Commentary from December 21, 2016
This comic started as something else. I wrote the first three panels about eight months ago, and it was supposed to be about how important it is to be skeptical about information that you see on the internet. Not just about depression, but everything. Unfortunately I couldn’t think about how to end it, so I left it for another day.
Nowadays, thanks to this year’s election, there has been a lot more information and misinformation that we have to sort through. People believe a lot what is said without checking for accuracy. Now a lot of this is just human nature — we tend to accept without question information that fits in with our world view and we rarely question the source. But a lot of information nowadays seems to be tuned towards making us fear the future and hate each other. This cannot be a good environment for mental health.
But back to depression. One of the things I’ve gotten when I dismiss something is that if I haven’t tried everything, I’m not really suffering. I thought this would make a good final panel because I’m sure others have heard it too. The problem is that there is so many depression “cures” being peddled, one cannot try them all and one shouldn’t. Some of it is clickbait, some of it is to make a buck off of vulnerable people. It’s hard to tell what is fake and what is real, and knowing how to determine an article’s validity is such an important skill nowadays.
I worked briefly for a company that was tied to Google, and one of our jobs was to determine the quality of homepages that came up in a Google search. It had a list of things we should look for such as contact information, reputation, and whether or not the page was copied and pasted content. We had to be thorough, and it was a good experience (but I quit anyways, it was a high pressure part-time job). But maybe these skills are a necessary part of daily life now and need to be taught so we don’t have world-impacting decisions made while appealing to our gullibility.
Nowadays, thanks to this year’s election, there has been a lot more information and misinformation that we have to sort through. People believe a lot what is said without checking for accuracy. Now a lot of this is just human nature — we tend to accept without question information that fits in with our world view and we rarely question the source. But a lot of information nowadays seems to be tuned towards making us fear the future and hate each other. This cannot be a good environment for mental health.
But back to depression. One of the things I’ve gotten when I dismiss something is that if I haven’t tried everything, I’m not really suffering. I thought this would make a good final panel because I’m sure others have heard it too. The problem is that there is so many depression “cures” being peddled, one cannot try them all and one shouldn’t. Some of it is clickbait, some of it is to make a buck off of vulnerable people. It’s hard to tell what is fake and what is real, and knowing how to determine an article’s validity is such an important skill nowadays.
I worked briefly for a company that was tied to Google, and one of our jobs was to determine the quality of homepages that came up in a Google search. It had a list of things we should look for such as contact information, reputation, and whether or not the page was copied and pasted content. We had to be thorough, and it was a good experience (but I quit anyways, it was a high pressure part-time job). But maybe these skills are a necessary part of daily life now and need to be taught so we don’t have world-impacting decisions made while appealing to our gullibility.
No idea which emoticon to click. Because I got really angry at the other person’s thought.
I agree 100% with you. We have enough to try between CBT, DBT, IFS, ACT, disconnected or connected ”Mindfulness” (to a therapeutic program) – that it is the primary reason I don’t / can’t share any difficulties I may be having (including wonderful ones such as mass cortisone doses for serious physical pain, such as back or neck discs or arthritis if the discs have exited the body on their own thanks to an Rx or two, and the cortisone doses create “Prednisone Psychosis” that doesn’t exit quick if injected…
The quacks are already causing more difficulty for such dosing more than 1x per year (sometimes 4 and 5), but they don’t bother to see if there was any turbulence from that action, and we ourselves don’t know because it creeps up as it starts – and can’t separate it from events which may be ongoing.
One added note about the Quack Kingdom – is the excess use of Nurse Practitioners as prescribers. Ignoring my primary complaint and the way it was successfully handled for nearly 20 years, teenage acne doses of simple antibiotics kept my teeth less susceptible to dental caries thanks to the anticholinergic actions of SSRIs + seasonal antihistamines (dry mouth – it is to propionic bacteria, like throwing steaks to tigers and alligators – much the same as “meth mouth”).
