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Depression passport

Just leave us alone...
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Depressed people pop up often on websites, and are generally pleasant, imaginative, and full of dark humour (and there's me as well).

But any post that mentions Depression itself will get "just go get laid" or "wtf" in 95% of the responses. This is just plain depressing.

Solution: your doctor issues you, along with Prozac, with an e-passport identifying you as a Genuinely Depressed Person. With that passport you get Premier Membership of every forum, chatroom or online timewaster available, and can choose to exclude non-depressed participation in any of your posts.

Result: the depressed have more fun on the web than anyone else. Depression becomes cool, Madonna and Tom Cruise give up whatever it is they do to try to become Depressed, and those of us who got in at the ground floor become very very rich indeed.

Life! don't talk to me about life...

whennightfalls, Nov 25 2006

Eckhart Tolle http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Eckhart_Tolle
cure for depression #1 [JesusHChrist, Nov 26 2006]

Crazyboards.org http://www.crazyboards.org
High reality content, in my opinion. [pertinax, Nov 29 2006]

Sydney Smith... http://www.happines...ips_for_cheeri.html
...apparently [pertinax, Nov 29 2006]

[link]






       Have you read the help file? Welcome anyway. (Love your username).
blissmiss, Nov 25 2006
  

       This is several ideas mixed into one semi-coherent idea/rant.   

       1. depressed people are generally pleasant, imaginative, and full of dark humour (really?, I thought they were mopey and annoying)   

       2. chat rooms should have 'Premier Membership' where you can exclude people from your conversations (I think you'll end up lonely rather than being envied). This assumes depressed people like to talk to other depressed people - I thought that depressed people were more like zombies, i.e. needing to feed off the brains of non-depressed people.   

       3. doctors can certify you 'Genuinely Depressed' and issue you a 'Premier Membership' to every web-forum.   

       4. depression becomes cool on the internet and it spreads to being cool amongst celebrities (and then trickles into being cool for the general public).   

       5. ???   

       6. profit!   

       go and get laid. Absurd [+].
xaviergisz, Nov 26 2006
  

       //This assumes depressed people like to talk to other depressed people//   

       Of course, what does misery love?
fridge duck, Nov 26 2006
  

       //the depressed have more fun on the web than anyone else// when I am stricken with depression I am totally disfunctional - depression is not understood by anyone except those who have it - and even then, only when they are "In It"   

       If you can explain it, then you don't have it. Everything else is just a low feeling that anyone can have.   

       Depression is a zero point black hole into which your true self vanishes like a thread lowered down a mine shaft with no bottom. Sorry to go on, but depression is something of an old friend to me - and one that I can live without. I just worked through a small bout of it in Sept/Oct, and no passport would have made any difference to me.
xenzag, Nov 26 2006
  

       rereading my above anno, I realise I may have come across as callous, when I was actually trying for deadpan humour.   

       In my experience, depression is caused by either external factors (season/weather, food, work, friends etc) or internal machinations. The external factors sometimes trigger the internal machinations, but not always.   

       These internal machinations that lead to depression can almost invariably be traced back to a disparity between "the way things are" and "the way things should be". As soon as this disparity becomes great enough, depression tends to kick in.   

       Anything from personal regrets, to staring into the abyss of your finite existence, can lead to this schism/disparity.   

       Unfortunately, realising the internal cause of depression does not help greatly in overcoming it.   

       I guess this is somewhat relevant to halfbakers since everyone has been drawn here on the basis of "the way things should be".   

       I want re-iterate that this is *my* understanding of depression, and am not trying to diminish the profoundness or the complexity that depression has for others.
xaviergisz, Nov 26 2006
  

       xenzag's description/definition of depression is the correct one - any depressive will recognise that image. I guess I was talking from the standpoint of treated depression, when you can actually talk about stuff though you don't forget the pain.   

       Anyway, I come across a lot of depressives on t'net and the one thing you'll never get from them is a shallow response. That's why they're the best.
whennightfalls, Nov 26 2006
  

       when i wrote my anno, I was in no way trying to convey that the subject of depression should be taboo for humour or any other suggestion, so I'm giving this idea a [+] because it's actually quite inventive and original, and has worthy sentiments.
xenzag, Nov 26 2006
  

       I have suffered from depression, on and off since I was a teen. (First suicide attempt after brother and mother both tried. One successfully, the other not).   

       I have used every medication man ever created, and have only in the last 2 weeks found a great triple combination, that a "new" shrink prescribed me after a very recent and sudden bad stretch of life changes.   

       I am neither "mopey or annoying" without proper treatment, but I will sleep non-stop, lose my job, lose friends. and lose valuable days of my life, because I am unable to stay awake.   

       With the right combo of meds, and the right balance in my body of neurotransmitters, and all those other hard to spell chemicals roaming around in my body, I am as happy as a person can be.   

       So what I am trying to say is; If you are out there and suffering, on the wrong meds, or the meds stop working, GET TO THE RIGHT DOCTOR A.S.A.P. There is help. You are being robbed of the most cherished gift one can have. Time.   

       Sorry to go on so, but as you might presume, it's a subject I am very passionate about.   

       (Say I just realized I don't know what the "H" in JesusHChrist stands for)!
blissmiss, Nov 26 2006
  

       Jesus Teflon Christ?   

