The Gaming Den

You probably won't find that anti-depressants "kill your personality" (although you might). When I was on them I felt serene and dispassionate and had trouble getting a strong reaction to anything, but nobody noticed much of a difference in my personality. (I was also starving to death at the time, and didn't really have depression, and I only tried one drug, so you might well experience something totally different).

I highly recommend checking out http://crazymeds.us/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage. It's a website by and for crazy people with much detailed explanations of what it actually feels like to get on, get off of, or be on a medication.

Catharz wrote:Right, just like Lance Armstrong was too weak to control his own cancer.

I think the chemo did that for him. Medical science > being Lance Armstrong. Also, there's a subtle implication here that pisses me off more than I can express, even though I know you don't realize you're making it, and it's that the cancer patients who lose are weak.

There are people who genuinely have physical/medical problems outside of their control that modify their mental state. And then there's the fact that while we like to pretend we're fully in control of ourselves, changing your perspective/attitude/so forth and so on is sometimes as hard as wishing away cancer.

Though, now to the flipside... it's probably better to tackle source problems of depression than it is to drug them away. Of course, tackling any problem when depressed is in and of itself a more difficult feat than tackling that problem when not depressed. Sort of how depression works. So simple short-term medication for depression could be the boost someone needs to break a cycle of depression (which is problematic, in that coming off those antidepressants will lead to a physiologically-induced depression and possibly put them back in that cycle, but that can be mitigated).

Arioch wrote:First is admitting I'm too weak to control my own depression.

This may actually be true (or at least feel true at the moment), and there's nothing wrong with that, but you should probably aim for being able to control it eventually. I do not want to talk someone who can benefit from antidepressants into not taking antidepressants; if they make you more functional (in your career or personal life), take advantage of that. Seriously. Do it, and don't bother feeling bad about it. But I'm reluctant to say antidepressants are the long-term solution. They can clear your head long enough for you to fix the things that are causing your depression, which seem to be fairly normal; career dissatisfaction, relationship problems, good ol' fashioned loneliness, and probably the bad/cynical/bitter attitude that all these things have fostered (and of course, that attitude turns around and contributes to causing these problems in an ironic circle).

Use antidepressants as an opportunity to step back from your depression and approach the problems in your life without it. You may see solutions you didn't see before, you may realize, "it's not as bad as I thought," or "I can handle this and still be happy," or blah blah blah. Having a shitty job sucks, but if you realize, "you know, if I have a happy personal life, I can accept having a shitty job," then you stop dragging career dissatisfaction into your relationships, and that improves them, so relationships stop falling apart. (This is just an example from my personal experience, and it may or may not be relevant to you. I'm dating someone whose dissatisfaction with other parts of her life bleeds into an otherwise fantastic relationship, and makes her hard to be around sometimes and has lead to a lot of rough patches.)

Of course, if you come off antidepressants (and you should back off slowly) and you find yourself slipping back to your problematic self, it's probably worthwhile to get back on them. But in my entirely uneducated non-medical opinion it's better to use them as a tool to help you address depression sources instead of to suppress depression symptoms, and hopefully that will result in a depression- and antidepressant-free life. Eventually. No need to rush it; you'd rather be depression-free than antidepressant-free.

And no, most anti-depressants don't kill personality; they're... subduing, but you're still you. And that probably works, because I doubt the problems you have socially are because you're you, the problems are because you're a depressed you.

Best of luck to you, and I really think the key is fixing your attitude and perspective, and using antidepressants to help you do that is completely valid. Once you aren't feeling depressed all the time, a lot of your problems (like the social ones), will disappear on their own and you will be genuinely happier, not just pill happier. Antidepressants catch a bad rap because of the idea that it's 'fake happiness in a pill,' but you can use them to fix your attitude long enough to bring genuine happiness into your life, like better relationships and friendships, and that's not actually fake. And it can stick around after the pills are gone to keep you happy (and if you're happy, then the depression won't come back).

DSMatticus wrote:

Catharz wrote:Right, just like Lance Armstrong was too weak to control his own cancer.

I think the chemo did that for him. Medical science > being Lance Armstrong. Also, there's a subtle implication here that pisses me off more than I can express, even though I know you don't realize you're making it, and it's that the cancer patients who lose are weak.

There's a subtle implication here that pisses me off more than I can express, even though I know you don't realize you're making it, and it's that unlike cancer, Major Depression isn't a real disease.

