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****Official**** depression thread (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter St. Louis Bob
- Start date
El Floppo
Footballguy
Speaking of docs... I have something called cough variant asthma. When I got any cold or allergies, the post nasal drip triggers a terrible, ever worsening cough. Wakes me (and wife) up all night, continues throughout the day at work. My specialist doctor is trying- but my insurance won't cover anything I know from experience works, and will only cover stuff that I know doesn't or haven't tried yet. On my 3nd new med- after having to fight to get each one... Getting worse and worse as the days turn into weeks with nothing. And it doesn't work.
So not sleeping and feeling like **** isnt helping my lifelong fight with depression. Plus my depression gets in the way of battling to get what's right for me with docs/insurance, including getting PT for my Achilles which has kept me from running and has put me at the most out of shape I've been in my life.
But worse is my mom's ALS, which is ****ing wrecking me.. obviously not as much as it's doing to her. The coughing wakes me up, and then I'm thinking about her and just spiral.
My kids are genuinely thriving, work has been good and life is ok I guess. But it's been a real, awful battle.
So not sleeping and feeling like **** isnt helping my lifelong fight with depression. Plus my depression gets in the way of battling to get what's right for me with docs/insurance, including getting PT for my Achilles which has kept me from running and has put me at the most out of shape I've been in my life.
But worse is my mom's ALS, which is ****ing wrecking me.. obviously not as much as it's doing to her. The coughing wakes me up, and then I'm thinking about her and just spiral.
My kids are genuinely thriving, work has been good and life is ok I guess. But it's been a real, awful battle.
KGB
Footballguy
I'm happy your kids are doing great! I know thats very important to me
im new to this game. thats all I know.
GoBirds
Footballguy
Bobby much appreciated my friend! Doing well, navigated some really challenging work deals and feel like I’m in a much better spot. How are things on your end, hopefully all is well?Hey thank you guys for the great input on this and getting me comfortable giving it a shot. I’m on the minimal dose and I feel it has started to really help balance out the anxiety as well as improve energy throughout the day. Another benefit I didn’t expect was curbing my appetite making transitioning to healthy eating much easier. Thanks guys for the input and advice not to be afraid to try it.
Just wanted to check in and see how it's going. NBD if you don't want to share, you don't owe anyone an update. Sending good vibes* your way, brother man.
*which is another way of saying I'm praying for you but just in case you're not a higher power kind of guy,,,,,
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Bobby much appreciated my friend! Doing well, navigated some really challenging work deals and feel like I’m in a much better spot. How are things on your end, hopefully all is well?Hey thank you guys for the great input on this and getting me comfortable giving it a shot. I’m on the minimal dose and I feel it has started to really help balance out the anxiety as well as improve energy throughout the day. Another benefit I didn’t expect was curbing my appetite making transitioning to healthy eating much easier. Thanks guys for the input and advice not to be afraid to try it.
Just wanted to check in and see how it's going. NBD if you don't want to share, you don't owe anyone an update. Sending good vibes* your way, brother man.
*which is another way of saying I'm praying for you but just in case you're not a higher power kind of guy,,,,,
Good to hear.
I've been mostly OK.
Lions are having a good offseason, and I am surrounded by amazing supportive people.
I got verbally assaulted on public transportation yesterday. Lasted around 5-7 minutes; unhinged (& likely unhoused) dude went off bc I gave him a low key how you doin' as a I slid past him on the bus. He was already experiencing psychosis, getting himself worked up at an unseen adversary. Apparently an acknowledgement of his existence was enough of an excuse to go DEFCON 1.
The bus was mostly empty. Apathetic driver, one other veteran upfront on the opposite side, 85 y.o. woman with a granny cart in front of me, teenage boy in the rear section. I like to sit in the single seats opposite the rear exit. The perp was seated but jumped up when I was about to go past and made himself wide.
Initially he let me go past and get settled, then he rushed over and was glowering over me. Didn't touch me, but close enough I caught some spittle spray. Loud af, shouting obscenities and threats. The endorphins hit the opiate receptors, I was flooded with adrenaline. Surprisingly, was able to process the threat and my options. Normally when I feel an adrenaline rush I cannot have coherent thoughts; yesterday everything went into slow motion.
Walked 10 minutes to the VA. After 45 minutes or so I was sufficiently calm to share with my PTSD group. My one-on-one therapist carved out a half hour for me after lunch to help me process what happened. On the bright side, I was not harmed, was able to assess and then make a good choice. But what a load of crap to deal with, eh?
I'm staying home today. Bit farther than I wish to walk (4.9 miles) and this is the 2nd time I've been assaulted on public transportation in the last 6 months. Think I'll look into getting a bike.
The bus was mostly empty. Apathetic driver, one other veteran upfront on the opposite side, 85 y.o. woman with a granny cart in front of me, teenage boy in the rear section. I like to sit in the single seats opposite the rear exit. The perp was seated but jumped up when I was about to go past and made himself wide.
Initially he let me go past and get settled, then he rushed over and was glowering over me. Didn't touch me, but close enough I caught some spittle spray. Loud af, shouting obscenities and threats. The endorphins hit the opiate receptors, I was flooded with adrenaline. Surprisingly, was able to process the threat and my options. Normally when I feel an adrenaline rush I cannot have coherent thoughts; yesterday everything went into slow motion.
- driver is looking up frequently, but grinning like this is a funny only-in-NYC thing; won't get any help there
- Vet is closely monitoring, he's ready to come over but assessing if it's going to escalate; he's significantly larger than me or the assailant but too far away; not gonna get there in time
- dude keeps pacing, returning to a dirty cloth Target bag, blousing the top like he's checking the contents - possible weapon?
- I can def take the guy but that's not my preferred style; gave up fisticuffs 40+ years ago, but in nanoseconds I ran through the choices
- was a rainy day, I have a small weighty - jab to the solar plexus should be enough to stun him enough to have to gather my stuff and bolt
- the umbrella has enough girth a blow to the jaw could work but I'm in tight quaters
- pull toward me next time he comes in close & jab his eyeballs with index/pinky fingers (if he gets ahold of me I'm seated and cornered, not good)
- use the pole for leverage to get up quickly, accelerate & launch, come down on the outside of his knee with my boot (pops the ligament but if i whiff i'm off balance)
- I have noise canceling headphones which is probably helping me a lot here bc I'm able to tune out his vitorol; he may have a weapon somewhere but his words can't hurt me
- I'm not legal expert on self-defense but choosing violence def could result in arrest, jail, or more hassle than I want to deal with.
Walked 10 minutes to the VA. After 45 minutes or so I was sufficiently calm to share with my PTSD group. My one-on-one therapist carved out a half hour for me after lunch to help me process what happened. On the bright side, I was not harmed, was able to assess and then make a good choice. But what a load of crap to deal with, eh?
I'm staying home today. Bit farther than I wish to walk (4.9 miles) and this is the 2nd time I've been assaulted on public transportation in the last 6 months. Think I'll look into getting a bike.
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Long Ball Larry
Footballguy
Don’t suppose anyone has ever tried trans-cranial magnetic stimulation?
Rattle and Hum
Footballguy
Yes. Didn't do anything for me but ymmv. My therapist stopped it with a couple sessions to go. It's not painful or anything. Research those that need to repeat the process down the road when the first series was deemed beneficial.
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
My wife went in for an evaluation for it, and it all seemed like a sales pitch to us. This was the same clinic that convinced her that ketamine infusions were the answer. Hint: they weren't.
Peak
Footballguy
I don't know where to put this and I don't even know why I'm doing this, talking directly into my phone hoping it captures my thoughts and words correctly. I've hit a major depressive wall after a couple of years of thinking I've been doing fine. My dad's 72, He's had Parkinson's now for about 8 years. He's a stage 3 about to go to stage 4 I think. He keeps falling, he can barely walk without a walker. He recently fell and went stiff as a board, hit his head on a concrete step as he went down and gave himself a concussion and lied there motionless for a while till paramedic showed up. Hospitalized for a couple of days but came out of it and got to go home. While he was there they ran a bunch of tests obviously. One complaint was shortness of breath, trouble breathing. They did a pulmonary scan and found a mass in his lung. So they went and visited a pulmonary specialist and had more tests done. He's had tests done in the past with the VA, but this doctor wanted to run his own tests. It was determined the mass in his lung was actually the tissues of his lung. They begun to harden. It's a condition called IPF (Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis). Where the tissues inside the lungs start to harden over time consuming the entire lung. Obviously when that happens you can't breathe. Doctor informed us that there is no cure and once it starts to set in it just keeps going. They gave him 5 years to live max. It's been a week since I found out and I'm still trying to get my head around it. I've told my wife. I've not told my kids yet. My wife was supportive in her own way. Most normal people would say hey that sucks are you okay? how do you feel? What can I do for you? My wife immediate went to how can we control this with your mom. What we can say around her, what we should say around her, what we cant we do or say around her. She avoided my feelings like the plague. But that's our fun unique special relationship I guess. I let it go, bottled it up and just tried to get by and think for a few days. Until we're on our way for a fundraising event the next day and she started nitpicking everything that I did. so driving on freeway at 75 miles an hour I decided I'd blow my top and go off on her. With the biggest blow I have telling her that when all this went down and I talked to her I needed my wife or friend to help me and instead I got a callus narcissist who just wanted to control the situation and tell me what to do and what not to do. That didn't go over well. We got to the fundraiser act like nothing happened. Went home and she told me I was an embarrassment because I walked around not bubbly and happy and was just kind of stoic and lost in my thoughts. I told her, well I wonder why? but apparently that embarrasses her. I left the house and basically stayed by myself for the rest of that day. And the next day. And then I've been at work since. Today I get a call that they also found a lump on his chest the doctor believes is cancerous. He has a biopsy scheduled for Friday to confirm. In the span of a week I feel like a part of my world is collapsing and I don't know what to do. I don't talk with anyone about anything. I push all this out of my mind but every night it comes back and I'm not sure how to deal with it all. I don't post this just to seek attention I don't really want it. I just have this feeling that if I don't run it out it will consume me. So that's what I'm doing. I don't know anymore. I have to find a way to talk to my kids about it. Luckily enough they're older. Two in college one in high school. They're not really close to my parents so that'll probably dull things for them. But I still have to find a way to tell them. Without me breaking down in front of them. I didn't have the greatest parents. Only child and latchkey kid. I'll admit my dad was a functional alcoholic. Parents lived in two separate rooms. He did what he could. I knew how he grew up and he put me in a position to grow up in a better area of town than he did with probably more support than he had. I've strived at the same thing with my kids putting them in a better town, better school system, better support system. We can't undo the past but we can at least learn from it I guess and try to grow. I don't know what I'm doing right now. I'm rambling but that's where my head is. Again just had to put something down. Get it out of my head. So maybe I could think a little easier. A little cleaner. A little quieter. I don't take pills I don't seek out anything to curb any depressive thoughts I've had in the past. Maybe I should take something. But one thing at a time right?
AAABatteries
Footballguy
@Peak - first, I’m very sorry you and your family are going through this. I want to be careful with my words so my intent is clear and to make sure you know I’m not I’m trying to diminish what you are going through. Be grateful for the relationship you have with your Dad and apparently the one your kids do. I love my Dad but we are not close at all. We have almost no relationship. If I got this news I would be sad but wouldn’t have the emotions you do and it wouldn’t impact my kids. So, hopefully I’m articulating correctly but remember the good times and cherish what time you have.
Long Ball Larry
Footballguy
That all really sucks man and I know you are just trying to get things out of your head, which is good, but I wanted to touch on this.
You don’t have to be strong for your kids, not about this. Your struggle is real and your kids will get that. Showing them that it is ok to be messy and then to be able to handle things is an important lesson. We try to protect and shield our kids from a lot, but giving them insight into the emotions of the people they love is an important lesson that will help them in future relationships. I say this as someone with a lifetime of experience of doing the opposite of that, and just now recognizing the value, so certainly not try to preach, just trying to give some additional perspective that can maybe take a little bit of the weight off of you. Good luck with everything.
El Floppo
Footballguy
@Peak
I'm so sorry about your dad... That's a lot to swallow in a week. Sorry too your wife wasn't able to provide the support you were hoping for (probably without knowing you were hoping for it). Please vent and stream of conscious process stuff here...it. Can't hurt and will probably help regardless of the responses.
I'm empathisizing with you on some stuff here. My mom died 2 months ago after a year and half losing battle with with ALS. It was brutal for me. Still is.
I kept telling myself to get into therapy to talk through some of things (no meds, even though I've battled my own clinical depression and anxiety my entire adult life). I'm still telling myself to do it...because there are moments/days where I feel like I've falling off a cliff and work/family/life is falling with me. And I still haven't done it.
My wife can be pretty amazing as a problem solver, but she's never accepted or empathized about my depression and is just frustrated by it. So during the process with my mom, it was more logistical stuff she supported me over and not the day to day brutal suck of it all. And still frustrated with my depressive tics which doesn't exactly help.
Dunno, man. For me- I need to get myself into therapy. This has been feeling overwhelming for a while, and while I'm trying to TCB, I know I'm not really succeeding the way I'd like to be.
No idea if you've tried therapy... Could be clergy if you're so inclined... But IME it's been a really useful tool to get stuff out there to an impartial trained person.
I'm so sorry about your dad... That's a lot to swallow in a week. Sorry too your wife wasn't able to provide the support you were hoping for (probably without knowing you were hoping for it). Please vent and stream of conscious process stuff here...it. Can't hurt and will probably help regardless of the responses.
I'm empathisizing with you on some stuff here. My mom died 2 months ago after a year and half losing battle with with ALS. It was brutal for me. Still is.
I kept telling myself to get into therapy to talk through some of things (no meds, even though I've battled my own clinical depression and anxiety my entire adult life). I'm still telling myself to do it...because there are moments/days where I feel like I've falling off a cliff and work/family/life is falling with me. And I still haven't done it.
My wife can be pretty amazing as a problem solver, but she's never accepted or empathized about my depression and is just frustrated by it. So during the process with my mom, it was more logistical stuff she supported me over and not the day to day brutal suck of it all. And still frustrated with my depressive tics which doesn't exactly help.
Dunno, man. For me- I need to get myself into therapy. This has been feeling overwhelming for a while, and while I'm trying to TCB, I know I'm not really succeeding the way I'd like to be.
No idea if you've tried therapy... Could be clergy if you're so inclined... But IME it's been a really useful tool to get stuff out there to an impartial trained person.
El Floppo
Footballguy
It sucked having to tell my kids. My wife didn't want me mentioning "ALS", which sucked worse... my mom and I both felt they deserved and could handle the full truth. My 17yo son figured it out anyways. But I made sure they understood what was happening and that time was limited. Also made sure to tell them it was ok to be heartbroken about it..that I was too.
In some ways, going through a year and a half of their grandma going from fully vibrant and amazing to locked in her body and ultimately dying started the grief process early for them. Made her actual death- while still awful for all of us- easier to take somehow. But telling them that news was really hard. There were tears.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
***** and **** Propel V.A. Mental Health System Into Turmoil
A chaotic restructuring order threatens to degrade services for veterans of wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.By Ellen BarryNicholas Nehamas and Roni Caryn Rabin NYTimes
- March 22, 2025
Updated 2:13 p.m. ET
She was required, under a new return-to-office policy, to conduct virtual psychotherapy with her patients from one of 13 cubicles in a large open office space, the kind of setup used for call centers. Other staff might overhear the sessions, or appear on the patient’s screen as they passed on their way to the bathroom and break room.
The psychiatrist was stunned. Her patients suffered from disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Treating them from her home office, it had taken many months to earn their trust. This new arrangement, she said, violated a core ethical tenet of mental health care: the guarantee of privacy.
When the doctor asked how she was expected to safeguard patient privacy, a supervisor suggested she purchase privacy screens and a white noise machine. “I’m ready to walk away if it comes to it,” she wrote to her manager, in a text message shared with The New York Times. “I get it,” the manager replied. “Many of us are ready to walk away.”
Scenes like this have been unfolding in Veterans Affairs facilities across the country in recent weeks, as therapy and other mental health services have been thrown into turmoil amid the dramatic changes ordered by ********* ***** and pushed by **** ****’s ********** of ********** **********.
Among the most consequential orders is the requirement that thousands of mental health providers, including many who were hired for fully remote positions, now work full time from federal office space. This is a jarring policy reversal for the V.A., which pioneered the practice of virtual health care two decades ago as a way to reach isolated veterans, long before the pandemic made telehealth the preferred mode of treatment for many Americans.
As the first wave of providers reports to offices where there is simply not enough room to accommodate them, many found no way to ensure patient privacy, health workers said. Some have filed complaints, warning that the arrangement violates ethics regulations and medical privacy laws. At the same time, layoffs of at least 1,900 probationary employees are thinning out already stressed services that assist veterans who are homeless or suicidal.In more than three dozen interviews, current and recently terminated mental health workers at the V.A. described a period of rapid, chaotic behind-the-scenes change. Many agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because they want to continue to serve veterans, and feared retribution from the ***** administration.
Clinicians warn that the changes will degrade mental health treatment at the V.A., which already has severe staffing shortages. Some expect to see a mass exodus of sought-after specialists, like psychiatrists and psychologists. They expect wait times to increase, and veterans to eventually seek treatment outside the agency.
“Psychotherapy is a very private endeavor,” said Ira Kedson, the president of AFGE local 310 at the Coatesville V.A. Medical Center in Pennsylvania. “It’s supposed to be a safe place, where people can talk about their deepest, darkest fears and issues.” Veterans, he said, trust that what they tell therapists is confidential.
“If they can’t trust us to do that, I think that a sizable number of them will withdraw from treatment,” he said.
A Veterans Affairs spokesman, Peter Kasperowicz, dismissed the contention that a crowded working environment would compromise patient privacy as “nonsensical,” saying that the V.A. “will make accommodations as needed so employees have enough space to work and comply with industry standards for privacy.”
“Veterans are now at the center of everything V.A. does,” Mr. Kasperowicz added. “Under ********* *****, the V.A. is no longer a place where the status quo for employees is to simply phone it in from home.” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said the president’s return-to-office order was “ensuring that all Americans benefit from more efficient services, especially our veterans.”
The **** cuts have already sparked chaos and confusion within the sprawling agency, which provides care to more than nine million veterans. The ***** administration has said it plans to eliminate 80,000 V.A. jobs•, and a first round of terminations has halted some research studies and slashed support staff.
The cuts drive at a sensitive constituency for Mr. *****, who has campaigned on improving services at the V.A. In Mr. *****’s first term, the agency expanded remote work as a way to reach veterans who are socially isolated and living in rural areas, who are at an elevated risk for suicide. Now those services are likely to be sharply reduced.
“The end of remote work is essentially the same as cutting mental health services,” said a clinician at a mental health center hub in Kansas, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “These remote docs aren’t moving and they have other options if they are forced to drive to some office however many miles away every day to see their patient virtually from there.”
Veterans, too, are expressing anxiety. Sandra Fenelon, 33, said she had a rocky transition back to civilian life after leaving the Navy in 2022. “I just constantly felt like I am at war,” said Ms. Fenelon, who lives in New York and is training to become a pharmacist.
It took a year, working with a V.A. psychologist, until she felt safe enough to begin sharing the troubling things she had seen on deployment, things that, she said, “people on the outside would never understand.”
Now, Ms. Fenelon is worried that the tumult at the V.A. will prompt her therapist to leave before she is better. In her session this past week, she burst into tears. “I feel like I’m now forced to be put in a position where I have to start over with someone else,” she said in an interview. “How can I relate to a therapist who never worked with veterans?”
‘You Deserve Better’
For a suicide prevention coordinator in California, mornings start with referrals from a crisis hotline. On a typical day, she said, she is given a list of 10 callers, but sometimes as many as 20 or 30. The work is so intense that, most days, there is no time for a lunch break or bathroom breaks.“My job is to build rapport, to figure out what I need to do to keep them alive. I let them know: ‘I’m worried about you, I’m going to send someone out to check on you,’” the coordinator said. “I tell them, ‘You served this country. You deserve better.’”
The team, which is responsible for covering some 800,000 veterans, was supposed to get three more social workers, but the new positions were canceled as a result of the administration’s hiring freeze, the coordinator said.
She said the stress around the staff reductions is intense, and fears it will cause her to miss something critical. “I’m so scared I’ll make a mistake,” she said. “I’m not sleeping well, and it’s hard to stay focused.”
Veterans are at sharply higher risk for suicide than the general population; in 2022, the suicide rate was 34.7 per 100,000, compared to 14.2 per 100,000 for the general population. A major factor in this is the availability of firearms, which were used in 73.5 percent of suicide deaths, according to the V.A.
In Denver, Bilal Torrens was just finishing a shift when he was notified by email that he was being terminated.
His job, he said, was helping homeless veterans settle into life indoors after years of living on the street. During those early months, Mr. Torrens said, the men are often overwhelmed by the task of collecting benefits, managing medications, even shopping for groceries; he would sit with his clients while they filled out forms and paid bills.
The layoffs reduced the support staff at the homeless service center by a third. The burden will now shift onto social workers, who are already staggering under caseloads of dozens of veterans, he said.
“They’re not going to have enough time to serve any of the veterans properly, the way that they should be served and cared for,” Mr. Torrens said.
*aside - the nationwide payroll and timekeeping system for entire nation was inaccessible on Thursday and Friday; no one is reporting this AFAIK
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Alarms Over Privacy
In Coatesville, Pa., mental health providers have been told they will conduct therapy with veterans from several large office spaces, sitting with their laptops at tables, said Dr. Kedson, who is a psychologist, speaking in his capacity as union president. The spaces are familiar, he said — but they have never before been used for patient care.“That would sound like you’re seeing them from a call center, because you’d be in a room with a bunch of people who are all talking at the same time,” Dr. Kedson said. “The veterans who are going to be in that position, I suspect they will feel very much like their privacy is being violated.”
So far, only supervisory clinicians have been affected by the return-to-office policy; unionized workers will be expected to report to the office in the coming weeks.
Dr. Kedson said clinicians have warned that the orders compromise patient privacy, but he has seen little response from the agency’s leadership. “They’re doing it because these are the marching orders coming out of the current administration,” he said. “People are trying to make something that is really untenable work.”
Dr. Lynn F. Bufka, head of practice at the American Psychological Association, said the “longstanding presumed practice for the delivery of psychotherapy” requires a private location, like a room with a door and soundproofing outside the room.
She said HIPAA, the health privacy law, allows for “incidental disclosures” of patient information if they cannot be reasonably prevented — a threshold that she said the V.A. risks not meeting. In this case, she said, the privacy risk could be prevented “by simply not requiring psychologists to return to the office until private spaces are available.”
Several V.A. mental health clinicians told The Times they were interviewing for new jobs or had submitted their resignations. Their departures risk exacerbating already severe staffing shortages at the V.A., outlined in a report last year from its inspector general’s office.
“Everybody is afraid, from the top down,” said Matthew Hunnicutt, 62, a social worker who retired in late February after nearly 15 years, much of it in supervisory positions, at the Jesse Brown V.A. Medical Center in Chicago.
When staff were ordered to shut down diversity initiatives, Mr. Hunnicutt decided to speed up his retirement, feeling that “everything I had done was just wiped away.” He said care at the V.A. had been improved during his time there, with better community outreach, shorter wait times and same-day mental health appointments.
“Just to have it be destroyed like this is extreme,” he said.
Alain Delaquérière and Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Ellen Barry is a reporter covering mental health for The Times.
Nicholas Nehamas is a Washington correspondent for The Times, focusing on the ***** administration and its efforts to transform the federal government.
Roni Caryn Rabin is a Times health reporter focused on maternal and child health, racial and economic disparities in health care, and the influence of money on medicine.
Important issue which is directly affecting me, both as a mental health patient and as a VA worker.
Redacted names so we can keep the discussion focused on the issues and not veer into politics.
If you comment on this issue, please link your source.
TIA
General Malaise
Footballguy
I'm sorry Bobby Layne. I know you to be a wonderful human and I am so sorry this happening to a good guy like you who served our country. A slap in the face to a person who never deserved it.
