What is your experience of mental health?

[VILLAMARV]

10 minutes ago, blandy said:

Here’s a talking point. I was musing a few years ago, while sat in a huge stationary traffic jam on the motorway. The jam, it turned out was because someone was threatening to jump off a bridge. I was on my way to a Fall gig and had some leeway, but I wondered what’s the calculation? Motorway closed both directions. Thousands of people stuck. Is one of them gonna beat their wife/ plunge into depression/ insert terrible outcome here/ whatever? Because of the actions of a disturbed person?  At what point is the greater good/ least harm caused by just either grabbing the “jumper” or they jump?

It’s a philosophical question, not a point of view.

I get the question.

I suppose my immediate response would be to ask (perhaps rhetorically, I'm not pressing for a definitive answer) what the metric is for good/harm? How do we effectively measure, evaluate and compare harm?

And that's ultimately also your question right?

[chrisp65]

28 minutes ago, blandy said:

Here’s a talking point. I was musing a few years ago, while sat in a huge stationary traffic jam on the motorway. The jam, it turned out was because someone was threatening to jump off a bridge. I was on my way to a Fall gig and had some leeway, but I wondered what’s the calculation? Motorway closed both directions. Thousands of people stuck. Is one of them gonna beat their wife/ plunge into depression/ insert terrible outcome here/ whatever? Because of the actions of a disturbed person?  At what point is the greater good/ least harm caused by just either grabbing the “jumper” or they jump?

It’s a philosophical question, not a point of view.

Yep, it’s unquantifiable, other than knowing that the person on the bridge is definitely at risk of harm, all the other scenarios are just that, scenarios. I do know for a fact that statistically, social services are always in a spike of activity after a significant football or rugby event. If the event goes the wrong way, plenty of people get boozed up and knock their partner about. But would the greater good be to stop competitive sport and just have medals for taking part? 

I’ve had similar thought, I was on a train to London, there was a diversion up around Gloucester and Cheltenham, then we were stopped for that same reason, a person sat on a bridge. I was going to a business meeting, I was going to pitch for some work at a time when there wasn’t that much work around. It could have been that the business meeting was make or break for 20 jobs, so twenty families and their mortgages and their plans.

Unless we invest in public services to a point they can give out questionnaires and assess possible risks, I guess they’ve got to deal with the actual risks, one at a time in a linear fashion. 

I guess someone else in that traffic jam or on that train could be a paramedic, now late for a shift, and the unknown person having a heart attack or stroke now doesn’t get the assistance they need in a timely manner. But we’re talking about a butterfly effect. It could equally be a case that a lorry driver now isn’t doing 55mph with his head in the footwell looking for his dropped phone.

Lastly, I guess society has decided that minimal investment in mental health provision has saved us all £1.37, but the inconvenience of the traffic jamb has caused £4 of inconvenience to a couple of hundred people, so that’s clearly the way forward.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Yep, it’s unquantifiable, other than knowing that the person on the bridge is definitely at risk of harm, all the other scenarios are just that, scenarios.

Again, philosophically...are they? I mean the person on the bridge and the " cry for help". Are they actually suicidal, are they attention seeking (at the other end of the extreme).  It's kind of a thing where I feel " I want this human to be safe and well" and then I also think, "there's all these other humans some of whom are getting proper problems because that one is doing what they're doing up there"

Like you say, deal with the immediate issue and sort the rest later...except no-one does. And so it repeats.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, VILLAMARV said:

I get the question.

I suppose my immediate response would be to ask (perhaps rhetorically, I'm not pressing for a definitive answer) what the metric is for good/harm? How do we effectively measure, evaluate and compare harm?

And that's ultimately also your question right?

Zackly. One person severely disturbed = X. 2000 (say) people more minorly disturbed= ?  Where do you draw the line? Is it mathematical or is it not like that?  Maths says at some point you push the person off and crack on. But that doesn't seem right, yet at some level it is the judgement, it's (in maths terms) not so different to "do you shoot the suicide bomber vest person to save the hostages".

I am of course evil for even pondering such matters.