Catharz wrote:unlike cancer, Major Depression isn't a real disease.

You're completely welcome to make that claim, though I honestly have no fucking idea what the point of that claim is, because whether it is a disease or not (whatever you define disease to mean), it is something that hurts people's lives, and there are methods for overcoming it such that it stops hurting your life. Getting hit in the face everyday by an abusive spouse isn't a disease, but it's something you'd want to fucking fix.

'Manning up' is your proposed method of fixing it. We have empirical data (double-blind studies on antidepressants) on its success, and the results are usually not so good for manning up. In much the same way we have empirical data on manning up and facing an abuser alone, and the results are usually not so good for the alone part. Outside help, whether it be support or drugs, actually fucking just plain works better.

But all of this is actually a completely fucking separate discussion, because what you said is a stand-alone comment about cancer and has nothing to do with depression. Read it a-fucking-gain.

Catharz wrote:Right, just like Lance Armstrong was too weak to control his own cancer.

You are implying that Armstrong beat cancer in the same way you think people should be able to beat depression; by trying hard enough. Which means that you think, in at least some cases, that people who die from cancer did so because they were too weak to beat it as a person, and you are blaming them for their own illness. That is fucking horrible.

Armstrong is an inspirational example that you can get cancer, survive it, and go on to live life. He is not an example of determination and will beating cancer, because he was in great shape, had the best medical care money and publicity could get, and was lucky. By the statistics, not even that lucky. I can't remember the exact details, but him surviving was not an anomalous miracle or testament to human spirit, it was not even very surprising.

So this analogy between cancer and depression is not only false, it is super-fucking-offensive because it puts partial blame for dying to cancer on the patients who have cancer.

Your claims about 'manning up' being the best approach to tackling depression are wrong, but not offensive. Your claims about 'be like Armstrong, control your own cancer' are wrong and incredibly offensive. And these are unrelated; I understand the point you tried to make about depression, and it didn't offend me. What you thought was a good analogy for that point turned out to be shitting on cancer patients, and that is what's fucking offensive.

DSM, please learn to read sometime in the future.

Please stop posting until after you do that.

Kaelik, you're welcome to explain or I will continue not giving a shit and ignore it. I'm actually not even sure which part you're bitching about, for that matter.

Thanks for (hopefully) clearing things up for DSM, but I should probably apologize. Sarcasm is notoriously difficult to convey over the internet, and trying to make it clear with snarkiness is sub-optimal.

Still, it's amazing what walls of text two sentences can create. I almost understand why PR and Tzor do it.

Catharz wrote:Sarcasm is notoriously difficult to convey over the internet

Okay, if I got trolled I got trolled (or rather, trolled myself), and that is more than slightly embarrassing. In my defense, I do not know the people here very well beyond the ones I have argued with, and have not yet had enough conversation with you to know what you actually believe and where to categorize you.

I'm genuinely sorry for making a big deal out of nothing if this was the case.

Count: "I'm too weak to control my Depression, so I have to be weak and pathetic and take medicine."

Carthaz: "That's like saying that Lance Armstrong was too weak to control his Cancer, so he had to be weak and pathetic and get Chemo."

Implication: Count it just as justified in seeking medicine for his depression as Lance Armstrong is for getting Chemo. Which is 100% justified. Without question.

You decided to start and epic flame war by talking shit about how Carthaz was saying that everyone with Cancer should just will power it down without medicine, even though that's literally the opposite of what you said.

The fact that I have to spell this out for you is evidence of your illiteracy, and so you should learn to fucking read.

Okay, that doesn't make any sense.

1) Catharz sarcastically mocks something stupid by stating it.
2) I point out why it's stupid, not realizing the 'sarcasm' bit. My bad, I feel pretty dumb, and rightly so.
3) You tell me I'm an idiot, claiming that because as-written it's so stupid I should have assumed it was a sarcastic way to mean the exact opposite thing.

You're telling me I'm stupid for missing the sarcasm, which is true enough, but you're also trying to tell me there's no one stupid enough to say what Catharz said and actually mean it. And that seems stupid. So I will assume your post is sarcasm. Shit, I've trolled myself again taking you seriously. When will it ever stop?!

I missed a bit of sarcasm, caused some drama/argument that didn't need to happen, aaand made an ass out of myself. And that's about it.

@Catharz, sorry for being a dick.

