[Livia]

Originally Posted by Nicky91

my biggest problem for me mentally on here, is that i feel double cause i want to be myself on here but i also don't want to make my friends on here sad whenever they tell me i'm getting too annoying

i do want to behave myself but i don't want to change who i am either

You're fine Nicky... and remember that the people telling you you're annoying are probably really annoying themselves sometimes. We all are. I know I am...!

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

If you don't mind me asking do you feel suicidal in your depression? Or is it more like you can't be bothered with the world today?

I hope that I've put the question across well.

you have, dear MM
been on medication for 19 years, made 3 suicide attempts and still think dying would be best for me
if it wasn't for my bf, the love of my life, I wouldn't bother tbh

Redway is right, we are not talking about an occassional low mood here

[Nicky91]

Originally Posted by Livia

You're fine Nicky... and remember that the people telling you you're annoying are probably really annoying themselves sometimes. We all are. I know I am...!

yes i agree, we all can have our annoying moments, but i still love it on here cause i have such a good laugh with others on here, and some more serious moments on SD maybe, but i've started to appreciate SD a lot more now as well

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

you have, dear MM
been on medication for 19 years, made 3 suicide attempts and still think dying would be best for me
if it wasn't for my bf, the love of my life, I wouldn't bother tbh

Redway is right, we are not talking about an occassional low mood here

Well I'm glad that you're here with us Twosugars and hopefully your medication stays working strong.

And thank you for replying back to me as I know that it's a very personal matter.

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Well I'm glad that you're here with us Twosugars and hopefully your medication stays working strong.

And thank you for replying back to me as I know that it's a very personal matter.

you're welcome, MM. Yes, it can be difficult to talk about.
But if this thread and talking helps someone then it's worth it.

btw, my meds don't work too well, so yes, I've improved from my all-time low point 5 years ago but only to a point where living is not suffering but more like an unpleasant and exhausting chore.
But according to my NHS psychiatrist I've plateaued and have to cope as best I can so
I'm not going to go there and throw chairs and break windows for them to take me seriously (some people do, out of desperation).
If not better, gonna go for a ketamine treatment at nhs oxford this winter.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Not necessarily bad events happening in someone's life, but sometimes something being missing in someone's life can trigger a depression that medication or experimental treatment is not gonna be able to fix is my point.

Quite.

It was more your wording of "Someone who's depressed it's their job to fix their lives without any aid" that suggested you thought that was the case for everyone.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

you're welcome, MM. Yes, it can be difficult to talk about.
But if this thread and talking helps someone then it's worth it.

btw, my meds don't work too well, so yes, I've improved from my all-time low point 5 years ago but only to a point where living is not suffering but more like an unpleasant and exhausting chore.
But according to my NHS psychiatrist I've plateaued and have to cope as best I can so
I'm not going to go there and throw chairs and break windows for them to take me seriously (some people do, out of desperation).
If not better, gonna go for a ketamine treatment at nhs oxford this winter.

The NHS are a runned down mess at the moment, hopefully they'll start taking your issues more seriously soon.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Marsh.

Quite.

It was more your wording of "Someone who's depressed it's their job to fix their lives without any aid" that suggested you thought that was the case for everyone.

I do have a bad habit of not putting my points across properly, in real life and on the internet.

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

The NHS are a runned down mess at the moment, hopefully they'll start taking your issues more seriously soon.

Won't hold my breath.
But thank you for kind words, MM.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Redway

I’ll do up a proper ECT post soon but it’s one of the soundest medical treatments out there. There’s a lot of myths about it that I’m planning on breaking in this thread.

..yeah a thread or post on ECT would be really informative, Redway...I knew someone who had ECT therapy as well as many other therapies and many other medications...it didn’t work for her, none of them did as she eventually took her own life...the place she found herself in sadly, was not somewhere which would have responded to any treatment at the time...this is the thing with depression and mental health issues for some people...

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Nicky91

my biggest problem for me mentally on here, is that i feel double cause i want to be myself on here but i also don't want to make my friends on here sad whenever they tell me i'm getting too annoying

i do want to behave myself but i don't want to change who i am either

...you can’t change who you are, Nicky...you have autism and it’s a very beautiful part of you as well.....it all goes to make up you, you know...every bit of it and nothing needs changing as such...things like ‘obsessions’ are an essential as well for autism because they create a focus that is needed to be channelled into so that things don’t get too scary for you...if that makes sense..?...anyways in terms of those and your time on here..and ‘being annoying’..?...maybe give yourself goals and try to focus on those goals...things like ...when you have a favourite on B.B. and then you stop liking them so much..?..(...which happens for all of us with housemates..)...then don’t go the opposite way and ‘hate on them’..?...just don’t see them as your favourite anymore is all...but not someone to be disliked as such, you know..?...also with any reality show...maybe only allow yourself a certain number of times that you’ll change who is your favourite in that show..?..and really restrict that number of times to maybe only one change through the show or two as the absolute maximum...?...I think making some goals to reach could really help your reality tv love, Nicky....and they won’t change who you are and who you need to be...your beautiful self dear Nicky.....

