What do you recommend

[Quiet Stranger]

For those who have had (or do have) depression, what do you think needs to change in society to better help people with depression?

I'm doing a research paper on depression and the last question I have to answer is what needs to change in society to better help people who have depression. I know of one thing but that's about it. Anyone's advice or thoughts is greatly appreciated.

 

[Keoul]

I'm going with bullies.
Yeah they (by which I mean the school) really needs to change how they handle bullying both online and offline. Simply telling the bully to "get lost" isn't going to work, they'll come back and the victim will get hurt again and again, losing trust with the teacher and going into depression.

Can't think of a solution though, sorry bout that.

 

[Jinxzy]

I think society in general needs to be more willing to change and accept people. It seems like kids now a days don't have any morals. Doing kind action and saying kind words are now shunned or even think it's weird. It seems that our society is becoming more rude, hurting people/ things are now acceptable or just shrugged off. Jut like Keoul said:

Simply telling the bully to "get lost" isn't going to work, they'll come back and the victim will get hurt again and again.

We need to bring back morals and values and show our future generation that all this unkindness isn't the way to go because it is hurting and affecting people.

 

[Coffeejack]

Widespread understanding that words can kill. This will help end bullying. Bullies are often emboldened by not being able to see the effects of their behaviour.

 

[theparsonski]

Banana Soreen helps every time I'm feeling down. I eat it by the loaf.

Also, getting people active. I run a lot and go to the gym, and compared to periods where I don't get much exercise, I feel a lot happier and a lot healthier.

 

[Esotera]

We need a health service that actually has the capability to treat more than a minority of mentally ill individuals, and one that has an extensive outreach & prevention program. If you have a broken leg, it will get treated, but if you have a broken mind, it's easier to miss, and the waiting lists can be up to two years long, which is ludicrous.

Also judging by the responses in this thread, better public education, because most of the responses so far appear to think depression is caused exclusively by bullying.

 

[Fractral]

I think society in general needs to be more willing to change and accept people. It seems like kids now a days don't have any morals. Doing kind action and saying kind words are now shunned or even think it's weird. It seems that our society is becoming more rude, hurting people/ things are now acceptable or just shrugged off. Jut like Keoul said:

Simply telling the bully to "get lost" isn't going to work, they'll come back and the victim will get hurt again and again.

We need to bring back morals and values and show our future generation that all this unkindness isn't the way to go because it is hurting and affecting people.

I wouldn't say that kids these days don't have morals, or that kind deeds are shunned by the younger generation, at least not as far as I've encountered. Sure, there's bullying, but there has always been bullying (not that that is any excuse for bullying). Its hard to tell if there is an overall increase in bullying, or if it simply recieves more media coverage- I've certainly never been bullied or seen bullying for all the time I've been at school. And saying that children don't have morals- well, I don't quite know how you'd go about testing that, but it seems like a pretty general statement.

 

[Jinxzy]

I think society in general needs to be more willing to change and accept people. It seems like kids now a days don't have any morals. Doing kind action and saying kind words are now shunned or even think it's weird. It seems that our society is becoming more rude, hurting people/ things are now acceptable or just shrugged off. Jut like Keoul said:

Simply telling the bully to "get lost" isn't going to work, they'll come back and the victim will get hurt again and again.

We need to bring back morals and values and show our future generation that all this unkindness isn't the way to go because it is hurting and affecting people.

I wouldn't say that kids these days don't have morals, or that kind deeds are shunned by the younger generation, at least not as far as I've encountered. Sure, there's bullying, but there has always been bullying (not that that is any excuse for bullying). Its hard to tell if there is an overall increase in bullying, or if it simply recieves more media coverage- I've certainly never been bullied or seen bullying for all the time I've been at school. And saying that children don't have morals- well, I don't quite know how you'd go about testing that, but it seems like a pretty general statement.

To me my morals and values help me stay nice and polite and tell whats right and wrong. I feel like kids are missing that, i've seen kids bump into people while texting on phones and yell at the person for being in the way. It's their fault for not watching where they are going. I stopped at a stop sigh and a kid walked right into my car and yelled at me for not moving. I seen 5-7 year olds yell at there parents and drop more swear words then a trucker. Even down right tell there parents they are fat, stupid, lazy and so on. If kids can go around acting like rude monsters and be completely disrespectful I see it as them not having any morals or values in there life.

 

[Fractral]

I think society in general needs to be more willing to change and accept people. It seems like kids now a days don't have any morals. Doing kind action and saying kind words are now shunned or even think it's weird. It seems that our society is becoming more rude, hurting people/ things are now acceptable or just shrugged off. Jut like Keoul said:

Simply telling the bully to "get lost" isn't going to work, they'll come back and the victim will get hurt again and again.

We need to bring back morals and values and show our future generation that all this unkindness isn't the way to go because it is hurting and affecting people.

I wouldn't say that kids these days don't have morals, or that kind deeds are shunned by the younger generation, at least not as far as I've encountered. Sure, there's bullying, but there has always been bullying (not that that is any excuse for bullying). Its hard to tell if there is an overall increase in bullying, or if it simply recieves more media coverage- I've certainly never been bullied or seen bullying for all the time I've been at school. And saying that children don't have morals- well, I don't quite know how you'd go about testing that, but it seems like a pretty general statement.

To me my morals and values help me stay nice and polite and tell whats right and wrong. I feel like kids are missing that, i've seen kids bump into people while texting on phones and yell at the person for being in the way. It's their fault for not watching where they are going. I stopped at a stop sigh and a kid walked right into my car and yelled at me for not moving. I seen 5-7 year olds yell at there parents and drop more swear words then a trucker. Even down right tell there parents they are fat, stupid, lazy and so on. If kids can go around acting like rude monsters and be completely disrespectful I see it as them not having any morals or values in there life.

Don't really know what to say to that, beyond that the kids where you live must be really bad mannered. Thinking about it though, you may be right that morals are getting worse overall. Couldn't tell you for sure why though.

 

[Moderated]

Schools need to stop being retarded.
Lets say a bully is beating the shit out of a kid. If you tackle the bully, you get suspended for being in a fight. They punish people for doing the right thing.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

While this is all great advice. The topic I chose was depression, not bullying. What needs to change in society to help families deal with DEPRESSION? Like lack of information or how depression is a negative stigma.

 

[aba1]

The one thing I have noticed in people who get depressed is that they feel they have no value in society. I don't think it takes a genius to put together that a lot of people even here on this site look down on people based on their place in society despite that the place wouldn't be their if it wasn't of value.

If we want depression to go away we need to start realizing that everyone has their place and there is nothing wrong with being a store clerk or a maid or a janitor and that all these jobs are just as valuable as the actors we read about or the doctors we go to and even the cops we depend on to defend us.

Even in students we see so many people valuing kids only at their ability to appease the school system. It doesn't matter what each kid is like or the skills or abilities they bring to the table there worth is significantly less if there numbers or grades are not as high.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Well, there's not a lot you can do. Depression ends when the depressed person climbs up out of it and starts living normally (for lack of a better term). They have to do this themselves. If they have made the decision to help themselves, you can help them by just being there, doing things with them. If they're not trying to get better, the best thing you can do is stay away, because they'll just drag you down with them.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Well, there's not a lot you can do. Depression ends when the depressed person climbs up out of it and starts living normally (for lack of a better term). They have to do this themselves. If they have made the decision to help themselves, you can help them by just being there, doing things with them. If they're not trying to get better, the best thing you can do is stay away, because they'll just drag you down with them.

What I mean is, what needs to change in society to help those depressed people. Like in the countries where they don't really believe in depression, how would you help someone who is depressed? Or a country where they don't know a lot about depression?

 

[Blunderboy]

depression is a negative stigma.

Well depression is a negative. That's the whole problem.
My depressed friend agrees with me before anyone calls me out for being callous.

Well, there's not a lot you can do. Depression ends when the depressed person climbs up out of it and starts living normally (for lack of a better term). They have to do this themselves. If they have made the decision to help themselves, you can help them by just being there, doing things with them. If they're not trying to get better, the best thing you can do is stay away, because they'll just drag you down with them.