@Kaelik, you are a dick.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Well, I have a couple of job leads to apply for tomorrow. I also have a couple numbers of people to call to hopefully get on antidepressants.

So many things irk me about that. First is admitting I'm too weak to control my own depression. Second is thinking about all the friends and loved ones I've hurt because I was depressed. A third is admitting that my sow of an ex-wife was right at least once: that I need to use drugs to kill my personality in order to be socially tolerable. But here I sit, finally abandoned by everyone I loved, breaking down to taking drugs so I can act like a human being.

Count, if you wanna drive two states North in the next 15 hours, you're more than welcome to show up at my place for the annual 4th of July BBQ.

I appreciate the support, I really do. It just feels like giving up to me.

From the first day I realized that I was an outcast and none of the kids really wanted anything to do with me, I've only had one real dream: To live a normal life, get a decent job, get married, and start a family. I have put every waking moment towards that goal. It made me hang on to an abusive relationship way longer than made any sense at all because she promised those things if I bought her a house/stackable washer and dryer/bigger house/kicked my own family out into the street/ and so forth. (I admit that was retarded, I admit that I should not have believed her, and I have never let it happen again).

It looks like I'm never going to have a normal life, so I am taking the pills so I don't lose the last few remaining loved ones and am completely alone. It just feels like giving up on one of my oldest dreams for practical concerns.

I also feel that I am not likely to not have a job that doesn't involve being a retail bitch at any time, I feel like no woman is ever going to find me a worthy enough mate to bear her children, and I should just stop putting all the effort I am into bettering myself.

Looking back, I wish I had spent more times blacked out drunk and/or playing video games rather than working out, going to college, and making feeble and laughable attempts at trying to attract women. Because beer is delicious and video games are fun.

DSMatticus wrote:Okay, that doesn't make any sense.

1) Catharz sarcastically mocks something stupid by stating it.
2) I point out why it's stupid, not realizing the 'sarcasm' bit. My bad, I feel pretty dumb, and rightly so.
3) You tell me I'm an idiot, claiming that because as-written it's so stupid I should have assumed it was a sarcastic way to mean the exact opposite thing.

You're telling me I'm stupid for missing the sarcasm, which is true enough, but you're also trying to tell me there's no one stupid enough to say what Catharz said and actually mean it. And that seems stupid. So I will assume your post is sarcasm. Shit, I've trolled myself again taking you seriously. When will it ever stop?!

I missed a bit of sarcasm, caused some drama/argument that didn't need to happen, aaand made an ass out of myself. And that's about it.

@Catharz, sorry for being a dick.

@Kaelik, you are a dick.

Remember how I said learn to read? I was serious.

There is no sarcasm.

If Carthaz had said "And Lance Armstrong is weak for getting Chemo." that would be Sarcasm, and you would just be an idiot.

Since he actually said "that's like saying..." you are illiterate. Because that is not sarcasm, that is literally creating an analogy between two statements, and it means that they are both equally false. That is what the construction actually means. You need to learn to read, because that is not sarcasm, it is an actual analogy that actually means both statements are false.

Kaelik, you're actually completely right. Looking at the original sentence again, my sarcastic/literal interpretations are flipped. Instead of missing sarcasm, I added sarcasm where there was none. Which changes nothing of the point I'm making, which is that there are two perfectly valid ways to read that sentence, and one leads to my (incorrect) interpretation. But the reading that leads to that incorrect interpretation is in fact one correct reading of multiple.

Count: I'm too weak to control my own depression.
Catharz: Right, just like Lance Armstrong was too weak to control his own cancer.

Interpretation #1: "Oh no, wait, Lance Armstrong was strong enough to control cancer. So you can control your depression." I mistakenly called this literal; it would be sarcastic. This is the wrong interpretation, and I mistakenly accepted it. For obvious reasons, this is stupid and wrong, but it's not so stupid you would never hear someone say it. It's seriously even a tactic people try to use to 'motivate' others all the time. This is not a stretch. At all.
Interpretation #2: "Lance Armstrong needed chemo, so it's okay for you to need pills." I mistakenly called this sarcastic; it is actually literal. This is the right interpretation, and I mistakenly rejected it.

Your insinutiation that I failed to grammatically parse the sentence is wrong; what I actually did wrong was add a tone of sarcasm when there in fact was none. And that was dumb and completely my mistake, but it is not a grammatical problem. You're calling me stupid for the wrong reason.

