Do you have a severe depression or do you have a terrible life?

[noname223]

Psychology Professor Jordan Peterson differentiates between people with severe mental health poblems and people who just have a terrible life (for example chronic pain, homelessness, poverty). He says people who have a good life but are severly depressed these people just need to find the right medication.
As for most of you probably both applies to me. But i have to admit i found a good medication (still i am depressed but not severe). However my life is shit. Coming poverty, coming depressive episodes (i am bipolar) and other circumstances let me contemplate suicide.
So which state applies to you?

 

[Meretlein]

Both. Hard lives tend to cause mental disorders and mental disorders tend to cause hard lives.

 

[nicetomeetu]

Severe depression, though I have worked on myself and improved my life for the last years.
With that said, I cannot help but feel like everything will fall apart no matter what I do, like everything is out of my hands.

 

[MrBlue]

Just a shit life, though mental illness is one of the main reasons for it. Medication lifted my mood but I found it harder to do the stuff I struggled with in the first place, so it was abit pointless really.

 

[ihavetoleave]

Both. Overall I can't manage my life and feel overwhelming sadness and disgust when I wake up in the morning no matter what.

 

[mirko]

porque no los dos?

 

[Intotheflames]

It doesn't take Jordan Peterson, or a psychologist, or a professor to figure that one who has everything except being depressed "just" needs right medications. I say the poor "just" needs wealth, a cancer patient "just* needs the cure. What's Peterson's point really? Is he saying that if one has good life, his depression lacks depths, just purely physical. Or is he saying because their treatment is easy, like solving math questions, we should always deal with the easy one first?

 

[WornOutLife]

Severe depression.
My life could be great if I felt like living but I just can't

 

[Deleted member 22624]

My psychiatrist said medication alone isn't as effective as if I'm being active: fake it until I make it. I just can't do that. Anyway, so it's not just medication apparently, we have to force neurons back into place by hard work too. If you believe it? I don't think it's possible to shift my total want for ctb

 

[noname223]

Severe depression.
My life could be great if I felt like living but I just can't

I would recommend you try lamotrigine. It was like a miracle for my depressed mood.

 

[foxdie]

I'd also caution against putting too much stock in anything Dr. Peterson says. Most of his advice and opinions are just truisms designed to hide his Christian fundamentalism. Also his life has taken a very dark turn and some might say it's due to his dogged determination to ignore his own truisms while telling everyone else how to live.

People can have a "good life" and still be miserable. People can also be dirt poor and be happier then I'll ever be. Humans are complex creatures.

 

[WornOutLife]

I would recommend you try lamotrigine. It was like a miracle for my depressed mood.

I'm actually taking those pills! 100mg. Also, lorazepam and risperidone.

I think if I didn't have lamotrigine, I would've already caught the bus.

 

[AutoTap]

Both. Hard lives tend to cause mental disorders and mental disorders tend to cause hard lives.

Same here and I agree so much with this.

 

[awfullife]

Both. Wow Jorsan Peterson is a genius! Thanks for nothing JP.

 

[Desi]

Terrible life, i'm sorry to say.
i've never really been happy or comfortable. I was full of promise one day, people praised me but deep inside I knew that was all a fraud, i was just pretending -and pretty well. I felt dissociated between the social persona i pretended to be and the inner me, empty, lonely. I just kept hiding it. I'm very very very good at hiding, i can elaborate strategies, be creative, mislead people in front of me, my pretty high IQ serves me well when i employ it to my self destructive strategies.
I understand my awkwardness led me here and will lead me to suffering , isolation and destitution. I don't want to live that, i really don't, it's not'pretty. But killing yourself is super hard and frightening too. I'm crippled by fears.
covid and lockdowns just make everything even more dreadful.

 

[its impossible]

terrible life

 

[Donk]

combination of bad genetics and adverse life circumstances. i dont think they are mutally exclusive. former usually leads to the latter.

 

[HenryHobkins]

i have a pretty terrible life, but i have noone to blame but myself really. I put myself in the situation im in

 

[DrWh033]

Terrible life due to pain physical disease. Never had depression or any other mental disorder

 

[ansiedad]

My life is not bad.
But my mind its so insane and makes my life a hell.

Anxiety and depreasion are my monsters.

And suicidal tendences, try ctb breaks my life. I think ctb is the only solution.

Anyone who are fighting against this monsters?

