When you paint it black

"I was weak. That's why I needed you... needed someone to punish me for my sins... but that's all over now... I know the truth. Now it's time to end this. "

- James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2

In my When your colors fade to gray post I wrote tips on what to do when you want to do smth but too tired to do anything. Here is some piece of advice on what to do when you don't want to do anything at all.

So. You sit in your corner and all you want is to be left along. You don't want to do anything creative, you don't want to skip time reading or watching tv or playing some video game. Nothing is interesting. Everything is dull and unimportant. And you hate this state.

And you love it at the same time. No worries though. Let us start and you'll love a sense of relief too, I promise.

The best way to get over this numb state is to get yourself busy. This of course contradicts your very mood, yet ask yourself if you want to make things better or what? If your wish is to become happier and more creative, then you need to force yourself but only in the beginning.

1. Make a list of long-term projects and place it on your desk so that you can see it. This doesn't mean making a list of things you want to do right now (besides right now you seem to want to do nothing). Switch your emotions off and write the cool things that you dream to do one day: a story or a book to write, a site to create, a painting to draw, a set of flowers to bloom in your garden, some jewelry to make, some new pie to bake (or create a set of your own recipes maybe?), remake your house interior, write some cool program or create a new design model.

2. Divide each project into small pieces. Big projects always look almost impossible until you realize that they can be divided into several small and sweet steps. As you think about some big project chances are it overwhelms you and you put it on a shelf of cool-things-never-to-be-done, which you call a to-do-later stuff. Besides a set of small steps to perform will also keep your mind occupied for a long period of time and thus distract from sad thoughts which is the main goal.

3. Choose 1 project and start with the first step. You may need to force yourself into doing this step. Do it. Even if you don't feel like starting. Start with something.

When I created this blog I copypasted info from other sources which is [info] no doubt interesting and useful. Then I burned out. It wasn't my work that I pasted here so I considered blogging as a mechanical rather then creative activity. I abandoned it for several months. I complained that I couldn't write and did no attempt to actually start writing. I blamed other people, said surrounding conditions discourage me from doing anything. Finally I forced myself into the first step: write down any ideas or experiences to my notepad. Now this blog is based on those notes.

4. Keep away from perfectionism. Trying to make a masterpiece from the first sketch means to burn out soon and for long. Don't try to make a clean copy at once, rather make several drafts. Also don't consider drafts as failures. Only cartoon characters make millions copywrites to tear them to pieces one by one. You instead learn and improve with repetition. Thus it is good to keep a track of your attempts.

5. Be honest to yourself and stop creating extra demons. The problem is in your mind only. Be brave, stop running away from distractions. Be a master of your own universe. Correct your own mistakes instead of cancelling newborn projects just becuse you think they started in a wrong way. Take control ower your life and soon you'll succeed.

In the beginning of this post. James Sunderland - a protagonist from Silent Hill 2 video game saw a pyramid-headed monster spoil his life through the game. In the end, however, he understands that the monster is just a visualization of his own wish of self-torture. He makes a decision [a quote] and starts attaking pyramid head. He does not kill it - because it is not real. Instead the monster kills itself, which means James understood that there is no need to blame external powers and he is the one who controls his life and can improve it. His fear gone.

---
A personal note here. Right now I experience a bad period of my life. I don't know what to do about sertain things. My emotions tend to play tricks on me and I don't always control them. Yet I won't give up. I know this. I have lots of projects in my mind and I will bring them into play one by one.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Alcohol and depression

I have thought a lot about the recent events in my life and it made me understand the following: wise are those who learn from their's earlier mistakes. Today I would like to share my experience with alcohol and explain what is actually wrong with us when we decide to use it as a relief from stress.

I said what is wrong with us not with alcohol. This means I will not pose the latter one as root of all evil, which is the simplest thing to do. It is we who decide to drink it thus we shall carry responsibility. The same statement works with other things like drugs that we take, or guns that we shoot. In reality devils are in our minds only and they don't posess things as they do in horror movies.

Back to alcohol. The main mistake is to drink it when you feel bad. Alcohol is a depressant which slows brain activity down. Most people feel relaxed after a couple of shots however more alcohol may cause depression, anxiety and/or aggression. Let me explain it in details.

- The first effect of alcohol as it reaches the outer brain is euphoria, a sense of pleasure as it lowers your inhibition. You seem to relief from stress and feel relaxed.

- With more alcohol your coordination and perception are affected, you can have memory blackouts or have difficulty moving.

- As the alcohol reaches your mid-brain, reflexes diminish, you experience confusion, stupor, and may lapse into a coma.

Depressive/agressive behaviour apears on the second stage. If you felt good before taking alcohol your mood may worsen or change into aggressive. This varies from person to person and depends on many different factors. However, if you are already depressed as you drink chances are you will feel worse. There are more chances that you'd like to self-harm and there are many cases of attempted suicide people commited in drunk state.

To sum this up: when you are depressed and feel that you need to release from stress by drinking some - remember that you will have this relief only for a small period of time and will feel worse afterwards. Remember that and decide what is good for you and what is not. Remember that you're making your own choice whether it is choice to recover or to freak yourself out.

Take care and have a nice weekend!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

10 Tips to help someone with depression

Sometimes it is hard to find the right words. Sometimes even the best intentions may hurt. This post is dedicated to people who know someone with depression.

So what to do if one of your friends or relatives is depressed. You feel that you need to comfort her/him. Here are the things to know. Before you start here is the rule you should remember:

First do no harm. Whatever you decide to tell the depressed person, be sure to estimate all pro and contra before saying a thing. Be careful with your words, gestures, mimics.

1. Don't ask what happened. If you lack information about the causes of the person's depression, let her/him be the last who you ask about it. A single memory of some sad thing may trigger a person and make her/his state even worse. Leave these "are you ok" and "what's wrong" things to movie characters.

2. Offer help not pity. If all you want is to say sorry - better make sure to also offer comfort. The depressed person already pities her/himself so again don't make things worse. Sometimes it is as painful to listen someone sorry you as to think about some sad things that trigger bad mood. But:

3. Offer help only if you can actually help. This is the must. If you promised something - do it. Imagine how will your depressed friend or relative feel when s/he realizes that waited for nothing.

4. Tell the depressed person how important he/she is to you. When depressed people tend to think that noone cares about them. Tell them what you love about them, show that you really care. Offer them all your support.

5. Remind them of their positive traits. Depressed person may often think about their bad attributes only and forget about the good ones. Be the one to point out their good side, treat them the jewels they are.

6. Gently encourage the person to do something. I say gently. Don't force them do something if they don't want to. Offer them to go out with you or do something together. The best thing you can do is to get them truly interested with something.

7. Listen when the person wants to talk. A chance to speak out things that worry oneself can be a relief. Sad emotions can burn from the inside untill the person speak them or writes them down.

8. Don't take their pessimism personally. If the depressed person ignores or declines your advice, - don't get frustrated. Depressed person may often think there is no way out. This is just a symptome of their illness. Also don't view someone else's depression as your own fault.

9. Be a good model of positive behaviour. Environment plays a great role in one's mood. So do friends and relatives. Don't multiply sadnes. Influence your dear one to become more healthy by becoming more healthy yourself.

10. The last but not the least don't overdo. Too much concern may be as annoying as loneliness.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

When your colors fade to gray

You want to do something, but don't know what exactly or where to begin. Yet all your fingers are thumbs and you can't do anything. The colors fade to gray and you end up scrolling time by surfing internet, sleeping or playing solitaire. The worst thing is you start feeling guilty for doing nothing. Here are a few tips that may help if you find yourself in such situation.

