Which type are you?

[tommaney 0]

It's true--across the board, pessimism just isn't helpful!

As for BII, I have a different evaluation of her situation, and that's alright. I mainly wanted to speak up to submit the reasons why I started the Mental Health subforum to begin with.

Regarding your DH, I think your attitude was probably the best thing for him. Anxiety problems can so often be aided by systematically disputing the faulty logic, so not indulging him was very likely quite productive.

[OH Juli 15]

Jahut,

If you are a biography reader or enjoy classic cinema, read up on Katherine Hepburn.

You share a similar attitude. I expect you might enjoy the read.

J

[BJean 16]

Wow. These latest posts are really, really helpful! So much insight and wisdom here. I hope lots of people are tuning in. It has helped me get refocused and think a little more about how great it's been since I lifted the veil of depression that I was in for so long.

If our disagreeable exchanges helped to generate these fantastic posts, it may have been a good exercise for us, not a bad one. If a few raw feelings got exposed in the process that may be a good thing too. Maybe we need to name the thread Dr. Jachut's Musings.

[snowbird 2]

This has turned into a very interesting thread. I was thinking about various people's comparisons of obesity with alcoholism. At the risk of offending those who have problems I have no personal experience with, it seems that both obesity and alcoholism/drug addiction have similarities in how they must be overcome. There's the physical addiction. Are the obese physically addicted? I'm not sure about that. But an alcoholic/d.a. often gets past the physical addiction, sometimes for years, but returns to the drug of choice anyway, because the body has been changed but the mind hasn't. The desire for the drug remains even when the physical addiction is gone. So that is where will and self-knowledge comes into play. I want to smoke/drink/eat, even though I don't need to, but I will myself not to? The will gets its strength from understanding the whys and hows of the desire, and can be either fueled or thwarted by emotion: I am unhappy and deserve the pleasure of the drug, or I am happy being strong enough to say no and want to continue that behavior.

I'm rambling. But we are complicated creatures, aren't we? I guess it all comes down to the old free will question: does every one of us have the tools and strengths to determine our own destiny, or are we merely the result of physiology and environment, determined at birth to be whatever we are? Sometimes I think it's the latter, but I want to believe the former.

Thanks for making me think harder than I usually do! It's good exercise.

[BJean 16]

great post, snowbird. I've gone through a similar thought process and I sure enjoyed reading your thoughts on addiction and obesity.

I had about a year of acupuncture treatments at one point in my life and a very good friend of mine was a chain smoker. She asked if acupuncture could help her. The doctor I was seeing told me that he could definitely cure the physical addiction to tobacco, but that he would not be able to cure the mental addiction and behavioral patterns that she had spent years doing. My friend did wind up going to him and in fact, she was able to quit (after trying everything else). However years later, when her husband had some severe medical problems and she was very stressed, she reverted to her old behavior and dependence on nicotine. She's hooked again and recently told me she's going to begin withdrawal again through acupuncture treatments.

We are very strong creatures sometimes and very fragile at other times. None of this is simple, and if we can learn from each other, and garner some support from time to time, this is a good place to get involved. Sometimes we even learn when we're beaten about the head, neck and shoulders. :-)

[pearlygirl 1]

I just wanted to comment on the addiction aspect. I come from a family with strong addicitve tendancies. We have alcoholics, gambling addicts, and one food addict. Fortunatley, I have somehow been spared the addictive trait. A true addict(no matter what kind) has lost control over 'drug' of choice. Addiction is not a matter of willpower or laziness. I suspect that some here(no one specifically) probably have an addiction just based on the fact this is a very large group of obese or once obese people...statistically it is likely that there may be a food addict here or there on the boards.

Anyway, by no means is every obese person a food addict. That would be like saying that every person who has been drunk is an alcoholic...it just makes no sense.

For someone who IS a food addict it is as critical that they get the help they need, just as it is for a drug addict. They say that food addiction is one of the hardest to overcome because of the fact that you HAVE to eat to survive. With drugs, alcohol, tobacco etc you can avoid the drug altogether...you still have to eat, food never goes away.