 

[NodusTollens]

Having to choose one or the other, I would say depression, although unstable moods are just as prevalent in my life- so it's tough to just say depression. I could feel guilt ridden (I'm sorry I'm such a burden), and shameful (I'm sorry I'm like this), in addition to the crushing weight of depression because of outbursts & such. Life happened around me afterwards.

 

[Sea Turtle]

Mostly depression.. I think. I'm middle class, can afford trips every once in a while, have food and shelter security. But I'm not happy, I don't want to be here, and I'm just .. tired of living. I don't have the energy to pursue anything, don't have strong passions, don't have motivation. The only thing I want is to CTB. It's only a matter of time, anyways.

 

[Good4Nothing]

Both. Hard lives tend to cause mental disorders and mental disorders tend to cause hard lives.

This.

 

[Nymph]

Depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria...my family is alright, I have a roof over my head, food..basic needs are met but my mind is sick

 

[yeahwellso]

Primarily living conditions that are intolerable to me. Plenty of people live lives that, to them, are worth living. That includes poor people, ill or permanently injured people, etc. If they deem themselves happy, then that's obviously good – I'm happy for them. But if I were in their shoes, I don't think I would consider the life available to me worth living.

I read an article today, where the interviewee was paralyzed from the chest down. The article wasn't about that – he happens to own a junkyard business, and he thinks it's wasteful how quickly electric cars are scrapped. He gets 3 year old Teslas for scrapping, and advocates that repairing and reusing should be done much more.

Obviously, though, the reader is going to be curious as to why the owner of the junkyard is rolling around in an electric wheelchair, so it was explained that he was was injured in a motocross accident 10 years ago. But he seems to be able to live a good life, doing a job he loves, and doesn't outwardly mourn what he lost in the accident.

It made me remember the case of Daniel James, who ended his life at the Swiss Dignitas clinic at the age of 23. He had suffered pretty much the exact same injury, and was determined that, for him, the life that was now available was not worth living. It was international news, because his parents accompanied him to the clinic.

It may be within my reach to attain a material and social standard of living that I consider adequate for a life, but I can't see how I'm going to do it. If I died in an accident or of an illness, I would just consider it a reprieve. It should be possible for me to figure things out, but I don't think I can, and having my life taken away would just be a welcome conclusion to this interminable bullshit.

 

[lost_soul83]

I would recommend you try lamotrigine. It was like a miracle for my depressed mood.

I took that in addition to depakote for years and it helped for a while, but then I was right back to where to started as per usual for me. Meds just don't work for me long-term. I've tried over 30 different meds in different combinations over the course of 20 years. I made up my mind a few years ago that I would never do the med thing again.

combination of bad genetics and adverse life circumstances. i dont think they are mutally exclusive. former usually leads to the latter.

Thank you for bringing up the genetic component. I agree with this so much. If both sides of your family are messed up, there's a pretty good chance you're gonna end up messed up too, not always, but a lot of the time.

 

[patheticpartner]

Neither—I'm just lazy. If I don't land a job after university, ctb it is. I don't want to leech off my parents for the rest of their lives. Suicide would truly be "the easy way out" for me if I'll still be too lazy to get a job.

 

[life-eternal]

Over 15 years of severe depression. I've worked and achieved some good things, but the feeling has always remained. I wake up and hate my life and everything from my past. Life on the outside is probably not so bad, but inside I am dying and need to exit.

 

[AnniesHideaway]

This site has made me realize my situation is somewhat unique. I grew up solidly middle class, had parents that tried their best, loving family, decent friends ... and for most of my life had no health issues, and no financial issues. Also other than a few times, I've never really been depressed. So I am not completely sure why I've been thinking about suicide every day of my life since I was 15, with a couple of failed attempts.

 

[BandAddict]

I think both. A lot of things that happened to/around me fucked me up to the point that even though my life is actually fine in contrast to back then, I can't seem to feel okay/safe so much of the time. My thought patterns are just keeping me in a prison that I can't break out of. I hate it when people say that I'm depressed because I don't do anything. I don't do anything because I'm depressed!! I'm sure it doesn't help to stay in bed or sit around, but man... it doesn't matter when it just doesn't feel like there's a point.

I guess plenty of it really could be pinned on genetics, because not everyone that faces trauma ends up with a plethora of psychological issues, so who knows. My sibling and I have had pretty much the same life, and they're very different from me.

I went on a tangent, but yeah.. I guess it boils down to how an individual is equipped to handle life's shit sometimes.