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Discussion & help on depression & mental health related issues
- Thread starter Groucho
- Start date
L
Lankers
Guest
Got to say as a supporter of another premier league club i think this thread is really commendable! Fantastic work as depression really is an illness which is often overlooked or not taken as seriously as it should. Been on this forum for a week or so reading through the different threads and your club have one of the best fan bases there is unlike the red [Poor language removed] in liverpool.
Hope you do better next season, you deserve it
Hope you do better next season, you deserve it
kithnou
Player Valuation: £70m
Thank you Sir
Toffee Yann
Player Valuation: £25k
Fellow Evertonians,
It's not often I'll be found saying this, but if there's anything I can do to help beat the blues. I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll throw in what I can offer. Although, it might not do that much good, more like Phil Neville (without the beach escapades) - just making up the numbers.
There's a great video here about depression and its effects. It's well worth watching, because it can help you to recognise and identify the warning signs but, for anyone going tl;dr or finding themselves in a rush, it's the same basic truth that underpins the dangerous elements of being depressed. It's clarity, or the illusion of clarity. I see that this thread started with Gary Speed, and OP was asking himself how he (GS) could do such a thing....
Depression can be latent, episodic, chronic, acute; it can be a mild annoyance, or a cripling disability. The demons you try to beat (or, at best, hide from yourself and the world) aren't in competition with anyone else's. If it's affecting the way you live your life or how you'd like to live, if it's impacting on your loved ones - partners, children, mates - and it's not allowing you to enjoy as many minutes in the day, then I'd urge you to reconsider the strong and silent facade. Trust me, I know that it doesn't work in the long run. Hiding behind the image of a strong, together, composed S.O.B. only goes so far before you exhaust yourself mentally and physically.
If you find yourself losing interest in your usual hobbies, fluctuating from high to low, eating or sleeping irregularly, too much or not enough, you're not looking after your own wellbeing, health and happiness. More than that, you're missing out on the things that used to give you pleasure. And that's the f***ed up part of it, you might feel like you don't want to do things, you might not want to go out, you might skip the pre-game bevvies in the John Thomas (I mean the Thomas Frost, but damnit if I can't stop calling it that), you might call in sick when you know you could go to work, but the thought of it makes you feel worse. And then you'll end up beating yourself up about not going in, missing the drinks, distancing yourself from your mates, losing touch, not going to that birthday party... etc. Ultimately, you'll miss out on living your life but you'll think you're doing the right thing at the time and, what's worse, you'll put yourself through the ringer afterwards for doing it. It's not pretty.
Remember - we all want to see you smile. Not that you should feel bad for feeling bad; nobody's forcing you to smile or getting fed up with you if you're not happy all the time. Think of it like having a teenage kid.... sure, they have bad moods (that never seem to end), but if they engaged with you and said "Dad, I'm a bit stressed out with.... can you just leave me alone?" then you'd understand. You might not like it, but that's the bitter pill. It's the same the other way round - if people in your life have an understanding of your mental state, they'll stand by you with a bit more patience and love. Now hang on, I'm not saying that you need to shout about depression from the highest mountain, but there's only so much that people can take on faith. In other words...
You also have to be honest with yourself. If you can acknowledge that life can be shitty, stressful, awkward and downright infuriating, but ultimately beautiful, rewarding and uplifting, you'll also know that there are steps you can take to feel a little better. There are techniques to help with coping and overcoming so many elements of depression. Now, I know I said that it's best to tell people, but if you feel like you can't, it's always necessary to at least admit it to yourself. There is a sense of awkwardness about admitting to depression, like it's a dirty word, only to be spoken in dark corners and in hospital wards. However, the more people that speak out, the less this will continue. Depression affects ONE in FIVE older people; a QUARTER of the population will experience some degree of mental health issue in the course of a year. YOU ARE NOT ALONE, either in your suffering or on your road to recovery. Once that becomes clear, so many opportunities present themselves.
There's medical and psychological support through counselling, therapy sessions and support groups - and nobody has to know. I say that because, as I'm sure a lot of you might know, there's a sense of pride and tenacity about the average beer-drinking, football-watching Evertonian. I know we're not all like that, but this is written with those men in mind, the kind of men who might think they're letting themselves and their familes down if they get depressed. You're not letting anybody down. Trust me. So where can you go from there? There's medication to break the cycle and give you the breathing room you need, where you'll be able to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and rebuild from where you left off. You'll find yourself taking an interest in things again. But don't go overboard, get yourself back into your routine. Don't try to take on everything at once, or you might be overwhelmed with decorating the extension, packing in working for Steve to start your own company, and starting the ballroom dancing classes with your missus.
