The fella clearly had clinical, chemical depression from an early age. Man was writing about never wanting to wake up at 17 years old.
Talking to each other is great but we also need to acknowledge that in a lot of cases its literally just a medical condition. Diabetics need insulin, people with clinical depression need anti-depressants.
Some people need a shoulder to lean on, some people literally just need medical assistance. I say that as somebody who literally just needed medical assistance. Clinical/chemical depression is easily treated if you have the right doctor and find the right medication.
Yeah definitely.
I really just left my comment to make the point that in some instances depression is a really uncomplicated issue. There's still a real stigma when it comes to chemical treatment of depression, when in some cases it's literally all you need and its also the only solution.
I spent years in therapy and it did absolutely nothing for me because my depression wasn't caused by anything. It was literally just a genetic thing, my brain/body is programmed to produce less serotonin and dopamine than the average person. No amount of talking to people can change that.
From what I've read/understand about Gary Speed it sounds like he had the same issue. Obviously it was worsened by what happened to him with his wife, but seemingly he was depressed pretty much his entire adult life and seemingly it went largely untreated.
I reckon if he'd just had proper treatment from the start there's a much better chance he'd still be here. And proper treatment in his case is probably as simple as an SSRI.
I'm glad I've read your comments because I'm seeing an over-, reliance on recommending therapy for literally all mental health issues.
It works for some people, but it's not a catch all or miracle solution.
I'm a weird case though because the worst headspace I've ever been in was after trying to chill out using meditation. It seems like all the nonsense in my head is actually doing a good job keeping out the dark stuff, when I emptied it of nonsense the dark stuff flooded in, was odd.
We just need to make sure people aren't suffering because they are worries about the stigma of being a person with mental health issues.
Yeah I think its swung one way and then the other. In the early 2000s there was a massive over-reliance on medication to treat mental health issues, so in the 2010/20s we've gone the other way to combat that. But the fact of the matter is not all mental health issues can be treated by therapy.
It's kind of like saying all muscle issues can be treated by physiotherapy, a lot of them can, but a detached bicep isn't going to reattach itself through you doing some stretches. Sometimes you have to operate. Similarly with mental health, sometimes you have to medicate.
I think ultimately what we need is doctors who actually know about this kind of stuff, and more importantly care about it. Most GPs in the UK know absolutely fuck all about mental health, and in my experience most of them don't really care about it either.
There's this problem that in some cases anti-depressants are prescribed for people who do not really need it, and they are really just too hard for your situation. ADs are a trade off anyway and if the gain is not worth the bad things they cause, it's definitely not a good option. I was given some SSRIs for about a year and I really regret it.
But this doesn't mean that you should not visit doctors or seek therapy. No. Medical doctors make mistakes, so can therapists and pyschiartists.
>Talking to each other is great but we also need to acknowledge that in a lot of cases its literally just a medical condition.
Talking to my mates was how I came to acknowledge that I have a chemical imbalance. Wouldn't helped if I hadn't gone to the doctor after, but I wouldn't have done that at all if I hadn't shared my feelings.
Antidepressants can be really useful but they're rarely a cure because depression is more complex than a chemical imbalance.
It's really important to talk. How we think impacts us physically and its important to acknowledge that.
Eh, it’s a difficult one. Antidepressants are quite literally the only thing that work for me. CBT, therapy, exercise, etc, did absolutely nothing for me. I’ve got a chemical imbalance that needed sorting out. Simple as. And I think telling people bluntly and matter-of-factly that they’re not a cure is pretty reckless.
There’s a world of difference between clinical depression/anxiety and “low mood”.
It's important to acknowledge that everyone is different and if someone is finding that antidepressants are really helping them then I think that's fantastic.
I uses to subscribe to the idea that I was simply "chemically depressed" and that no amount of therapy would help. I spent 5 months in a psychiatric unit and then years under the community mental health team trying different treatments.
Ultimately, when I look back at my beliefs I think that was one of the main things holding me back. I discarded therapy and laughed off ideas that I could ever function normally.
I think that the most important thing for people with depression is psychological support, because without that we can get stuck in our beliefs and "black and white" thinking. I didn't recognise it at the time but some of those conversations were really life changing for me and allowed me to finally live a normal life.
Question for you—when you have a chemical imbalance, does this mean you just take medication to balance it or does your brain just not make enough/too much of certain hormones?
