Fraying Edges | Depression Help

The Parasites Who Make Money Out Of Depression Sufferers

As Fraying Edges Depression Help grows, I get more and more spam comments. Nothing strange about that, all bloggers get them. I just have a very quick scan through to see that no one has been ‘Akismeted’ by mistake and then press the delete button.

But what really gets to me are those who set up spam blogs about Depression and then scrape the feeds from the serious depression blogs (you find out about this when you check your ’spam pingbacks’). These (usually) partial feeds are then posted on the spam blog, which is (if the spammer has done his or her homework) very well optimised to receive adsense clicks.

The spam depression blog’s only interest is in making money from your suffering. Nothing more, nothing less. If you tried to post a comment asking for advice, you would either be faced with comments turned off, or a request to ‘log in to comment’ which, of course, would be denied.

Spammers are trying to make money. Nothing else. They do not give a flying fig whether you are in the depths of despair or even suicidal. They simply want you to click on their adsense adds and make them a few measly bucks.

Why do I know this? For several reasons. The first being that whenever I receive a ’spam pingback’ from one of these blogs, I go and check it out…and it will always be filled with the same old crap. They will also nearly always be made with Wordpress themes I recognise as being produced purely for internet marketing. I know because I use them myself.

Following on from that, the second reason I know about this is that I too am an internet marketer. I know just how to ’scrape’ a feed if I wanted to. I know about optimisation, backlinks, article marketing, content ’spinning’, and loads of other ‘tricks of the trade’. Do I use them? Sometimes (but I will not scrape anyone’s feed - I honestly think it’s wrong to take someone else’s thoughts without at least without making a damn good reference to them first), and I do not spam.

And I would never produce a ‘made for adsense’ blog on Depression. The subject is much too serious to be treated this way. It actually upsets me to think that there are so many people on the internet who really do not care about anything other than taking advantage of people’s suffering and trying to make money out of it.

You see, the concept behind this type of marketing is to ‘fill a need’. It’s as old as the hills and I use it myself when writing some of my marketing blogs. But there are some needs which can be filled without turning oneself into a predator.

Would I make a mfa blog on the very ‘profitable’ subject of weight loss, even though I suffer from (latent) Anorexia? Yes, and I have some out there, and they are highly optimised for adsense. But they are filled with my personal thoughts on the subject and stressing that slimming is ok in moderation, but how to do it without endangering your health. I actually think I can give some valuable input on that.

Do I make blogs about the ‘high on the agenda’ subject of how to get out of debt? Yes, I have a couple. But they are not filled with scraped articles, as the majority are; they are researched before I post and, again, they try to be helpful.

Then there is stuff which comes under the pseudonym of ‘mens’ health’ and fits very well on my adult blogs (which of course also fill a need even though some may think otherwise…). Is it harming anyone to read these articles? No, I don’t think so (although some of the ‘contraptions’ for ‘men’s health’ I would rather not think about…).

Basically, when it comes to marketing (on the internet or in ‘real life’), I think there are some ‘needs’ which can justifiably be approached and others which the uninformed person just trying to make a buck should steer clear of. And Depression and all mental illnesses fall into this latter category.

I even wonder whether the (very few) adverts I have on this blog are really worth having there? The book reviews are ok. I read them before advertising them, and the adverts for the ‘zen’ things are useful rather than harmful, but that ‘panic away’ button at the bottom of the blog I do wonder about…. The CD is okay though….

As for putting adsense on this blog. I did try it for a while, but as it was not even secondary to what this blog was about, it simply didn’t fit, and the adverts which appeared I felt woukl have been more distressing to the depression sufferer than helpful. So I took them off. Others manage this and still produce a helpful blog, but they are very careful how they treat the whole concept. It is not these depression bloggers I am talking about here - just the ‘mfa parasites’ and they know exactly who they are.