The key thing is to shake yourself from blues. This means no passive contemplation. Leave meditation for another case. Here we need some active stuff to do.

0. Stop scrolling time. Solitaire is addicting I know. Yet if you don't stop playing it you won't get any success. (By solitare I mean ANY time-scrolling activity you use).

1. Read and comment. Reading books is ok but not in this case. Find blogs, communities or forums where you will participate in communication. Read the topics and write whatever comes to your head in comments. Questions, ideas, your own experience, associations whatever. Just don't be silent. When I had writer's block - I started with minor comments on some social networks untill my creative juices flew again.

2. Meet your friends. There's nothing good as offline communication. Meet or phone your friends. Ask them the latest news, let them tell you some stories, ask if they got any new hobbies, visited some cool place or web-site. Give them your feedback. Hopefully the stories will make you think or even give you some ideas.

3. Get inspired with visual things like video clips, movies or pictures (Not depressive ones!!!). There are l-o-t-s of resources where artists place their pictures or photos and there are as many video services where you can watch stuff for free. Watch things and write down any associations that come to your mind. They may make you want to do something creative too.

4. Learn something new. If you can't do things you used to - than do something else. Learn a language, search wikipedia for some stuff you don't know and try to understand it, choose some weird field to study, or learn more interesting details about some common stuff. Then share your experience with that. My experience again: 2 years ago I though I'll die of boredom untill found an online guide to html\css that changed my life! Now I can make templates for websites or blogger! Hope to make a blog with my own templates soon!

5. If you can't make a whole thing - make a draft. If you're a writer or an artist - carry a notebad or a sketchbook with you. Write down any idea that comes to you. Yeah I know this one is an old thing. But it damn helpful! You don't need to write a poem in your notepad - just a phrase or two. I have a notepad where I write the ideas for this blog. Moreover, the idea of this post came to me about 2 weeks ago when I chated with my friend who told me the idea of the 1st 2 phrases of this post.

6. If you start doing something and it fails - don't torture yourself and the thing you do. If something fails and you get annoyed - the worst thing to do is to proceed. Better shift to something else. Like pp. 1 - 4.

7. If nothing helps - do something useful that does not require thinking i.e. housework. Not only it is a good thing to water plants or clean the house, but it will also make you head clear when your hands are occupied. I mean when you do some routine things you can think about whatever you want without actually being attached to a clear sheet of paper that makes you feel dumb.

Oh and don't think that I forgot to spoil your mood with some morality. Here goes my favorite one. Stop pitying yourself and start doing something. If you keep thinking that you can't do anything - nothing will ever change. Start doing something and as you proceed you'll have no chance to question yourself - cause you've already started!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Don't get stuck in a swamp with your friends

This is the answer to comment from Joi:

"Realizing that we have more power than we give ourselves credit for helps a lot. Sometimes we just have to switch people OFF the way we do our television or radio when they annoy us!"

It is obvious that usually we communicate with people who we like and avoid those we don't. However, there are situations when we think we have to stand annoying persons for some reason. I will not go deeply into relations with strangers or acquaintances this time. Just a short notice:

You have almost all possible ways to avoid communication with strangers that bother you. Just don't let guilt or underconfidence stop you. You can behave in a same way with aquaintances unless you don't want to break with them off completelly. In this case you can tell them you're either not interested in (or even hate) the particular topic or don't have time for it. In any way remember that you have no obligation to communicate with either of them.

Friends and relatives are a different case. The hardest part here is to actually understand that some of them make you feel sad or depressed. It is a common thing that there are successful people who walk the walk and those who are stuck in a swamp and try to suck as many people with them as possible. Let me explain.

Say you have some idea. You share it with a person and s/he finds tons of reasons why you shouldn't even bother with that. S/he'll tell you the stories of those who tried smth similar and failed, warns you about those difficulties here and there.

In the second case the person agrees with you that it is a great idea and is eager to join you in its realization. But he cannot spare a minute today. Tomorrow perhaps or the next week or well later. Just a little bit later. You wait for him ask him what's the progress and s/he is still eager to participate. S/he will discuss all the tiny details with you, show you their interest yet do nothing practical... Untill you burn out and leave your idea for good.

Now I may be saying a harsh thing, still: these people are loosers. But not just that. They make you become a looser too! They are stuck im their swamp of routine and fears and suck everyone who gets close to them.

A golden rule of all sucessful people is not to communicate with loosers. Never listen to advices of loosers. How dare they advice you something if they cannot improve even their own life! And what kind of advices do they tell you: "don't do this and that because I know it'll make you no good". The fact is they won't see any good in whatever you do. But they do so not because they are bad.

I used to have two friends who were nice people by all means. We loved to dine together, visited each other often, enjoyed speaking about different things. But when it came to something more important like joint business one of them started complaining like "what if we fail" without even starting, and the other one gave hope by joining me, gave 1000 and 1 advice on how to work out some details of little importance but never did a thing.

Now if you realize that someone makes you feel bad in some way - choose between friendship and your sanity. Don't let them imbog you. Switch them off.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Step 3b: Get rid of trigges

Let us continue dealing with triggers. In the previous post I tried to explain what to do with memory triggers and annoying things. (And if you're new here - here is the beginning of my self-help steps series).

Today let us face web triggers and sensual triggers.

Web triggers

Web triggers are those sites, blogs or communities which somehow worsen your mood. And if you decided to improve your mood and your state try

- not to visit sites which bring you sad memories (i.e. your ex's blog)
- not to visit sites where people share their pain

About the second one: depressed people tend to visit depressive sites and share stories on how bad they feel. However most of the times they feel worse after reading these things. Why? Because consciously or not they try on the others' problems and find correlations with their own. Just like the following way: "John writes that after [some event] he felt so sad. Yeah I usually feel sad after such things too! Like yesterday (...) " - and the damage is done. You read further and further and soak in the depressive environment. Instead visit those pages that either help dealing with problems or where people share success stories.

Sensual triggers

Different people react differently to various sounds, smells or colors and it may seem difficult to control physical reactions to sudden triggers of this kind. However, even autistic people (who have very delicate senses as well as unstable mood patterns) can learn to deal with loud / unpleasant sounds or dazzle lights. Here are some ways to reduce annoyance from sounds, colors and smells.

Sounds

Before I start writing about external sounds let me first ask, what kind of music do you usually listen when feeling sad? L-o-t-s of people (including myself) enjoy listening to depressive music when they're sad. The reason is simple: when you're depressed you pity yourself over and over again, and you LOVE the way it feels and can't get enough of your sorrow. BUT if you want to live withou depression and feel happines because of positive emotions you should stop pitying yourself. Means stop listening to depressive music.

Now external stuff. The best way to reduce annoyance from loud or unpleasant sounds is to actually use ipod or mp3-player which will block external sounds. Just be careful when crossing the street etc! And make sure you have backup batteries or charged accumulators (because I know how annoying it is to have your batteries dead in the middle of your favorite track!).

Colors

There can be some colors in the street that you hate or you can have some ugly-colored things in your surroundings. The simplest tool that will help you to deal with first ones is sunglasses. You can find tons of sunglasses of different styles and colors. Choose whichever you like and make them a part of your image! Have as many sunglasses as you want. Not only will they protect you from dazzling lights and disturbant colors, but they will also make you feel safer. Just accept a small advice: if it is possible take off the glasses when speaking to people important to you because eye contact is a very important part of communication. It can also work perfectly vice versa: you will feel more confident when speaking to an unpleasant person with your glasses on.

What about things you posess or that you have around at home / work - see previous step. In short: try to get rid of these things or ask the person who posesses them to replace these things if it is possible.