       It just occured to me the edible jesus Idea hasn't been out lately. Maybe we should shake off the dust and give it a spit shine before his/it's birthday?
blissmiss, Nov 26 2006
  

       Good for you, [blissmiss]. I used to get mopey and annoying *and* what you said.
pertinax, Nov 29 2006
  

       "But any post that mentions Depression itself will get "just go get laid" or "wtf" in 95% of the responses." - Run a search for the d-word in this site and you will find this is not the case around here. I can't vouch for other sites - I don't visit them because they're full of mopey bastards...
wagster, Nov 29 2006
  

       The sentiment is admirable, but I don't think encouraging depressed people to spend more time on the web is the solution. Without wishing to come across as a member of the insensitive WTF brigade, I would guess that personal social contact, exercise and any activity that involves leaving the house, would -in combination with any necessary medicine - render superior results to sitting alone in a room browsing the web for hours on end.
DocBrown, Nov 29 2006
  

       Periodic periods, eh? Zat like momentary moments or occasional occasions?
squeak, Nov 29 2006
  

       I get episodic episodes like this myself - very dangerous indeed. A sustained endolphin binge can seriously affect a person's judgement, causing them to consider other people, not as malicious hordes of scheming disease carriers, but as rational and engagable kinsfolk. But don't worry, effects as pronounced as these rarely last for very long.
zen_tom, Nov 29 2006
  

       Yeah, bingeing on those dolphins can really make you ill.   

       (sp. endorphins.)
webfishrune, Nov 29 2006
  

       If I could vote on annotations, and I wish I could, I'd give a bun to DocBrown here.   

       My experience is that meeting people and new circumstances lift my chronic depression. One of the most depressed periods I ever had was around twelve years ago, when I had become unemployed and spent ALL my time behind the screen for a year and didn't see anyone. Things improved when I got a job again, but I'm frustrated about the time I lost - other people developed while I stood still.   

       Anyway, someone just called me a name here and I need to work - I'm ready for a break. No more Sheet Torque from me for a while.
jmvw, Nov 29 2006
  

       There was me thinking I was the only member of the prozac nation on the hb. Are you all nuts, or is it just a popular option? Is that why it feels like a support group?
Murdoch, Nov 29 2006
  

       //it feels like a support group//   

       Wasn't there a reason for 'not the Happy Cuddle Club' being on of the slogans under the croissant, and I didn't think that it was being sarcastic or ironic.   

       I always thought that it was those with the 'brain the size of a planet', if you'll forgive the Marvinism, that were more likely to suffer from what was known as melancholia.   

       'Don't cry, emo kid' is another phrase that describes those who descrive a feeling of depression, and is a simple brush off. My school has actually made it a detentionable offence to call anyone an 'emo'.
A huge problem with depression is that the sufferer cannot talk about it with anyone else in the 'real world' so to speak. Even if they did talk about it, they may be ostracised by others, due to how the sufferer 'hasn't got anything to be depressed about'. Depression in the younger years is potentially more dangerous, as if the sufferer came out with it, his or her peers would not go anywhere near them, they would become a sort of social leper. I know for certain that if I came out with it, even to my friends, they would not understand or be able to deal with it. To them I am a cheery person with a surprisingly black sense of humour, and they do not understand how it's like being in a black hole and not thinking that there's any way out. They don't understand how painful it is to smile, even a little, when what I really want to do is go home and sleep.
froglet, Nov 30 2006
  

       I like this idea, People will go online and pretend to be deppressed because they think it's cool but with this passport system if you are diagnoised as depressed can cut out the bullshit and get moral support and guidence. All though most depressed people will stay away from docters unless there're after the happy pills.   

       Please do not get angery if i have offended people i didn't mean to if i have.   

       The reason i think i might have offened people is that i'm not depressed. I've seen people act depressed that have gone through less than me but to be honest there a people that are a lot worse off than me out there. It's this knowlage that keeps me from thinking i'm deppressed. I'm an optimist. but i'm not about to go and see a docter cause i feel a bit sad one day. I like your idea as someone like me might just be a bit upset and feeling sorry for them self and talk as though depressed online, with the passport people will know there's nothing wrong with these just upset people and give thier support to people who need it   

       I can't see it being done but i'll bun it!
balloon, Nov 30 2006
  

       I don't like this idea. If implemented, I forsee various problems.   

       1: Depressed people with Seasonal Affect Disorder are most commonly treated with bright light because the darker days of winter are part of the cause of the depression, and I suspect that if people with this disorder got out more often, their symptoms would be much less severe. Giving them any kind of motivation to spend more time in a dark room in front of a screen is probably a bad idea... unless that screen puts out nearly enough light to blind them.   

       2. Depression is often caused by some outside factor, such as the death of a loved one, loss of a job, etc. These outside factors often cause people to say they are depressed even though they do not meet clinical requirements, and therefore would get no pass, and no support from people who have had it worse than them. This idea would cause more of these people to go into full blown medically intervened depression before they got a "fair" support group audience on the net.   

       3. Many people who are sad can recover spontaneously without medical intervention before they dip into full blown depression. They are more likely to recover rapidly if they have a good support network.   

       4. Medications, as great as they are for people who cannot recover on their own, are only a way to treat the symptoms. They do not cure depression, and their influence is usually only temporary. Encouraging people who could get well on their own (which is a permanent cure) to instead take an expensive temporary cure is ethically questionable, financially callous, and a great help to the already burgeoning designer drug companies, who would then have new patients who need new drugs from time to time.   

       Well, I'm off to my own short, and relatively speaking, well lit mine shaft. Don't send any doctors in after me.
ye_river_xiv, Aug 23 2007
  
      
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