Also, this.

 

[Mr F.]

For those who have had (or do have) depression, what do you think needs to change in society to better help people with depression?

I'm doing a research paper on depression and the last question I have to answer is what needs to change in society to better help people who have depression. I know of one thing but that's about it. Anyone's advice or thoughts is greatly appreciated.

I will say the same as I have said to a researcher I met recently.

Trigger warnings on music, games and films that contain things which might trigger... Well, I was talking about self harm (A common side effect of depression), but the same applies to a lot of things. You have warnings about drink, drug, violence, sexual content, bullcrap like that. I think there needs to be warnings about potentially triggering aspects within said images, such as rape, or suicide, because it really can be horrible to be blindsided by such things.

On another level, removal of the stigma created through the over-diagnosis of people. Over-diagnosis has many affects, along with the social stigma of the labelling process (Which I assume I do not have to get into) and the trivialisation of the subject 'Depression is not bad, my uncle has Seasonal Affective Disorder! Get over yourself'. Essentially I think there are too many categories these days (Bleh, I think the old ones worked. You know, Unipolar depression, Bi-polar depression, Chronic depression... That crap. None of this new bullshit. Especially not something as impossible to diagnose as "Borderline Personality Disorder". Fuck that and fuck its array of symptoms covering THE ENTIRE HUMAN CONDITION). People need to start accepting that sadness is just another aspect of the human condition, something that we all experience and that for some it lasts a lot longer and is hard, sometimes impossibly hard, to snap out of it.

I say all of this as a unipolar depressive who has a long history of self harm (Clean for about a month and a half, woo.) and stupid life decisions (Who'd a thought that crack cocaine was bad for you?). Used such things to cope with a very difficult world that I could not understand, a world that made no attempt to understand me.

Finally? A universal shift away from the medicalisation of every fucking aspect of the human fucking condition. Yes, Medication does help sometimes. Resperidone, Prozac, Diazepam, all of it, it can help. But CBT has a pretty high success rate and, importantly, doesn't fuck you up. SSRI's can, and do, cause suicide and are impossibly dangerous to use in non-controlled conditions (And are MOSTLY USED IN NON CONTROLLED CONDITIONS), but we all think that pills are the answer. As a species we need to realise that it is ok to have a cold sometimes and that if you are feeling like shit it is probably better to take 2 hours out of your week and talk to someone about it then shove a fistful of Lithium into your mouth and wash it down with some diazepam before having your afternoon snack of prozac. It doesn't help. The way out of shit is not to take things to make the symptoms go away, its to talk to people until you have dismantled the cause.

Well, with regards to depression any way.

We need a health service that actually has the capability to treat more than a minority of mentally ill individuals, and one that has an extensive outreach & prevention program. If you have a broken leg, it will get treated, but if you have a broken mind, it's easier to miss, and the waiting lists can be up to two years long, which is ludicrous.

Also judging by the responses in this thread, better public education, because most of the responses so far appear to think depression is caused exclusively by bullying.

Look, another person who has some idea of what they are talking about.

A lot of things go into education in my opinion. So much stuff has so much stigma attached because people are ignorant. Get rid of the stigma, get rid of one of the causes of depression. Or at least get rid of one of the things that makes it so hard to deal with. Man, just thinking about this crap is making me crave a smoke.

Which is a pity because I quit. Heh.

Good day to you, people of this thread. I need to stop procrastinating and start working.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I think something needs to change in the process of how people can access help for depression and other mental health problems.

When I was self harming badly I made an appointment with my GP - I was asked by the receptionist why I wanted an appointment so I just said "stress".

Then I had the appointment with the GP and I had to sit and explain pretty much everything while he sat and wrote it all down. This was absolutely mortifying for me and caused me a lot of distress.

It wasn't even until 3 months later that I actually got referred to a therapist and another couple of weeks until I got an appointment.

I also believe that more needs to be done to alleviate this negative image that people have of people who are suffering from depression. Not everyone who is depressed self harms, not everyone who self harms is suicidal and actually on the outside they may seem pretty normal.

Although having said that, the treatment I received was amazing and it really has helped to change my life for the better.