Smells

What to do when a gas-helmet is unavailable? Try these tips:

- Bypass the source of unpleasant smell or try to escape it as fast as possible. Hold your breath if needed and if it reminds you something sad - force yourself to think about something else. Or multiply numbers.

- If you cannot bypass the annoying smell but can remove it - do it! The more active you are - the better. The worst thing you can do is to suffer quietly when you can make a positive change.

- If you cannot remove the smell but know that someone can - ask her/him to do so


That's all for this part it seems. And that's all with external disturbants. We dealt with ourselves, people, things and senses. Now it's time for everyday practice. Make changes everyday untill you tick every point in your to-do list. I am sure that you will feel better when have less triggers that worsen your mood.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Step 3a: Get rid of trigges

In parts 1 and 2 we have dealt with ourselves and people who surround us. Let's now move to distracting objects. If you followed my advice - you should now have a list of disturbing things. Time to classify them. Divide the objects into the following groups or if you don't have a list - then try to fill the following classification:

- Memory triggers (photographs, presents, miscellanous objects in your room, music, videos etc)
- Things that annoy you just with the fact of their existense (furniture, dishware, houseware, some objects in the office/school/institute)
- Web triggers (blogs, sites, communities)
- Sensual triggers (colors, words, phrases, smells, sounds)

You may expand the list and add some categories if necessary. When the list is ready proceed to real actions. Let me start with my own experience.

Memory triggers:

When I first thought about how I am tired of being depressed (by that time enough damage was done) one of the first things I did was that: I took a huge garbage bag and placed it in the middle of my room. Then I opened my paper case, took all the old letters and papers and documents that I will never ever use and threw them all to garbage bag. I threw away the old photos that triggered some bad memories, I sent all the souvenirs, scripts, cds to garbage because a single approach to them made me feel sad.

Then I got to my wardrobe. I took the clothes that I knew I will never ever wear, but kept them anyway. Although I didn't throw them away, I gave them to my neigbours who I knew needed clothes for their small daughter. (Now imagine them carrying a HUGE bag from my appartment to theirs!). After that I decided to have some short rest.

Then I gathered all the things that I knew I'll never use (but kept them anyway for the reason unknown) and sent them to the garbage bag too - the 3d one actually. (Now you can imagine ME carrying 3 HUGE garbage bags to the grbage can!). You get the hint, right?

Things that annoy you just with the fact of their existense

I thought to make some long explanation here, but instead I will tell you what my husband did when faced the problem of old furniture he hated. Yeah he threw it away too. But let me explain the details anyway.

When I first visited his place it was.. well a usual room of a freelancer. A bed, a computer table, a bookshelf and I believe there was some small shelf and a small coffee table. However little by little the number of these objects decreased until finally reached zero. We made an improvised bed from tons of warm blanckets and pillows. The result was a big and warm nest that could be easily taken away and placed back when necessary. The lamps were replaced with luminodiods, the walls were repainted. The computer was moved to the floor so that we could reach it from the nest as well as watch movies.

If you have your own house/appartment you can make it just the way you want. Realize your idea of a sweet home or at least get rid of those things which do not comply with it. Make your home a place where you can rest from everyday stress. I assure you that you won't need to spend l-o-t-s of money to make a change (unless you want to).

If you live in someone's place or with somebody else (i.e. parents) where you cannot make radical changes - try to extract or change at least the most annoying things, find a compromise through the dialog. Explain that certain objects make you feel bad, offer a solution which will satisfy both sides at least halfway. When changing things make sure you will not cause too much discomfort to people you live with.

A small advice before I finish this part: I know that when depressed you will want to paint-it-black. When making the changes listen to your will to feel better, not to your depressive thoughts.

This post seems to be too long already. The rest info on what to do with web and sensual triggers is in the next one.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Step 2: Accept people as they are (but don't let them upset you)

In step 1 you learnt to accept yourself as you are with all the good and bad sides of your personality (well I hope you did). Now what about other people. They are annoying, they are rude, they are.. they are what they are and most of the times you can do nothing about it. When a person does not want to change - it is almost impossible to to change her/him.

Having read the above you can go sit in the corner and mourn about the unjust way of life. Which of course won't help you. Or you can get furious with the whole world and treat people the bastards they are no matter who. That won't help too.

What will help is an attempt to gain control over every situation. Have you made a list of people who stress you over and over again? Time to deal with each of them depending on every single detail. You know that people are all different. Not everyone who annoys you really means it. They may just never know you're annoyed or sad because of them untill you explain them in a proper way. So if someone disturbs you - don't close yourself, try not to go mad right away - just tell the person that you are not comfortable with what they did and ask not to do that anymore. Try to find some compromise together - it is available in the most of situations unless one of the sides is too stubborn to accept it.

If you are sure that normal dialog is impossible then don't be a victim! Why is it you who should always suffer because of others? Tell the person that you are uncomfortable (if you don't - nothing will change!) make them understand that you're a person and you have an opinion.

It is not always necessary to be rude. In my opinion it is always better not to raise your voice, but if someone tries to interrupt you - just keep talking. When I practiced the things I describe here my usually silent voice turned into strong and 'metallic'. Strong voice means a strong person - practice your voice and tone. When talking to the person also be in a strong position: ask questions and try not to sound guilty or apologetic. It is you who was disturbed than it is a disturbant who is meant to apologize.

Later on after a single succesful dialog you will be proud of yourself. Remeber it! Remember each your success. You will need these memories for self-help. Done? Let's move on to Step 3!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

To-do list : 1. accept yourself

Now as we found the source of depression...

Here's the first point in our to-do list: learn to accept who you are and don't distinguish either your good or bad traits from your personality.

A common thing is: when you feel bad you start thinking about your handicaps, feel guilty, feel sorry for yourself just like these traits are something from outside and has nothing to do with your personality that suffers from their doings. At the same time you never recollect your merits like they don't exist at all.

The fact is both your vices as well as virtues are YOU. And you're quite complicated! Why don't you deny the fact you have a nose or fingers, you don't deny the existence of your heart, your brain, your liver. Then why deny the parts of your character? Nobody's perfect and nobody's a total freak.

Now think: every time you consider yourself stupid, weak, worthless - you cut your chances to actually realize what's wrong in your doing. It's so easy to put a sticker than to digg the problem and find solutions to solve it.

Now to make it short: whatever you are: weak, stupid, crazy - you are who you are and there's nothing good or bad in it. Understand it. Accept it. Having done that move to the second step.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Having problems with my meds

It seems like every month I run out a week or two early of my Bi polar and depression meds. At first I thought the pharmacy was shorting me so last month I counted them and they were all there. However, I ran out a week early again on my Seroquel and a few days early with my Zoloft. I don't understand it because I am taking them right and I know my husband doesn't take them because he has his own meds. Because of this problem with running out earl, and because my health insurance does not pay for my meds until the exact day they are due, I have had to go without and it is really messing me up mentally. I am having problems sleeping again because the Seroquel is what helps me sleep but without it I have to take other sleeping pills just to sleep the whole night. Also I am having major mood swings and my husband and I are fighting more because of it. It's weird because he also started running out of his early too. I don't know how we are running out when they are all there when we get them. So all day I have felt depressed and more tired than usual. I really hate having to go through this. I wish I had better health insurance or I wish I could figure out how I am running out early. I really need to get back on track but I don't know how I can when I run out earl every month. Hopefully I will get thigns straightened out soon because I really hate feeling like this.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Find the source of your depression

I haven't posted here for a month already and I'll tell you why: I was dealing with things that disturbed me.

Although it can be hard, but trying to shift daily routine to think what actually worries you may be the start of yor self-therapy. You see: depression usually starts with: "I feel bad because of ". Later on it converts into "I feel bad because I feel bad because I feel bad...." - reasons - true and imaginary mix and multiply in your mind so that you kind of forget of the original reasons of your sad state.