3 weeks later, face massively swollen, required 3 ER visits, (my first ear infection in 40 years since tonsils removed) and a CT scan of face to be sure there was no fistula into sinus cavity from gum line – $10,000 in care, because “$1 in antibiotiics” was “bad medicine.” The fact that 30 days of ongoing infection, tooth pain and trigeminal “migraine” like pain (like nothing I’ve ever had, and I’m missing 3 discs in my back by same quacks).
What DID I get? Unusual insistence upon a statin for cholesterol. No follow-up ordered or suggested, despite 1 week, 3 week 5 week would have been appropriate. Why? #1 Side Effect – cramping of smooth muscle along the spine that Flexaril, et. al., are given to relieve. 6 weeks of this cramping squeezed 1 herniated disc and two others to the point of complete failure. “Collapse” as it is known. They are GONE. 100%. I am bone to bone with serious joint arthritis now taking over the area and necessitating the CORTISONE in paragraph 1.
Issue #2: No blood test. No knowledge of where liver enzymes are. Liver enzymes that metabolize the benzos, the SSRIs, the pain medication (C-II medication) were washed away within hours of taking them. As if they were never taken at all. Hormones as well. Anxiety so extreme that hospitalization was required as dual SSRIs also failed completely and both of the short half-life variety. REMEMBER THE BLACK BOX WARNINGS??
Equiv of 100 xrays to the face, medication that didn’t lower cholesterol wiped out all other meds including the now ER prescribed Augmenten to handle gumline/cavity that became a rampant infection, spread to ear up Eustachian Tube – and resulted in 18-20 decibel hearing loss in one ear within 1 week despite begging to do something.
The discs are gone, my mind could not handle the huge doses of cortisone trying to make up for unknown reason for failure of pain and anxiety medication, nor why MRIs now show discs above/below herniated disc in good shape for my age – have ruptured… and the hormones which were shut down my the anxiety a decade prior, are themselves, despite injection of esterified hormone (to last longer in the attack of enzymes to first detach the ester, then the standard battle for ~4 hours that goes on like normally secreted hormones continuously throughout day with peaks/valley during sleep), – the testosterone, the hCG, the rhLH & FSH UNMEASURABLE — Testosterone vanished so completely even after dose doubled while in-patient, to weekly – yet no hormone for all facets (free, bound, epi, estro bounce, signaling from clomid, and 15,000 units/week hCG, result in T levels of 80 to 90ng), when 650-700 would be typical at that dose.
WHY? Because no knowledge NP (and rare instance for MDs including narco physiatrists, anesthesiologist, 2 neurologists, psychiatrist and *psycho-neuro pharmacologist* all look at records, and do not see the Statin and the liver enzyme connection until I used computer to obtain book reviewing sex hormones & mental health and my re-review of pituitary MRI and radiology report of 10 years prior, guessing stress/PTSD/Adrenal overload for HPS Axis non-functional secretions in absence of pituitary adenoma. Gel or injected fixed when restart could not be obtained a decade prior.
Finally one guesses (the pharmacologist) about a look at the statin and daily liver panels, with it removed.
One quack, and a house full of well intentioned SuperQuacks kept me from killing myself for 6 weeks (the cortisone was hell on the mind and the only thing not disappearing from my system given the depth of injection site, at joint, with 7.5” needle within a 6” 18 gauge needle, to place it on the bone surface. The cytokine leakage of herniated disc was found by me reviewing MRI, and called for 3rd party re-reading, as the disc leakage killed the bone marrow – thus killing the vertebra, making it incapable of holding screws for a fusion.
My insistence on 2nd MRI to see state of bone marrow edema made it all click for everyone – while I still had to wait for Statin to wash out, and move to high dose clorazepate (Transxene) of 30mg BID until it cleared- but hearing is damaged, tooth was lost, discs are gone, arthritis is spreading quickly – and one person was the cause (along with dentist in same office) of no care for oral condition over $1 worth of doxycycline, and all the permanent damage I’ve endured, physical and mental, is here forever… TO SAVE $1 and lower cholesterol that didn’t move more than 4% after 6 weeks of HELL.
