Depression - Not Just Feeling Low

[Twilight Hue]

11-12 hours sleep is almost average for me, 16 hrs is a bad day. If I took my medicine every day I would sleep 16 hrs a day average, so I only take the sleep inducing meds every two days, and live on a 48 hr cycle, oversleep the first day and under sleep the second day. When I'm a little manic I average about 8 hrs a day(averaged over two days) my ideal seems to be about 10 hrs a day.

Its too dangerous for me to take anti depressants that make you sleep less, because they can and do induce mania, which is my biggest problem, even though it doesn't happen often.

That's interesting in light my own depression results in chronic fatigue that's hard to control and address making the depression worse by the physical effects it has.

As a teen and young adult the hours you state that you sleep we're not unlike my own. It's less now but I never felt well rested pretty much all my life.

 

[Deadtroopers]

It takes a certain amount of medicine to get me to sleep, by taking it every second day instead of every day, I've effectively cut my dosage in half.

It sound as if you're getting caught coming and going. Honestly, try and bring it down gradually. The meds are supposed to help not hinder. Prescription guidlines are just that: guidlines. You are the expert in your own illness and no drug affects any individual in the same way. That is why there are so many psychiatric medications.

 

[Deadtroopers]

I can't sleep at all without my meds, damn it.

Tell me about it. I miss one dose and I am staring at the ceiling going slowly around the twist! Sometimes I think the cure is worse than the disease.

 

[Lyndon]

Without medicine I don't sleep AT ALL, so I need a certain amount of medicine to sleep, no more no less.

 

[psychoslice]

Tell me about it. I miss one dose and I am staring at the ceiling going slowly around the twist! Sometimes I think the cure is worse than the disease.

Well I take antipsychotics for schizo, I suppose that's why ?.

 

[psychoslice]

Without medicine I don't sleep AT ALL, so I need a certain amount of medicine to sleep, no more no less.

Yea, sleep is very important, its when healing takes place.

 

[Diederick`]

It's fun how that works, considering sleep deprivation is an effective therapy against depression. I do know that asleep is my favourite state of being and I have spent far too much time not being awake - fortunately I can keep my rhythm better now.

Depression is a very good word to describe this disease, considering it has the potential to depress everything until all you want to do is find a huge rock and lie under it for the rest of time. When I was younger I had pretty standard prejudices about depression, like 'it's all in your head' and 'just go out and do things'. While both of those prejudices do resemble reality in some way - it is all in my head and going out and doing things is helpful; they forgo the fact that depression generally drains energy and willpower, making doing anything a feat.

I'm so far glad I haven't been suicidal and the meds seem to do a good job of keeping me stable.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Despite being as common as it is, it's still surprising to me how little people tend to understand depression. You're quite right - too many people tend to view depression as merely feeling generally sad or "a bit down", when the reality is so much darker. It's also surprising how many people fail to understand that the actual symptoms of depression are far more difficult to recognize from the outside than people think. I think that's probably what scares people the most about the reality of depression; not just the incomprehensibility, to many people, of inhabiting a perpetually negative headspace that is seemingly impossible to "think" your way out of, but the notion that depression can be hiding below the surface of someone who appears in all respects to be a perfectly well-adjusted - perhaps even joyful - human being. Thinking about it that way kind of makes it sound like Invasion of the Body Snatchers if it were written by Franz Kafka, which is a horrifying thought in itself.