[Jonesy7211]

13 minutes ago, blandy said:

Zackly. One person severely disturbed = X. 2000 (say) people more minorly disturbed= ?  Where do you draw the line? Is it mathematical or is it not like that?  Maths says at some point you push the person off and crack on. But that doesn't seem right, yet at some level it is the judgement, it's (in maths terms) not so different to "do you shoot the suicide bomber vest person to save the hostages".

I am of course evil for even pondering such matters.

But then that becomes another philosophical question, does logical decision making trump emotive decision making? Based on the pure maths, logic tells us that the good of many will quickly outweigh the good of the few, or the individual. Human emotion would likely put the person at risk as the most important in the scenario, especially if it was someone close to you. Socrates would have loved this. We can also see this played out at national level, with the Tory response to Covid, in my opinion. And this is a very emotive subject.

[Jon]

1 hour ago, Jonesy7211 said:

 trump emotive decision making? 

He's always making emotive rather than balanced decisions. 

[VILLAMARV]

3 hours ago, Jonesy7211 said:

does logical decision making trump emotive decision making?

Bingo, and if so, who says so and why?

It's ultimately the flaw in any economic model based on the perfect model. Humans don't conform to the perfect model or mathematical logic. Nor should they. However much pressure or threat of punishment is put upon them. Emotive reasoning is not a negative to be overcome. But it's really hard to quantify in mathematical models.

The more complex societal models will attempt to address this emotive reasoning and build some allowances into the model but moral philosophy is hard to ascribe a numerical value.

Quote

My interest is not data, it's the world. And part of world development you can see in numbers. Others, like human rights, empowerment of women, it's very difficult to measure in numbers. - Hans Rosling

Data sets are not objective.

4 hours ago, blandy said:

I am of course evil for even pondering such matters.

I dunno, it's classic utilitarianism, like the trolley problem.

[T-Dog]

Posted in the 'Health and Sickness' thread but probably better suited in here.

Does anyone have any experience of taking Sertraline? I recently had quite a 'big' life event that has potentially changed my life, and I started developing OCD symptoms a couple of weeks after, to the point where it was affecting my work. Doc put me on Sertraline and I've been on it since Jan, and at first it seemed to work quite well. The dosage has been upped since, and now I feel worse, more anxiety based OCD about a number of things. I'm guessing 'life' has caused the anxiety, but I don't understand why it's hit me like a train when I'm on double the dosage now? 

TIA.

[Lichfield Dean]

21 minutes ago, T-Dog said:

Posted in the 'Health and Sickness' thread but probably better suited in here.

Does anyone have any experience of taking Sertraline? I recently had quite a 'big' life event that has potentially changed my life, and I started developing OCD symptoms a couple of weeks after, to the point where it was affecting my work. Doc put me on Sertraline and I've been on it since Jan, and at first it seemed to work quite well. The dosage has been upped since, and now I feel worse, more anxiety based OCD about a number of things. I'm guessing 'life' has caused the anxiety, but I don't understand why it's hit me like a train when I'm on double the dosage now? 

TIA.

My wife is currently on it. She says it's very helpful but when she was having too high a dose it wasn't working at all, and was making her feel very "numb" emotionally.

I guess finding the correct dose (and possibly even the correct medication) is just a process that you need to go through.

[T-Dog]

4 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

My wife is currently on it. She says it's very helpful but when she was having too high a dose it wasn't working at all, and was making her feel very "numb" emotionally.

I guess finding the correct dose (and possibly even the correct medication) is just a process that you need to go through.

I've found the numbness thing a couple of times - it never seems to stay but sometimes it's like operating on cruise control without any knowledge of what I'm doing. Hope Mrs LD is okay bud.

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, T-Dog said:

Posted in the 'Health and Sickness' thread but probably better suited in here.

Does anyone have any experience of taking Sertraline? I recently had quite a 'big' life event that has potentially changed my life, and I started developing OCD symptoms a couple of weeks after, to the point where it was affecting my work. Doc put me on Sertraline and I've been on it since Jan, and at first it seemed to work quite well. The dosage has been upped since, and now I feel worse, more anxiety based OCD about a number of things. I'm guessing 'life' has caused the anxiety, but I don't understand why it's hit me like a train when I'm on double the dosage now? 

TIA.

Been on it for around 9 years. Seroxat for years before that. Life changing but trying to come off it led to bad depression again.  Don’t mean to scare you but I’d only take it or any medication if you are really bad and have tried other non medication methods.

