Tag Archives: clinical depression

Only with knowing sadness…

Posted on by Aimer Shama

Only with knowing sadness can you come to know happiness.

I thought this moment would never come. I thought this feeling is long forgotten. I thought I can think CLEAR, it’s all in the past and I will never get depressed again.

I was WRONG.

Here I am, one month from my wedding, and feeling like a useless liability to those around me. Where did my optimism go? My happiness? My confidence? My enjoyment? My life?

And these thoughts! They are so negative all the time now. Like here I am writing this post, and it goes like “You’re doing this for attention, aren’t you?”

Well I’m not, I’m just leaving this as a message for the people who care. A person who cares is better than thousands who don’t, A good friend is better than any number of acquaintances.

“You know you shouldn’t be blogging, your doctor would be very upset.”

Well what does he know? Didn’t he warn me from bipolar groups? Now those groups made me my best real life friends who know how to pick me when I’m down. I’m pretty sure he’s wrong about this blog as well.

Anyway, just thought I’d get this message out there in case someone was wondering if I’m ever down. Well, I am the author of “Why I love being bipolar”. Now I’m thinking about what a joke that article was. But no I’ve got to bear with this.

Only with great sadness can you appreciate great happiness.

Yeah.. I made that up…

Anyway… Thanks for caring.

I love you all.

Aimer Shama

Why I Love Being Bipolar

Posted on by Aimer Shama

Van Gogh

If I am dragged to the topic of something I love about myself, I would not go there willingly. I’m never one to brag or boast. I wouldn’t tell you that I’m kind or generous or whatever; I’d leave you to find out for yourself, for actions speak louder than words.

But I would make an exception and do tell you something about me you are never likely to find out for yourself.

I love being bipolar.

This should not shock you, for the key to happiness is to love yourself, and they key to loving yourself is to accept yourself, whatever your self may hold.

It so happens that I have a bipolar self. Upon admitting this, I realized I have two options; whether to accept the fact that I’m bipolar, or forever suffer because of my refusal to accept myself.

It just so happens that I accepted being bipolar so much that I even came to appreciate it. Even admire it.

But how did I come to accept being bipolar in the first place? What is the key to acceptance?

In my honest opinion, I believe that the key to acceptance is humbleness. If you are humble enough to know your place, your abilities, advantages and disadvantages, and make sure your ego and pride fit who you really are to make space for humbleness, you will come to accept your limitations, especially the ones you cannot change.

I accept being bipolar.

I accept it the same way as I came to accept such things as darkness, evil or disease. Without darkness, we would not know light. Without evil we would not know good. Without any bad thing, we would not know the good thing it opposes.

You may be wondering if there is something that opposes bipolar disorder that I recognized. That was not my point. The point is to know the advantage of anything, even if it were a bad thing.

There are advantages to being bipolar.

In depression, you get to experience sadness, hopelessness and misery first hand. Without depression, I would have never appreciated how valuable it is to live without it.

Depression taught me the value of its absence.

In mania, you get to experience wild ambitions, pride, confidence, euphoria and creativity. But you lose your mental clarity, and with it, your logic. I would not be wrong if I say that with losing your logic, you lose your mind. If the package of mania came with mental clarity, perhaps every person on Earth would want a taste of it. But it does not. Your mind–your sanity–is your most valuable asset as a human being. If you lose your sanity, and get compensated with any number of good feelings ot characteristics, you would still not be able to compensate such a loss. Truly, if we can put sanity on one side of a scale, and every single attribute that can be had on the other, the sanity side would tip.

Mania taught me the value of its absence.

If mood were a world, then bipolar disorder is your ticket to see that world. You know more than anyone about the limb-tearing coldness of depression. You know more than anyone about the burning heat of mania. And you know, also more than anyone, where in the world of mood you would like to be. And when you get to that place, you cling to it with nails and teeth. You can be thankful for that place, be thankful for the bipolar ticket that let you know it, accept it, and even love being bipolar.

An Attempted Analysis of Kurt Cobain’s Suicide Note

Posted on by Aimer Shama

Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the immortal phenomenon of a band, Nirvana, took his life in 1994. The reasons for this are debatable. Even the issue of the death of Kurt Cobain is debatable; did Cobain commit suicide, or was Cobain murdered? From here, we enter the realm of speculation.