Now, before I go off on a tangent and lose your attention... back on course.
The most dangerous consequence of depression is, as I said before, the illusion of clarity. You might find yourself going "but the world is [Poor language removed]" or "everything really is futile" or "nothing is going right". It'll cloud your mind and your mental vision; it pours a toxic mixture of chemicals into your system to make you hate the very things that you are and that you're capable of: being alive and happy. It'll twist your thinking so that you'll believe that up is down, black is white, and (god forbid) that maybe we should have battered City because Liverpool did deserve to win the league. Okay, that's a sick joke to make.
What I'm really trying to say is that sometimes it's okay to not be okay. There's no taboo or stigma, we're not going to point and laugh, we're not going to judge. We ARE going to wonder where you are on matchday, we're going to miss your jokes, we're going to miss your complaints, hell we'll even miss you defending Barry. But we're not going to forgive you for being out of sorts, bummed out, or a little weird, because we don't want apologies: we're all a little weird, and the best way you can apologise is to get down to your doctor's and ask for help. They will help you to help yourself. You are not broken, you don't need fixing - maybe the pieces just need a bit of jiggling.
Any questions, don't hesitate.
It's not often I'll be found saying this, but if there's anything I can do to help beat the blues. I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll throw in what I can offer. Although, it might not do that much good, more like Phil Neville (without the beach escapades) - just making up the numbers.
There's a great video here about depression and its effects. It's well worth watching, because it can help you to recognise and identify the warning signs but, for anyone going tl;dr or finding themselves in a rush, it's the same basic truth that underpins the dangerous elements of being depressed. It's clarity, or the illusion of clarity. I see that this thread started with Gary Speed, and OP was asking himself how he (GS) could do such a thing....
Depression can be latent, episodic, chronic, acute; it can be a mild annoyance, or a cripling disability. The demons you try to beat (or, at best, hide from yourself and the world) aren't in competition with anyone else's. If it's affecting the way you live your life or how you'd like to live, if it's impacting on your loved ones - partners, children, mates - and it's not allowing you to enjoy as many minutes in the day, then I'd urge you to reconsider the strong and silent facade. Trust me, I know that it doesn't work in the long run. Hiding behind the image of a strong, together, composed S.O.B. only goes so far before you exhaust yourself mentally and physically.
If you find yourself losing interest in your usual hobbies, fluctuating from high to low, eating or sleeping irregularly, too much or not enough, you're not looking after your own wellbeing, health and happiness. More than that, you're missing out on the things that used to give you pleasure. And that's the f***ed up part of it, you might feel like you don't want to do things, you might not want to go out, you might skip the pre-game bevvies in the John Thomas (I mean the Thomas Frost, but damnit if I can't stop calling it that), you might call in sick when you know you could go to work, but the thought of it makes you feel worse. And then you'll end up beating yourself up about not going in, missing the drinks, distancing yourself from your mates, losing touch, not going to that birthday party... etc. Ultimately, you'll miss out on living your life but you'll think you're doing the right thing at the time and, what's worse, you'll put yourself through the ringer afterwards for doing it. It's not pretty.
Remember - we all want to see you smile. Not that you should feel bad for feeling bad; nobody's forcing you to smile or getting fed up with you if you're not happy all the time. Think of it like having a teenage kid.... sure, they have bad moods (that never seem to end), but if they engaged with you and said "Dad, I'm a bit stressed out with.... can you just leave me alone?" then you'd understand. You might not like it, but that's the bitter pill. It's the same the other way round - if people in your life have an understanding of your mental state, they'll stand by you with a bit more patience and love. Now hang on, I'm not saying that you need to shout about depression from the highest mountain, but there's only so much that people can take on faith. In other words...
You also have to be honest with yourself. If you can acknowledge that life can be shitty, stressful, awkward and downright infuriating, but ultimately beautiful, rewarding and uplifting, you'll also know that there are steps you can take to feel a little better. There are techniques to help with coping and overcoming so many elements of depression. Now, I know I said that it's best to tell people, but if you feel like you can't, it's always necessary to at least admit it to yourself. There is a sense of awkwardness about admitting to depression, like it's a dirty word, only to be spoken in dark corners and in hospital wards. However, the more people that speak out, the less this will continue. Depression affects ONE in FIVE older people; a QUARTER of the population will experience some degree of mental health issue in the course of a year. YOU ARE NOT ALONE, either in your suffering or on your road to recovery. Once that becomes clear, so many opportunities present themselves.
There's medical and psychological support through counselling, therapy sessions and support groups - and nobody has to know. I say that because, as I'm sure a lot of you might know, there's a sense of pride and tenacity about the average beer-drinking, football-watching Evertonian. I know we're not all like that, but this is written with those men in mind, the kind of men who might think they're letting themselves and their familes down if they get depressed. You're not letting anybody down. Trust me. So where can you go from there? There's medication to break the cycle and give you the breathing room you need, where you'll be able to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and rebuild from where you left off. You'll find yourself taking an interest in things again. But don't go overboard, get yourself back into your routine. Don't try to take on everything at once, or you might be overwhelmed with decorating the extension, packing in working for Steve to start your own company, and starting the ballroom dancing classes with your missus.
Now, before I go off on a tangent and lose your attention... back on course.
The most dangerous consequence of depression is, as I said before, the illusion of clarity. You might find yourself going "but the world is [Poor language removed]" or "everything really is futile" or "nothing is going right". It'll cloud your mind and your mental vision; it pours a toxic mixture of chemicals into your system to make you hate the very things that you are and that you're capable of: being alive and happy. It'll twist your thinking so that you'll believe that up is down, black is white, and (god forbid) that maybe we should have battered City because Liverpool did deserve to win the league. Okay, that's a sick joke to make.
What I'm really trying to say is that sometimes it's okay to not be okay. There's no taboo or stigma, we're not going to point and laugh, we're not going to judge. We ARE going to wonder where you are on matchday, we're going to miss your jokes, we're going to miss your complaints, hell we'll even miss you defending Barry. But we're not going to forgive you for being out of sorts, bummed out, or a little weird, because we don't want apologies: we're all a little weird, and the best way you can apologise is to get down to your doctor's and ask for help. They will help you to help yourself. You are not broken, you don't need fixing - maybe the pieces just need a bit of jiggling.
Any questions, don't hesitate.
johnmc1878
Player Valuation: Free Transfer
As person who has suffered depression, I found it hard to cope with day to day life but opening up was difficult but it was the best step I ever did to get it out was a relief speaking to someone was good despite being told medication was the only way having an ear was the best medicine speaking to someone who had gone through what I had was great, I offer that same ear for anyone who can
StephenGOT
Account suspended
Thank you for this. This has made me feel much happier about myself. I have been on this forum before and I made myself look like a [Poor language removed]. I got banned numerous times but that was because of certain issues in my personal life. I never really understood as I didn't get brought up well... I've been on my own for quite a while now and I'm 20 (21 in two days). i think you know what young adults are like! cocky, immature idiots.
The paragraph in bold helped me a lot! I tried to end my life numerous times in School & College and It is stupid but Everton are the only reason I am still here... Football is my life. I had no-one to really help me. I only looked forward to going the match and watching my favourite team play. I always have thought of ending my life, every day but hey, I would never watch Everton again if I went through with it.
I don't know why I'm writing this as it'll probably get deleted and i'll probably get banned again.
Thanks for writing this.
kithnou
Player Valuation: £70m
An early happy 21st mate
If you're feeling like that a lot, I strongly suggest you talk to your GP mate.
StephenGOT
Account suspended
I have done. He just said it may take a while to get the right sort of medicine but I attend all meetings etc
just thought I would tell everyone on here as it's a good place
Continue with the meds mate - persevere and they'll work. Can take a couple of weeks usually so sit tight.
Smudge1985
Player Valuation: £950k
Does anyone have any experience with anger issues? Ive always been an emotional sod for better and worse, but Ive found that recently Im feeling angry a lot more. Little things are setting me off and literally ruining my day or week sometimes. Dont know if its because there's no footy (which is always a great outlet for any emotions Im having!) or Im just having problems dealing with other things, but its starting to get me down. Its making me quite argumentative with my family (which is usually the case anyway, especially as my dad I think just likes arguing so seems to have the opposite opinion to me on literally every subject) and really unforgiving with some people.
Toffee Yann
Player Valuation: £25k
Do you find little things worrying you a lot? Perhaps getting picky about details and specifics? Or maybe disliking when plans change? I swear I'm not trying to make this sound like a JML infomercial. It might be some anxiety, which can cause irritability. And mental fatigue.
If things are getting too much, the GP is there! For the anger, not the underpants.
Smudge1985
Player Valuation: £950k
Im not really a worrier about things, but I do get annoyed when things change or move. Im pretty organised so kind of expect everyone else to be as well! Which obviously isnt the case.