This episode is exactly what it sounds like. Listener Anonymous Steve, whose has made appearances on the Skepticule podcast, contacted me after the episode with Jake previous, regarding depression and suicide. Steve considers himself suicidal. This was a difficult episode but was an incredibly unique experience and hopefully good will come out of it.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:58 — 54.1MB)
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What is more distracting, the half a second of static drop out or the ten to fifteen seconds of digression on how annoying it is to have a half second of static drop out.
Your the best Thomas.
Tough to listen to but I’m glad I did. I suffer from depression from life events but I rarely have episodes now after therapy with a super awesome psychologist. When I was referred I was in a terrible way. I had break downs in supermarkets because I didn’t know which frozen dinner to get. I would smoke like a chimney and eat like a goat.
I still clearly remember my darkest moment – I was seconds away from doing it. I was so dangerously close, I wanted to stab that heartache with a butchers knife. I had it in my hand aimed at myself. I almost did it. The image of my mother popped into my head and I knew she would be devastated. I burst into tears and felt trapped because I couldn’t do it with the thought of her in my head.
It was such a dark time for me and had been a gradual decline starting in my teenage years but no Dr or family member took it seriously. Luckily when I did see a Dr after that I just burst into tears after barely starting a sentence. He gave me a week off work and referred me to my awesome psych.
I have been inspired to study psychology and hope to start my degree next year.
Wow, I’m really sorry to hear that you went through all that. Did you end up on medication or anything? I hope you’re doing better these days and I wish you best of luck in pursuing your degree!
Hi Thomas!
At the time I wasn’t prescribed anything as I knew they can have horrid side effects. My depression was caused by a string of crappy childhood events and my psychologist had to help me get over some things and rewire my thought processes as my conditioning growing up, in relation to myself, was very poor.
I am now fairly positive most of the time. I am on pristiq but that was later given to me for an eating disorder, still helps my moods though.
So i went from a whiny, negative, depressed and difficult to deal with person to a bubbly, outgoing, positive chick. Transformation!
Thank you 🙂
Great conversation.
I also went through a long, grim depressive period. Social anxiety, lack of motivation, inability to experience hope or joy. I would waste away days only looking forward to sleep.
Despite the cliche list of symptoms, I didn’t even recognize it as depression because it wasn’t caused by any events in my life. My brain was just malfunctioning.
Happily, SSRIs worked very well and the side effects were mild and short-lived.
Thanks for having this difficult and interesting conversation, and I wish all the best for Jake and Steve. What Steve mentioned about potentially losing his house is deeply concerning, and I hope the people in his life can intervene on his behalf.
Ever have transcripts of the show? It would be great if there were.
I went back and tried to take notes, but may as well of transcribed the whole show. I gave up.
I related on so many levels, down to unwarranted persecution from townspeople, social anxiety, PTSD, and having a weird sense of humor about it that unnerves people sometimes because of being open and honest in a manner, to which people are unaccustomed.