Developers and Depression [video]
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What Greg describes is nothing like that. Now, I don't regularly hide under the bed to avoid people, but I've always suffered insomnia, regularly take on projects outside of my abilities (sometimes successfully), have a slew of unfinished projects and ideas, feel like everything is ripe to happen now, have days where I regularly don't want to get out of bed (but rarely stay later than 10), etc. etc.
Anybody else out there feel the same? People have always said I'm different, but I've never really understood how. I just assumed everybody else was like me, and would occasionally put on a braver face.
At the same time, I'm hesitant to get involved with the professional medical establishment because I abhor the idea of being fed drugs that affect my thought patterns. I'm beginning to work with meditation to try to keep myself better focused, and have been doing Yoga every day for the past 9 months.
Keen to hear the feedback and experience from others in the community.
The problem with not engaging a medical professional is the possibility that you have something that needs treatment. He mentions this with his statement on trying the ADHD drug for 30 days before making the decision to stick with it. The "medical establishment" gets a bad rap for over-billing and over-medicating, but, when something is broken, at least consult with a medical professional before just walking it off. You can't always tell how bad something is, or how it might affect you in the future, if left untreated.
Basically all of the medicines work by tweaking how your neurons react to various neurotransmitters, either at transmission or reception. The problem is, these don't target, their effect is throughout the entire neurosystem.
One of the best sources of information I have seen it Sapolsky's lectures on YouTube, he is a professor at Stanford. He does a really good job explaining what is actually going on inside the body, although it can be difficult to read further without a solid grasp of biochemistry. I did pretty well in organic chemistry in college, and got A's in it, but never took actual classes in biochemistry, only read books in my spare time on that, and I have had some difficulty sometimes.
Basically what I am trying to say is be careful, psych meds can really ruin your life if they aren't perfectly balanced, and it it almost impossible to get them perfectly balanced even if you have the best psychriatrists in the world, and you probably won't have the best. Unless your condition is already crippling, don't touch them. But by all means consider going to a therapist.
I learned how to tell when something was physically wrong from my parents and, as I grew older, a few friends. A scrape on my arm was fine, a low fever was fine, but falling out of a tree was a trip to the hospital for inspection. But, I never learned how to differentiate between mental issues the same way. As long as I was doing the things that other people were doing, and acting like others were acting, I was fine. Problems can linger, slowly degrading your life, until you wake up one day and notice that things are not good and haven't been good for a while. My main point was that you can't always tell, by yourself, if everything is fine. Sometimes you need another informed opinion, and people shouldn't fear medical professionals because of what they can do.
> my experience with the medical profession, 'to a hammer, everything looks like a nail'
I also don't blindly accept my auto mechanic's suggestions, or advice from people on the internet, without some additional personal research and a second opinion. You are paying them to find things that they think are wrong, because you think there might be something wrong. And, if you agree with that opinion, to help you fix it using their chosen methodology. If you don't like their hammer, find a different doctor. But, if they all recommend the same thing, reconsider your own opinion.
You may not have a problem now, but at least learn how to recognize and deal with it for when you do. Chronic problems, when left unchecked, can slowly destroy your life, and your future.