The fact still remains that for the majority of the obese population - we eat to much, don't exercise enough and find every excuse in the world not to. It is very hard to lose weight. The band makes it easier, but it is still hard. For those who find their way more quickly than others, kudos. For those who take longer, persevere - any step in the right direction is just that, a step in the right direction.

[BJean 16]

Right on, Pearlygirl.

After I enjoyed my first intitial weight loss with the band, over 40 lbs., and then settled into a slower pace, I kept being very disappointed in the 1 to 2 lb weight loss per week and tended to beat myself up for not being able to achieve quicker results.

The dietician I met with regularly, who has a very well-rounded educational background, routinely got onto me for being too hard on myself. She said that I should feel great about losing, no matter what the amount, and that not giving myself credit for what I was accomplishing was self-defeating behavior. It has taken me a long time to get it. I had spent years being too hard on myself, not believing compliments, and using self-deprecating humor to handle most things. I think that may be a familiar bit of behavior experienced by lots of us who are battling or have battled the bulge.

The dietician also says that many people who are susceptible to addiction are way too hard on themselves. They never are able to quite live up to their own standards. She may have something there.

Btw, I agree that you can't lump all obese people into one category of being addicted to food. If you could, treating obesity could be handled the same way for everyone and we might all be taking 12 steps or methadone.

[MacMadame 81]

Are the obese physically addicted? I'm not sure about that.

I think so. The obese have up to 10x the ghrelin as normal-weighted people. Ghrelin makes you feel hunger even if you should be satisfied.

WLS interferes with ghrelin production for most of us and allows us to move beyond the physical addiciton. But it doesn't nothing for the mental addiction for those that have it. Which is why it doesn't work for everyone.

[BJean 16]

Ghrelin, huh? Amn't familiar with that term. Gonna have to Google it. I'll bet my bod is good at making that stuff.

[tommaney 0]

That book You On A Diet by Dr. Oz gives a good description of several physiological elements of hunger and satiety, including Ghrelin production. It also has illustrations that simplify the physician vocab : )

Even though it just looks like a diet book, Dr. Oz actually addresses WLS at the end--not putting it down but talking about it as a realistic option.

[Kat817 19]

It (Grehlin--SP?) is often referred to as the hunger hormone....according to my band surgeon, he went into great detail about band placement, and how it affects the hunger aspect following surgery. He said precise placement is the future ideal---that losing the production of the hormone could eliminate hunger. With pressure on the nerve that controls the release of the hormone, it does not send the hunger signals. In bypass it is usually cut. If your band puts pressure on the nerves, your hunger is reduced to eliminated. Which explains why one bandster will say they are never hungry, and the next even 7 fills has not affected their hunger, only their ability to eat.

My SIL and I were banded the same day by the same Dr. I have never really felt hunger since, and she is physically hungry all the time she said.......be interesting to watch the developements over the next few years, on that as well as the relationship to diabetes.

What I have noticed in my own life, is that some people are more prone to depression than others.

One friend was sexually abused by her father for most of her childhood, til she went to live with an older brother, who was killed shortly after she arrived. She went on to marry, have kids, her house burned to the ground several years ago. And most recently she has found out her 27 year old DD-a mother of 3 herself is shooting crystal meth. Through the years her depressions have become worse and worse. She battles her weight, gets a grip on it and the dark cloud over her head, and something else slams into her---the weight comes back and she begins all over again fighting to find the light again. Through it all, she remains a supportive person to others, she just cannot find it to support herself it seems. She has been in therapy through the years, and is now actually paying for it for one of her grandsons and cannot afford her own, she has regained 45 of the 60 pounds she most recently lost, and is having a hard time coming to grips with her DD's addiction. And the DD told her she began using so she would not be fat like her! That had to help!

Through all of this, I could not have ask for anyone to be more supportive of my surgery choice, and results. I have and continue to try to be the best friend I can to her---I just do not know how to break through the depression sometimes.

Then I have another friend I hardly see anymore due to her constant depression. She has none of my other friends background issues, that I am aware of---and has what seems like everything going her way----a loving DH, self supporting children, and beautiful home, no weight issues. Only said as a point of comparison. Yet refuses therapy, and does not seem to want to do anything about the depression.

So many of you have education in this.....my point was that some people seem more prone to depression despite their backgrounds----is this true? And do they know why?

