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Severe Depression

500bbc

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Anyone here have experience with someone that has severe depression?
Have a friend who's been sick for over a year and now getting worse. Making comments to friends and family that us all thinking the worse. His wife is worn down trying to help and the only info I can get is he can't be committed. He won't talk to his doctor anymore, do any zoom meetings or partake in in person therapy sessions. Doctor has said there is nothing he can do to force him to partake in treatment.
Options?
 

Done-it-again

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Declare him a 5150 to the police and they will put a hold on him. Screw the "cant be committed" its either help or you know the end result.

Therapy helped me with anxiety a few years ago and worked wonders with the stress I was living with.
 

rivergames

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1627319096801.png
 

ltbaney1

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go get him and talk to him, man to man, no bs no sugarcoating. its a start, do SOMETHING.
 

500bbc

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That's
Declare him a 5150 to the police and they will put a hold on him. Screw the "cant be committed" its either help or you know the end result.

Therapy helped me with anxiety a few years ago and worked wonders with the stress I was living with.
That's a 72 hour hold isn't it?
 

jetboatperformance

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MSum661

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Get creative and pick up the phone and invite him to go to Pomona for some Nitromethane this weekend.
Friday night qualifying for the Fuel cars start at 8:15 pm. That should yank his head back out of his ass.
Nothing in the World like witnessing 32 Nitro cars at night. Cacklefest right after. It might help

 

ArizonaKevin

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Making noise we believe is leading to harm to himself.

In my experience (albeit limited thankfully) people making noise about it aren't the ones to follow through (of course lots of exceptions to that). The ones making noise for it are asking for help, either consciously or unconsciously. The ones who are going to do it just do it.
 

BlowMe

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Just stop somewhere and grab some food, whatever he likes and drive over there and sit on your tailgate. Offer him to come eat with you but dont be forceful about it. And if he doesnt want to join thats ok. Just sit there and eat anyway and let him know he is welcome to join you if he wants. If he does want to join you thats great. You dont have to say a word or talk about anything if he doesnt want to. Just eat and then say it was good to see you and i will see you tomorrow or later this week. And go back and do the same thing the next day or so. Some friends have done this for me and talked me off a ledge so to speak and it was just nice to know someone is there for you without pressuring you in any way. Its worth a shot and cant hurt at this point
 

rivermobster

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This sucks...

One of the guys in our group took his own life. Happiest guy you'd ever wanna know on the outside, inside was a whole different story.

One of the other guys in our group will forever feel guilty for not taking his call on the day he killed himself.

There are hotlines for this stuff, but you can't force the guy to call...

Maybe call one yourself and explain the situation? I'm sure they will have better advice than we do.

Best of luck.
 

Icky

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I can tell you it's very hard to get the psych holds to stick as they can sign themselves out if they're not a danger. The family did it multiple times for my BIL, tried for conservatorship, tried multiple rehabs for alcohol etc. In the end, they had an intervention with him and finally got him to be willing to sign himself over to their care, unfortunately it was already too late.
 

bk2drvr

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If he's as bad off as you say maybe give him the suicide hotline number and tell him to call it if he's not doing well. Maybe they can direct him to some sort of face to face assistance. Scary stuff. Good luck.
 

ConcreteDr

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Get two or three of his closest friends to start a regular checking in on him protocol ...

I was one of those friends and we got him out of it.... oh and take away ALL of his guns ...
 

COCA COLA COWBOY

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I know I'm gonna get a lot of flack, but Tony Robbins has some good stuff. Sometimes us a humans look at the small picture too much and don't look at the big picture. Life isn't as complicated as we are brought up believing. A lot of times, we just need to be reprogrammed from the stuff we were taught as children.
 

SBMech

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We all live in a cage of our own design, very few can see it however.

We are all free, we only weigh ourselves down with Commitment/Responsibility/Adulting based upon what kind of people and environment you were raised in.