Once you have uncovered some moment or event, from which everything started to go wrong - chances are you will find the cure too. The main mistake is to fight symptomes instead of eliminating the source.

Here are some steps I designed and used:

1. Relax and start untwisting the events of the latest days. Find those triggers that worsened your mood recently. Someone who told you things which made you feel bad, something that happened in a wrong way etc.

The key here is to prescind the facts from your emotions or the circle will start going round and round and instead of analyzing the facts you will continue going through bad emotions over and over again.

Relax. Think what made you feel bad today, yesterday, this week. Write it down - it'll help your analysis later. Now don't pause to think over the events. The goal now is to collect information.

2. Practice #1 for as much as it is needed to collect enough facts. It must take from a week to a month to do so. Now it is time for a deep analysis. Ask your notes: what places\people\events make you feel bad. Go further: what colors\sounds\smells\objects are the most annoying. Which words, phrases, tones you don't like.

Here the main thing is again to shift your depressed emotions away. It is them who whispers in your ears: "I want to be left along in a dark room with noone to disturb me, with some saddening music around or no sounds at all". I'll try to explain you why these thoughts are a disaster for anyone depressed.

Make a list of those things that disturb you and make you feel bad. Step by step, answer, what exactly do you hate about your work, what are the most annoying things at home, what do your friends/relatives do wrong.

As you have a roll of reasons on why to kill your neigbors, sell your house, quit job, and commit suicide in front of you - proceed to my next post. There's an alternative to-do list!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Surviving Ben's Suicide, A book review

I just read a book called, “Surviving Ben’s Suicide. This book makes you stop reading and not only think about what you just read but it also makes you really think about life and how problems can really be overcome if you keep trying and never give up. Not only did I completely understand this book, but I felt like I could really relate to Ben and Comfort in so many ways. I am Bi- Polar and so is my husband and even though I have never tried to commit suicide, I have thought about doing it many, many times. Ben and Comfort both had a feeling of not being good enough and I have felt like that all of my life. I can truly relate to how Comfort felt before, during, and after knowing Ben.

Surviving Ben’s Suicide takes you through a young woman’s journey as she falls in love with a young man who suffers from Bi Polar disorder. Anyone who suffers from Bi Polar disorder, low self esteem, and feelings of inadequacy can truly relate to Comfort and Ben. This young couple met in college and share similar feelings of not being good enough. I’m sure anyone has had the feeling of not being good enough in their life no matter if they suffer from Bi Polar disorder or not. You don’t have to be mentally ill to feel this way.

C. Comfort Shields, the author of this book, writes about how she survived feelings of guilt from Ben, her boyfriend, committing suicide. This book will make you laugh a little, cry a little (or a lot) and really make you stop and think how you might relate to Comfort or Ben. Ben suffered from Bi Polar disorder so bad that he felt there was no other way than to end his life, thus ending his suffering. I am in no way justifying Ben for committing suicide. I am saying, however, that I can understand the feeling of loneliness and being “the black sheep” and not feeling like I belong anywhere. Ben felt that there was no one or anything that could help him. I truly wish Ben could have been helped. He was far too young to end his life. He had so much to look forward to. Ben was on medication and he was seeing a therapist but none of that helped him and in the end he just ended his suffering.

As I read this book, I often admired Comfort for the way she dealt with Ben’s mental illness. She tried to reach out and help him and love him but in the end it wasn’t enough. I do admire Comfort for getting on with her life and her future, learning to love again, and having children. Surviving Ben’s Suicide is a must read if you or someone you know has a mental illness. This book might be a comfort for those who have lost loved ones to suicide. I highly recommend reading it.

You can visit C. Comfort Shields at her website:

www.comfortshields.com

Also you might want to check out the publishers site for this book:

www.plannedtelevisionarts.com

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

A crappy day today

Sorry I haven't posted but I have been having problems getting into my blogs. So now that I am finally on here I am updating all of them.

Today was a crappy day! I'm not depressed but it's my time of the month and everything went wrong today. Phone quit working, had to have hubby fix it. I keep getting knocked off line. I'm having cramps, the picture on the t.v went out until hubby fixed it. Fan quit working. Uggh!! Bad day. Now I am sitting here trying to enjoy a wine cooler and I have heartburn and ran out of my acid reflux pills! So the wine is just making it worse but I'm drinking it anyway.

Otherwise, everything is going great. I have a full time writing job online which is bringing in extra much needed cash every week.

I have been neglecting my fiction and that sucks. I seem to have no time with writing articles, keeping this house clean, keeping my animals happy with attention, and everything else going on. I want to get my short stories done and submitted. I will never be a published author this way. I am just going to have to take the time.

Nothing much else to write about. If you want to read up on some home remedies, check out my AC page, and my ehow page.

My AC page
My Ehow page

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Improving Self-Esteem

Along with antidepressant therapy I would like to offer you some more ways to improve your state. Medicinres are ok of course, but why don't help you body get well faster by using these simple techniques. Moreover if you prefer natural remedies, these advices will help you feel better too.

Below I am posting tips on how to learn to estemate yourself higher.

"1. Make a List of Strengths and Positive Attributes

Sit down with a pen and paper and list all the strengths that you have as well as all the positive things that you can say about yourself. This could include skills that you may have (e.g. cooking) or attributes that you possess (e.g. pretty eyes, a lovely voice).

Include in this list all the positive things that you have ever heard people say about you. These do not need to be things with which you necessarily agree. For example, if someone has told you that you have attractive handwriting, but you don't agree - include it on the list. After all, the opinions of others are just as valid as yours, aren't they?

It is also a good idea to go to close friends, colleagues, and relatives and ask them to name three positive things about you - include these on the list as well.

Take a few days to do this exercise. You will be surprised at what you will come up with!
Some people find it hard to make a list of positive things about themselves. If this happens to you, it probably has its root in your childhood. Many people are taught that it is conceited and 'bad' to say anything positive about themselves. If it makes you uncomfortable to write down complimentary things about yourself, there is all the more reason to work at it. Do it even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

2. Learn to Accept Compliments

Are you the sort of person who feels awkward when other people compliment you? Do you find it difficult to know what to say in response to a compliment?

If you are, begin to practice receiving compliments graciously. If some one compliments you, say 'Thank you' and smile at them. Do not try and discredit the other person's words by pointing out negative things about yourself, like 'It's just an old dress', 'I was just lucky', 'I usually mess up'. Receive the compliment and learn to take pleasure in it. This may be difficult at first, but if you practice it will become easier.

If you allow other people to compliment you, you will help yourself to feel more positive and may even begin to like yourself more.

3. Don't Keep Putting Yourself Down!

People with low self-esteem often say negative things about themselves and may even go out of their way to put themselves down in company and point out their faults when it is not necessary to do so.

Pay attention to how you speak about yourself. Do you say negative things about yourself and your abilities? 'I can't......', or ‘I'm not good at .....', or 'I always make mistakes .....’? Do you deliberately point out your perceived faults or imperfections?

If you recognize this tendency, begin to work on avoiding negative references to yourself. Ask friends and family to remind you when you do so and correct yourself. Change 'I can't' to 'It's difficult, but I can try'. Find positive things to say about yourself rather than criticism. Practice this as much as you can.

4. Stop Apologizing!

Are you always saying 'I'm sorry'? People with low self-esteem often have a habit of apologizing for themselves all the time. If they meet someone in a passage, they say 'I'm sorry'. If they want to speak to someone, they say 'I'm sorry'. Whenever they have to get someone's attention, they say 'I'm sorry'.

Sorry for what? For existing?