It is broadly believed that Kurt Cobain killed himself. He was found dead in his apartment on the 8th April, 1994. There was a shotgun across his body, a head wound, and what appears to be a suicide note.

The suicide note:

Note the last three lines that say: “For Frances. For her life which will be so much happier without me. I lovE You. I LOVE You”. Does this not make it, conclusively, an obvious suicide note?

Analysis:

The only case that this would not be a suicide note, is that if Cobain didn’t write it himself. It is far too long to be something written under threat, for example, at gun point. If you examine the note closely, you will find that it is largely incoherent. It shows signs of the lack of concentration attributed to ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, that Cobain was diagnosed with as a child. Or perhaps the inability to stay focused on one line of thought, rapidly switching from one topic to the next; an attribute of Mania, an episode. or a “pole”, of bipolar disorder.

But a manic person would not kill himself, as mania is also often associated with euphoria and grandiosity, yet Cobain seems to have loathed himself and severely depressed in this note. However, it is possible to experience both episodes of bipolar disorder, both mania and depression, at the same time. It is called a mixed episode.

The impact of the effect of both ADHD and BPD are apparent in this note, at a very rare and unstable combination of both. It resulted in this note.

I have been diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder, and have written a suicide note similar to this one. I never attempted suicide at the time I wrote the note I’m talking about at least. However, I try to analyse what Kurt Cobain was feeling when writing this note. I imagine it has taken Kurt a long time to write this note, picking his words as well as he could have at the time, experiencing what he was. Reading and rereading, fixing it here and there, which is evident by the crossing out of many sentences.

You can detect mania with its delusions shown by a sentence like “Frances and Courtney, I’ll be at your altar”. Frances is his daughter, while Courtney Love is his wife. What altar could he be talking about? How will he be there in death? Only Kurt could have answered this mystery, even if illogically as a delusional mind would explain it.

I lovE You. I LOVE You. Is the choice of letter casing in these two sentences intentional? Why say it twice? I believe that the first I lovE You was intended for Courtney, while the second, fully capitalized I LOVE You, was intended for Frances, with almost screaming emphasis and certainty.

The prime reasons for someone committing suicide, from my own experience, are mainly two things. One: The personal belief that, after initial grief, loved ones’ lives will be better after the death of the suicidal person (for her life which will be so much happier without me). Two: Freedom, in the relief of great pains of one’s own life, especially emotional pain, resultant of extreme depression whose symptoms can be unbearable as shown in my article about depression symptoms here. Even in religions that greatly warn that suicide is an unforgivable sin, these religions are also known for God’s compassion for the insane, which may also be believed by the person about to attempt suicide, that the inexplicable pain and depression is a result of one losing his mind (I’ll be at your altar).

The death of Kurt Cobain is one of the greatest losses witnessed in art and music. But perhaps there was a gain, even if minimal compared to the loss, for Kurt himself.

Summer Moon, author of the blog MyBipolarBubble.com, writes:

“That letter is such a powerful and heart wrenching thing to read. The chaotic writing style and messiness alone is just a perfect visual of what was going on inside of him. The jumbled pain and chaos that was attacking him from the inside out. But, then when you get down to the actual words and what he says it’s just so hard to read. I read that and it’s almost like something that I might say to a therapist. The feelings of what I have inside, of feeling too much and caring for people too much. He says this multiple times, but in different ways. It’s just so sad ’cause rather than having someone who he could really express that to, he put it in the letter before taking his life. It speaks a great deal to the pain that people suffer from in depression.

I’ve heard that people can kill themselves in a manic state too, but I see that as more of an accidental death. The irresponsible behavior, lacking inhibitions and dangerous actions, I think are what lead to those deaths. For example, I jumped into a moving vehicle several years ago in a hypomanic state. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, but all it would have taken was for me to miss the door and slip underneath the wheels and I could have been killed. That would have been a result of the bipolar (which I didn’t even know I had yet), but it would have been due to my irresponsible and dangerous behavior. Not, because I wanted to take my own life. Depression is completely different story, though.

