Depression, the secret we share: A TED talk

It's personal. No one right way get out of the hole. Depends on too many things. I could talk about things that have helped me, but the list varies depending on what kind of thoughts are swirling around in the current mood.

Overall I'd say keep to a balance, and if you perceive too much chaos in your life, perspective shift out of it. It works up until a point, though in the deep of it the only thing that seems to help is the passing of time.

helloo,

just today i have come across this article.

It is shows connection between mindfulness and depression in kids.

please read it and consider trying at least for a week or two some simple breathing meditation if you are depressed or stressed and observe yourself if there are any changes, that is all I advise to do...
I cannot express this enough, how important and beneficial "medicine" it is in my opinion as I have already said with first post in this thread.

sketchbetter.org...

Everything is in the mind, we can take control of our thoughts and give or lose power to them. With any simple meditation we are just returning our mind to a default empty happy state. It is not spiritually connected with anything if you don't want it to be.
Meditation is the best natural medicine for your mind, this is its essence, to relax and let go...and be mindful.

there are probably other practices to achieve mindfulness, but meditation is the simplest and free imho.

I wish the ones suffering with depression to soon get happy and relaxed...

and smile : )

a reply to: UniFinity

Yes, deep breathing and mindfulness are very powerful tools as well.

"Square breathing" is especially helpful for anxiety and grief reactions....

focusing on the breath, inhale deeply to count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, rest for four. Do this as many times as it takes to calm down. We can't focus on whatever crisis or trauma when we are focused on our breathing...

I've taught my kids that from when they were little.
I'm still teaching my husband....and others....BREATHING is very important, and when we attend to our breathing, all else is set aside, even for those few seconds.


Thanks for adding that.

I never has depression and i do not understand people with depression.


I never cared about anything. I think that helps allot. If you do not care and just accept the reallity, then there would be no depression. At least this is what i think.

Can you really believe something you have never experienced?

a reply to: ZeroFurrbone

Believe it? Well, people who suffer from depression are truly suffering. Just because you never had a condition doesn't make it impossible to "believe."

I never had a broken bone until I was in my 30s, but I believed it happened to people.

The one thing that can not be truly understood until you personally experience it, however, is having children. And I'm talking about the love, the way it changes your life completely, the devotion and instinctive protection-mode, the flood of hormones and all that other stuff.

Sorry to hear you don't care about anything. How dull. I'd rather be the hyper-emotional mess that I am than be numb to everything.

a reply to: ZeroFurrbone

A lot of people claim to "not care". But few, comparatively speaking, really lack emotions. It's called anhedonia.

Anhedonia (/ˌænhiˈdoʊniə/ an-hee-doh-nee-ə; Greek: ἀν- an-, "without" and ἡδονή hēdonē, "pleasure") is the inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable, e.g. exercise, hobbies, music, sexual activities or social interactions. While earlier definitions of anhedonia emphasized pleasurable experience, more recent models have highlighted the need to consider different aspects of enjoyable behavior, such as motivation or desire to engage in activities (motivational anhedonia), as compared to the level of enjoyment of the activity itself ("consummatory anhedonia").

From Wikipedia

a reply to: BuzzyWigs


I just think i am doing something different. 75% of the people i meet online have depression. And i just do not understand. It is hard for me...

Things have happened in the past and lets say my life was pretty much hell. But i never was depressed.

I personally think it is mental disorder. I do not believe everyone that say that you need vitamins , to exercise meet people etc. I think that just masks the initial problem which is mental. Like Autism. I also think Autism is not a desease but something that can be turned off and on by the brain.

a reply to: chelsdh

Don't have it.

Just wanted to help peopl based on my experince. Life worries people too much. Thats why they get depression.

a reply to: vethumanbeing


No body ever gets into the history books unless they are great inventors or mass murderers. Now think on this and You will find the cure for depression.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Your posts deserves a hundred stars in my opinion.

did you know that every emotion has a different rhythm and depth of the breath?
When we learn to really observe ourselves with mindfulness to a point that it comes naturally and effortless at all times, then this can be simply noticed. And when we can notice this, than it is a lot easier to control emotional outbursts with control of relaxed natural deep breathing.

Usually people don't think about breath. And it is very basic thing, we do it all the time and that is exactly it gets overlooked and in modern cities people tend to breath unnaturally. Everyone can easily check that on themselfs. Compare the breath in the morning with the one in the evening.

Now good and easy to practice for me is this way.

if you can just remember every morning to observe how you breath right after you wake up. And than just try to stay with THE breath during the day. It is simple, all it takes is a bit mindfulness.

This is our natural 100% relaxed deep breathing...well if there were not any nightmares during sleep : )

If we learn how to breath like that during the day,
I think that depression will stay far away

: )

Eckhart Tolle suffered with anxiety and depression and was having suicidal thoughts for many years. One evening he heard the thought - I cannot live with myself any longer -he heard it!! It was intriguing to him because he wondered how many of him there were - 'I' cannot live with 'myself' - that appears to be two. The next day he awoke and heard the birds singing and saw how beautiful the room was with the sun shining in - his anxiety and depression had lifted - gone. He did not understand why this had happened and spent years working it out.
Often it is that voice in the head that is judging, anticipating and complaining that drives us to suicide. The constant chatter about how 'it should not have happened like that' or worrying about how will I cope in the future. The chatter is always about something which is not happening - so if it can be realized that 'what is not happening' is not happening now then it might be easy to spot that the mind chatter knows nothing important - it does not know what IS happening The mind chatter does not know but it is known.
One must realize oneself as the observing presence - notice that the mind is chatting and notice that you are seeing, hearing, knowing the chattering is happening.
If you were doing the chattering then you would be able to stop it or make it sweet chatter - but you are not doing the chatter - you are the witness of the chatter.
The only cure is to realize that you are not what the chattering is talking about and you are not doing the chattering.

The chatter happens because there is fear and the mind chatter is producing the fear - it is a vicious circle. The mind seeks to make a good feeling but takes you away from feeling. Feeling, sensing, seeing, hearing is happening - feeling is here. But the mind chatter is speaking about another time and place where there is no life (feelings) - it is the mental realm of what is not happening - the mind then downloads all the fear and anger and frustation produced by the imagination of the future into the body which is always here where the colour and sounds and sensation is - here.
This is all that is really happening but the mind pretends there is life outside now.
What's wrong with right now? What's right with right now?
If there is a feeling of anxiousness don't look to cure it - look directly at the feeling - find where it is hurting and look at it and it will start to change and move . You cannot change anything in the mental realm - you can only look now.

Yes - what is happening is not that exciting - what is not happening is make believe which can cause a lot of unnecessary suffering.

a reply to: ZeroFurrbone

I personally think it is mental disorder. I do not believe everyone that say that you need vitamins , to exercise meet people etc. I think that just masks the initial problem which is mental. Like Autism. I also think Autism is not a desease but something that can be turned off and on by the brain.

Interesting opinions. But, if you will, I am trained professionally in this stuff (as much as one can be, since psychology and brain-chemistry are new-ish areas of study and still being shaped by findings and research). It was my profession, and I still keep up with it. Didn't hurt that I'd experienced it myself - compassion and empathy go a long way toward building therapeutic relationships. I helped lots and lots of people...

Anyway -

I assure you that Depression is, indeed, a mental disorder. But it is not like Autism. Autism is pervasive, life-long, and more of a reactive/behavioral and social-interaction type thing. Depression has many causes (and btw, Autism is NOT caused by vaccinations), some depression is situational (like after a divorce, or after the death of a loved one, or any major life crisis or change), and therefore transitory (until one adjusts - and that's why it's called an "adjustment disorder"), or chemical/biological (meaning that the brain's natural chemistry is not supportive of a sense of well-being).

Autism cannot be turned "off" and "on". And many people are depressed. This world is depressing.

There is a spectrum of depression, too - mild and transitory to profound and "clinical" - short-lived or "constant."

If you'd like more info, feel free to PM me.

originally posted by: jkm1864
a reply to: vethumanbeing
No body ever gets into the history books unless they are great inventors or mass murderers. Now think on this and You will find the cure for depression.

This is because they are so focused on an internal vision/expression. If a creative person is SO FOCUSED one actually begins observing ones own consciousness (without outside 5 sense interference of flight or fight). I have no idea what causes depression; the medical profession has figured out the cure SSRI's, dopamine re-uptake drugs.

a reply to: vethumanbeing

the medical profession has figured out the cure SSRI's, dopamine re-uptake drugs.

No no.....SSRIs are: Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors.
They encourage the brain to create more seratonin.