Ugh.
I hate when people do stuff like this. It’s way too common. I’m sorry I didn’t jump at the chance to try something unfounded on any real medical basis that was touted by someone with no credentials and nothing to suggest that they have any experience in this field of study. I’m sorry I’d rather listen to the professionals that had the proper education and have a real background in this field and actually know what they’re talking about.
This cartoon was trigger-free. The stupidity of that kind of reasoning is what is NOT trigger free! (Not a Clay complaint!) — Hearing that kind of “well YOU must not… if MY idea isn’t good enough for you” – amongst or from those who don’t have a clue why exactly what she’s looking for – citation, references – that if all she needs is an article sandwiched between Kardashians and the latest Taylor Swift feud to get their full faith – makes you want to really rub their nose in it and ask “Did you call and ask YOUR doctor about it before presenting it to me? No? Would you have called your mother’s doc before handing it to HER as a serious article to follow? (If ‘no’ – then “maybe medical research isn’t for you, you know? But that silicone job that Taylor got – let’s take a look at that! I wouldn’t want a doc that didn’t do at least as flawless a job as she got! Do you think this magazine says who it was? No? I wonder why they don’t HERE or on the Psychiatric article!?”
“Maybe I should rub myself in Hungry Jack Mashed Potatoes!”
Anything to make someone think before wanting to be taken seriously without deserving it.
OK, when it comes to something like a staph infection or a broken bone, doctors are very good at fixing those, with a high success rate.
I am not seeing the success rate with mental illness.
I feel like if someone is going to claim expertise in a thing, they should probably prove it with a track record of success in that thing.
I see a suicide rate, not a success rate, with depression treatment.
So yeah. If, based on my knowledge–I’m no doctor but am a bit of a nerd about this stuff–something comes along that seems fairly promising, I’m willing to give it a fair shake, IF I can afford to do it.
There isn’t any reason *not* to.
Permanent organ damage? Loss of money needed for other things, with zero positive result? Unresearched interactions? I could think of three in three seconds.
Oh, and some more: Success rate was announced based on small sample chosen to fit pre-existing biases about the condition; cure is complete bullshit and the person who is championing it the most is selling it; it actually works, but on some other condition, with a cure for your condition as a possible but not certain side effect; the so-called cure demands that the sufferer pour a lot of energy into it when energy is the main thing they don’t have; there’s a documented death rate associated with the cure; there’s a heavy atmosphere of if-it-doesn’t-work-you’re-doing-it-rong among people who favor this cure; people love it and talk about it all the time, but a short-term gain is followed by a long-term worsening of the condition in at least 95 percent of those who follow the directions for the cure exactly, as documented by long-term studies with large sample sizes; the people flogging this cure the most don’t seem to comprehend what the thing they’re trying to cure even is.
I have seen every single one of these in those magazine/news site articles about the Latest ‘n’ Greatest Whatever. Every. Single. One.
Clearly you are part of the problem then. Phych treatments have made leaps and bounds in the last 50 years. Even in the last 10 years. Yes, I trust someone that worked hard for years studying the field to get their degree more than I trust someone that’s “a nerd”. Yeah, there are still suicides. But there are still people dying from cancer, and suffering through diabetes. Are you going to stop trusting oncologists just because their patients die more often than not?? Are you going to make the diabetic stop taking insulin just because people die from the disease eventually?? Odds are, anything anyone touts as a “cure” for depression will either be the normal avenues such as talk therapy, or healthy diet and exercise, OR it’ll be alternative medicine; take these Goji berry pills and you’ll be completely better, or align your shakras and center your chi to achieve balance. If it’s normal, I’ve most likely tried it already and have balanced the practices into my day to day life as I see fit. If it’s alternative, I need proof first. Show me the controlled study that was conducted by real professionals. Show me the hundreds of other people that had medically diagnosed Major Depression that used this method and were cured. Prove to me why this method is worth my time and effort. If you can’t show me hard evidence of why this will help me, then I’m not gonna waste my time chasing some theory.