Kat

[Jachut 487]

I think its true Kat but I'm going to say something else outrageous here.

Firstly I'll preface it by saying I understand totally that depression is an illness, people cannot just "snap out of it" and to treat them that way is not in the least bit helpful. Some people are PHYSIOLOGICALLY prone to depression and will have to manage it all their lives. People become depressed even when their seems no reason for it, and some people need to be on medication always to control that.

Other people, I'm positive they do it to themselves. DH is one such person. Its their basic personality type, exactly the same as I believe some people's basic personality and outlook lead them to obesity.

I'm thinking of several people I've known online and in real life for years, through a baby and parenting forum. They are just that type, baby WILL be born, it WILL be a home Water birth/natural delivery in birthing centre/happen upside down on a beanbag with Bon Jovi in the background, you know what I mean. They WILL breastfeed said child for 7 years. Come home, child WILL adapt to the routine immediately, feed on schedule, sleep through the night. Child WILL first sit at 5.2567 months old, WILL crawl at exactly 7.54 pm on the 4th of March, WILL walk on his first birthday.

Then they bring this little scrap of humanity home, he screams blue murder all the first night after sleeping through an entire week in hospital after his caesarean delivery, yelling for his bottles. He will proceed to need feeding during the night for the first nine months of his life, sleep through for a month and then proceed waking at night again. And bless his cotton socks, he'll give up a day sleep at one year old and HOW is mummy supposed to cope without that hour of peace at 3pm?

so they descend into miserable anxiety and depression (I'm talking medicated levels) and wonder how it all went so horribly wrong.

Its their expectations! They are such control freaks with unrealistic expectations of how things would be and they have NO skills to cope with a change in plans.

I went into motherhood with a bit of that, I found my first baby hard, a really big shock, but I figured I'd better bloody well adapt because what choice did I have? The second and third, I could have dropped them in a rice paddy, slung them across my front and kept working kind of thing. If you go in with no expectation and no delusions that you are in control, parenting a young baby aint rocket science. If you go to bed accepting that you will be up twice, and you know that your days arent your own, and that if you grab half an hour on the couch in peace, you will enjoy it greatly, then getting up at night isnt that difficult.

So definitely, outlook and personality, assuming you can use parenthood as a metaphor for life in general, the way you approach things affects your experience of them and your experience of life can lead you into depression if you feel out of control and helpless. Depression can be a mental illness with physiological causes, but for some, if they could change their outlook and the way they approach things, could avoid the negative approaches, they could avoid it altogether.

And you know, its STILL depression, however it came on, so its deserving of being treated seriously and with compassion. But the thing is you'll find with these people, they are getting *something* out of their illness. They love the drama of it. They come online (the baby people, I'm talking about) ten thousand times a day crying that they've just tried to put thier child down for a sleep and he WONT go. You gently suggest perhaps he's not tired and you're done for, you cop a tirade of abuse when all you meant is that surely getting him up and going shopping would be more pleasant than both of you than fighting for two hours to get a baby to sleep? But they dont want to hear it, they're thriving on the drama and their old negative thought patterns give them some sort of warped comfort - I mean if you think that way its a guaranteed outcome, right? So you become the bad guy. That's where my sympathy goes out the window, I'm afraid, lol.

Edited June 25, 2008 by Jachut

[Nanook 2]

Jachut, when you speak of your friends/feller posters from your other forum are you talking about women with postpartum depression or women who are situationally depressed?

I tend to believe the biggest drama queens are the ones that don't even know they are drama queens! Nanook

[Jachut 487]

How do you really separate PND from situational depression? There's a very big grey area there.

But really, I guess I mean situational depression. It can be bad enough, without needing to classify it as PND. I mean the people who you could have picked a mile off would have trouble coping with a young baby. You can just TELL about some people, if you know what I mean?

So yeah, that probably doesnt mean true post natal depression.

[Kat817 19]

The other question I was going to ask of those who have been posting with the working knowledge of these things is this---------do those people who seem more prone to depression have addictive behaviours due to the depression, or do they seem to get depressed due to the forms of addiction--one of which could be the constant drama I suppose....?

Now how is that for a run on sentence??!!

Kat