I’ve heard so much about how Kurt Cobain was wild and lived on the edge and how it was only a matter of time due to his drug use. People say how it was that wild life that lead to his death. But, if this wasn’t some murder cover-up (which I personally don’t believe it was, but I’m open to information to prove otherwise), and he did indeed shoot himself, then ultimately it was depression that took his life. I wish more people would realize that. Those of us in the mental illness community do understand that due to how we feel day-in and day-out ’cause of what we go through. But people who haven’t experienced that kind of pain just view Cobain as another sad statistic of a rocker lost to drugs and alcohol.

I think it’s really great that you analyzed his suicide note and put it out there for others to read. It helps to put a more human face onto his rocker legend persona. It helps to show that although he was a wonderfully talented and lost-way-too-soon musician, that he was also a human being with a mind that was just as fragile as anyone else’s.”

Summer, I believe his drug use was his attempt to relieve his pains. Wish it worked.

Kurt, may you rest in peace. May you be at peace, and your loved ones.

PS: Kurt’s death motivated the birth of the wonderful website www.livingmatters.com, by Beverly Cobain, Kurt’s cousin. It is aimed at preventing teen suicide, the 2nd leading cause of death for ages 15 to 19.

Suicide Statistics: Among Lies and the Truth

Posted on by Aimer Shama

I actually believed that 15% of depressed individuals commit suicide. But if 7% of the US population is depressed, something did not quietly fit into the puzzle.

This amazing website on suicide, SAVE.org really did impress me, the site name being generated by Suicide Awareness Voices of Education. Apparently, they didn’t have much time to think of words that make up the word SAVE which is the better name. However, it’s got great information, but sadly no statistics. I respect that, having no statistics is much better than lying about them unlike suicide.org as shown in this article.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the rate is 11.3 per 100,000.

They claim that 90% of these deaths are linked to depression or substance abuse.

90% of 11.3 is 10.17. 10.17 deaths per 100,000 as a result of depression and/or substance abuse. To verify this claim, we will need to see the statistics for:

The prevalence of depression.

Suicide rate in depression.

The prevalence of substance abuse.

Suicide rate in substance abuse.

These four numbers will allow us to generate two numbers: 1. Suicide rate because of depression and 2. Suicide rate because of substance abuse assuming that those who commit suicide are either depressed or substance abusers (depressed substance abusers are fairly uncommon as shown here). Adding these two should give us aprx 10 deaths per 100,000 or better said 1 death per 10,000.

The prevalence of depression:

(Percentage Depressed)

Source of the graph can be found in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here.

We can see that the overall depression rate is about 7%, so suicide.org was right about the percentage of depressed individuals after all, but definitely wrong about suicides caused by depression. These numbers are actually enough to come up with something meanignful: assuming that 1 out of 10,000 people who commit suicide are depressed, you get 0.01%

31150: The number of Americans that kill themselves because of depression. It is 1/10,000 multiplied by 311.5 Million.

21,805,000: The number of depressed Americans. It is 7% of 311.5 Million

From both: (31150/21805000)x100= 0.14 % of depressed individuals commit suicide, giving us the 1 in 10,000 figure.

Yes, you heard that right. 0.14% Assuming that 90% of all people that commit suicide are depressed, you only get 0.14%. This means that the actual figure is even lower than 0.14% when you deduct substance abusers from the 90%.

Conclusion: less than 0.14% of depressed individuals commit suicide. If the 15% figure was true, you’d have 15 out of 100. What this means? It means that if if the population of the depressed people in the united states is 21.8 million, you’d have 3,270,350 deaths per year. I don’t think so!

Now that we have verified that less than 0.14% of depressed individuals commit suicide, need I say more about the other three figures we had needed? Need I say more about the bullshit fed to us in our most trusted sources–text books–that 15% of the depressed commit suicide?

Please…

Depression: Symptoms to Expect Part 2

Posted on by Aimer Shama

This is the part 2 of the article titled Depression: Symptoms to Expect found here. (opens new tab)

WARNING!!!

This article is not suitable for all readers. Caution is advised.

Part II: The severe:

Impulsive behavior: I label impulsive behavior as severe because it can lead you to do things that can literally destroy you life. You may decide that you want to sell your home, gamble the money away, and kill yourself afterwards, all on a whim. An article will be dedicated to impulsiveness later.

Severe insomnia: insomnia may get so bad that it can be impossible to sleep without medication. How bad it gets is that you must sleep successively and only when exhausted at the end of the day. If you wake up, after enough sleep or lack of it, you will not be able to fall asleep again except perhaps with something as a fatal and dangerous overdose. You may begin to wonder how does one fall asleep, why you aren’t, and how did you do it so easily before. You may look at other people enviously in their sleep, or even animals, a sleeping cat, wondering why you can’t have the blessing of sleep like them. You can get so tired, so desperately in need of sleep that you cannot open your eyes, yet sleep still won’t come.

Severe fear: fear can get so bad that you may be afraid of common household objects such as a television, a book case, or a certain room. You can be afraid of sounds like the sound of the air conditioning if it opens. Fear may not happen at all times. You may be okay with an object during the day, but fear it at night. You may not fear a room when awake, but fear sleeping in it. You can even be afraid of the tools that help you with any activities that may help you pass the time such as a book. You may have a fear of reading itself. Thankfully, when you have severe fear, your fear of pain or death may save your life.

Severely bad concentration: the simplest of tasks will suddenly feel extremely complex. For example, if you want to blog, you will not be able to concentrate on getting the computer open, waiting, logging in, opening the site, where to click, what to write, how to post… etc. Concentration may become as bad as a drunk even though you are sober. Thoughts may become as painful as needles to your brain. You just want to stop thinking completely, yet the only thoughts you have are the dark pessimistic ones.

Severe pessimism, case of low self esteem, sadness and anxiety: you may start thinking of how pointless everything is. “Why were you born if you are going to die anyway?” Is a question that even a none depressed person may ponder at times, but plays on loop when severely pessimistic. What is the point of anything? What is the purpose? Why bother? Nothing is good. Everyone is selfish. Everyone is bad. I am causing suffering to those I love. All these are some of the thoughts that may cross your mind. You may start hating yourself, feeling ugly, feeling useless, or even feel like a burden to those around you. Anxiety and sadness can reach a point that makes you may cry loudly, yell or scream.

Altered perception of time: an extremely dangerous symptom unlike what it sounds like that has an article dedicated solely to it. It can be found here: click to read my article on Altered Perception of Time (opens new window).

Severe social withdrawal: I have not experienced this myself, but I have seen it happen. This time, social withdrawal can get so bad that no matter what happens, you will look at everyone with distaste, and refuse to speak a single word no matter what happens. You simply stop talking completely. You suddenly give up on the people that you have obsessed over only so recently, afraid of the countless scenarios in which they die. At this point, nothing matters any more.

Disability: I do not think that you will be reading this if you have reached the point of disability. After above mentioned symptoms comes a time in which you cannot do the simplest things like eat, shower, walk, lie down…etc. It is a waking coma.

Thoughts of suicide: if you are contemplating suicide, and reading this, I am only guessing that you have already searched for painless methods to commit suicide online to find nothing but “Return to Jesus Christ” and all the “Please don’t do it” crap. I won’t do the same. I’ll simply share my experience with you. The pain of suicide is not the pain of dying that lasts less than a minute; it is the endless pain of those who love you that will live without you. It is the relief that you will feel when (not if) you get better. How I know that it will get better? With this fact: There is no such thing as a severe chronic (lasts for more than two years) depression. Depression can be either mild acute (less than two years), severe acute, or simply chronic, be it mild or moderate. The kind of depression with symptoms so severe that it leads you to contemplate suicide will always come to pass, no matter how hopeless the case is. You may not feel improvement for an entire month, but improvement can come as suddenly as your deteriorating depression did.

Do not think that suicide will make you special. Humans are so numerous that statistically, a person kills himself every minute. Don’t be one of those, and be one of those who survived the dark side of depression, and you will live to tell the tale. You will live to know that, truly, what does not kill you, makes you stronger, even though that what was about to kill you… was your own mind.

Depression: Symptoms to Expect

Posted on by Aimer Shama

A message with love:

I write this to you, dear reader, whether you are depressed, or afraid of being dragged into the wormhole of depression. The aim of this article is to let you know what to expect of depression. It will tell you more about depression, the symptoms of depression, specifically clinical depression, and the symptoms associated with it, ranging from the bearable mild symptoms to unbearable severe ones.

You need to know this in order to do all in your power to get out of depression if you are depressed, or not to slip into depression if you are not. I say this because depression does not hit in one night. The symptoms appear gradually beginning with the mild, and then the severe. You should always want to hit early, hit hard when facing clinical depression, so that you may stand up, brush yourself, and walk away, forgetting all about the experience of depression.

Treatment:

Any of the following symptoms, if they last for more than two weeks, merits you a visit to the doctor. If diagnosed as depressed, it is best to receive both clinical and emotional therapy for best results. You should talk to your doctor and see him or her weekly or every other week when depressed, and he or she will choose the drug and modify the dose based on the kind and stage of depression you have.

Depression symptoms include the following:

Part I: The Mild:

Sleep changes: can be insomnia or hypersomnia. Insomnia is when you face difficulty falling asleep, whether initially, or not getting enough sleep and failing to go back to sleep if you wake up too early. Hypersomnia, on the other hand, is the exact opposite; sleeping for too long to the point of exhaustion. Hypersomnia, compared to insomnia, can be considered mild, or even pleasant, as sleep is a vessel of escaping reality and your depression. Insomnia however, can be a terrible experience as we shall understand when explaining severe insomnia.

Irritability or anger: shows in the early stages of depression rather than late ones, irritability or anger are good warning signs that your mood needs attention. They manifest themselves in short temper, and when almost everything and everyone seem to get on your nerves.

Loss of energy: As a result of either insomnia or hypersomnia, you will experience loss of energy. With sleep changes, you will not have recovered enough energy as a result of insomnia, or will have slowly recovered some of it and will feel increased drowsiness as a result of hypersomnia. It is even possible to experience energy loss when depressed even if your sleep has not changed. You know you are losing your energy if your tasks feel exhausting or are taking longer to complete. You can be sure you are losing energy if it seems impossible to exercise.

Memory or concentration problems: depression can affect your memory, your concentration, your reasoning, your mind. You may find it harder to recall information or store new information. Your reasoning process can become slow or your arguments may become faulty. You may also find it difficult to concentrate on simple tasks. Concentration problems can manifest themselves severely as we shall see.

Appetite changes: feeling hungrier or fuller quickly are early signs of depression, and can stay with you throughout your depression. Whether you are eating more or less than what you are used to is associated with depression. You must expect unfavorable weight changes and be prepared to cope with it and the loss of self esteem that comes with it.

Anhedonia: it is the medical term used if you are unable to experience the same amount of pleasure that you used to when carrying out your favorite activities or hobbies. Writing, drawing, playing, exercising, sex…etc. may all seem less rewarding and more pointless.

Pain and pain sensation changes: pain may become harder to feel, or feel worse when experienced as your depression progresses. In severe cases, aches or cramps may start to appear.

Social withdrawal: whether you’re a loner or a people person, you will experience less than your usual desire for social contact. You may stay more at home, close or not answer your phone, or even close chat programs like MSN on Google Talk as soon as you start up your computer. Close ones are usually immune to this effect, where you will want to keep them exclusively close to you, but in severe cases, you will want extended times of complete isolation.

Slowing down: your actions or your speech may slow down. Stringing together a sentence may become harder, and walking may be slower. Your responses, for example when driving, may be significantly slower.

Sadness, fear, pessimism or anxiety: goes without saying, you may experience feeling sad or worried for no particular reason. It becomes almost impossible to smile, laugh or feel happiness. It is also normal under these conditions to be pessimistic, expecting the worst of scenarios or even not seeing the point of anything, a nihilistic view, if you will.

What? All this is mild?

Yes, believe you me, this is all mild. This is the not so dark side of depression. It gets pitch black. I am not saying this to scare you. I am saying this to prepare you. To know that you’re experiencing has been shared by thousands for centuries. You can have some of the above displayed symptoms, but get on with your life if not so efficiently. As we shall see, and as you may not see on many web sites, hear from many people, or get told by many doctors, the following is the scary side of depression.

It can get so bad that doing something as waiting for an hour may feel like waiting for ten. You may be able to do nothing, unable to think right, talk right, walk right. You may be unable to do anything you usually do with ease like read, cook or watch TV, or even listen to music. Nothing becomes bearable. You simply exist, waiting for the day to end as soon as it begins, wondering if the depression will ever end, wondering why me, wondering if you’ve gone mad or if you’ll ever be the same.

You may even contemplate suicide for various reasons, none of which will ever be good enough or ever make sense to a normal person. These thoughts will only make sense to their owner and only when all hope fails. Suicide is an unforgivable crime against yourself and those who love you. I personally beg you not to do it. Hope is never lost. There is always hope. It will all come to pass, and you will be grateful that you did not do it, or that you have failed at it.

The following part is not suitable for all readers. Caution is advised.

Proceed to Severe Symptoms of Depression and part 2 of this article.


Dealing with Depression

Posted on by Aimer Shama

BiPolar Help Line

Depression and Its Types

What is depression?

Depression can be categorized under one of two broad categories; one is depression, and the other is clinical depression. When speaking so broadly, we can treat depression literally like it’s a down trend in a graphical representation of your mood. That’s just it: down-ness. So there’s either a regular down, or a clinical down. A regular down has to do with life experiences. A clinical down, being clinical, has to do with the imbalance in certain chemicals in your brain. Let’s cover those two in more detail. Note that my definitions are nothing scientific and my only source is personal experience and understanding. They are my opinion and are in no way intended to be a reference source for your studies, only to add to your life experience.

The two types of depression.

What is emotional depression?

Normal depression, or emotional depression, is any negative feeling that we can associate with some kind of being down. So many things like unhappiness, sadness, hopelessness or any emotion that can make up a part of a depression down trend. It is completely normal that after, for example, the failure in a test (if you’re not used to it) up to the stealing of your car or the death of someone dear to you to all greatly depress you.

Each one of us can be depressed in various ways. It is said that the depression is clinical if it lasts for more than two weeks, but I say different. Indeed, if for example your soulmate dies, you can grieve for months on end. That is normal, and there is nothing “clinical” about it, unless it triggers unusual emotions like worthlessness, or disturbances like appetite or sleep disturbances.

Very briefly: Normal depression always has a cause, and is resolved mainly by your decision to have it resolved through letting it go and moving on.

Some people think that antidepressants can help alleviate normal depression and its manifestations like sadness. They are wrong. Antidepressants are a tool to treat chemical disturbances in the brain that cause depression. But since normal depression is caused by an incident, and not chemical disturbances, antidepressants, in these cases, accomplish nothing. It’s like taking vitamin C to restore a vitamin K deficiency. To deal with this kind of depression, you do not need a drug, you need a friend.

What is clinical depression?

Clinical depression is exactly like depression but for some differences.

One: It may not have a cause, although it can be triggered by normal depression and its causes. Its cause is chemical disturbances in your brain, whether a decrease of happy chemicals or an increase of sad chemicals.

Two: It shows much more serious symptoms that can literally incapacitate you. It may not only affect your life, it can actually destroy it.

Three: It is treatable by antidepressants. However, if clinical depression was triggered by something, you will need both drugs and to resolve the issue that is causing the normal depression. It is like having two conditions at once, and requires two types of solutions at once. One without the other won’t cut it.

 The two types of solutions:

There is the clinical solution, and the emotional solution. So, in my honest opinion, emotional treatments like psychotherapy or keeping a gratitude journal can only possibly work with normal depression. Also, clinical treatments that aim to ease the imbalance of chemicals, and restore harmony to them,  like electroconvulsive therapy and antidepressants, can only work in the case of clinical depression. It is fairly straight forward: treat vitamin C deficiency with vitamin C, and vitamin K deficiency with vitamin K. Can’t use one for the other, And if both deficiencies exist, both vitamins must be supplemented. If both depressions exist, both treatments must be used.

What to do when depressed?

If you have been depressed for more than two weeks, depression being downness of any kind, do not be shy to seek medical help no more than a bad fever lets you seek it. Even if your depression is only emotional, or normal, a doctor will help you differentiate between the two, and treat you as required.

Again I say that when emotionally depressed, seek only emotional treatment. However, when clinically depressed, to stay on the safe side, seek both emotional and clinical treatment. I say that because your clinical depression, being more severe, can mask your emotional depression.

May your happiness always be with you.

Aimer Shama.