Ever wonder how Johnny the perfect man, who married the prom queen, had three kids, got a killer job out of high school, owned his first house before you were done partying in college, Mr always had his shit together could have just up and bailed on his family/kids & everyone and everything?

It's stress. Pressure from all aspects of your life. Some people are never taught how to handle stress, and when it over loads them they short circuit.

Usually something bad happens then.

Go talk to your friend, if he won't come willingly, duct tape his ass up and throw him in the back of a truck, take him on a boys trip somewhere camping. Far enough that he can't run home.

Dig it out. There is a reason he is shutting down. Is he secretly gay? Is he about to loose his home and won't tell his wife/family? Find out what is about to break him.

I'm no counselor, but I am a great fucking friend who's been through this before, and lost one of my best friends because I did not do more.

I know it's not my fault, but damned if I am going to ever feel like I should have done more for someone I loved ever again. Make the effort.
 

SoCalDave

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My Dermatologist suffers from depression and did the micro dosing of LSD a couple of months ago per his Dr recommendations. Said it really set his mind at ease. He also enjoys mushrooms to ease his tension as well.

From The Gaurdian
When Aldous Huxley emerged from a mescaline trip that veered from an obsession with the folds in his trousers to wonder at the “miraculous” tubularity of the bamboo legs on his garden chairs, he offered an opinion on how the drug worked.

Writing in The Doors of Perception, his 1954 book that took its name from a William Blake poem, Huxley declared that the psychedelic “lowers the efficiency of the brain as an instrument for focusing the mind on the problems of life”.

Even for Huxley, the assessment now seems remarkably prescient. In new research, scientists have found evidence that LSD, another psychedelic, lowers the barriers that constrain people’s thoughts. In doing so, it frees the mind to wander more easily and experience the world anew.

“Normally, our thoughts and incoming information are filtered by our prior experience,” said Parker Singleton, a PhD candidate at Cornell University in New York. “But if you take that filtering and suppression away, you are looking at the world with new eyes. You get a totally new perspective.”

Singleton and his colleagues set out to test the so-called Rebus model of psychedelics. Standing for “relaxed beliefs under psychedelics”, it frames the brain as a prediction engine. Under the model, the brain takes thoughts and information from the senses and shapes them according to its understanding of the world. This makes the brain highly efficient: armed with prior beliefs, the noise and uncertainty of perception and thought are swiftly hammered into coherent reality.

But the brain works differently on psychedelics. According to Rebus, substances such as LSD weaken the influence of prior beliefs that the brain uses to make sense of the world. In one sense, the drugs rewind the brain’s clock to a time before it learned that walls tend not to move and furniture is rarely threatening.

“You can imagine you might experience altered perceptions,” said Amy Kuceyeski, a senior author on the study at Cornell. “If your prior belief is that walls don’t move and your prior belief melts, then that wall may appear to move.”

The scientists analysed fMRI brain scans of people on placebo or LSD. These revealed four distinct states, or patterns of activity, that the brain switched between when the volunteers were resting in the scanner. Two of the brain states were largely driven by sensory parts of the brain, while the other two involved the kind of top-down processing the brain performs to make sense of the world. On LSD, the brain spent less time on higher-level processing and more on the sensory-driven activities.

By comparing scans of the brain on LSD versus placebo, the researchers found that the drug reduced the amount of energy the brain needed to switch from one brain state another. Dr Kuceyeski likens it to flattening the landscape over which the brain can roam. Normally, the brain’s activity is constrained by the mountains and valleys of our prior beliefs, but on LSD these obstacles are flattened out. “It allows us to move more freely and have more dynamic brain activity,” she said.

Writing in a preprint, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, the researchers go on to show how the distribution of a particular receptor called 5-HT2a, the primary target for LSD, enables the drug to have such a profound levelling effect.

David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the research, said that “flattening the landscape” allowed parts of the brain to talk to each other for the first time since early childhood.

“The whole process of child development and education is to take your brain, which is extremely malleable, and force it to be like everyone else’s brain. Under psychedelics, you go back to a state where bits of the brain that haven’t spoken since you were a baby can cross-talk. And it’s that increased connectivity that allows people to get new insights into old problems,” he said.

The ability of LSD to free up brain activity may explain why psychedelics can help people with depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

“In depression, people get locked into a way of thinking that is repetitive and ruminative. It’s like tramline thinking,” said Nutt. “Psychedelics disrupt those kinds of processes so people can escape from it.”

Here's another look at it...
 

OCMerrill

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Oh yeah, part of the reason he's in his current state.

Pot is the worst thing for mental illness...surprisingly. A hallucinogenic might be causing him more harm than good.

He needs a new Doc and a start over. Find out what in his blood 1st. If he's an addict nobody will help him. Rehab is his only starting point.
If he's not an addict then there is still someone out there that will help him.

The biggest problem with this shit is everyone gets worn down from the little to no win over what seems like endless time.

A 5150 Hold is not straight forward unless he harms himself in some way. Have his wife call the county and ask for a Mental Illness social worker and see if some horsepower can be found there.
 

OCMerrill

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Yes, 72 hour psych hold.......under the care of a psych... but Not as easy as just declaring somebody 5150... must be a danger to himself or others....

That 72 hrs is at the discretion of the psychiatrist of where he would be placed. That's the min. in all reality.
 

coolchange

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Side trivia, Huxley’s The Doors of Perseption, is where THE DOORS took their name.
 

500bbc

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Does anyone know what is causing the "depression"

family, significant other, financial, chronic pain, etc?????
Pot is the worst thing for mental illness...surprisingly. A hallucinogenic might be causing him more harm than good.

He needs a new Doc and a start over. Find out what in his blood 1st. If he's an addict nobody will help him. Rehab is his only starting point.
If he's not an addict then there is still someone out there that will help him.

The biggest problem with this shit is everyone gets worn down from the little to no win over what seems like endless time.

A 5150 Hold is not straight forward unless he harms himself in some way. Have his wife call the county and ask for a Mental Illness social worker and see if some horsepower can be found there.
He's off of everything to the point he won't take his prescribed meds. They were helping a little.
 

OCMerrill

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He's off of everything to the point he won't take his prescribed meds. They were helping a little.

Is he hearing voices or seeing visions? I see noise mentioned above. If so that could be psychosis. He needs a good psychiatrist, one he can relate to, and needs to be complainant with what he has to do. Its like an interview process in a way.

This is the bad part...He has to want to do this and right now sounds like the opposite is going on.

We went through all this and let me tell you it was bone splitting gnarly. We believe we have a win so there is hope.
 
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Icky

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I know a lot of people are down on them, but have a couple of friends that were helped by anti depressants. If the chemical balance in your brain is off no amount of talking is usually going to snap them out of it. This also requires a good doctor to monitor the treatment.
I think the good doctor thing is the hard part, I know my older brother has been diagnosed so many different things by so many different doctors ant different times.
 

t&y

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Uhhh about that 5150... They need to be a danger to themselves or others. The problem we usually run into is when we come evaluate them it is depression, but they do not articulate or indicate they will cause harm to themselves. Two things, depression alone does not equal a 5150, and it ain't a crime to be crazy, so those holds are not just a simple call the cops and he gets carted off.

There is a 5150.5 which is basically no indicators observed by LEO, but the family can and does attest to actions taken or comments made. The 5150.5 basically puts all the responsibility on the person reporting it, so if the affected person comes back and claims foul play, it's not the cops on the hook.

Best option if possible is to get him to an LPS hospital for admission on his own.
 

Long Way Home

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Depression is like a runaway train, the anxieties, the heart, the mind, the pain and the persons actions may become frantic, out-of-control, the letdowns of the day-to-day lives feeds the depression. Your friend has to be willing to try because it will take practice, persistence, and patience to slow down that train down. Our health care system sucks because most insurance companies are less willing to pay for mental health care than for physical health care.
As a family or friend when you see that red flag, do something. Don't ignore it.
 

