Saturday, March 12, 2005

Not blogging in a while, and now multiple posts

It seems I'm having one of my insomnia nights (the rest of the family are asleep from family night), so I'll post a few tidbits.

Everyone, please pray for Nick at Nickqueen.com. He has posted an honest post about some depression problems he is facing right now. One of the comments on this thread is my own. I will reproduce my comments after the "fold", just so that I can keep them around here, but it's better at Nick's site.

in the outer also has a series for dealing with depression, with the latest being this post. While I certainly would wish depression on no-one, it is a blessing to see how the Lord is helping people like "the bloke" in situations similar to where I've been.

I am blessed to "only" have mild depression-like symptoms that don't need clinical intervention. I was also greatly blessed in getting my current job. I don't want to bad-mouth my last job (I still have friends there, and one never knows when you'll need to cross a bridge you're burning ;) ), but the stress of expected 48-50 hour weeks and lingering memories of my past mistakes were causing us too much stress.

I would post more, but it seems that the simple act of typing in the last three paragraphs and cut-and-pasting the comment was enough to make me tired. Amazing how trying to keep up the blog will do that.



Here's my post at Nick's:

I would have sworn that I was reading a post by myself here.

I am over 300 now, and on a "one pound a week" diet now, after trying the Atkins diet, losing 60 a couple of years ago and then slowly gaining it all back. I am also chronically late (but getting better :) ).

A lot of my depression-like problems seem to be a very mild case of seasonal affective dis order. My wife and I have banned ourselves from making any serious life decisions or purchases from January to April because of a couple of "winter-blues" mistakes.

Insulin resistance/hypoglycemia and pre-diabetes can also induce the symptoms of clinical depression. If you're eating a lot of starchy foods or sugars, consider switching to a lower-carb diet for a while and see if that helps. If you (or anyone else) are headed into type 2 diabetes, you need to see a doctor NOW, to get this under control.

How's your sleep schedule? You can start a depressive cycle by choosing to get too much or too little sleep. Sleep deprevation will cause clinical depression which causes sleeping problems that cycle in, especially if you have SAD-like symptoms as well.

It may also be that you are chemically depressed. Effexor and its cousins are very good for people who do not have a psychological or other medical reason for being depressed, yet still are.

I would definitely talk to a good Christian internalist/GP who is more interested in finding a solution than throwing medicine at you, and talking through the problem.

Finally, you should get your small group and/or prayer groups at church involved with praying with/for you. You are a very influencial member of the Christian Blogsphere, and as such will be a target of spirital attack.

You'll be in our prayers.

No comments: