Diagnosing and Treating Dysthymia in Children: When Depression is Chronic at an Early Age
When I was finally diagnosed with depression at age 27, after twenty years of suffering from one type of depressive disorder or another, it was because I was going through a major depression at that particular time. It was only the third major depression I had experienced, and all…
Bullying and Ostracizing Tied to Depression and Anxiety in Special Needs Children
Children with special needs have always been a favorite target for bullying and teasing. It’s easy to see why – they’re different. Being different is generally not seen as a good thing when you’re a child in elementary or middle school. Except for the occasional rebel, most children don’t…
Mike Wallace’s Contribution to Our Understanding of Depression
“I didnt know what was the matter with me. All I knew was that I was feeling lower than a snake’s belly…I remember we used to go to restaurants, and I’d say ‘Everybody’s pointing at me, the cheat, the fraud, the fake. You really believe these things! Astonishing!” Mike…
Antidepressant Medications at a Glance
Generic Name Brand Names Drug Family Use amitriptyline Elavil, Typtanol, Saroten, Tryptizol tricyclic antidepressant bupropion Wellbutrin, Wellbutrin SR, Odranal aminoketone antidepressant citalopram Celexa SSRI antidepressant clomipramine Anafranil heterocyclic antidepressant desipramine Norpramin, Pertofran tricyclic antidepressant doxepin Adapin, Sinequan, Zonalon tricyclic antidepressant fluvoxamine Luvox SSRI antidepressant fluoxetine Prozac SSRI antidepressant mirtazepine…
Wing of Madness Depression FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Below are answers to some questions that I am frequently asked. Remember, these answers are my own opinion on these matters (and I can be very opinionated). Q.Where did the title of your page come from? A. What inspired me was this passage from William Styron’s Darkness Visible, a…
Keeping Your Senses Alive When You’re Depressed
When you’re clinically depressed, you may lose touch with a lot of things. Your relationships, the feeling of being present in the world that most people take for granted, and even your sense of self. Losing touch with your senses is is an almost universal experience among people with…
Depression and Your Nutritional Health
Last fall I started to feel that my antidepressant medication (Wellbutrin) wasn’t working. I had noticed that I hadn’t really been getting anything done around the house for a while, but things started to get worse. I started actually having depressed thoughts, and having more issues with anxiety. I…
What is Depression (and What is it Not?)
“People who don’t know [what depression is], who say it’s self-indulgence, sound callous, but it’s not callousness born of indifference; I think it’s callousness born of ignorance. That kind of ignorance we’ve got to get rid of, and little by little I suppose, we will. You say to them,…
Depression and Thyroid Disease
Did you know that Linda Ronstadt, Mary-Louise Parker, Oprah, Kim Cattrall and George and Barbara Bush have thyroid disease? Probably not. Thyroid problems don’t make the news, at least not as often as mental health issues do. But if you believe that you have clinical depression, or have been…
Let’s All Trash Antidepressants (Not!)
I recently read an excerpt of the book A Brief History of Anxiety by Patricia Pearson, in which she more or less trashes every aspect of psychiatric drugs. She notes that people posting to websites comment on feeling emotionally flat or numb when they’re taking them, and says that they “yearn…