Thread: When you head does not work properly

Thanks for sharing this. We should look out for each other.

Long story short.

I would encourage anyone who suffers from depression or anxiety to seek help. Seeking help will help. Another thing that helps is to not be afraid to speak about how you are. Speaking about it helps.

Doing these things has a bit of a multiplier effect. It gets it out there so that you can find a solution that works for you, and helps YOU to identify when the issue starts to raise it's head into the future, and therefor, helps YOU to put the solutions that you know work for you in place.

Speak up, there is no shame.
The solution does not necessarily have to rely on drugs. Identification, recognition and simple exercise can be the solution.

It is a fallacy that men should "just tough it out". Men, like all people should speak out and seek help. Because seeking help will be helpful.

Cheers
Smile more
Bevan

Thanks Chook
And thank you for sharing your story mate

Cheers Matt

Well said, Chook. We are ever so slowly moving towards a general acceptance that mental illness is exactly that, an illness. Like a crook knee.

The difficult thing is that the very organ which is unwell is the same one used to seek help. Too often people have to "hit the wall" before they do anything about it. I have seen people live their entire life feeling miserable and it's such a waste when they could have fixed it relatively easily.

mick

It might be worth giving a local Men's Shed a go. I go to my local Men's Shed once a week and am often in my own workshop on one or two other days. The Shed is great for companionship and also for improving skills etc. Tim

Originally Posted by TimM

It might be worth giving a local Men's Shed a go. I go to my local Men's Shed once a week and am often in my own workshop on one or two other days. The Shed is great for companionship and also for improving skills etc. Tim

I would love to join a men's shed. But none of the local ones I have been able to find operate on the weekends. They all meet during the week when I am at work.

Well said Chook. Thankyou.

Very well said Chook. I and my wife have a daily battle with depression/anxiety. I have a good mate who is Bipolar. We look out for each other. This Forum has been a comfort to me with others telling about their battles too. We have a Men's Shed which opened only a couple of months ago. I really couldn't face going to it. I don't like crowds and just the thought of turning up....its not for me. Both the wife and I are a bit "Hermit-ish" We used to go to church but that got "too hard".

I think that there is more people in the community who have Depression than what the statistics tell us.

I'm in a bit of a hole right now due to Macular degeneration - See my post under health issues.

I went to the WW club this morning just to touch base and have a chat but came home still feeling down.

My oughtism tells me I ought to gets stuck into something. I will get over this brief setback, I know how
to do that. But the initial jolt needs to be dealt with and that is a bit hard right now.

I have plenty to get on with so that is a help in itself.

Originally Posted by Enfield Guy

Long story short.

I would encourage anyone who suffers from depression or anxiety to seek help. Seeking help will help. Another thing that helps is to not be afraid to speak about how you are. Speaking about it helps.

Doing these things has a bit of a multiplier effect. It gets it out there so that you can find a solution that works for you, and helps YOU to identify when the issue starts to raise it's head into the future, and therefor, helps YOU to put the solutions that you know work for you in place.

Speak up, there is no shame.
The solution does not necessarily have to rely on drugs. Identification, recognition and simple exercise can be the solution.

It is a fallacy that men should "just tough it out". Men, like all people should speak out and seek help. Because seeking help will be helpful.

Cheers
Smile more
Bevan

Totally agree. I actually don't see a doctor much anymore but thats because they've been able to help me identify the traps I used to fall into and ways around them. It doesnt have to be about medication, the right doctor will try a number of different therapies before resorting to drugs. I found cognitive behavioural therapy specifically helpful for me as it allowed me to pick up on some negative thought patterns that I had just taken as a part of my natural thought process. They weren't, it was stuff I'd developed over the years to help myself deal with my problems.

I still fall into old habits from time to time but now I can see the shift in behaviour and mood before it becomes a huge problem.

Originally Posted by chambezio

Very well said Chook. I and my wife have a daily battle with depression/anxiety. I have a good mate who is Bipolar. We look out for each other. This Forum has been a comfort to me with others telling about their battles too. We have a Men's Shed which opened only a couple of months ago. I really couldn't face going to it. I don't like crowds and just the thought of turning up....its not for me. Both the wife and I are a bit "Hermit-ish" We used to go to church but that got "too hard".

I think that there is more people in the community who have Depression than what the statistics tell us.

In my experience people with mental health issues tend to be drawn to each other, I have 2 other mates with bipolar and it wasn't until years after meeting that we realised we shared that in common.

Would be an interesting anthropological study to find out why that might be.

Originally Posted by artme

I'm in a bit of a hole right now due to Macular degeneration - See my post under health issues.

I went to the WW club this morning just to touch base and have a chat but came home still feeling down.

My oughtism tells me I ought to gets stuck into something. I will get over this brief setback, I know how
to do that. But the initial jolt needs to be dealt with and that is a bit hard right now.

I have plenty to get on with so that is a help in itself.

I hope you are getting the support you need. My sister is a GP and she sent me to a doctor who specialises in mental disorders. For the first time in my life I got proper support and the difference is quite remarkable. Now you have a problem. But the fact that you can even write that you are in a bit of a hole means you also have courage. I took me most of my life to final get the courage to admit I had a problem.

The last three weeks were some of the best I have had in 2 years and certainly the best I have had in the last 8 months. I have

paved a small courtyard
knocked down and rebuilt sections of walls in a house my son is renovating
fixed his leaking taps
replaced the bottom pulley on my table saw, which meant taking the saw half way apart and tuned it up to work better than new
built a beautifully dovetailed display box for a shop
designed and begun making a decorative pencil holder for my daughter's desk
cooked lots of special meals for my family and friends
played endlessly with my building manager who also doubles as my dog Harvey
read books

etc etc etc

I have filled each day with planning and making- the two things I enjoy doing most. Now for the past few years, the production of items, beautiful and ugly, useful and useless petered out to a trickle and then stopped completely. My hands had lost their skill. I had no energy or creativity. And this really annoyed me. I am young (61 is not at all old), strong and physically healthy. The frustration of seeing valuable days wasted in a morbid cloud of gloom only added to my miserable outlook.

But once I took the step, simple as it seems from the outside, but so hard to do from within, to say "I have a problem. I need help". Things began to change.

Men can be odd creatures. A few years ago my back went into such a spasm that I could not move. I could barely breathe. I was stuck in a chair, in agony from 9 pm Friday night until 3 am Saturday morning. At that point, I finally and somewhat guiltily rang the ambulance. They must have thought I was crazy. "I cannot move. I can barely breathe. I am in agony. Do you think I need an ambulance?" They sent one out immediately, filled me with morphine and I spent a week in hospital. Men do not like to ask for help.

Now it is possible, likely perhaps, that the sorts of men who subscribe to this forum, men who like to make things for their own use and the use of others, who like a challenge and who want to work out problems, it is likely that such men are going to be at even less likely to ask for help when it is truly needed.