Stop apologizing and recognize that you have a right to be around and to be heard. Instead of saying 'I'm sorry' all the time, begin smiling at people - it is much more positive!

5. Try New Things

If your self-esteem is low, the chances are that you avoid trying new things and meeting new people. This only reinforces your negative perception of yourself. What you need to do is to provide yourself with the opportunity to experience success and pleasure in what you do. This will increase your self-esteem and will make you more confident to try even more new things.

So take up a new hobby, begin a sport, sign up for gym membership or join a hiking club or dance class. Do things that you have never done before like go for a massage or a facial. Buy a cookbook and try out new recipes. Invite some friends around for dinner. The list is endless!

6. Spend Time with People who Help You to Feel Good about Yourself

This is an important one! People with low self-esteem will often allow themselves to be used, bullied and abused. Sometimes they behave like doormats and allow other people to order them around and take advantage of them. They may also seek out people who are negative about life and have difficulty seeing the positive in anything.

If you are being pushed around and feel unappreciated, learn to say 'NO' when you feel like you want to! Choose to spend time with people whose company you enjoy and spend less time with people who do not contribute to your sense of well being. If you are in an abusive or destructive relationship, get out of it or seek professional help. Do an 'audit' of your relationships and stop spending time and energy on people who bring nothing positive to your life. The longer you allow yourself to be unappreciated and taken advantage of, the worse you will feel about yourself. You can change that!

7. Treat Yourself with Respect and Consideration

If you do not respect yourself and see your needs as important, then no one else will do so either. Learn not to always put yourself last and be in touch with your needs.
Look after your physical self. Have your hair cut, dress in clothes that you like and take care of your grooming and your health. Spoil yourself with things that you enjoy like bubble baths and special treats. Do things that help you to feel good.

Look after your environment. Keep your home tidy and spend time and energy making your environment beautiful. Polish a table, buy yourself some flowers, use scented oils in your bedroom, open the curtains and let the sun come in. Organize your work space and personalize it to express your personality. All these things are important ways of showing yourself that you are worth caring for. If you do them often, you will be surprised to find other people beginning to do them for you as well!

8. Smile at Other People and Look Them in the Eye

People who lack confidence often avoid eye contact and spend their time looking down at the ground.

Stop looking down! Look up and greet people. Look them in the eye and smile. Say 'Hi!' Most people will smile back and the friendly response will feel good. This may seem like a small thing, but it will also help you to feel more positive about yourself.

9. Be Aware of your Body Language

Stand up straight! Put your shoulders back and your head up. Posture plays a more important role than we realize in how we feel about ourselves. Stooping and making your body less noticeable is a subconscious way of communicating that you are not worthy to take up space in your surroundings and conveys a message of subjugation and humility to others - an 'I'm not good enough' message.

Help yourself to feel better and more confident by standing straight and tall!

10. If Nothing Changes, Get Help

These are all practical exercises that you can do to help yourself to feel more confident and to increase your sense of self worth. Obviously you cannot expect to change overnight and old habits and perceptions are hard to break.

However, if you have really tried to change the way that you feel about yourself and find that you are fighting a loosing battle, don't give up and feel that you can never change. An experienced counselor can help you to change the negative ways that you relate to yourself and help you to develop a more positive sense of self-esteem. It is well worth the investment in time and money to work on your self-esteem. One of the great joys of being a therapist is seeing people's lives change drastically for the better once they begin to see themselves in a more positive light!"

Taken from Self-Esteem - eBooklet

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How tricyclic antidepressants work

If you haven't read a preface, I'd strongly recommend you to look through it: Part 1, 2, 3.

THE TRICYCLIC ANTIDEPRESSANTS

What are the tricyclics used for ?
Tricyclic antidepressants are used to improve mood in people who are feeling low or depressed. The tricyclics may also be used to help the symptoms of anxiety and a number of other symptoms. The tricyclics are the most commonly prescribed antidepressants but there are many other antidepressants. All these drugs seem to be equally effective at the proper dose but have different side effects to each other. If one drug does not suit you, it may be possible to try another.

How do the tricyclics work ?
The brains has many naturally occurring chemical messengers. Two of these are called serotonin (sometimes called 5-HT) and noradrenaline. Both are important in the areas of the brain that control or regulate mood and thinking. It is known that these two chemical messengers are not as effective or active as normal in the brain when someone is depressed. Tricyclic antidepressants increase the amount of these chemical messengers in the brain. This can help correct the lack of action of these messengers and help to improve mood. The tricyclics can also effect another chemical in the brain called "acetylcholine" and this is the cause of some of their side-effects.

"Reduced" nerve activity but with recycling blocked, and increased messages passes:

Side-effects:
Some antidepressants e.g. the tricyclics and venlafaxine, block the reuptake of serotonin and noradrenaline.
Unfortunately, these antidepressant drugs also affect other transmitter systems e.g. acetylcholine, dopamine, histamine etc. Some are a bit like "blunderbuss" treatments i.e. they hit the part that seems to be wrong, but also hit lots of other parts which aren't wrong. The side effects you get from drugs are from these extra "hits". The amount that these drugs effect different transmitters varies between drugs and is the reason you get slightly different side effects from each of the different drugs. These can include:

- If you block acetylcholine receptors, it may blunt your reactions, can produce mild sedation and confusion etc. as well as producing a dry mouth, blurred vision etc.
- Affecting your noradrenaline may also sometimes upset your blood pressure e.g. you may feel dizzy when you stand up etc.
- Too much serotonin and you may feel sick, less hungry, get headaches or migraines
If you block histamine receptors, it can make you feel drowsy (just the same as if you take an antihistamine tablet such as "Piriton" for hay fever or allergy).

Source

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How SSRI antidepressants work

We continue listing different types of antidepressants. If you missed the preface, I'd strongly recommend you to read it here: PART 1, 2, 3

SPECIFIC SEROTONIN RE-UPTAKE INHIBITORS

"What are the SSRI's used for ?

SSRIs are antidepressants which are used to help to improve mood in people who are feeling low or depressed. Fluoxetine ("Prozac") may also be used to help treat the eating disorder "Bulimia nervosa". In addition to this, the SSRIs are now widely used to help a variety of other symptoms. These include anxiety (where a lower starting dose often helps), social phobia and social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic, pre-menstrual syndrome and agoraphobia. Some drugs are "licensed" (ie officially approved) for some of these conditions (e.g. paroxetine for social phobia) but this does not necessarily mean the others do not help, just one manufacturer can prove it and has applied for a licence.
Trazodone ("Molipaxin") and nefazodone ("Dutonin") are not strictly pure "SSRIs" but have many of the same effects and so are included in this group for convenience.
The SSRIs are now one of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants but there are many other similar drugs. All these antidepressants seem to be equally effective at the proper dose but have different side effects to each other. Apart from nausea, the SSRIs generally have less side effects than the older drugs. If one drug does not suit you, it may be possible to try another. Starting with a lower dose for a week or so may also help the drugs to be more tolerable or have less side effects.

How do the SSRI's work ?
The brains has many naturally occurring chemical messengers. One of these are called serotonin (sometimes called 5-HT) and is important in the areas of the brain that control mood and thinking. It is known that this serotonin is not as effective or active as normal in the brain when someone is feeling depressed. The SSRI antidepressants increase the amount of this serotonin chemical messenger in the brain. This can help correct the lack of action of serotonin and help to improve mood."

"Reduced" nerve activity but with recycling blocked, and increased messages passes:

Side-effects:
SSRI antidepressants mainly block the reuptake of just serotonin. This why they are called the SSRIs ie. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.
Many other antidepressant drugs also affect other transmitter systems e.g. acetylcholine, dopamine, histamine etc. and have many side effects. SSRIs really only block the reuptake of serotonin, and so have less side effects. However, they still have some side effects ;-
- Too much serotonin in some parts of the brain can make you feel sick, less hungry and get headaches or migraines.