But anyway, I just needed to get that off my chest. Those thoughts have been lingering away in the background for some time and just had to be expressed

And after that rant, I am wondering whether this article will be scraped for one of those ‘mfa depression blogs’? If it is, I hope the spammer actually reads it. But that is unlikely because he or she will have their ’scraper’ set on automatic and will never find out that I think they are close to being the scum of the earth…

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What Many ‘Experts’ On Depression Fail To Tell You

When I began this Blog About Depression, I set it up for two reasons: to find out more information about different forms and depression and post about them here; and to help myself at the same time, with an outlet for my personal thoughts and to possibly harness some research findings in a way which would benefit me and others who had a similar form of depression to my own.

But the more I research, and the more readers have been commenting here and adding their personal thoughts and experiences, it appears to me that There Is No Complete Answer To Depression.

You can look for ‘depression help’ all over the internet; you can read reams and reams of books and articles on the subject. A great deal of the information you will find on (for example) blogs and sites set up purely to make money, will be either regurgitated text from other sites, or full of ‘pap’ which will not help you in the slightest.

On the other hand, there are many very good websites, blogs, books and articles on the subject of depression which will do their best to provide you with details about various forms of depresson and treatments for it. Some will go as far as providing details of the latest research, which will (sometimes) be even more useful.

(By the way, Fraying Edges, to my way of thinking, doesn’t really fall into either of these two categories. It is simply a personal depression blog with my own thoughts and findings, but I do try to keep it clear of any ‘just written to make money’ posts [hell, if I made a dollar a month from this site it would be a miracle ]. I prefer to post here when I have something to say, rather than just because I feel I have to, and the blogs I link to in the sidebar are also, to my mind, of a similar design).

But getting back to the subject of this post - The Truth About Depression - I am yet to find anywhere something which will answer all of our many different questions and cries for help.

Because every single case of depression and other forms of mental illness relate entirely to the sufferer: to their genetics; their particular body build and chemistry; their environment (family, social, economic, political, geographical…); their eating/drinking/living/sleeping habits; their gender; their sexuality; other illnesses they may be suffering from; their reactions to medication; and so on… And even more so, in many cases, to their personal life history. We are all individuals.

For example, I am female, still relatively young. I am a mother and family provider, under constant pressure to earn enough to help us survive. My family has a genetic history of depression, but not that strong (and so, to be honest, do many families) and my first ’bout of depression’ (which was not termed as such then) was as a child, when I suddenly found myself unable to communicate with others without bursting into tears. My second ’bout’ was as a teenager with Anorexia, and the latter and ongoing one was after giving birth to my first child.

I guess from reading that, you would say I am an ‘ideal candidate’ for ongoing depression. But am I? Many women go through life without suffering from depression, despite having a family history of depression, ’slimming struggles’, giving birth, and being under constant stress from their ‘working mother’ role.

At the other extreme is a good friend of mine back in the UK. He is a successful graphic artist. He is physically healthy, has no money worries, a nice home, happy family, no pressure to produce more work (he has enough ‘in the vault’ to last him for years and because of its unique nature, it will still look ‘fresh’ in years to come) and he loves his work anyway. He has no family history of mental illness and is not taking any ‘illegal substances’ or drinking to excess. And yet he is just going through a period of major depression and it isn’t his first.

He doesn’t fit the ‘criteria’ for depression in any way, shape or form, and various doctors and psychiatrists have affirmed this. And that actually makes it harder for him to cope with his illness (being able to find ‘reasons’ can be very comforting…). It also makes it harder for the medics to find anything to prescribe for him which actually works.

It could be, of course, that he fits the criteria discussed in my previous post on A Different View Of Depression, in that he is creative and gifted, and thus perhaps more likely to be a ‘candidate for depression’, but that doesn’t really help him deal with his illness.

And when I read comments here and on other depression sites, from people suffering from depression, they are all relating different experiences, and the only thing they really have in common is this horrible illness (and even then, it manifests itself in many different forms).

But most of us will be ‘diagnosed’ according to a very similar set of ‘boxes’ which the physician will tick off one by one, and thus apply the ‘correct’ medication and/or other kinds of treatment accordingly. It’s no surprise that, in many instances, it takes months, years (or never) to help the sufferer recover completely from their particular form of depression.

Because people do not live according to those ‘little tick boxes’. We are all individuals, with our own set of ‘reasons for depression’, many of which we fail to understand ourselves.

This is not a jibe at the medical profession (or even the pharmaceutical companies - not this post anyway…), it is just saying, that until researchers find a way of getting out of their labs and into the minds of their ‘research subjects’ and then reach out even further and try (somehow…) to see depression as being related to a whole magnitude of different ‘events’, they will never get anywhere near to finding the answers they are supposed to be searching for.

And until that time, those of us who suffer from depression will just have to manage to get by trying out various methods of treatment and hoping that eventually, either we will find one which works, or the period of depression will pass under its own volition.

Because the one thing which does stand out from all the research, is that depression does abate. It may never lift entirely and the sufferer may have further bouts of the illness over the years, but major depression does usually follow a cycle and the sufferer will ‘come out at the other end’.

Scant help, I know, to anyone suffering from major depression (or who has a family member suffering from depression) right now, but it’s all I can say that I feel to be the truth about depression. And I truly wish there were more…

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Depression Can Produce Greatness

Yesterday I produced a rather melancholy post. Feeling thoroughly ‘down’, and in need of an outlet, I vented a little in here about the constant cycle of stress and depression I appeared to be putting myself through.

To tell the truth, I really do not feel much better yet. Nevertheless, as I seem to do some of my best research when I am depressed (on depression of course…), I have been busy, and it’s all down to a comment left by Andy Alt, who writes Mental Dimensions. Andy is a regular commenter here and I owe him more than the scant attention to his own blog I have been giving at the moment (as I do all others I used to comment regularly to…), so I hope he understands.

Anyway, Andy recommended I read a book called Lincolns Melancholy. I haven’t as yet (that is a link to a discussion of the book suggested by Andy), but I certainly intend to do so very soon (allowing for Spanish mail…). The main page to the website for Lincolns Melancholy is here.

Now, contrary to what some US Citizens think, us non-Americans have heard of Abraham Lincoln In fact, he is usually highly regarded as one of ‘the greats’ of recent history. But as it happens, I had read a great deal about Lincoln, because my thesis for my first degree was on world anti-slavery movements, so naturally Lincoln played a part in that. I had also read of Lincoln’s depression, but only in passing, because that was not my main focus at the time.

But reading about the ‘melancholy’ Abraham Lincoln suffered is astounding, in that it proposes a whole new way of thinking about Depression and related illnesses.

The author, Joshua Wolf Shenk, has struggled with depression himself, so he is not just using the illness as a ‘useful topic for a book’. Researching and writing took him several years of intensive study. And from his research he has produced an astounding theory: that it was in struggling with, facing up to, and learning to cope with his severe depression that Lincoln was not only able to achieve greatness, but to profoundly affect the course of American history.

According to Sherik, Lincoln’s melancholy gave him a “depressive realism” that he was able to utilise, in a way that gave him not only a deeper understanding of human frailties, but the means to working with them to convince people of the ‘rightness’ of his anti-slavery proposals. And that:

“the depths of emotion that he explored as a result of his depression contributed to a deep creative capacity — as a writer and thinker.”

Now to me, that is an extremely positive approach to depression. This is not dismissing the dreadful affects of depression, but is suggesting that the modern day stigma still often attributed to depression is totally unfounded. Those of us who suffer from depression, dysthymia, bipolar disorder, or any other forms of depressive illness, are not ‘rejects who need to sort themselves out’. In fact, many of us are actually very gifted individuals who, despite our illness (or even sometimes because of it) can contribute greatly to society.

The review took me deeper into looking at the type of depression Lincoln may have suffered from. The author suggests hypomania as a contributing factor. Hypomania is a ‘mild’ form of mania, it may be associated with Bipolar 11 Disorder, but is not considered as severe, in that people can still function in everyday life and their hypomania can actually help them achieve their aims and feel good. Of course, the downside is a following on depression…sound familiar?

(And that took me even further, into looking at treatments for hypomania and possible drug interractions which also sound rather familiar, but I’ll leave that for another post)

What I discovered from reading about the book (ordered by the way) and looking into this whole hypothesis deeper myself, is that a lot of my suspicions are confirmed (if you agree with the book anyway):

• People who suffer from depression are often very gifted individuals, but it is not necessarily their gifts which lead to their depression, but the depressive personality which enforces their gifts.
• Depression makes a person go deeper inside themselves and this can bring with it a greater intuition which can not only help them cope with life but also achieve great things.
• Hypomania can have positive as well as negative affects, which needs to be taken into account when medically prescribing for this illness.
• Telling someone to ‘think positive’ in the ‘personal development’ sense is not the best course of action for someone suffering from depression. It conflicts with the “depressive realism” most of us appear to have. That realism would be better put to good effect, rather than struggling to overcome it.

I urge you to read this book. If researching just the review gave me these thoughts, then I for one am really looking forward for the book itself to arrive. It may not provide all the answers, but anything rather than the constant ’sameness’ of ‘depression help’ offered today appears to me to be a definite plus factor.

And, if ‘thinking positive’ from a depressive point of view sounds like a contradiction to you, let’s just say I think it is going to give me more scope to face up to my depression for what it is: an illness like any other and something to be dealt with, using all helpful means available, rather than stigmatized and fought against with little reward.

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The Roller Coaster Ride Which Leads To Depression

A couple of days ago, a woman called Cyndi left a very long and eloquent comment on my post about how Blogging About Depression Can Be Lonely. Her post made me think quite a lot.

Over the last few weeks, my depression and anxiety have become worse. I am constantly tired, but cannot sleep. I cannot concentrate on anything for long and am totally on edge. Caring for my children (and more importantly in this case, communicating with them in a ‘good way’) is a trial I carry out (I think…) reasonably effectively, but with feelings of complete exhaustion. And as for my poor partner… Well, he is trying his best to stay calm in the face of the storm he has weathered quite a few times before, but I can see he is getting thoroughly hacked off with having to do this.

Cyndi’s comment rang a bell with me on several issues, but the main one was her talk of the unrelenting Stress>Depression>Stress>Depression cycle which she finds to be a constant factor of her life. And that’s me summed up quite nicely.

I am either totally motivated and can work at the speed of light, whilst coping with all manner of stressful things in my daily life (and even ‘thriving’ on them), or I am completely wiped out and depressed.

A couple of psychiatrists have put this down to being ‘bipolar’, but have then admitted that the medication given for this horrible illness is not effective in my case (just totally debilitating)… so they then suggested that perhaps I am not bipolar after all…? A therapist once told me this was all due to the ‘roller coaster ride’ I put myself on and once I recognised this and when it was occurring, I could deal with it and pull back. Easier said than done…

You see, when it comes to living in the real World, with quite a few responsibilities, you cannot just get off the roller coaster when you are nearing the peak, because to do so would affect your family’s well being and (in my case) their finances. When I am working well, this makes a profound difference to the money we have coming in. It also shores up some resources to fall back on when I am not feeling quite so well…

It is one thing to recognise what you are doing to your state of mind, but quite another to take the action required to prevent this from happening.

Sure, I could say to myself “I feel good and totally full of ideas and the ability to carry them out, but I won’t do that now, I’ll just chill out instead.” But I won’t, because to do that would be irresponsible. And there is also the fact that ‘chilling out’ (in the case of relaxation, meditation, ‘taking it easy’ or whatever else it might be) actually makes me feel depressed!

You see, when you are so full of all that energy, to try to hold back on it is actually just as painful as the effects of using it all up to the bitter end and suffering the consequences. Go figure!

And I guess this sounds kind of bipolar, but most of the psychs have assured me I am not. Of course, most of us know that even the ‘experts’ get it wrong. Who knows?

What I do know right now is that somehow I have to deal with this and get on with life. I have my family to care for, my work to do and, somehow, my own health to take care of (eating is not high on my agenda at the moment…).

However, at this precise moment, all of that seems totally impossible, but the only place I can say that without worrying anyone close to me is here.

End of rather depressed and exhausted post. Maybe it was good to write about it all here, but there again, who knows…?

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