Dopamine is another thing... its levels can also have effects of/on depression, but SSRIs don't deal with dopamine.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: vethumanbeing

vhb:the medical profession has figured out the cure SSRI's, dopamine re-uptake drugs.

Buzzy: No no.....SSRIs are: Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors.
They encourage the brain to create more seratonin.
Dopamine is another thing... its levels can also have effects of/on depression, but SSRIs don't deal with dopamine.

Thanks for the clarification. I thought the point was to keep seratonin levels circulating (not to be re-upped). Zoloft, Prozac as meds. I could be so wrong here as those levels might have to be re-upped.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

WOW. you just described my entire life time suffering of depression. The voice that you talk about, I thought I was the only one. Any advice or methods on how to ignore or fix the voice? I was so depressed I almost made a thread to cry out for help. It's crazy how the voice literally brings you down every day and hold yourself back from being productive. Any studies on this voice in the head, any info would help. Thanks

Had this whole thing just about all typed up after several interruptions from the handy man and then he cut the electricity and i lost my big reply.

So I will just say, TM. Transcendental Meditation.

Worked for my anxieties and depression, 40+ ya quite well and quickly. I still do a quickie now and then when I have trouble sleeping.

A change of diet also, cut down on your comfort foods, fats and sugars. Getting out, rain or shine is good.

Don't take drugs if you don't have to. Our (ex and I) shrink had us on anti's and I had to stop. I was getting a bit loco on the paxil.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
Depression, the Secret We Share .... TED talk

One of my cyber friends who lives in Scandinavia posted this on her page. It is MORE than worthwhile viewing.

"The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment."

In a talk equal parts eloquent and devastating, writer Andrew Solomon takes you to the darkest corners of his mind during the years he battled depression. That led him to an eye-opening journey across the world to interview others with depression — only to discover that, to his surprise, the more he talked, the more people wanted to tell their own stories.

There's no more text that I can c/p.

I hope you all will find it as interesting as I did.

Mr Solomon discusses the agony of depression, the various different treatments (for example, in East Africa they think going outside into the sun, and listening to music or drums, and exercising/dancing is the best thing to do; they were appalled at the Western/American approach), and the personal outcomes of people with whom he has interacted.

Depression is a real thing. This TED talk addresses the 'pharma' approach, as well as the "going into a room for an hour to talk about all the things that have upset you" approach, vs the naturopathic methods.....

What do you guys think?



Anyway - it's very interesting. Funny in parts as well. A TED talk.

Ya know.

Most excellent video and quite timely in my case, long story cut short, first time ever have done this at work yesterday morning...as my boss unlocked the front door of the store and looked at me and said "you doing ok?" ....

That question hit my me like a freight train in my mind as I turned to look at her and couldn't give her an answer; as she locked the door and behind me and looking straight at me and I to her I said " I'm not sure....I think I have to give you 2 weeks notice ..." As I felt tears well up for the first time in my life in front of any supervisor....ever...in 40 years of working-!

She looked at me with the saddest eyes and said. "Please go home, don't worry about us, we got this..ok? Your holding back a flood of teases and that's not good..."

I wept as I got in my car and wept driving to the beach not 3 blocks away....so ashamed to not be able to be at work because I was in shock to be unable to give an answer if I was ok or not..........

I see my mental health therapist tomorrow.....for the first time in my entire life....😞 Please pray for me.....

The video is truly Heaven sent-!!!

a reply to: vethumanbeing

Thanks for the clarification. I thought the point was to keep seratonin levels circulating (not to be re-upped). Zoloft, Prozac as meds. I could be so wrong here as those levels might have to be re-upped.

That's exactly right - the SSRIs PREVENT reuptake, so that more seratonin in produced (the reuptake/reuse is inhibited).
Yes, Zoloft, Prozac, Lexapro. Those are all SSRIs.

a reply to: Komodo

I hope you find that your new therapist is a good fit. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and if you feel uncomfortable, you can always look around for a more suitable relationship.
You really should feel safe, and able to share without judgment - good for you! I personally always enjoyed going to therapy. It helped me so much - through so many difficult things.

I think everyone can benefit from therapy - from Pope Francis to Donald Trump, to you and me. We ALL can benefit from introspection and review of what troubles us....and learn coping techniques to ease discomfort, as well as new ideas and perspectives.

All the best to you!! Don't be self-conscious when you go - just be you. Be as authentic as you can be.