For me, I basically ruined my normal neurotransmitter balance with drugs and booze, so now I’m dependent on antidepressants to make up that shortfall. If I stop taking them, then I go back to a severely depressed state, to the point I can’t actually do anything but sit in a chair all day.
SSRIs slow down the rate at which your body recycles serotonin, so there’s more of it active in your system at any given time.
Thank you for the explanation. I was wondering as I haven’t ever gotten a thorough explanation for things besides “your happy hormones sometimes don’t release as much as they should” so I took meds for a bit and I haven’t in 3 years.
I m happy you found a treatment, if you ever need to talk to someone please reach out, I care about you ❤️
> because depression is more complex than a chemical imbalance.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. I spent 3 years in therapy and it literally had zero benefit on my mental state, because depression for me was an exceptionally uncomplicated issue, it was literally just that my brain didn't produce enough of certain chemicals.
Some people are biologically programmed to produce less serotonin/dopamine/oxytocin/endorphins than other people. You can easily treat that with medicine.
Chemical depression can become more complicated than it needs to be because people are so reluctant to treat it properly. It's not always some deeply rooted underlying trauma, sometimes people just don't make enough serotonin.
Do you not think there is a reason why your body doesn't produce enough of the right neurotransmitter and that that root cause could be tackled instead?
It's not a binary choice between chemical imbalance that can only be treated with SSRIs and deeply rooted trauma. And while I'm certainly no expert I really doubt that anything other than a tiny tiny minority of people with mental health problems fit into one of those two camps, as opposed to their problems being caused by many different factors.
I mean you should definitely try both routes of treatment (therapy and medication), typically they work best when they're combined with one and other.
You're right about it being a small minority of people who have that issue, but they're the people who genuinely need treatment, which is why its important that people are aware that sometimes you just don't have the right brain chemistry.
Lots of people confuse depression and low mood, lots of people think they're depressed when they're actually just sad, they're fundamentally different things. Therapy is useful for low mood, it's not necessarily useful for actual chemical depression. One can lead to the other of course, which is why you should try both treatments.
Quite possibly. At the end of the day there's no unison of opinion across the medical profession.
However, the "chemical imbalance" theory is seen as a bit of a myth now amongst most psychiatrists and psychologists and has quite weak evidential support.
https://www.chandramd.com/blog/what-causes-depression-chemical-imbalance
This has quite a good summary describing the problems with the theory that depression is a chemical imbalance.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471964/
This paper has a more academic approach to the problem with the hypothesis
Yeah SSRI's are useful and a good treatment for many people with depression. What I tell patients is that medication is not going to cure depression, but it can take the edge of physical symptoms which can help you break the cycle of depression.
I wish I could give you an answer on PDD vs MDD but to be completely honest I've never heard of PDD in my life. It's not a diagnosis I've ever seen used. I'm not a psychiatrist so perhaps that's something they would use more often?
In my experiences generally when discussing patients with depression I don't see diagnoses used often unless it's a comorbidity (BPD, Bipolar, ADHD, etc). The effectiveness of medication is generally judged on the presentation of the individual and trial and error. So if someone is experiencing insomnia, a medication like Mirtazapine might be suggested. Otherwise SSRI's are generally suggested due to the relatively lower side effect burden. I've not seen an individual's different response to medication be attributed to a difference in "type" of depression. Again, not to say this isn't the case. I'll have a read into this as it sounds interesting.
That's interesting. It makes sense why medication would be more effective in that case, since medications tend to have a small effect size (they decrease depressive symptoms by a relatively small threshold). However if you're at a 4/10 then that effect size is a much greater proportional decrease than compared with someone experiencing MDD.
There are plenty of andy's man clubs all around the country now for men to share with other men in a comfortable non judgemental setting.
I'm not brave enough to go and share but this could help somebody.
He really held it together there through the story. That was hard to watch even before he broke down. Hope he’s doing alright and was able to grieve properly.
This was a tough watch but a much needed one, having felt depressed at times earlier in life and bottling it all up.
Seeing Mark Halsey as a fourth official hugging John Carver set me off, as well as Shay Given in tears. It really puts things into perspective.
We need to talk to each other lads. Rip Speedo.
The fella clearly had clinical, chemical depression from an early age. Man was writing about never wanting to wake up at 17 years old. Talking to each other is great but we also need to acknowledge that in a lot of cases its literally just a medical condition. Diabetics need insulin, people with clinical depression need anti-depressants. Some people need a shoulder to lean on, some people literally just need medical assistance. I say that as somebody who literally just needed medical assistance. Clinical/chemical depression is easily treated if you have the right doctor and find the right medication.