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

Will it not confuse anybody if melancholia stands for severe psychotic depressions?

Give us a good intro, Redway: technique/preparation, uses, side-effects plus anything extra you consider useful.

Spoiler:

• Indications: psychotic depression (especially bipolar), acute episodes of schizophrenia, autism (apparently) and Parkinson’s disease. As a side they reckon that ECT isn’t used nearly enough with end-stage Parkinson’s patients.
  
• There’s some evidence it works for people with the DTs.
  
• No one knows exactly how it works but there’s got to be an electrical seizure going on upstairs for it to work. The bad motor reactions can be averted by a med called succinylcholine with the same therapeutic effect.
  
• Every candidate for ECT is given: an electrocardiogram, chem survey and CBC. Medications which make the post-ECT confusion worse (lithium and the tricyclics) are put on hold at this point.

Technique:

• Scalp gets cleaned at night where electrodes (main ECT ingredient) will be placed the next morning
  
• Dentures are taken out
  
• ECT can be either uni-or-bilateral. The charges according to seizure threshold for the patient vary from 50% over (light) to 500% over (deep). It’s always parallel to how severe/life-threatening the case is. Most docs opt for unilateral at moderate charge.
  
• Usual surgery stuff’s done after that point – ECG machines/heart monitor, all that.
  
• The patient’s always oxygenated with 100% oxygen (administered through a few mask).
  
• The seizures aren’t meant to last more than 30 seconds to one minute.

• Treatments given x3 per week—most people need 6 to 12 treatments (in other words up to a month of ECT) for it to work in full. First response usually seen after the third treatment.
  
• Since muscle relaxants were introduced fractures are super rare. ECT’s no more risky than any other major surgery.
  
• The amnesia people mention only happens to some people and doesn’t usually extend to the events a week before ECT until after the last treatment.
  
• Outside the treatment timeframe memory’s perfectly clear.
  
• ECT’s been known to cause mania in bipolar depressed people.
  
• Someone closer the top of this thread said that ECT doesn’t alter the natural course of the illness and that it just suppress symptoms. That’s true but there’s people that depressed that the ECT saved them in the same way that Lazarus resurrected from the dead. It brings people out of the danger zone.
  
• Maintenance ECT is sometimes given to people who relapse—about one treatment a week for 2 months and then tapered down.

Summarised as much as I could. Holla if you've still got questions though.

[Redway]

Listen, who wants information on other mental health surgeries (like DBS for high-grade OCD)?

[Twosugars]

Well, my depression is not psychotic (thank god for small mercies) so looks like I can forget ECT.


Here is a link to a simple test for depression. Nothing fancy, just assessment of your mood.

https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/depression-quiz/

My score was 68, severe depression.
Have a look, worth getting an idea about yourself.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Redway

Twosugars recommended one time making a long-running thread re. mental illness (Vicky could make this sticky) and I thought in here can go general questions about mental illness and especially controversial shades.

Thought I’d kick-start by mentioning one controversial mental treatment (electroconvulsive therapy/ECT) and challenging the myths about that practice (wholly undeserved) but like I say this is the thread for any questions you’ve got about these things.

Hope you’re alright with me mentioning your name TS.

Wait, what? In which way is turning people into vegetables defensible?

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Wait, what? In which way is turning people into vegetables defensible?

In what way is letting people at the point of starvation die because of ignorant comments from the general public?

Comments like yours are the reason these discussions need to be had. Instead of wading in here all hysterical and spreading myths at least try and follow the thread.

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

Well, my depression is not psychotic (thank god for small mercies) so looks like I can forget ECT.


Here is a link to a simple test for depression. Nothing fancy, just assessment of your mood.

https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/depression-quiz/

My score was 68, severe depression.
Have a look, worth getting an idea about yourself.

Mhm. ECT's traditionally held in reserve for the most severe cases because of attitudes like kizzy's but it's meant to be the most effective treatment for all shades of depression. I'd at least give it some thought if I were you. Is it the post-op amnesia that worries you the most?

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Wait, what? In which way is turning people into vegetables defensible?

That's not what it does... it makes people a bit dazed for at most a day or so (e.g. you're not allowed to drive afterwards).