Source

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How MAOI Antidepressants work

Now let us look carefully at different types of antidepressants. But before doing this, I'd strongly recommens you to read the preface (Parts 1, 2, 3) before you continue to specific types of medicines.

Mono-Amine Oxidase Inhibitors

As we understood from the preface,

"There are many chemical messengers (or "neurotransmitters") called "monoamines" which occur naturally in the body. One of the effects that monoamines have is on mood. If the levels of monoamines in the body are high we may feel 'high', and if they are low we may feel 'low'. MAOIs stop the breakdown of these monoamines. They block the monoamine oxidase enzyme which breaks down the transmitter, so the next time an impulse comes along, there is more transmitter, a stronger message is passed, and activity in that part of the brain is increased. By stopping the breakdown of these, the MAOIs may bring back the amounts of monoamines to normal. This helps to improve mood in people who are feeling low or depressed."

"Reduced" nerve activity but with (mono-amine oxidase) enzyme blocked (or inhibited), and increased messages passed:

Side-effects:
Some antidepressants e.g. the tricyclics, block the reuptake of serotonin and noradrenaline. Others mainly block the reuptake of just serotonin e.g. the SSRIs. The MAOIs block the monoamine enzyme which breaks down noradrenaline, serotonin and some other transmitters. They are Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors.
Unfortunately, the MAOIs also block an enzyme in the body which breaks down other compounds. One of these is an amino acid called tyramine. Tyramine is an essential compound which the body needs, and is found in many foods. However, if you have too much tyramine in the body, it can make your blood pressure rise. Foods such as cheese, yeast and meat extracts etc contain lots of tyramine. If you eat any of these foods while taking an MAOI, your body can not break down (or metabolise) the tyramine. You then get an excess of tyramine in the body, which increases your blood pressure very quickly. This can at cause headaches initially but can be very dangerous and has caused many deaths.
The MAOIs also affect other transmitters which are broken down by the MAO enzyme.
- Affecting your noradrenaline may also sometimes upset your blood pressure e.g. you may feel dizzy when you stand up etc.

Source.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How antidepressants work. PART 3

Here is the last part of the material about Antidepressants and it is actually about them. After 2 long and sweet parts of a preface here is the last one which describes depression build-up process.

"5. Depression

People with depression usually have problems with poor sleep, low mood and appetite, loss of energy and interest or pleasure etc. It is a common illness, affecting 3% of the population per year. The main theory about why this happens is the so-called "monoamine hypothesis".

We know that serotonin and noradrenaline in the brain are involved with control of sleep/wake, emotions, mood, arousal, emotion, drive, temperature regulation, feeding etc. Thus, if a person has too little serotonin and noradrenaline in the part of the brain that controls mood, this will produce too little activity, and that part of the brain become slower and less effective. This will lower mood.

In depression, it is known that there are reduced levels of serotonin and noradrenaline. These reduced levels lead to a lowering of mood. The full reasons are not fully known but stress may well play a part in causing this.

"Normal" communication between cells:

"Reduced" nerve activity e.g. as in depression:

There are lots of other theories about how depression occurs e.g. genetics, how the brain develops, stress etc. There may in fact be many causes and in each person there may be a combination of these. Stress may in fact cause changes in the brain which then result in reduced levels of serotonin and noradrenaline. Transmitters other than much serotonin and noradrenaline are probably also involved.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How antidepressants work. PART 2

Here goes the second part of the material. This one is about neurotransmitters's and receptors' work.

"3. What happens when a message is passed from one cell to another.

1. A brain cell decides to send a message to another cell in order to make something happen e.g. tighten a muscle, release a hormone, think about something, pass on a message etc.

2. An electrical impulse is sent from the brain cell down one of the nerve fibres/neurones towards the end. It travels at about 120 miles per hour.

3. This message or impulse arrives at the end of the nerve fibre. When it arrives, a chemical ("transmitter") is released from the nerve end.

4. The transmitter is then released and travels across the gap between the first nerve fibre and the next/receiving one.

5. The transmitter hits a receptor on the other side. It fits into it just like a key fitting into a lock.

6. When the transmitter hits the receptor, the receptor changes shape. This causes changes inside the nerve ending which sets off an electrical message in that nerve fibre on to the next brain/nerve cell. This sequence then carries on until the effect occurs e.g. the muscle moves etc.

7. The transmitter is either broken down by enzymes (10%) and removed or taken back up again into the nerve ending (i.e. recycled) - a process known as re-uptake.

8. The nerve fibre and synapse is then ready for next message

Important points:- The passage of messages only works one way or one direction- There is only one type of transmitter per synapse- The transmitter allows an electrical message to be turned into a chemical message and back into an electrical message.

4. "Transmitters"

Although there are over 80 known different "transmitters" in the brain, each nerve ending only has one type. These "neurotransmitters" tend to be grouped together and each seems to have specific roles e.g.:

Serotonin or 5-HT - In the brain, it controls mood, emotions, sleep/wake, feeding, temperature regulation, etc.Too much serotonin and you feel sick, less hungry, get headaches or migraines.Too little and you feel depressed, drowsy etc.

Dopamine - there are three main groups (or pathways) of dopamine neurones in the brain.In the brain, one group controls muscle tension and another controls e.g. emotions, perceptions, sorting out what is real/important/imaginary etc.Not enough dopamine in the first group and your muscles tighten up (e.g. as in Parkinson's Disease).Too much dopamine in the second group gives you an overactive brain i.e. too much "perception e.g. you may see, hear or imagine things that are not real

Noradrenaline (NA) - (sometimes called "norepinephrine" or NE)In the brain, it controls sleep, wakefulness, arousal, mood, emotion and drive.Too much noradrenaline and you may feel anxious, jittery etc.Too little and you may feel depressed, sedated, dizzy, have low blood pressure etc.

Acetylcholine (ACh) - In the brain, it controls arousal, the ability to use memory, learning tasks etc.Too much in your body and your muscles tighten up.Too little can produce dry mouth, blurred vision and constipation, as well as becoming confused, drowsy, slow at learning etc.

Glutamate - Acts as an "accelerator" in the brainToo much and you become anxious, excited and some parts of your brain may become overactive.Too little and you may become drowsy or sedated

GABA - Acts as a "brake" in the brainToo much and you become drowsy or sedated.Too little and you may become anxious and excited

In many mental health problems, it is known that some of these transmitters get out of balance e.g. you have too much or too little of a particular transmitter."

Seems like now you should understand the basic processes in your brain. Now let's head to PART 3 and see how depression develops.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How antidepressants work. PART 1

Today I searched for some clear explanation on how SSRI antidepressants work, that will not resemble an encyclopedic article with dozens of medical terms on top of each other.

And I’ve found it. Call it love from the first sight if you wish but the article I am quoting below is amazingly clear and simple for understanding. I am dividing it into 3 parts + several separate posts about each type of antidepressants. First part explains how our brain works. Second part gives a basic review on neuron transmitters. Third part – and depression develops.
If you have a clear picture on these subjects you may then skip these parts and move to medications descriptions.

PART 1

1. The brain

“In order to try to understand a little about how drugs work, it is best to first learn a few facts about the brain. Each human being has: One head. One brain. Each brain has somewhere around 10,000,000,000 brain cells. Each brain cell has lots of connections with other brain cells by means of nerve fibres (the wiring connecting brain cells together). There are about 4 million miles of nerve fibres in each brain. Some fibres may have up to 10,000 branches in them. Each brain cell has lots of connections with other cells, possibly over 25,000! The junctions at the end of the neurones are called synapses.

