AIBU - debate with DH and I about depression

[bandgeek]

AIBU to think that my DH is a total twunt as we have been having a massive argument reasonable debate about depression and anti depressants

He is of the opinion that there are far too many people out there claiming to have depression and on anti-depressants for no reason at all (and may I add I have been on anit-d's for the past 8 months!) and they should just buck themselves up and get on with it. I have told him he is talking utter pish and he has no idea of everyone's circumstances but he is having none of it!

It all started over a post on bloody Facebook with one of my friends status' saying that they 'give up'. Now whilst I agree with him that the constant attention seeking posts on Facebook from some people can be tiresome, it doesn't mean they don't have a reason to be depressed! He thinks that if you have food, shelter and warmth then you should count yourself lucky and that there are people worse off in the world than you.

This argument is getting nowhere fast and I've told him I am going to post this on MN to see if indeed he is talking utter crap!

YANBU. He is being a twunt. HTH!

He obviously has never dealt with the endless, merciless, crushing, soul destroying, back breaking, soul sucking state that is depression then.

How fantastic he is supporting you when you most need it

Bandgeeks H - you're an arse. :)

informed opinion must always be given serious considertion

DH suffers from depression and had problems since he was a child due to bullying , wish it was as easy as telling him to buck his ideas up

Would he say to someone that's broken a leg stop hopping so much there's people in wheelchairs y'know?

Thank you!

He has never experienced it, no, and I tell him he should thank his lucky stars he hasn't! I suppose it stems from the fact a lot of people we know are on them, and he argues that years ago people weren't. I have been through the whole spiel about how people probably did have it then but it just wasn't talked about, however it falls on deaf ears!

I should add usually he is quite lovely but he is stopping smoking this week and has so far went about 48 hours without a cigarette. So tempted to go out and buy 20 Mayfair for him just to shut him up

One thing I don't really understand is why are there so many people suffering from depression? It is almost as if my HV expected me to have PND because my dd was born with a serious health problem and was not growing well.

Do people in less developed countries have the same rates of depression? I wonder if there could be a cultural element to diagnosis and perception.

See, now I have no idea what it's like to be doing without cigarettes, as I've never smoked. Therefore I feel free to state that it is easy as pie to give up smoking, and people moaning about it should stop moaning, get on with it and count themselves lucky to have - what was it? - food, shelter, etc?

gosh,blueshoes,thats like saying are there so many people in africa who have appendicitis. It is an illness not something people make up for christ sake.I have had depression on and off for 20 years and tablets do not give you any sort of high they just enable you to get out of bed in pain and deal with the day,in pain.recently, I forgot to take my tablets for 2 days.I felt ok so carried on to third day;could not stop crying ,and feeling suicidal. That is the difference the tablets make.You still feel pain ;you can just about manage without crying!I would love to not have this problem;I have everything. I have a loving caring husband and 3 children,but there is a chemical imbalence in my brain that makes modern life really hard for me to deal with,and actually;depression contrary to belief doesn't mean you are sad all the time,I believe my happiness levels probably reach higher than lots of peoples,but my unhappiness levels reach a lot lower than some peoples. Please don't stigmatise me by denying an illness that I feel is just part of my life.Accept it and please accept me.you don't question why people do or do not have diabetes in less developed countries.

blueshoes I'd imagine that third world companies treat depression the same way we used to. It's probably brushed under the carpet, sufferers kept out of sight.

OP your DH is totally and utterly unreasonable.

your DH is totally unreasonable. I've had PND and it was utterly crippling. I wouldn't wish it on my worse enemy.

Bandgeek - no matter what your DH thinks he is being a complete and utter arse to say that to you while you are taking AD's. Of course he's being an arse thinking it as well - but to say that to you when you are taking them - complete twat. Ask him where his support is??

There are a lot of people taking AD's now, there are a lot of people taking a lot of drugs now that weren't available 20 years ago. It doesn't mean depression didn't exist then, it simply means we have developed ways of helping people deal with it that makes life a little easier for them.

Possibly a lot more people do suffer from depression now than they used to? Possibly a lot of people from older generations wonder why, as we appear to have life so much easier than they did (esp those from the war era) but really do we? Physically yes, food availability yes - but life/work balance, societal expectations etc I don't think so.

I have never suffered from clinical depression and have not been on AD's and I admit that sometimes I think Dr's are a bit prescription happy - but that's not to say that I don't think the vast majority of people on them aren't benefitting from them.

I'll also admit that it's very hard to understand depression - why people can't just appreciate what they have and 'pull their socks up' but just because it's hard to understand it, it doesn't mean I don't accept it. I accept that they can't just do that and I understand that it's a chemical imbalance. As you know, a lot of chemically depressed people can see that they 'shouldn't' be depressed, that they have no 'reason' to be depressed and they can appreciate they have nice DH's, great DC's etc - but it doesn't stop them feeling the way they do. It's not a 'pull your socks up' situation - unfortunately.

the whole POINT Of 'depression' as an illness is that it's not linked to external factors and strikes when you're not 'supposed' to be depressed.

when things happen it's called 'situational depression' and that's different entirely.

there is no point in trying to apply logic to regular depression because it is absolutely anit-logical. like phobias, we don't claim that somebody can't possibly be scared of snakes because that's irrational, the irrationality is what makes it an illness rather than a normal response to external factors.