TBH I think at some point the "general public conception" of ECT got mixed up with lobotomy and they became considered the same sort of thing / to have the same effect. Even then, the effects of lobotomy (done correctly) wasn't catatonia either, that's really just the Hollywood-style dramatisation of it. Though it did sometimes make people go... a bit odd... as you would expect from deliberate brain damage.

People ending up "zombies", if it happened at all, would have been because the procedure was often done by untrained people in a non-surgical setting and so further serious braindamage sometimes happened.


...just to reiterate though; ECT and lobotomy are far from the same thing.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

Well, my depression is not psychotic (thank god for small mercies) so looks like I can forget ECT.


Here is a link to a simple test for depression. Nothing fancy, just assessment of your mood.

https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/depression-quiz/

My score was 68, severe depression.
Have a look, worth getting an idea about yourself.

I scored 9 and then redid it for how I was approx 18 months / 2 years ago; I scored 51. So it turns out there is hope? I actually think I made a thread about it in the private section which I would never normally do so that should say something - and also, it was much, much worse than what I was describing there, I was playing it down a lot. I had what I believe is called a "major acute depressive episode"... which also resolved pretty spontaneously, which it apparently often does. I can't imagine battling with something like that for years non stop, tbqfh. The only real knock-on effect has been that I get stressed much more easily (in genuinely stressful situations) and tend to go worst-case-scenario immediately;

"Ugh you just got flashed by that speed camera... YOU'RE GUNNA LOSE YOUR LICENSE AND OUR LIVES WILL BE RUUUIIINEDDD!!!"

Though I've never really been an optimist .

[Redway]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I scored 9 and then redid it for how I was approx 18 months / 2 years ago; I scored 51. So it turns out there is hope? I actually think I made a thread about it in the private section which I would never normally do so that should say something - and also, it was much, much worse than what I was describing there, I was playing it down a lot. I had what I believe is called a "major acute depressive episode"... which also resolved pretty spontaneously, which it apparently often does. I can't imagine battling with something like that for years non stop, tbqfh. The only real knock-on effect has been that I get stressed much more easily (in genuinely stressful situations) and tend to go worst-case-scenario immediately;

"Ugh you just got flashed by that speed camera... YOU'RE GUNNA LOSE YOUR LICENSE AND OUR LIVES WILL BE RUUUIIINEDDD!!!"

Though I've never really been an optimist .

They usually clear up by themselves in 6 months to a year-ish, yh. Is that how long yours lasted?

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Redway

They usually clear up by themselves in 6 months to a year-ish, yh. Is that how long yours lasted?

I would say 4 months of it being actively bad, another few months of "aftershocks".

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Redway

In what way is letting people at the point of starvation die because of ignorant comments from the general public?

Comments like yours are the reason these discussions need to be had. Instead of wading in here all hysterical and spreading myths at least try and follow the thread.

And your disparaging patonising is the goto response of a parrot fashion taught student. I think for myself thank you, I am not ignorant and elevating yourself above the 'general public' in a public debate says more about you than me.
My concerns are far from hysterical I have first hand experience of this topic not that it's your business. Now if you've the energy to debate without insulting me I have a few questions...

Here is a study.

Answer me this, why were the majority of the people in the study aged between 60-100? And why was the majority reason given for referral 'depression' 2/3 of them women?

In the study almost 700 were not able to consent, and almost 500 people were subjected to 12 treatments ... some more.


https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/ECTAS%...%202012-13.pdf

[Redway]

You're not alone when it comes to overthinking TS. Do freak auto accidents and things like Grenfell towers make it worse for you?

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Redway

Mhm. ECT's traditionally held in reserve for the most severe cases because of attitudes like kizzy's but it's meant to be the most effective treatment for all shades of depression. I'd at least give it some thought if I were you. Is it the post-op amnesia that worries you the most?

I wanted to have it done, requested it, but was told no. Maybe if I was sectioned, but otherwise they said they didn't do it.

Now all my hopes rest on ketamine treatment at Oxford.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

That's not what it does... it makes people a bit dazed for at most a day or so (e.g. you're not allowed to drive afterwards).

TBH I think at some point the "general public conception" of ECT got mixed up with lobotomy and they became considered the same sort of thing / to have the same effect. Even then, the effects of lobotomy (done correctly) wasn't catatonia either, that's really just the Hollywood-style dramatisation of it. Though it did sometimes make people go... a bit odd... as you would expect from deliberate brain damage.

People ending up "zombies", if it happened at all, would have been because the procedure was often done by untrained people in a non-surgical setting and so further serious braindamage sometimes happened.


...just to reiterate though; ECT and lobotomy are far from the same thing.

Again with the 'general public' :/ professor TS ... I am not confusing ECT and a prefrontal lobotomy either. My point of reference is this being used within the last 15yrs on brain injured patients of secure wards, with averse results.