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Have you signed up to see the therapist? It sucks that you have to wait a month, but it sounds like this has been going on a lot longer than a month and it is likely to continue for a lot longer than a month, so it's worth going even if you have to wait a month.
How long ago did her father die?
december 2009
The depression began slowly in September 2010 and is now climaxing.
In response to
Advice in fighting depression?
Generic Prozac costs me $4 a month. It has improved my mood greatly over the course of two months. I was afraid of side effects at first. Then, during one bad period, I remembered what exactly it was I was trying to cure and decided all the side effects that regularly come with and more are worth not going through that anymore. So is taking this stuff for the rest of my life.
SSRIs have varying levels of withdrawal symptoms (Prozac's is low, Paxil's high).One study on SSRIs shows that for many people they are not more effective than a placebo, but for the most depressed people they are extremely effective. If your girlfriend has sever chronic depression, there's a good chance the condition is genetic, and there's no very good way to fix that aside from medicine.
Dependence on a drug that is cheap, has few side effects, and can almost completely cure chronic depression is a very small price to pay for never feeling as worthless as depression can make you feel. I'm sure you can find many, many more such testimonials. If the side effects bother her, she can change drugs--there are a lot of alternatives.
Thank you. What convinced you to take the drug? And where can you inform yourself about the withdrawal symptoms and the effectiveness?
In response to
Advice in fighting depression?
My girlfriend suffers serious depression ... anorexia ... she considers herself very happy apart from the "depression periods"
The depression is very likely caused by some sort of dietary deficiency, and the depression periods are probably the periods when that deficiency is worst, so focus your attention on diet. If she isn't taking a multivitamin every day, fix that first. Then start keeping both a food log and a "daily mood" log. For the former, either write down everything eaten, or take a quick photo of it type up the log later using the photos. For the mood log, ask her to rate how she felt on a 1-5 scale and write it down at the end of each day. Then compare the two logs and look for patterns. Or publish the log and ask others to look for patterns.
Thank you. I think the anorexia is mainly a result of the depression. Her blood got checked a few months ago and everything seemed fine, but there is surely room for improvement. She eats very little meat, maybe she has a iron deficiency.
The main reasons for the depression seems to be the death of her father and the chronic pain, wich showed up long before the depression. Maybe there is also a genetic componence because her mother says about herself, that she has also very often "low mood". But she thinks it's just the way things are.
I will read up on vitamins. Do you think you can trust wikipedia in this respect?
Advice in fighting depression?
My girlfriend suffers serious depression. She has sleep disorder, anorexia, chronic pain, problems to concentrate, low selfesteem, daily low mood, listlessness and is very indecisive. On the other side she considers herself very happy apart from the "depression periods" and we have a great time together. We already consulted a psychotherapist, but there is waiting time about one month. I buyed her fishoil capsules, because she eats no fish and there is mild evidence that it helps treating depression (I don't think this will affect her depression greatly, but fishoil seems like an overall good idea). We often go on walks to catch some sunlight and get her some exercise.
She says she never want's to take antidepressants because she fears to get dependent from them. I think she might change her mind if there are very good arguments in favour of them. She is quite rational in spite of not knowing the LW-stuff. Does anybody of you know if there is any information of the succes rate of medicamentous (and psycho therapeutic) treatment available?
I highly appreciate any advice.
Furthermore i want to call attention to the topic of depression. A huge share of the population suffers at least once in their lifetime under depression (~20% in Germany). Sadly it's often not taken serious and a big taboo to speak about. Many people see it as self-inflicted. My girlfriend's mother doesn't believe in depression as a disease (see diseased thinking). It's a paradigm of irrationality that hurts people.
In response to
Open Thread: January 2010
"Imagine the human race gets wiped out. But you want to transmit the so far acquired knowledge to succeeding intelligent races (or aliens). How do you do?"
I got this question while reading a dystopia of a world after nuclear war.
In response to
Drawing Two Aces
I think Scenario 2 is wrong.
If you know, that one card is an ace, the probability that the second card is also an ace is 1/3, because there are two non aces and one ace remaining.
The tricky thing is, that it´s completely irrelevant, if the ace is of spades or of hearts. Remember, the question is if you hold both aces! Just distinguish between aces and non-aces..
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Have you seen this article I wrote? It is a non-drug-based depression-fighting story.
Thank you! I read it a while ago, but i couldn't recollect it properly and it doesn't come up within the first 5 sites of search results with "depression" as key word.