Natural management of anxiety and depression?

Post Reply New Topic

I can relate to being numb to everything except sadness. I think my depression is a natural reaction to my environment and I don't expect to recover from it. The world would have to change for me not to be depressed and thats not going to happen.
So better living through chemistry for me. Seroquel, Effexer, Ability and marijuana. I expect to be medicated for the rest of my life (which I hope is short.)
To me depression is like an insight into reality. I can't understand why everyone is not depressed living in this Hellish pit.

To be quite honest, it was a strange experience. I was 15 and the simplest way I could explain it to my mother was that I kept hearing "noise" in my mind. She took that to mean I was hearing voices, but I'm still not entirely sure how to accurately describe it. I just know I couldn't function because it was literally driving me crazy. I switched to Lexapro soon after and (thankfully) nothing like that ever happened again.

Ah, okay, understandable. That's why I was originally put on Zoloft, I believe (I was told it's supposed to help with anxiety as well).

That's good! I wish the U.S. did the same. Supplements tend to not be regulated at all and it's just not safe IMO.

How is it not safe to be able to buy and use roots/herbs/oils/natural medicines etc at your leisure vs. highly regulated and restricted?

People have a collective thousands of years of experience using natural medicines. Information is readily available about what is used for what, and what is toxic etc. I wouldn't want any government telling me I couldn't buy various natural remedies if I choose to buy them.

They're not safe because they're not regulated strictly at all. It's not about what you can and cannot buy, it's about ensuring you're actually buying what you think you're buying:
a) companies can lie about the active ingredients or about the benefits of taking the herb/supplement (to use St. John's as an example, companies can and have lied about it being an immune system booster).
b) they can interact with other drugs and people may not be aware of this if it's not labeled on the bottle
c) along with b, overdose is a possible risk if the bottle tells someone to take more than they should be taking
Action can be taken in some of these cases, but only AFTER it's been proven unsafe. The best solution would be to test them before they're allowed to be sold.

This makes sense to me.
I believe it is generally described as "existential depression".

Understanding of systems just takes away all of the hope.

Sweetleaf's hebalism advice is pretty much the same as mine, although I drink a lot of conventional camelia sinensis teas during the day as a means of hydration & moderate caffeine intake. They keep my headaches away quite reliably.

Eggheadjr, that is a really good point about the modern diet, processing and soil conditions dramatically impact on the nutritional value of fresh produce, it makes sense though. Most fertilizers commonly used in agriculture contain three basic plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, where do the rest of the nutrients come from? The over farmed soil? The ‘hedgerow to hedgerow’ intensive industrial farming ethos has a lot to answer for. Also to mention High Fructose corn syrup, I believe based on my limited understanding that it is shortening peoples life spans. Two recommendations for anyone interested:
Food Matters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwZY1jaw2EM
BBC2 documentary mini-series The Men Who Made Us Fat
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC95D4B298A5FCF4D]

Androbot, sometimes I feel the pain in your posts, they strike a chord with me and that makes me wish many things; like there was proper support for adults who fell through the net, that some of the funding being pumped into finding a pharmaceutical cure went towards assisting the lost generations in the ASD community, that we lived in a world where fairness was tangible and not a made up concept, and that wishes could come true.
Seeing the world through the opposite of rose tinted glasses, makes everything about real life brutal.

Cberg, Camellia Sinensis teas, Ill look them up too, at a glance, I only knew about green, pu-erh and black tea.

Those are sinensis. I drink a lot of pu'erh, though my favorite is Oolong.

I meant that I didn't know about white, yellow, oolong or kukicha tea, I've never managed to have black tea without milk, don't drink tea that often, I like peppermint tea though.

Thanks.
Those are nice wishes.
I don't mean to be such a downer. Partly it's living in this winter environment which I find abhorrent.
But, the support I get I appreciate. It is a blessing that society is charitable.

I don't think heavy regulation is really required. People have been learning about medicinal plants & consuming them for thousands of years without any government requiring strict warning labels on products. There's also more information available about these products, and anything, thanks to the internet. People should be informed about what they consume and should do their own research if they have any concerns. There are very very few herbs/oils etc that can have any serious consequences.. and people tend to learn what they need to about them w/o gov't regulated warning labels. Mind you, more & accurate info on product labels is a good thing, so the more professional supplement producers will label their products appropriately and be a better trusted source with more marketshare.

I just don't think we need our governments telling us what plants we can or can't consume. Get info from an Herbalist or Naturopath if you prefer professional advice. Otherwise educate yourself via books/internet/apothecaries etc. It's really not overly complicated rocket surgery stuff to learn about medicinal plants & foods.

Trouble is some people need a little direction to even know they should do any research...or for it to even occur to them that herbs could interact with medications they are already taking or things like that. Seems like a lot are advertised as 100% safe and effective when that is actually misleading and there can be risks. I imagine someone could get sick from taking too much of certain supplements to, especially if they already get enough of whatever it is in their diet but fall for one of those 'the herbal/supplement cure for whatever ails you'. Its the same reason I am skeptical of any claims of such and such diet will cure all your ailments'...for the above reasons as well as rarely does a one size fits all approach work for any given group of people. I wouldn't want the government telling us what herbs we can and cannot buy...but regulations to ensure you're not getting crap when you go buy herbs/supplements may not be terrible, though the FDA is responsible for that sort of stuff and they kinda do a crap job so probably wouldn't make much difference would probably just somehow cost taxpayers more money and people would still be just as uninformed/misinformed and better off doing their own research.

I've heard it called "depressive realism." I think there's something in it. Realistically refusing to see ourselves through the ego's reassuring spectacles and the feelgood hype can be a saddening business. I still don't know whether I'm clinically depressed or not, but I do find it hard to be particularly happy now I know how bad things are. Though I'm still hoping to maintain some kind of bubble of physical and emotional comfort that's reasonably insulated against the general environment. I still think it's worth striving to be happy.

I saw a video in which volunteers overcame problems of confidence in response to a placebo, i.e. they were conned into healing themselves. That gave me a bit more hope.

It's all very paradoxical. Who would have thought that the steadfast, successful pursuit of truth could be harmful?

Creating a bubble is a good idea.

Yes, precisely.

Again, it's not about governments regulating what we can or can't consume, but rather about ensuring that people are buying what they're being told they're buying. The way it stands now, people have no way of proving that they're getting the product the label advertises. Research doesn't help you when you can't be sure of what you're ingesting.

Also, it's not necessarily true that very very few herbs can have serious consequences... (Wikipedia has a partial list which includes about 50, which I personally consider a large amount, but perhaps our opinion on that differs.) Not only that, but again, the problem is with interactions (and allergic reactions sometimes): herbs/supplements interacting with other herbs/supplements or drugs due to mislabeling of products because of the terrible regulation.

Last edited by Jezebel on 26 Jan 2015, 10:48 pm, edited 4 times in total.

You are not alone in your perceptions.