Cobalt232

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I know a lot of people are down on them, but have a couple of friends that were helped by anti depressants. If the chemical balance in your brain is off no amount of talking is usually going to snap them out of it. This also requires a good doctor to monitor the treatment.
This is the correct answer^^^
 

Wonderbread

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Anyone here have experience with someone that has severe depression?
Have a friend who's been sick for over a year and now getting worse. Making comments to friends and family that us all thinking the worse. His wife is worn down trying to help and the only info I can get is he can't be committed. He won't talk to his doctor anymore, do any zoom meetings or partake in in person therapy sessions. Doctor has said there is nothing he can do to force him to partake in treatment.
Options?

Tough spot, you can’t help those that don’t want to be helped. Keep being a good friend, and no matter what time your phone rings, pick it up and be a good listener. Good luck
 

caribbean20

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See if he will try Ketamine. It has proven effective for depression. Need to do something to change the chemicals in the brain. I know many mean well but that 72 hour hold is not a lasting solution. Just back to the same spot when he gets out.

Good luck, you are a good friend for trying to help your buddy out. No easy solution.
 

wzuber

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Strap his ass in a K boat with Scarlotta and ask Tony to make it a "ride of a life time". Haha
I hope you or someone/anyone can reach him if he hasn't completely turned on himself and given up any hope or desire to have a better life. Repressed anger is a difficult one to change.
 

EmpirE231

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No, sudden break down

Weird... I would think something needs to be triggering it!

Best thing you can do at this point is be a good friend, and make sure those around him on a regular basis are being really patient... until someone can figure out what is causing this state he's in. I am 39 years old and could have never told you what "depression" feels like, never dealt with it... up until last year where I had the most random pain spring up on me (no sudden injury), but I was in some serious level 9 pain day in and day out for 7 months, and nothing was helping.... at month #4-5... I learned about the whole depression thing... I am glad to be passed that now, but it does humble you, and make it easier to relate.
 

500bbc

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Weird... I would think something needs to be triggering it!

Best thing you can do at this point is be a good friend, and make sure those around him on a regular basis are being really patient... until someone can figure out what is causing this state he's in. I am 39 years old and could have never told you what "depression" feels like, never dealt with it... up until last year where I had the most random pain spring up on me (no sudden injury), but I was in some serious level 9 pain day in and day out for 7 months, and nothing was helping.... at month #4-5... I learned about the whole depression thing... I am glad to be passed that now, but it does humble you, and make it easier to relate.
Bad financial decisions and a return to substance abuse.
 

TPC

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People think depression is a sad mood swing. Nothing like it.

Lincoln called it a helpless, empty melancholy.
Winston Churchill called it "The Black Dog."
General Grant called it "The Grip."

We have 2 kids that went through it and one came out of it and landed on their feet, the other is stuck with it for life from opiate induced brain damage.

One child we sent to a residence treatment facility and it helped with finding the pathway outta it. It cost about $50K a month and anytime less than 6 months is a waste of time and money. That advise you can rely on.

Meds help somewhat but aren't a silver bullet cure. May make them more tolerable to live with, but only if they take their meds - which they usually refuse.

It's been really tough on my wife and I. A real cross to carry.
Like death, depression arrives on wings.
 
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traquer

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I've been looking into this deeply to help my friend (who's doing better by the way) and I ordered him this book after it was heavily recommended. I also bought it for myself to have on hand https://www.amazon.com/Mood-Cure-4-Step-Program-Emotions-Today/dp/0142003646

Apparently if you are depressed for no real reason, then it is simply a chemical imbalance in the brain firing the wrong signals. And this can easily be corrected with some supplements you can buy at Whole Foods or Amazon. If your dog dies or you lose your job or something, sure, you'll be depressed for a bit, then slowly it will go away and you'll move on. That's how we're designed. However if it lasts forever though, or something super minor kicked it off, then that's not normal and your brain is probably low on something and is thinking thoughts that are way worse than warranted. Great book that tells you how to fix it for a dozen common problems. get it for him!
 
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