21 Tips to Keep Your Shit Together When You’re Depressed

http://www.diycouturier.com/post/47249603128/21-tips-to-keep-your-shit-together-when-youre

A fashion blogger writes about depression and about perky suggestions to “Just Feel Better” with 21 concrete tips for people struggling with depression, many of which resonate with me.

Moving post on "Moving On" by Keelium

A very moving post yesterday Moving On by Keelium.

Some warning though: it could upset you.

It talks about many sides of depression in academia from a grad student's point of view.  How being ill makes it difficult to perform in a overworking culture, how this can lead to the termination of studies, this in turn of course causing health problems, and then all this can be brought back to you much later out of the blue.

Effects and side-effects — an update

After about 2 months on Fluoxetin, we adjusted my medication.
Since mid-March, I have been taking Fluoxetin and Voxra (Wellbutrin) together.

I am now getting to the point where observations can be written down; where I have more than a few days worth of a sample.

First off, the really good: my mood is much more normal now. On Fluoxetin alone, I turned flat; I kept being sad for much of the time, but the crashes went away. I just was bored, dull, apathetic instead of having daily anxiety attacks. Improvement, sure, but not up at good just yet.

With the combination, my dull flatness has gone away. I have my ups and downs — I had a fullblown classic breakdown a few days ago, but it's once in 2 weeks, not several times a week. And I'm happy and energetic far more often than earlier in the past year.

So as for the primary effects, the combination seems pretty much spot on. Sure, it would be nice to get more stable than this, but it is already an incredible improvement on Before.

Now for the side-effects. I have gotten rid of some, retained some, and gained a couple of new ones.
My grinding and chattering teeth are remaining. Last night, it was apparently bad enough it helped keep Susanne awake at night.
I am far more sensitive to alcohol than I was before. On the other hand, I have always tried to pay attention to my body signals when it comes to alcohol consumption, so this doesn't really worry me.
I wake up several times each night. This is new.
I am tired. A lot. I grow almost uncontrollably tired around 9pm; we used to have a family diurnal rhythm with bedtime at midnight. Now, I go to bed between 10pm and 11pm instead. This, too, is new.

My highlight reel

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”  - Steve Furtick 

My highlight reel for the last three days is extraordinary.

The top of the page, you can see me running through the snow the day before yesterday.  This is in Logie, a tiny hamlet, with snow in early spring.   Fantastically beautiful, and my friend persuaded me to go for a half marathon distance in it.  We ran from home to St Andrews, via the scenic - very very scenic - route.  It was wonderful, though the last few miles through hail and biting wind off the North Sea took some working together to get through.

Oceans, continents, ice cap, crust,
mantle, outer core, inner core.

Yesterday, I thought I was polishing off the very last changes to a paper which I've been working hard on after it was originally rejected.   It has got much much better.   Then I was driving home and suddenly realised how I could dramatically improve it with an elegant, simple, and I think important result.  Admittedly this was frustrating: so close to submission and now some extra work.  But I knew it was good news.   I did another run in the snow, only 10k this time, and had another brilliant idea.  Rang up my colleague who instantly persuaded me it was nonsense, but at least that idea won't mean extra work, so that's good too!

We are here: near St Andrews, UK

And finally, over all those three days, my daughter and wife have been making and baking and icing this wonderful model of the earth in the form of cake.   My daughter had to make a model of the earth for geography.  But she and my wife have really done the topic proud, with a detailed cake containing all the key features, all in delicious eatable form.   It looks fabulous, it tastes fabulous.   Luckily the class is going to get to share it - I durst not estimate the number of calories in it!

All these three things, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, are worthy of a place in my highlight reel and I may well remember each of them clearly for the rest of my life.

This evening I have been so miserable.  Not able to cope, making my wife do everything.  Not sharing in the joy of the cake.  Not being able to get on with my paper consistently because my concentration wasn't there.

Writing this post has helped.  At this precise minute I'm not miserable.

Vignette: Doing So Well

I was doing so well.   Not super super well, but coping fine with everyday life.  In fact I have a pretty good way of telling if I am doing fine or not.  Do I feel guilty about posting to Depressed Academics, because of feeling I'm not depressed enough to be here?

Today I did ok at work, even had time for a nap, and somehow the afternoon and early evening passed, and I hadn't got a lot done, I found myself getting irritable, I was not happy, and I hadn't done the minimal family responsibilities I felt I should have done.

This is not a crash even in my terms - and my bad days are not that bad compared to many I have been reading about since starting the blog.  But that doesn't mean I'm delirious with joy about letting my family down.

Link: Depression at University (updated)

A student who suffered from depression at University wrote this:

"After not doing too well in my exams that year and being told I couldn’t do honours because of it, I went to see my advisor and told him about my situation. I then went to see my course advisor and took a letter from both my doctor and counsellor to back up my story. I later received an email stating that there was no room on honours for me and that I would have to take an alternative route. At the time I didn’t want to speak out about it as I was ashamed of my own condition but as I get older and wiser I realise that discrimination of those with mental illness is much deeper than I thought in individuals and within companies or institutions."

• Depression at University: It Took a Friend To Notice, by Victoria, March 21, 2013

Interesting to me that as a faculty member naturally think of all the reasons that might have led to her being refused entry to honours.  (Of course I know nothing about the situation.)  She should have raised this earlier, she should retake the year or she will not be prepared for honours, we can only act with the information we have at the time we have it and our handbook clearly states ...

And yet....

Update: 

Yes I'm updating this 40 minutes after writing it.

I struggled with so many thoughts and just couldn't get them down - or maybe just bottled out.  So I just ended "And yet..."

The thoughts I was struggling with cover some of the following ground.   Again, of course, without knowing the details of the situation.

This young woman has had her academic career ended early by depression, and most likely she could have completed her degree with honours because she was able to start it.   So was she the victim of discrimination?  And if she was, is it likely I could have been guilty of that kind of discrimination if I had been in the place of the academics who denied her entry into honours?

I think what worries me most is that I think the answer to the last question is probably "Yes".   I did post the thoughts that naturally ran through my head, making it easy to go along with a decision to stop her moving into honours.

If it is discrimination what happened to Victoria, the arguments for doing the wrong thing are so seductive.   They sound right.

End of Update.

P.s. This post comes from Time For Change, a UK organisation with slogan "let's end mental health discrimination".  Its "about us" page says:

"Mental health problems are common - but nearly nine out of ten people who experience them say they face stigma and discrimination as a result. This can be even worse than the symptoms themselves. Time to Change is England's biggest programme to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination."

They also host many other blog posts about School, College and University.

Link: It’s not you, it’s a disease

Just came across another excellent article, because it was quoted by John Belcher's.

This one is in the MIT Newspaper "The Tech" by Grace Taylor.

"I want to tell you the story of how I became such a big fan of mental health treatment." 

"So if feeling bad is your baseline, if you haven’t had an awesome day since high school, or if you don’t think you can talk to your friends about how you’re feeling, please consider talking to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. I didn’t believe in therapy or medication when I started, but that didn’t stop them from changing my life."

• MENS ET TENEBRAE: It’s not you, it’s a disease, Grace Taylor, The Tech (MIT), April 10, 2012

It reminds me of the story of the scientist who had a lucky horseshoe on his wall.  When challenged why when he didn't believe in superstitions, he said "Ahh, but I heard it works even if you don't believe in it."

So even if you don't believe in it, read Grace's words and consider investigating therapy or medication.   Unlike horseshoes, it does work for some of the people some of the time.