2. A Synapse

Synapses are very important because:
They are the route by which brain cells talk to each other
Synapses are of the same basic design in the brain, the heart, the legs etc.
There are a lot of them If we can get chemicals (e.g. drugs) into the gap between them in the brain, we can affect the way in which brain cells talk to each other e.g. we can slow the messages down, speed the up etc.

A synapse looks like this:

In the drawing you will see the following:

- Axon - A neurone (or cell body) has many axons (or nerve fibres).
- Vesicles - these contain the transmitter.
- Transmitters - these are small chemicals used by brain cells as messengers. They are stored in the vesicles in the nerve ending ready to be released
- Receptors - these are structures on the surface of the receiving cell which have a space designed just for the transmitter (if the transmitter is a key, receptors are the lock into which they fit)
- Enzymes - these surround the synapse and break down any spare transmitter that might leak out to other synapses nearby. - Electrical signal - This is the way in which one brain cell sends a message to another. The signal travels down the nerve fibre rather like an electrical "Mexican Wave".”

Sounds pretty simple, huh? Let’s move to PART 2

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Key points about antidepressant therapy

One more thing before I start describing different kinds of antidepressants. Well actually here are 13 things - some key points about antidepressant therapy that can be useful for both those who take their medicine already and those who is about to start. These tips will help you to understand some basics and answer most of the frequently asked questions about antidepressants.

"- It takes from two to six weeks for an antidepressant to begin to work. You may feel worse before you feel better because side effects can occur almost immediately, whereas therapeutic benefits appear later. The good news is that most side effects dissipate within days or weeks.

- Antidepressants are not habit-forming and are not drugs of abuse.

- Do not despair if the first medication does not work. Finding the appropriate medication(s) and dosages may take time. The good news is that many different antidepressants are available.
- The most frequent reason for an antidepressant “failure” is that the dose was too low and the duration of treatment too short.

- Feeling better is not a good reason for discontinuing or reducing your medications. Individuals often are tempted to stop medication too soon, risking relapse or recurrence.

- For individuals with bipolar disorder or recurrent major depression, medication may have to become part of everyday life to avoid return of disabling symptoms.

- You should never mix medications of any kind—prescribed, over-the counter, herbs, or borrowed—without consulting a doctor.

- Some drugs, like alcohol, reduce the effectiveness of antidepressants and should be avoided. This includes wine, beer and hard liquor.

- Some drugs, which are usually safe when taken alone, can cause severe and dangerous side effects if taken with other drugs. Always tell dentists, pharmacists and other medical specialists that you are taking antidepressants.

- If you have been prescribed an MAOI (such as Parnate or Nardil), you will have to avoid certain foods and over-the-counter medications. Be sure to get a complete list of disallowed foods and medications from your doctor and always carry it with you.

- Antianxiety drugs, such as diazepam (Valium) or alprazolam (Xanax), are not antidepressants. They are sometimes prescribed along with antidepressant therapy, but should not be taken alone for a depressive disorder.

- Scientific studies suggest that patients with three or more episodes of depression or two severe episodes may need to be maintained on antidepressants indefinitely. The maintenance dose should be the same as the dose required to achieve an initial therapeutic response.

- Antidepressants work best in most individuals when prescribed alongside a course of psychotherapy. People taking both medication and engaging in psychotherapy generally take less time to feel better and maintain their gains longer than those taking antidepressant medications alone."

Tips are taken from here

Take care!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Special populations and depression therapy

Today I would like to start speaking about antidepressant therapy as the most common depression cure method. However, before listing different medications in-depth I'll begin with short advices for the below-mentioned groups:

"When deciding on therapy, some clinically depressed patients require special considerations:

Bipolar disorder -- these patients have extreme mood swings (periods of excessive high spirits followed by severe depressive episodes). Typically, the antidepressants are augmented with mood stabilizers.

Children/adolescents -- The SSRI fluoxetine is the only effective (and approved) antidepressant for this age group. There have been reports that children on antidepressants are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not on antidepressants; while some data suggest that this may be true, it has not been proven conclusively. Primary care providers need to weigh the risks of antidepressant therapy versus untreated depression. Most often, treatment carries fewer risks of suicide than non-treatment.

Pregnant/postpartum women -- Depression can be a common symptom during pregnancy and postpartum -- it usually corrects itself, but sometimes severe depression must be treated (in about 10 percent of pregnant/postpartum women). Antidepressants can pass to the fetus and through breast milk. The effects of antidepressants on the developing fetus and newborn are not well known. Therefore, doctors should carefully consider the risks and benefits of treatment.

Treatment for depression is not a short-term process but a long-term project with specific goals of remission and maintenance. Multiple approaches of medication, psychotherapy and patient education are most effective in the treatment of MDD. Close consultation with a physician and/or psychiatrist can provide the best treatment options".

Source

Now good luck and you can now proceed to:

- Noradrenergic and Specific Serotonin Antidepressants (NaSSA)
- Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOI)
- Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRI)
- Tricyclic Antidepressants
- Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI)

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

10 tips on how to sleep better

In the previous post I provided an explanation of the link between depression and sleeping disorders. Here I am posting tips on how to get to bed easily and sleep well.

Try to follow instructions below to get asleep as soon as possible. If you treat your body a nice rest, it’s going to help you a lot if you want to cure depression.

As usually here are the key-points with my comments:


1. Keep the lights low before bedtime.

Remember: melatonin is a hormone of darkness. When it is produced you start felling sleepy. Thus keeping the lights low will help your body to lower daytime activity and prepare you for a sleep.

2. Follow a routine to help relax and wind down before sleep, such as reading a book, listening to music, or taking a bath.

When you are depressed it is hard to relax your body and calm down your thoughts about how everything is bad-bad-bad. However, shifting your activity into reading can make a great deal. Music and bath can also be good natural relaxants which will drive at least some of the worries away from you.

3. Try not to take naps during the day because naps may make you less sleepy at night.

And not only!
Usually human body needs about 8 hours of sleep for regeneration. Thus it will demand these hours either in night or daytime. However, taking naps during the day causes a hormonal misbalance in your body. Again: daylight prevents production of melatonin, which is associated with sleeping.

4. Avoid Caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol late in the day. Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants and can keep you from falling asleep. Alcohol can cause waking in the night and interferes with sleep quality.

Try to awoid overexcitement before going to bed - be it chemical stimulants or physical excercises. Your body will need more time to restore to a calm state before it is relaxed enough for falling asleep.

5. Make your sleeping place comfortable. Be sure that it is dark, quiet, and not too warm or too cold.

If something disturbs your body, it will not be able to relax, but will work on reacting to the irritants. Thus you are more likely to fall asleep when your body is safe and comfortable as well as your thoughts are calm.

6. Try to go to sleep at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning.

This one is simple. After plenty of repetition your body will get used to fit its rhythms to an everyday ‘schedule’.

7. Try not to exercise close to bedtime. Experts suggest not exercising for 3 hours before the time you go to sleep.

Just like in # 4: your bloodstream, breathing and internals will need time to get to normal state after excercises. Untill that you won't get asleep.

8. Don't eat a heavy meal late in the day. A light snack before bedtime, however, may help you sleep.

Heavy meal for your stomack is just like heavy thoughts for your mind. When your belly is busy taking care for your food - your body is unable to stop the process and shut down imidiatelly.

9. Avoid using your bed for anything other than sleep or sex.

If you watch TV, eat or do whatever else in your bed, your body will fail to recognize it as a place intended for sleep.