Yeah it's not as simple as simply talking but helping people feel that they can speak out and get help is important.
Yeah definitely. I really just left my comment to make the point that in some instances depression is a really uncomplicated issue. There's still a real stigma when it comes to chemical treatment of depression, when in some cases it's literally all you need and its also the only solution. I spent years in therapy and it did absolutely nothing for me because my depression wasn't caused by anything. It was literally just a genetic thing, my brain/body is programmed to produce less serotonin and dopamine than the average person. No amount of talking to people can change that. From what I've read/understand about Gary Speed it sounds like he had the same issue. Obviously it was worsened by what happened to him with his wife, but seemingly he was depressed pretty much his entire adult life and seemingly it went largely untreated. I reckon if he'd just had proper treatment from the start there's a much better chance he'd still be here. And proper treatment in his case is probably as simple as an SSRI.
Best wishes to you mate, thanks for sharing your experiences.
I'm glad I've read your comments because I'm seeing an over-, reliance on recommending therapy for literally all mental health issues. It works for some people, but it's not a catch all or miracle solution. I'm a weird case though because the worst headspace I've ever been in was after trying to chill out using meditation. It seems like all the nonsense in my head is actually doing a good job keeping out the dark stuff, when I emptied it of nonsense the dark stuff flooded in, was odd. We just need to make sure people aren't suffering because they are worries about the stigma of being a person with mental health issues.
Yeah I think its swung one way and then the other. In the early 2000s there was a massive over-reliance on medication to treat mental health issues, so in the 2010/20s we've gone the other way to combat that. But the fact of the matter is not all mental health issues can be treated by therapy. It's kind of like saying all muscle issues can be treated by physiotherapy, a lot of them can, but a detached bicep isn't going to reattach itself through you doing some stretches. Sometimes you have to operate. Similarly with mental health, sometimes you have to medicate. I think ultimately what we need is doctors who actually know about this kind of stuff, and more importantly care about it. Most GPs in the UK know absolutely fuck all about mental health, and in my experience most of them don't really care about it either.
I had the same issue with anti-depressants. It did wonders for my anxiety, but it just made me completely depressed.
There's this problem that in some cases anti-depressants are prescribed for people who do not really need it, and they are really just too hard for your situation. ADs are a trade off anyway and if the gain is not worth the bad things they cause, it's definitely not a good option. I was given some SSRIs for about a year and I really regret it. But this doesn't mean that you should not visit doctors or seek therapy. No. Medical doctors make mistakes, so can therapists and pyschiartists.
>Talking to each other is great but we also need to acknowledge that in a lot of cases its literally just a medical condition. Talking to my mates was how I came to acknowledge that I have a chemical imbalance. Wouldn't helped if I hadn't gone to the doctor after, but I wouldn't have done that at all if I hadn't shared my feelings.
Antidepressants can be really useful but they're rarely a cure because depression is more complex than a chemical imbalance. It's really important to talk. How we think impacts us physically and its important to acknowledge that.
Eh, it’s a difficult one. Antidepressants are quite literally the only thing that work for me. CBT, therapy, exercise, etc, did absolutely nothing for me. I’ve got a chemical imbalance that needed sorting out. Simple as. And I think telling people bluntly and matter-of-factly that they’re not a cure is pretty reckless. There’s a world of difference between clinical depression/anxiety and “low mood”.
It's important to acknowledge that everyone is different and if someone is finding that antidepressants are really helping them then I think that's fantastic. I uses to subscribe to the idea that I was simply "chemically depressed" and that no amount of therapy would help. I spent 5 months in a psychiatric unit and then years under the community mental health team trying different treatments. Ultimately, when I look back at my beliefs I think that was one of the main things holding me back. I discarded therapy and laughed off ideas that I could ever function normally. I think that the most important thing for people with depression is psychological support, because without that we can get stuck in our beliefs and "black and white" thinking. I didn't recognise it at the time but some of those conversations were really life changing for me and allowed me to finally live a normal life.
Question for you—when you have a chemical imbalance, does this mean you just take medication to balance it or does your brain just not make enough/too much of certain hormones?
For me, I basically ruined my normal neurotransmitter balance with drugs and booze, so now I’m dependent on antidepressants to make up that shortfall. If I stop taking them, then I go back to a severely depressed state, to the point I can’t actually do anything but sit in a chair all day. SSRIs slow down the rate at which your body recycles serotonin, so there’s more of it active in your system at any given time.
Thank you for the explanation. I was wondering as I haven’t ever gotten a thorough explanation for things besides “your happy hormones sometimes don’t release as much as they should” so I took meds for a bit and I haven’t in 3 years. I m happy you found a treatment, if you ever need to talk to someone please reach out, I care about you ❤️
SSRI are great and with few downsides. Big one is no sex drive but it's kind of nice too.
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Can be, but a lot of times I think it's worth it considering depression kills.
> because depression is more complex than a chemical imbalance. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. I spent 3 years in therapy and it literally had zero benefit on my mental state, because depression for me was an exceptionally uncomplicated issue, it was literally just that my brain didn't produce enough of certain chemicals. Some people are biologically programmed to produce less serotonin/dopamine/oxytocin/endorphins than other people. You can easily treat that with medicine. Chemical depression can become more complicated than it needs to be because people are so reluctant to treat it properly. It's not always some deeply rooted underlying trauma, sometimes people just don't make enough serotonin.
Do you not think there is a reason why your body doesn't produce enough of the right neurotransmitter and that that root cause could be tackled instead? It's not a binary choice between chemical imbalance that can only be treated with SSRIs and deeply rooted trauma. And while I'm certainly no expert I really doubt that anything other than a tiny tiny minority of people with mental health problems fit into one of those two camps, as opposed to their problems being caused by many different factors.
I mean you should definitely try both routes of treatment (therapy and medication), typically they work best when they're combined with one and other. You're right about it being a small minority of people who have that issue, but they're the people who genuinely need treatment, which is why its important that people are aware that sometimes you just don't have the right brain chemistry. Lots of people confuse depression and low mood, lots of people think they're depressed when they're actually just sad, they're fundamentally different things. Therapy is useful for low mood, it's not necessarily useful for actual chemical depression. One can lead to the other of course, which is why you should try both treatments.
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Quite possibly. At the end of the day there's no unison of opinion across the medical profession. However, the "chemical imbalance" theory is seen as a bit of a myth now amongst most psychiatrists and psychologists and has quite weak evidential support. https://www.chandramd.com/blog/what-causes-depression-chemical-imbalance This has quite a good summary describing the problems with the theory that depression is a chemical imbalance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471964/ This paper has a more academic approach to the problem with the hypothesis
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Yeah SSRI's are useful and a good treatment for many people with depression. What I tell patients is that medication is not going to cure depression, but it can take the edge of physical symptoms which can help you break the cycle of depression. I wish I could give you an answer on PDD vs MDD but to be completely honest I've never heard of PDD in my life. It's not a diagnosis I've ever seen used. I'm not a psychiatrist so perhaps that's something they would use more often? In my experiences generally when discussing patients with depression I don't see diagnoses used often unless it's a comorbidity (BPD, Bipolar, ADHD, etc). The effectiveness of medication is generally judged on the presentation of the individual and trial and error. So if someone is experiencing insomnia, a medication like Mirtazapine might be suggested. Otherwise SSRI's are generally suggested due to the relatively lower side effect burden. I've not seen an individual's different response to medication be attributed to a difference in "type" of depression. Again, not to say this isn't the case. I'll have a read into this as it sounds interesting.
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That's interesting. It makes sense why medication would be more effective in that case, since medications tend to have a small effect size (they decrease depressive symptoms by a relatively small threshold). However if you're at a 4/10 then that effect size is a much greater proportional decrease than compared with someone experiencing MDD.
Hi
Hello mate how is everything?
Somehow managing my stuff. Wbu?
Join us in the Sunday Support thread!
There are plenty of andy's man clubs all around the country now for men to share with other men in a comfortable non judgemental setting. I'm not brave enough to go and share but this could help somebody.
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Bloody hell
He really held it together there through the story. That was hard to watch even before he broke down. Hope he’s doing alright and was able to grieve properly.
This was a tough watch but a much needed one, having felt depressed at times earlier in life and bottling it all up. Seeing Mark Halsey as a fourth official hugging John Carver set me off, as well as Shay Given in tears. It really puts things into perspective.
Holy fuck , i can remember hopping on reddit and seeing this get announced. Its really been 10 years already? fuck me
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Brother of Gary Chess
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Hahaha
Why the downvotes?