Low Self Esteem

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Originally posted by YourTheManNowDog
most people who have depression whine. there is also sketchy evidence any such thing as ADD exists. they are LAZY and want a free ride.

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That is a generalization. ADD is a reality, but it is overly diagnosed. Some people might want attention or prescription speed or whatever, but it is illogical to lump every person with the diagnosis into that category. I didn't get any free rides, and I didn't ask for any. I just struggled my ass off to pay attention in class and very often literally could not do it. I often do it in conversations now. Some people are spacier than others, right? Now take that spaciness to an extreme level. Would such a concept be illogical? No, it would be illogical to rule out the concept. That concept is ADD. The brain has mechanisms and chemicals involved in the attention process. When there are deficiencies in those mechanisms and chemicals, attention deficits exist. It would be a scientific bizarrity if they didn't.

The fact that some people with depression whine is not evidence that it does not exist. Scientific evidence says it exists, the experiences of the depressed say it exists, and my own experiences undoubtably say it exists. Your chances of convincing me that I have never experienced clinical depression are about the same as the chances of your convincing me that I have never been to my home city of Jackson.

My worst depression happened when I was 19. I had no idea what was causing it, but I was overwhelmed with the impulse to jump off the building I was staying in. I adamantly did not want to do it, but I was overwhelmed with the impulse to do it. The feeling of wanting the depression to go away was like a religious experience of the negative kind. I didn't even know that such depression was possible, especially when I could not identify an external cause. It turned out to be a serotonin deficiency. I was treated successfully with medication, and I ended up having one of the best summer's of my life. I know what I experienced, and it was overwhelmingly real. This is very common.

Saying depression does not exist is like saying excitement doesn't exist or sexual arousal doesn't exist. It is just blatantly false.

What logic or scientific backup do you have to support your claims? You are making some pretty extreme statements, and to do that, you should back it up with something other than, "They whine," or, "They are all just lazy." Theories that contradict modern scientific knowledge require a great deal more than that.

yea man just type in google "ADD myth" you should get all kinds of hits.......i dont remember the stuff i read off hand. i remember reading that researchers have been trying and find some kind of gene for ADD and they keep saying they are "close to finding it"....but if you look deeper into it apparently the research is funded by the company that produced Ritalin......you have to look at who is funding research. im not sure if they have found the gene yet or not maybe they have.

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Originally posted by YourTheManNowDog
yea man just type in google \"ADD myth\" you should get all kinds of hits.......i dont remember the stuff i read off hand. i remember reading that researchers have been trying and find some kind of gene for ADD and they keep saying they are \"close to finding it\"....but if you look deeper into it apparently the research is funded by the company that produced Ritalin......you have to look at who is funding research. im not sure if they have found the gene yet or not maybe they have.

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Yeh, there are some people saying ADD doesn't exist, but meanwhile, I know they are wrong. It's like the people saying that there is a lack of scientific evidence that marijuana has medicinal value, saying that it doesn't increase appetite, doesn't relieve nausea, doesn't relieve feelings of sickness, and all kinds of other claims. Meanwhile, I was stoned while watching those claims being made on the news as I was craving entire boxes of cereal and annihilating my nausea, feeling better when I got stoned when I was sick. Do you know what I mean? People who don't have ADD can talk back and forth all day about scientific back up and lack of it and whatever, but people who have ADD already know the truth.

More importantly though, what evidence do you have that depression doesn't exist? Why in the world would a deficiency of serotonin not cause depression when our understanding of serotonin guarantees that it would? And again, I personally know what the truth is. I know what my serotonin deficiency caused. It was the worst nightmare of my life, and I didn't find out until far into it that it was a serotonin deficiency.

Depression is a mind-body problem, when it affects both your outlook on life and your actual life. So, the way to combat it, I think, is to use both the mind and the body.

Psychologists may help your mind but they do squat for your body. In fact, they are likely to damage it if they push drugs on you. Only you can stand up for yourself in this case. Know that it is not wrong to leave them, if they are doing this. In fact standing up for yourself in this way shows much progress!

So exercise your mind and your body. Doing only one can cause a disequilibrium and create even more problems. :) Eat good foods and do good physical activities, and read good books and do good mental activities.

Which activities are "good?" Whichever ones that agree with you.

That is the big step, in my eyes. There is no authority in existence that can possibly tell you definitively what is good for you and what is not good for you, except you, and only on an honest and personal level.

To illustrate, Winston Churchill was one of the happiest people his friends knew, not to mention a hero, who withstood perhaps the most agonizing strife a human being can take - watching his country being invaded while being its leader! And he was a fat smoker all the way to his death at 91 years old.

And he said, "Never give in— never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense."

I suffer from SADD pretty horribly.

Instead of letting 'em medicate me, I just installed daylight tubes in massive quantities at work and at home. In the winter, I just endeavor not to stray too far from 'em for any longer than I absolutely HAVE to.

Well it's clear that there are people with a distinct problem, but IMO doctors are far too quick to jump to the ADD conclusion for kids in particular.
Often it's just a spoilt kid, or a bad lifestyle involving the wrong food at the wrong time.
I feel for those with a definite problem, but it should be investigated far more seriously before rushing for the ritalin.

I agree with Ex Nine on the tips & advice :)

When I was young I knew a kid who was the man. He'd do anything if you told him he couldn't. Anyway, one day he goes and sees a doctor and and they put him on ritalin. He was never the same. He kind of sucked without ADD.

I think childhood is too early to prescribe adderol unless it's a SERIOUS issue. You can't give out amphetamines to every punkass kid who won't listen to his parents. You also can't medicate every kid with ADD for reasons exemplified above.

Sometimes when it's 2 am and I haven't started my homework yet I kick myself for not getting treated, but other than that I kind of enjoy having ADD. I feel like it's part of my personality. In order for me to start paying attention for more than a few seconds at a time I would have to stop being Danger-Russ.