10. If you have trouble lying awake worrying about things, try making a to-do list before you go to bed. This may help you to relieve of those worries for whole night.

Instead of thinking you need to do this and that - you unload your mind and write it down point by point. After that you can be easy knowing you have a list of what-to-does and will not miss or forget something during the day.

The list is taken from here.

Good night! Sleep tight! And I will appreciate any comments or questions.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Alternative remedies for depression

I know I haven't posted in a while but lately I am finding it harder and harder to keep up with any of my writing. I just recently started writing more for AC and last night I wrote a post in my main blog. I have so much on my mind that I am having a hard time concentrating on anything. Anyway I recently write an article for Associated Content about alternative remedies for depression and thought I would post the link here for those who want to read it.

This article will help those who can't afford prescription drugs or don't want to take prescription drugs. Please read it and leave me a comment either here or on my AC page. Here is the link to my article:

Alternative Remedies for Depression

Take a look at my other articles as well if you like. Here is the link to my CP page where the rest of them are. Subscribe if you want because I have more articles on the way.

My CP page

I hope you enjoy them.

If you would like to sign up for Associated Content and get paid to write articles then go to the link below.

Join Associated Content

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Sleeping disorders and depression

Sleeping disorders are known to be one of the common symptoms of depression. However, the relationship between insomnia and depression is more complicated where one effects another and vise versa.

The key factor is Melatonin - "the hormone of darkness".

"What is Melatonin

Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone secreted by the pineal gland, a pea-size structure at the center of the brain. As our eyes register the fall of darkness and the onset of night melatonin is produced. It signals to our body to prepare for sleep, our blood pressure dips, there is a decrease in body temperature and we start to feel sleepy

Melatonin & Depression

Melatonin is an important nighttime hormone associated with sleep and regeneration. However, excessive levels or daytime melatonin can cause depressive disorders. Medical research confirms the relationship between melatonin and mood disorders. The following paragraphs explain how melatonin works and why it causes depression.

Darkness & Melatonin

Melatonin is normally released by the pineal gland in the evening as sunlight is diminishing. Melatonin causes us to feel tired and withdraw. This helps us to sleep, but if we have to be awake when melatonin is in our system, we become lethargic, disoriented, irritable and moody. This explains why shift work and jet lag can be so debilitating, and why depression rates are highest in darker climates. Almost everyone with a mood disorder suffers worse in the winter because of excess melatonin in his or her system."

Source

Thus you are right to make a conclusion that sunlight is one of the tips on how to cure depression. It may sound simple yet be difficult to follow. When depressed we tend to seek for dark colors. Even subconsciously you will wear dark-colored clothes, sit at home with drawn curtains, place dark-colored furniture in your room and think that you feel comfortable, while your melatonin levels grow higher and worsen your state little by little. All you need to stop it is to go for a walk. Shopping can be a nice idea if you decide to buy some bright-colored clothes. Especially it will be useful to take some friends with you which is both fun and can help to improve your mood.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Symptoms of depression

In the first post I quoted the article which explains the built-up of depression. Now let us look closely on its symptoms so that we know every bit about the sickness we face. Here I’m posting the list of the most common symptoms of depression with my comments.
Feedback is much appreciated.

1. Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feeling sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). (In children and adolescents, this may be characterized as an irritable mood.)

This one is the most common symptom associated with depression and it is quite different from ‘feeling blues’. The main difference is that the feeling of sadness \ emptiness during depression is nearly constant. Moreover you keep thinking about it and pity yourself which makes it worse.

2. Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day

No matter If you have to participate in some job-related or fun activities - you wake up in the morning tired and go on through the day feeling sad and unwilling to do anything but sit and think about how bad you feel today. Everything else seems worthless if not annoying.

3. Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.

e.g. you are sure that you are not physically hungry. However, you keep eating more and more. Be it intentional search for some food in your kitchen or unwitting constant picking of some snacks while reading or sitting at the computer.

4. Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day

Troubles with getting to sleep and waking up in the morning, sleepy feeling during the day, multiple awakenings during the night, a desire to sleep long hours – sleeping disorders and depression are tied closely and can influence each other in different ways.

5. Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day

Swinging emotions as well as sudden changes from tiredness and lack of movement to agitation and rush.

6. Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day

This one is close to the second point: every action either physical or cognitive causes energy loss, annoyance and tiredness.

7. Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day

Consequences from unwillingness to do anything lead to the thoughts like “I don’t want and can’t do anything, I do everything wrong, I am a burden to everyone” etc. These thoughts bore sense of guilt for everybody and lack of confidence which make original depressive feelings worse.

8. Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day

Inability to concentrate or attempts to concentrate on too many things, being at the same time unable to finish all of them properly. Attempts to complete many tasks at the same time.

9. Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide

It can be not even a real suicide planning, but playing and experiencing a ‘movie’ in the mind of how will it be to commit suicide. However planning, attempting and committing suicide is a way for patients to free themselves from suffering on critical stage of depression.

The list is taken from here.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Principles of depression

Low mood, Anxiety, Delusions, Memory and concentration problems, Loss of interest in things you used to enjoy - one may think these are no big deal but just a normal reaction to stress at work, overdue bills, taxes, family quarrels or whatever.

However, when these symptoms are followed by sleep problems (either insomnia or oversleeping), eating disorders (increase or decrease in appetite), constipation, period irregularities, decreased libido, constant feeling of tiredness - one of the most possible diagnosis’ is depression.

It is obvious that to get over negative symptoms of a sickness one should understand it's origin. In this post I would like to quote one of the clearest yet simple explanations on how depression occurs I've ever read:

"The stress system relies on two key hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. In short, adrenaline works in the short term, while cortisol has large momentum and works in the long term.

It is important to realize that the stress system can also be activated if your brain perceives danger or any kind of threat. In the first stage, this triggers the release of adrenaline into the bloodstream to prepare the body for action. As a result, your heart beats faster, you begin to sweat, your breath becomes shallower, and your senses become more acute. This is the so-called fight or flight response to the stressor event, and was quite adequate during most of our evolution, when these events were quite specific and usually short-term. Problems with chronic stress arise because in a modern society we cannot escape easily from the stressor, be it an overbearing boss, crowded cities, or traffic jams.

The effect of the stress hormones on the brain is curious and not what you might expect. The initial surge of adrenaline will make you feel good, though not quite in the same way as with serotonin. The difference is that adrenaline will make you feel euphoric and accelerated, whereas serotonin produces a state which could be described as that of quiet bliss. However, as far as the communication between neurons is concerned, adrenaline can compensate for low levels of serotonin. There is, alas, a serious drawback of adrenaline: together with it comes cortisol, the yang of the stress hormones.

Just as your levels of adrenaline start coming down, so rises the amount of cortisol flowing through your veins. Moreover, cortisol has a much larger momentum than adrenaline, which means that even though it builds up slowly, it also takes a long time to go back to normal. And should you constantly be engaging in activities which require adrenaline, so will your levels of cortisol slowly increase. Together with the rise of cortisol and the decrease of adrenaline, come the nasty side-effects of the stress hormones. It is at this moment that you feel bad, anxious, and having lots of negative thoughts.

To complete the picture of how chronic stress causes depression, there remains one critical factor to be explained: high-levels of stress hormones will over time diminish your brain's ability to produce serotonin. The exact mechanism by which this happens is still subject to discussion, but the general consensus is that sleep is the key. The reason is that higher levels of stress hormones mean less sleep, which is fundamental for the brain to restore its ability to produce serotonin".

from: Demystifying Depression by Name of Feather

If you came this far, I hope you have understood the basics of how the depression build-up works: More stress hormones mean less happiness hormones which means depression. Now as we know the roots of evil we may proceed to cure methods.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad