I enjoy the study of feng shui and came across this helpful post. It lists five ways of dealing with depression without meds.

Dealing With Depression

As a child, I was allowed to breed my cocker spaniel, Skipper, and sell the puppies. One of the many little businesses I had growing up. Raising cockers was a family tradition - my mom and her siblings did it on the farm when they were growing up, too. (I wouldn’t do it now, preferring rescues to purebreds, thank you. Please adopt.)

But Skipper had this adorable litter of puppies, and I was crazy about them. I had to go to the dentist and maybe I was having a cavity filled. Don’t remember, just know that I was freaked out and getting a shot. My mom said, “Think of the puppies,” and I did. A pile of puppies wriggling around.

To this day, when I need a meditational focus to take my mind off of a root canal, or an MRI, or anything that requires me not to cuss or move, I “think of the puppies.”

I saw this picture and it’s pretty darned close to the picture in my mind that I’ve carried since I was six years old. I always think of the puppies:

by Prakhar at Flickr

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked by reporters is “Why did you start ect.org?” The answer is that I started it over a decade ago to simply share information about electroconvulsive therapy.

I am not opposed to anyone having ECT as long as it’s an informed (emphasis) choice. Unfortunately, the majority of patients are given a one-minute sales pitch that overplays the effectiveness and mostly ignores any side effects.

My strongest belief is that if doctors were candid about it all, and took the time needed to answer questions truthfully, outcomes would be better. Even when the results were bad.

In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Dan Shapiro, who has survived battles with deadly cancer, says the very same thing:

NYT: You quizzed your radiation oncologist about treatment side effects. If all patients did this, wouldn’t some refuse treatment?

Dr. Shapiro: About 85 percent of patients are information-seeking and want to know the limitations as well as the strengths of their treatment. Unfortunately, a lot of physicians overestimate the treatment benefits and underplay the side effects. In the short term more people accept treatment, then become surprised, dismayed and often panicked when predictable side effects occur. If patients know about side effects in advance and are taught how to anticipate and cope with them, they would do a lot better.

This so clearly defines how I feel that I believe I’m going to add it to ect.org in a prominent way.

Dan Shapiro has a website at http://www.danshapiro.org

Here is a great interview with the New York Times from 2001:

May 15, 2001
A CONVERSATION WITH: Dan Shapiro; A Doctor’s Story of Hope, Humor and Deadly Cancer
By JANE E. BRODY

In May 1987, Dan Shapiro, then a 20-year-old junior at Vassar College, discovered he had Hodgkin’s disease. After seven months of treatment with four chemotherapy drugs and radiation, he seemed healthy again.

In 1988, in his first year of graduate school in clinical psychology, he counseled a young girl named Jodi who was not doing well after a bone marrow transplant for the same cancer and who soon died. Six months later, he learned that his own cancer had returned and that his only hope was a bone marrow transplant. His survival chances were 40 percent. Sixteen months after the transplant, in July 1991, he had a second relapse, and few options remained. Read the rest of this entry »

By chance (or was it fate?) I came across an article that appeared in Salon a few years ago. It’s called “Why Me” by Dan Shapiro, associate professor in the college of medicine at the University of Arizona.

He has an interesting perspective on medicine and mental health, as he has survived bouts with Hodgkin’s Disease. It’s quite a story, and I guess I’m going to have to make an Amazon order and read his books.

Here is his article from Salon called “Why Me?” It reminds me of a quote from The Sopranos, where Tony Soprano asks his mother’s Russian nurse why she stays so optimistic when she only has one leg.

She replies: “That’s the trouble with you Americans. You expect nothing bad ever to happen, when the rest of the world expects only bad to happen. And they are not disappointed. You have everything, and still you complain. … You’ve got too much time to think about yourselves.”

Why me?
Why not you? Misery makes the world go round, and nobody gets a free pass.

By Dan Shapiro

Aug. 06, 2002 | I can’t talk about this at work, but I’m tired. Tired of patients with illnesses moaning that this shouldn’t have happened to them. Tired of their asking the fates to explain why they’ve been singled out for solitary anguish. Tired of the relentless vocal vacuums that can suck the life out of a medical team faster than HMO reimbursement forms and billing sheets. Read the rest of this entry »

Radio tech guru Kim Komando discusses blogging as a sort of therapy:

click arrow to listen

I have kept journals since I was a kid. I still have them - an entire box of fabric-covered journals, some scrawled in spiral notebooks, and some are entirely in Russian. (When I was worried people might read them.) They’ve always been a place I can pour out my guts, and have a moment of feeling better.

The personal blog section on this site is exactly that - my way of getting things off my chest. I would highly encourage it as one of the tools towards working on your depression. Like the Digital Goddess Kim says, you can do it for free at blogger.com, and you can be as anonymous as you want. (Cautions below!)

If you haven’t listened to Kim’s show, do it. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about computers and Internet, you’ll find out you don’t and you’ll learn great things. What’s more, she’s just a pleasure to listen to. She’s got something special, and you can’t help but smile when you hear her voice - she’s just that pleasant and refreshing. Her radio show is on every Saturday, and if your local stations don’t carry her, find her on streaming Internet. I promise you won’t be sorry! Read the rest of this entry »

No matter how horrible you feel, how badly your life is going, there’s always someone worse off than you. I know that’s not much consolation when you’re in the pit of depression hell, but I can almost promise you this: if you can do something good for someone else, no matter how small, you’ll have at least a moment of warmth in your soul.

Perhaps you garden. How about growing a little extra, and donating it to your local food pantry? For those of us who feed our souls through gardening, what better way to get that juice we have when we share our goods? DONATE! It’s just a great idea, and I’m excited about it.

I hope you’ll spread the word and get gardeners to the pantries!

http://www.grow-a-row.org

Radio is carrying new PSAs emphasizing the importance of friends when dealing with mental illness.

Here’s a case where I think tax dollars have been very well spent. Some of the ads are a tad annoying, but that’s after I’ve heard them too many times. They make the point: if you have a friend who has been diagnosed with mental illness, stick around. A friend can really make a difference. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m such a believer in the power of pet love to help persons with disabilities and seniors, and now some heartwarming stories are coming out of the Iraq war about our military and pets they’ve adopted.

Besides doing a beautiful job of rescuing animals in St. Louis, Stray Rescue has a number of worthwhile programs to help people in the community as well. One of those is the Senior for Senior program, which pairs senior dogs with senior people and helps fund medical expenses for the dogs. I can’t think of anything more beautiful than that.

Way to go Stray Rescue! I’m just so happy they won the million dollar prize.

Animal rescue organizations always need money and volunteers. More than anything, I believe you can improve your mental health by helping others, especially animals in need. It does a heart good, I swear to God.

I know many persons with psychiatric disabilities are on very limited incomes, but there actually are some programs out there to help with expenses of owning a pet. Check out zaprap.org, the discussion forums, for links.

There’s been some good discussion on the ZapRap Forums about the use of B12 shots in treating severe depression. Some have found the shots to be helpful when other treatments (including meds and shock) have failed.

I have zero experience with the shots personally, although my grandmother swore by them. (Not for depression specifically, just as a “feel better, more energy” boost.) Her doctor, as I recall, went along with it grudgingly, and members of my family tolerated it, but thought it was snake oil.

I don’t repost discussions from inside the forums (I’ll leave that to an asshole who does it for sport, because he enjoys mocking people in pain). But if you’re interested in the topic, you might want to check it out and talk to those who have found the shots beneficial. (You must register as a member to read/post on the boards. We’re very private these days.) Apparently you can order the injections online (which I’m not sure I’m comfortable with) and give them to yourself.