2 things...
a) EVEN IF your DP has apoint (personally, I think that depression IS overdiagnosed, which actually gives SOME people a way to get time off work, and sympathy, when really some time would help, along with the understanding that mental wellness is NOT actually about being happy ALL of the time - this in turn gives the people with GENUINE depression a bad name and a hard time getting taken seriously) then while you are on anti-d's struggling to get better is NOT the time to be debating it. Although the fact that you COULD stand up for the REASONABLE side of the argument in this instance means that you are doing REALLY well, so wtg you!

b) depression, in it's true form, is debilitating, and terrible, and no amount of being "pulled together" will help. The chemicals in your brain just either, do not exist in the quantities you need them OR do not do what they are supposed to do. That's what causes depression, there is nothing in there about what KIND of person, or fault, or anything, just some crappy chemicals that don't do what they should. Oh, hang on, isn't that the basis of most physical illness too?!

I and several close friends have suffered from depression and watched it destroy a family member. I think I do believe pills can make it worse for some people. I think actually forcing yourself out of it and getting out in the sun and with friends is the best cure. (yes, this is just my opinion). I know it takes huge strength of will too.. when every fibre of your being is saying "stay inside, shut the windows, don't get out of bed" it isn't easy. But I think getting trapped in a cycle of taking a pill to kill the pain and then stronger pills, then stronger does make it worse IME.

I do hate Facebook attention seeking... I know someon who posts about their depresson and their pills. I find that pathetic.

Your DP is being quite U. One can't just buck up out of depression hence why it is an illness.

Anti-depressants are a mixed bag however. I believe they work for some people and I would never deprive anyone of that, but for me, they merely made everything cloudier and I tried several different types.

I think, if you have supportive friends and family, you can sometimes discover that what you thought was chemical is situational and sometimes anti-depressants can give you enough clarity to see that. I found that I hated what I was doing and where I was living so with DP's, now DH's, help, we found a house in London, I stopped what I was doing and now I have bouts of sadness sometimes but nothing like it was before.

I admit I do wonder sometimes if the increasing rate of depression is partly greater diagnosis and partly this ridiculous conception that you have to be happy happy happy all the time or else there is something wrong with you. Once I was able to acknowledge that one is allowed to be sad for no particular reason, I was much better off.

I've had two bouts of relatively mild depression, DH only seeing the second. Drove me mad, he did; he saw it as a personal attack on him and our relationship and tried the old "pull yourself together" line on me and got told to fuck off by me :(

However, I refused the anti-depressants prescribed to me as I didn't want to get dependent on them (DM is very dependent on them) but like I said, I had it relatively mild and I know that anti-depressants are a lifeline for some people. Bit of a cliche, but unless you've been there, I don't think you can ever understand it.

Tell him to educate himself and then discuss properly. He sounds like a Daily Mail reader. Depression can cause death through suicide.

Jesus! Has he not heard of progressive diagnosis? 100 odd years ago there were no diagnoses of myocardial infarction. So, I guess it didn't exist? Oh, and the world is flat.
YANBU!

I agreed with your DH.
I agreed with him through my sisters many suicide attempts. I agreed when my brother hung himself, i agreed when my neice was put in a childrens nut house to be protected from self harm. I agreed when my mom skipped countries to try and escape the pain of the destruction DEPRESSION had left my family in.

Why the hell are they all doing this to themselves, why are they putting us all through this....oh the 'whys'!

Then i developed bipolar. I knew what it was, it was the same as the rest of them, the rest of them that i didnt believe. i couldnt believe everything they all did, said they felt, that it made sense now, because i felt it too. I didnt want to believe it and become then so i hid it from the world for about 5 years, getting worse and worse, (or better and better at some stages, thats bipolar lol)

Then i finally secumed to the doctors, started the meds, and my mind is being rebuilt. And i look at my babies and think they may have all this to come, and that i may have passed this on. thats the only thing that feels worse than the disease itself.

Depression, in all its forms, is very real. Good on him if he doesnt 'believe it', it means he hasnt suffered from it, he's one lucky guy

Your husband wants to pray he never suffers from the living hell that is depression.

V unreasonable and twatty of him.

Hmmm, well, yes he is being unsympathetic to suffers and obviously has no personal expereince of the hell it can be. But I have come across people who do take the piss. Acquaintance of mine - has been one excuse after another as to why they shouldn't have to work and they are, I'm afraid, rather pleased to have been recently "diagnosed" as depressed and given ADs as this gives them another reason not to work. In their case it seems to be an overworked GP has given them out as a way of shooing a high maintenance client out the door. And the problem is if you come across many people like these, it could be tempting to think that it is overdiagnosed.

YANBU, obviously.

If you want to continue the discussion with him, could you try explaining the science behind depression so that he sees it as a physical illness?

For example, it is recognised that certain hormones affect people's moods. Hence why PMT exists, and teenagers are moody, even when they have no logical reason to be.

Depression is thought to be a similar (obviously much more severe) effect of our hormones and other "brain chemistry" not working properly. It means you just can't look at things rationally and "pick yourself up" the way you can if your hormones etc are working properly.

That's why anti depressants WORK. (Ok not perfectly but they do help many people). Because they are re adjusting the hormonal and chemical balance. If there was no physical cause then pills would do nothing.

If he understands that depression has a real, physical cause - albeit not a visible one - he might give it more credibility.

Your DH is very very lucky never to have suffered (and the word is appropriate) from depression. I had it after having cancer and believe me, having cancer was a walk in the park by comparison. I found anti-depressants to be a lifeline, they worked brilliantly for me, and I can honestly say I am alive now because of them. Also had a lot of very good support from GP - never got the feeling they were over-prescribing quite the reverse. I hope you recover soon, and that he stops being an idiot, and does his job as a husband and tries to support you.