Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

I am one of those silly people who thought that my adult depression was all my fault... and if I couldn't cure myself then it was unfair to expect others to help me.

 However, this finding has given me some relief.

I am a 40-something intelligent and attractive person suffering depression and it makes my life very difficult. One of the greatest problems has been thinking I should “just get over it”. The article I've linked to makes me realise I may have had a predisposition to depression from a young age when a great multi-level trauma affected my family within a short time.

This is my first Webdiary post. Thanks for making a forum like this available.

Regards, Julie.

Craig R. Ed.: A most warm welcome to you Julie, and thank you for joining in the conversation with the contribution of a link that may help people.

I have to agree with others regarding cannabis: its effects are short term and those that appear to suffer from it, you will find, are using other drugs. Tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, even additives in foods, all contribute much more than cannabis to mental instability, I believe. My own experience sits well with what Phil and Ross say. Why the authorities are so obsessed with cannabis is because they can't control it, as you can just drop a seed in the ground and up she comes. Whilst other drugs – alcohol, alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals – are all in the control of politicians’ vested interests and make them lots of money.

Find me a survey or statistics that show the number of people who have been injured or died from consumption of cannabis, on its own and not combined with tobacco, alcohol and prescription drugs. To my knowledge, you won't find one case of death or serious illness. Sure, lots of people say when they are arrested for a crime, I was on dope. But that's because the system drops their sentence by saying they weren't in full control. I believe that if you have any drug in your system and commit a crime, then you should have the sentence doubled: it’s called being responsible for your actions. We may see fewer people before the courts and a lot less domestic and road trauma.

With what appears to be a growing collapse of our social fabric world wide and the growing amount of chemicals in food, and noise and air pollution, is it any wonder that mental health is suffering? After all, we are heading for enslavement to an economic dictatorship controlled by big business.

Gareth Eastwood, through personal observation I have known no one to suffer mental health problems solely from using marijuana. I have met literally thousands of people who use it or have tried it. Most people who try it don’t continue to use it, though a significant number who do try it continue to use it for a period of time. Most who use it usually give it away or grow out of the habit when work and family responsibilities take over. Only a small number of users will continue using it into old age: it tends to become rather boring.

So it would appear from my observations I would disagree with the surveys and reports you refer to, as Mike Lyvers does.

However, I fear that I could be jumping to conclusions here and wonder if there is some truth in your reports. I certainly would not dismiss them outright.

Although I have not had a close look at the reports nor the methodology, it does relate to young teenagers, whereas my experience with drugs did not occur until after I had left school.

It would interest me to see more research done on this topic, as I suspect that young developing brains may be disadvantaged by using any type of drug, especially alcohol. Are you aware of any similar surveys into teenagers, alcohol use and mental illness?

Although I am not trying to twist this post into an alcohol bashing thing I feel that we, as a community, should be investigating the effects of all drugs (used by juveniles) on human brain development and do that research in a very sincere manner.

I have also noted that over the years many western governments have spent literally billions of dollars researching the medical implications of marijuana use, yet not so with other legal and socially accepted drugs. Why is this?

The American government spent nearly 4 billion dollars in 2004 just on anti marijuana propaganda alone.

I sometimes wonder if we took the same approach with such things as alcohol, tobacco, amphetamines and Ritalin, then we would be better placed as a community to deal with the drug problem as a whole.

Somehow I feel that, if we spend billions of dollars researching any substance, then we will possibly find all sorts of interesting and disturbing relationships regarding things mental and things health.

Gareth, I have read a bit on the effects of cannabis and mental illness. Those that do start it early would surely suffer some effects mentally, as they would if they began any drug at an early age, even pharmaceuticals. Currently a lot of young people are taking some form of pharmaceutical concoction even as young as six to control their mental anguish and uncontrollable behaviour. Why this trend has grown needs to be looked at. To me it is simply our lifestyle, diet and heavily polluted environment. What studies have been made into the effects noise has upon us? We are bombarded by all kinds of noise well beyond our ability to cope, just walk out into a suburban street and you are hit with a constant scream of many high intensity noises. Most people become accustomed to this and don't notice it that much, but it still affects us and that effect must surely be cumulative.

I know a number of veterans that use cannabis and find it very helpful in controlling their depression and PTSD. I would expect they wouldn't have started to use it until their 20's. I've used it when younger (yep inhaled) and haven't met anyone that still uses it that suffers depression, quite the opposite. Mind you, they would all be well-adjusted in life and prefer it as a recreational drug compared to grog. I probably would as well if I needed a drug to relax and enjoy myself, but I can't stand smoking and rarely drink, being a two glass sleeper.

I can only speak from my observations and, being a veteran, understand what lengths we sometimes have to go to in calming the gremlins that constantly invade our minds. Sadly we are unable to enter another's head and experience what happens when the mind goes awry, so it is really a personal thing. Professionals still don't understand this and just open their book and categorise you, giving little relevance to individual circumstances.

I've seen lots of so-called knowledgeable qualified professionals over the years, until I cleaned myself out. I haven't found one that has a clue. All their knowledge comes out of books and classrooms, not from personal experience or as a witness to the events that spark manic depression. Now I treat myself and can finally handle what my mind puts in front of me as it's not distorted any more.

Alga, another potential catalyst for depression these days is the use of cannabis. Here is a link to a New Scientist article about three studies that concluded there is a link.

One of the key conclusions of the research is that people who start smoking cannabis as adolescents are at the greatest risk of later developing mental health problems. Another team calculates that eliminating cannabis use in the UK population could reduce cases of schizophrenia by 13 per cent.

Depression is an interesting subject, but not a nice one. It's interesting that some are looking to prevention rather than suppression as with medication, however it is a growing problem that is getting worse in its effect upon us.

I believe there are many contributors to this problem, most seem to be either missed or rejected without investigation. As our brains act upon chemical and electrical changes within it, then any alteration to normal chemical and electrical balance brings about altered brain states. These can be expressed as forms of depression, and some types of mental instability.

When you consider urban environments are heavily polluted with massive amounts of chemicals and electromagnetic energies, is it any wonder many minds are becoming increasingly disrupted? This doesn't take into account the amount of depression within the rural community but it’s aligned. If we were to count the amount of chemical substances that are now within our diets, from herbicides, pesticides, enhancers, additives, preservatives, saturated fats and irradiated foods (microwaved), we find that our brains are subjected to constant bombardment with inorganic substances that alter the chemical and electrical balance of the brain. Naturally this leads to the wrong signals being produced and processed, leading to us becoming confused and depressed.

Because of a physical health problem, I was forced to change my diet and found that once I had eliminated processed foods, the debilitating depression I suffered from disappeared, only to return when I again consumed foods with additives. I compiled a list of what chemicals I consumed in foods during my day and was horrified at the number, incidence and quantity. Taken in isolation, they would probably kill me. I have yet to find any studies or tests done on these chemicals that saturate our lives, to see what effects they have upon our brains and biological processes.

If you want a subliminal conspiracy theory, pharmaceutical companies supply the additives that go into cropping, animal husbandry and processed foods which I believe are the basic cause of the rising incidence of depression and why after medication is stopped it returns. These same pharmaceutical companies also provide the drugs that mask the symptoms of depression. So if we were to remove the cause, chemicals from food production, we would have no need for symptom suppression and the pharmaceutical giants would go broke.

So they win both ways, they provide the cause and then the suppression, but not a cure. When you add the huge electromagnetic effects upon us by using AC currents which are deadly to the human system instead of DC which in the majority isn't harmful, we can construct a picture that may lead us to the causes: lifestyle, diet and environment pollution. One commercial jet, dumps tonnes of unburnt fuel on cities every flight, multiply that with the hundreds of flights a day. I read where studies done under flight paths in the US found a huge incidence of depression, brain tumours and cancers the closer they got to airports. Then consider the amount of chemicals that the farming community uses along with their reliance on buying processed foods, rather than growing them as they did in the past. So the growing incidence of rural depression may show that it's what we put into our bodies that may well be the cause of many clinical depressions.

Add all that to the number of chemicals people now use on their bodies to mask the smells that emanate from them, because of the chemicals absorbed into the body and you have bodies saturated with chemical cocktails from within and without.

Hey Hamish, I was rather embarrassed when I read your preamble to this article. I couldn't compare my knowledge to anything a specialist has to say as I have only my experience and my own problem(s) to lean on.

Depression is not an area I would have chosen as an area I know much about but fate has it...

Professor Williams has made a statement I think is critical for all to read and understand, particularly government. That statement is

"As our understanding of depression grows and we see that it is a recurring problem, the emphasis is shifting from cure to prevention."

This clearly spells out the truth: that medical science as yet knows very little about the brain and mental health issues. Our medical fraternity do the best they can with our current knowledge but, to me, it's really just the tip of a large iceberg.

Despite the recent HOG meeting where Premiers and Howard all slapped hands and swore to fix the mental health problems, those who heard John Howard the next day after that meeting would know they don't really have any idea.

He said words to the effect of, "In the old days everyone just used to get on with living. I think more people today should do the same."

That statement from Howard clearly demonstrated that he knows zip about how people suffer. People in the old days were frequently just locked up or quartered where others couldn't see or be affected by them. That's Johnny's world, I believe.

As well you see, anybody suffering depression has one basic aim. That is to beat depression and live normally, whatever that is. The last thing a mental health sufferer needs to hear is some moron saying, "Get on with it" as that's all they want to do. All mental health sufferers need is care rather than $, platitudes and documents a mile high which mean little. $'s of course help but I find that much of government spending on this issue is publicity rather than anything useful.

This statement from Professor Williams I don't agree with at all,

"The most commonly used treatment for major depression is anti-depressant medication. It is relatively cheap, and it is easy for family practitioners, who treat the majority of depressed people, to prescribe."

Why? Firstly, they are not cheap. Ask any USA user. The PBS subsidises most of these drugs in our country but not all. While this makes the drugs affordable for most Australians, it still costs the Australian community many times what the user pays. Government know that, but their approach is to cut the costs at the prescription stage rather than do what Prof Williams had said in the first statement above. That is, prevention is cheaper and more effective!

The other issue that I have as an individual is that I strongly believe that the ease with which many GP's prescribe anti-depressants is quite dodgy. Most of them know little about these drugs, but, unfortunately, they are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. By default they are the people most used to access treatment, and this too is almost mandated by the cost of specialist treatment. They try but there are many prescriptions which should be considered much more carefully.

The bottom line with any treatment is that they do not "cure" depression. You do. Any treatment that helps allows you to gather yourself, look at your life and make changes to solidify the relief of symptoms. Swallowing pills and waiting does not work in itself.

To Chris, I too would encourage anyone, everyone to join in, here or elsewhere to discuss depression. Either for themselves, family, friends and acquaintances who may have depression. Talking about it really helps and also assists in breaking down the stigma problem that many know just compounds the problems.

This technique sounds very much like (I hope the spelling is correct) Vissipana Yoga. I understand that there are free retreats run by this yoga group which involve complete silence but emphasise awareness of one's physical being in the moment.

It would be interesting to hear from a practitioner or teacher of this type of yoga.

On the topic of medication, I have to say that I use Avanza and I have no concerns about staying on it for good. Instead of waking up in the early hours and battling with the mind worms I now get a good night's sleep. Other symptoms which fellow sufferers would be all too aware of are also alleviated.

It would be good to hear from families of sufferers on this thread, since I know I put mine through hell for about three years - talk about walking on eggshells.