Arioch wrote:It just feels like giving up to me.

It could be, but it doesn't have to be. It can just as easily be a new tactic instead of tapping out. Antidepressants don't have to be a replacement for the genuine happiness you think you're having trouble finding. You can use the former to help you get the latter. Try them with an open mind, keep trying to improve things, and see what happens. If you find yourself with an expanding social circle/better friendships/stabler relationships, voila. You now have more sources of genuinely good things in your life than you did before, go antidepressants.

Worthless anecdote: my grandmother's been on and off them the past few years, and when she is on them she spends more time around the family and friends and being social than when she is off them. They help you do things that will make you happy; they don't replace the happiness those things would provide you with. And there's really nothing about that that's 'giving up.' That is actively improving your life.

realtalk:

first of all stop whining and wallowing in self-pity. that's getting you nowhere. second of all, get more exercise. it's the natural antidepressant. third of all, the reason you're depressed is probably because your life sucks. prozac isn't going to change that. fourth of all, some people need medicine to regulate their blood pressure and some people need medicine to regulate their brain chemistry. stop bellyaching and deal with it.

my main suggestion for you is to find any sort of office job that will let you not be on your feet all day. I was stuck as a cashier for awhile and now that I've transitioned into a better job where my feet aren't in constant pain, I feel a hell of a lot better. then swallow your pride and go on antidepressants if that's what a psychiatrist recommends. once your life is straightened around, you can decide if you still need them. as someone who has struggled (and still struggles) with clinical depression, I know what it's like to be in that hole, where you feel completely helpless. gotta break that cycle though so get the drugs and work on getting a better job.

also at this point I'd suggest moving out of state. I live in michigan and we're completely fucked. we have been since like 2000 and nothing has gotten better. not sure what it's like where you live but moving to another state might land you a decent job. or you can always expatriate to britain/canada and get a job even doing something like cashiering. they have stricter business regulations so you'll probably make decent pay and your health care will be "free" and they have a stronger welfare program so even if you don't make much, you won't starve. not sure how well europe will hold up once the us goes belly-up but you're probably going to be better off there than here

Thanks for the sentiment, PR.

I have heard that North Dakota is having a job boon due to hydrofracking being big over there. I wonder if they need lab techs...

Unfortunately Count, you probably won't be able to immigrate to Canada. Canadian immigration is really strict, unless you have family here you need to be a professional to gain admittance.

I am aware of that from personal experience. Back in the day, I was employed by an international environmental company. Although most of the credentials I had previously have now lapsed, I was considered highly skilled in my profession.

I applied for a job in Banff, and they told me that they didn't accept applications from Americans. Seems that NAFTA only applied to Canadians and Mexicans; it did not apply to Americans seeking work in other NAFTA countries.

I used to be a professional back in the day. Judging by my attempts to gain a position in my former position, having a college degree is considered repulsive.

I reiterate that I wished I had spent the time and effort in getting a college degree drinking beer and playing video games.

EDIT: Wait, are you implying that you think North Dakota is in Canada? I assure you that it's not.

nafta is shit ruining america

Juton wrote:Unfortunately Count, you probably won't be able to immigrate to Canada. Canadian immigration is really strict, unless you have family here you need to be a professional to gain admittance.

Isn't there something where if Count can spot the Canadian gov't an interest-free $400K for 5 years, they'll give you citizenship? Or am I just misremembering the materials from when I visited Vancouver?

$400k interest-free loan? Let me get my checkbook....

It's a thought, but if I had that kind of money to loan the Canadian government, I don't think I'd be in such a bad shape.

There was a lot of literature from various Canadian banks willing to lend you the 400K, with interest of course, which you then repay at the end of the 5 years (or whatever). I'm guessing you could hack it if you could cover interest-only payments on a loan that large.

Prak_Anima wrote:Fuck it, I'm back to Art being a completely subjective thing full of no true scotsmens, and I just fucking hate, and cannot understand "performance art" when it could be better described as a modern freakshow.

Don't worry, stuff can be art without being good. You're still entitled to criticize it:

"This sucks."
"But it's art!"
"Fine, this art sucks."

Josh_Kablack wrote:
Count, if you wanna drive two states North in the next 15 hours, you're more than welcome to show up at my place for the annual 4th of July BBQ.

Crap, somehow I missed that message. Wasn't really able to drive that far though, but I do appreciate the offer.