This is such a common problem; well meaning but poorly thought out advice. I think a lot of people just don’t understand some of the ways that mental illness differs from other illnesses. If you have strep throat or a sinus infection, you are going to get an antibiotic and it will work just as well as it works for everybody else with the same problem. With mental illness, as all of us here know, isn’t like that. What works for one person may not work for another. There is a lot of trial and error in the treatment process. Personally, I went through about 20 different medications before finding a combination that worked.
The last panel really says it all. We are all trying, but we try and make informed decisions about treatment. Try anything? There is just so much wrong with that approach for treatment of any type of illness. If anyone I know had the same thoughts as in that last panel, it would greatly lower my opinion of them. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who do think that way.
Wait until you read my above about the Strep & revisited 40 years later, what resulted – as soon as it appears from moderation. I actually forget to add that person in comic strip would either get an education as I typed it (possibly bound to chair) or just a similar question reframed – such as, “if you could feel rough tissue on your cervix, which turns out indeed is typically HPV, which is the same as for warts on skin or Planter’s Warts on feet – and old wives tail about rubbing a potato on it and throwing potto into sunset – and when potato is gone so should wart (because of enzyme in the potato that is toxic to HPV).
Why would they bother having a Pap & instead just play it safe, try a few varieties of potato and maybe even a box of Hungry Jack Instant Mashed Potatoes along with (make the gravy the next day! – make it sound insane as it really is) — “or don’t you want to be sure you get that HPV – since of the 200 varieties, they vaccinate for only 4 (which cause ~90% of the neoplasia that becomes malignant, and 14 others for the other 10% of *HPV caused cancer* – and the other 180 types are just a nuisance that go away on their own) —” who are you going to trust? 1000 years of Irish Potato Wisdom – or some person in a smock with a BIG QTip??”
Part of the issue is that mental illness is only contextualized as an illness. Most of what nuerotypicals do is self destructive, harmful to others, and grossly inappropriate. But because it’s “normal” it’s not considered an illness. Which says to me that if everyone on earth had depression, it would be considered healthy and normal, and people would wonder what’s wrong with those that don’t have it.
That said, physical illness doesn’t work all that different. Antibiotics work for lots of people, but not all, and different people struggle with different side effects. There’s no one path to recovery for anything, and with mental “illness” recovery isn’t even necessarily an accurate term.
People do this all the time, but it’s especially bad when it comes to mental health.
Hah! I thought you were replying to people do this all the time — with instant potatoes! (Though it probably happens somewhere and already I believe it!!)
After “trying anything” I can not stand that reasning, if you are lucky it wont do anything, but it is far from unlikely to just make things worse.
The thing I love about living with psychological disability rather than physical disability is that psychoeducation is encouraged. It’s a significant component of our treatment. I just wish others could understand this before confronting us with the “if you really wanted to get better…” stuff.
I’m going to have to agree with the friend in this case. If something does not work, try something else. I don’t like pills, so I guess I am more apt to try something like sunlight and exercise to boost my endorphins. We know that nothing is 100 percent, and no one thing works for all people, all of the time. So why throw away a new idea?
Perhaps it’s not as clear as I’d like, but the reason why is that there are a lot of claims on the net, and a lot of them made in such a way that responsibility for making the claim is evaded. I am a believer in research providing better answers than anonymous people on the internet, and occasionally, some new ideas can be a waste of money or even dangerous. Thinking critically is an important skill when navigating all the information on the internet, and this is what I was trying to get at with this strip.
I should have added that I don’t agree with the “if you really were suffering” crap. I am suffering but I have yet to consult a guru or stand on my head. So no, I haven’t tried EVERYTHING (yet).
Reminds me of my mother