my husband (who was sick that day) had to go over and drag her out.

(She's back to normal now, but she's decided the medical research job was too stressfull and is working at the Humane Society.)

And where the hell does this guy get off listing "good quality restorative sleep" as part of the cure? I don't get that 50% of the time and it's not because I'm not living right. Nobody understands how insomnia works, no research is being done on it, and people who think you can just go out and get it the same way you'd get exercise or food have never dealt with the problem. This guy probably thinks he's experiencing insomnia when he's had too much coffee and spent too long on Facebook and has a little trouble falling asleep for a couple of days.

Basically he's telling us to eat cake without finding out whether we're not eating bread because we're out of flour or because we're allergic to wheat.

This is all excellent advice for people whose lifestyle is making them feel blue. Medication isn't a good choice for those people, and doctors who prescribe it without determining the source of the depression are irresponsible. But if you have a biological tendency toward depression, he's just obnoxious.

 

[Cultjunky]

I can see where you are coming from Peni, if you do have a biological problem, then the advice being given will have a minimal effect. But a lot of people without a biological problem are going to find that advice useful and benficial. The difficulty is that while there has been some research into biological tendancy/predisposition it's really rather hard to say that there is a biological factor at play in an individuals illness, as opposed to environmental factors.

As we all know environmental issues can have a significant impact on an individuals well being. Making changes to things like diet, exercise regimes, etc can be beneficial, not just as a physical improvement, but also as an emotional improvement, it feels like taking control back from the illness. Which can in turn allow an individual to reduce medication or even remove it completely. In my mind, depression can be tackled in a holistic manner, not just tackled by relying solely on medication or soley on sunshine, satsumas n sports.

 

[rynner2]

Well said, Cultjunky!

I was getting quite depressed reading all those negative comments! 8)

 

[PeniG]

I believe if you'll read my last paragraph I conceded all that.

But the article doesn't; and if the man does, the journalist flubbed reporting it.

The tendency of society to make no distinction between the types of depression results both in people who are physically ill being made to feel that it's they're own fault and they're bad for feeling bad (easy enough in a depressive!) and in people who need to change jobs, habits, or associates being treated with inappropriate medicines. Why is it so hard to get the legitimacy of both kinds of treatment and the reality that both can and are applied inappropriately into the same article? Where does this guy get off saying medication is useless instead of medication is still in the experimental stages and most people can be treated in this way without it?

 

[Cultjunky]

I agree, you did conclude that a solely unmedicated repsonse to depression is inappropriate, but it's not obnoxious. I think one of the major obstacles to examining depression is one of the major symptons of deression, in a manner of speaking. But also one of the most divisive in the general publics perception.

The suggestions made are all proven to be beneficial. Not curative. Nor are meds considered curative. Both mask the root causes, which can range from genetic, to situational to even socio-economic. Regardless of how offensive someone might feel about the suggestion that you need to 'get more sun', it's really no more offensive than the advice you get on a packet of fags, eg 'inhale less'. The point of having a fag is to inhale, and one of the symptoms of depression is to spend less time under the sky.

If nothing else, articals like this give cause for debate. It's not so long ago that there was a bit of a fight on for depression to be recognised as an illness in it's self, let alone get meagre funding for research on causes and antidotes.

 

[PeniG]

Because according to Ilardi, the drugs simply don't work.

That's what's offensive and obnoxious; more importantly, untrue. An equivalent denial that lifestyle therapy doesn't work would be equally offensive, obnoxious, and untrue. My friend did all the things he says are effective, and they didn't keep her from sliding into the trough. Many of them were flatly impossible for her after the slide overwhelmed her. She had to get better before she could exercise. She still has to use sleep aids, though she's fussy about which ones.

So she was on medication and treatment roulette, fully aware that she was a guinea pig and that no medicine would actually cure her. But she got a medicine that enabled her to begin to live in ways that would get her back to normal, and now she's back to normal - once she adjusted her expectations of normal in recognition of the fact that she's older now and different levels of stress effect her.

This is like telling an HIV patient that his Keletra won't work. That depends on what you mean by "work." If only 50% are helped at all, that's a lot better than none; and if only 25% are helped permanently, that's still a great track record for the treatment of an incurable and often fatal disease. HIV patients who take their meds feel better and live longer than ones who don't. Depressives who find their appropriate treatment also feel better and live longer than ones who don't; and sometimes that appropriate treatment includes medication. Current patients are the research subjects who may make a cure possible in the future.

For the record, I have a biological tendency toward depression and I don't take meds for it (though my ear doctor prescribed 10 mg of Elavil for the balance problem; it hasn't affected either condition noticeably and I'll be discussing it with him next week). I have coping mechanisms and they work well enough; certainly I've never been as debilitated as my friend was. And she agrees, from her perspective as both a medical researcher and a patient, that as long as I can function as well as I do without the meds I'm better off not doing so.

Oversimplification does harm.

 

[Beakmoo]

I can see where Peni is coming from here. The tone of the article is pretty obnoxious to me too. Some of us have wonky brains, doesn't mean we're not living right. It's just one step away from saying it's our fault somehow.

 

[linesmachine]

I can see where Peni is coming from here. The tone of the article is pretty obnoxious to me too. Some of us have wonky brains, doesn't mean we're not living right. It's just one step away from saying it's our fault somehow.

It would be interesting to get some definitive stats to swing the article one way or the other. In fact, after re-reading the article a second time I think the piece is a mess; it holds little or no usefulness and possibly does harm to mental health awareness efforts.

I think the point made by Peni (that there is too little understanding/appreciation for the variety of depression types) is key to much of this. I've suffered mild depression, and several immediate family members have been on perscribed meds for depression. But we all suffered in quite different ways, and to treat us all the same would have been, quite frankly, stoneage. If you'd have told me to "pull up my socks and get some fresh air" when I was down, I think I'd have just cried. :cry:

 

[Beakmoo]

I've had people telling me to pull myself together for 40 years now, since I was a small child. It makes me very angry.