What dosage are you on if you don’t mind me asking ? 

Edited March 6 by Vive_La_Villa

[T-Dog]

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Been on it for around 9 years. Seroxat for years before that. Life changing but trying to come off it led to some very bad consequences.  Don’t mean to scare you but I’d only take it or any medication if you are really bad and have tried other non medication methods.

If you don't mind me asking, really bad how? Feel free to DM if you don't want to share publicly. And thanks for the honest reply

[Designer1]

1 hour ago, T-Dog said:

Posted in the 'Health and Sickness' thread but probably better suited in here.

Does anyone have any experience of taking Sertraline? I recently had quite a 'big' life event that has potentially changed my life, and I started developing OCD symptoms a couple of weeks after, to the point where it was affecting my work. Doc put me on Sertraline and I've been on it since Jan, and at first it seemed to work quite well. The dosage has been upped since, and now I feel worse, more anxiety based OCD about a number of things. I'm guessing 'life' has caused the anxiety, but I don't understand why it's hit me like a train when I'm on double the dosage now? 

TIA.

I've been on it for a good number of years now and I've found it to be the most effective and side effect free anti-depressant I've ever been on (and I've been on lots).

I guess it just suits some people better than others 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

1 hour ago, T-Dog said:

Posted in the 'Health and Sickness' thread but probably better suited in here.

Does anyone have any experience of taking Sertraline? I recently had quite a 'big' life event that has potentially changed my life, and I started developing OCD symptoms a couple of weeks after, to the point where it was affecting my work. Doc put me on Sertraline and I've been on it since Jan, and at first it seemed to work quite well. The dosage has been upped since, and now I feel worse, more anxiety based OCD about a number of things. I'm guessing 'life' has caused the anxiety, but I don't understand why it's hit me like a train when I'm on double the dosage now? 

TIA.

I have taken sertraline for nearly 20 years but for depression. 

Try experimenting with the time of day you take the dose. I started taking it before bed and it disturbed my sleep and left me feeling cr@p for a few hours before bed.  

I gradually moved to taking it when I wake. It's been very effective ever since. 

Sertraline can have side effects but they tend to lessen after a few months. 

 

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

9 minutes ago, T-Dog said:

If you don't mind me asking, really bad how? Feel free to DM if you don't want to share publicly. And thanks for the honest reply

Sorry I probably shouldn’t have put it like that. What I meant was coming off it was great for around 3 months but then depression hit really hard where I couldn’t cope and I had to go back on. This has happened on a few occasions. 

Edited March 6 by Vive_La_Villa

[Vive_La_Villa]

6 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

I've been on it for a good number of years now and I've found it to be the most effective and side effect free anti-depressant I've ever been on (and I've been on lots).

I guess it just suits some people better than others 

This I agree with tbh. I was on seroxat for years and living with constant fatigue and sweats. One day a different doctor was shocked I was on this and changed it to sertraline. Fatigue for a few weeks but then fine after that. Put weight on and haven’t been able to lose it since though.  Sooner that than then the depression any day.

Edited March 6 by Vive_La_Villa

[Mandy Lifeboats]

@T-Dog

 

It seems many of us have experience of Sertraline and its generally a very good drug with few side effects.  

How long have you been taking it?  

It caused me to feel sick.  But this steadily got better until it disappeared completely after a few months.  

I don't suffer from OCD but it did give me some very, very mild OCD for a few weeks.  

It can make me feel sleepy but not straight after taking it. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, try taking it at different times. Find the time of day when it does most good with the least side effect.  

But most importantly - GIVE IT TIME TO WORK.  

Your body and mind is trying to repair after your trauma.  It's now trying to deal with Sertraline at the same time.  Give it time.  Its not going to work at its best until things are more stable.  

I am happy to answer any further questions in this thread or privately. I feel no embarrassment or disgrace talking about my mental health.  No one should. 

 

[Jon]

Just to echo all of the above, I've been on sertraline for probably 6 years now.  Before that I was on citalopram for a couple of years. Sertraline definitely works better for me. Not really had any bad side effects from it.  I've tried to come off it a couple of times but like someone said above, after about 3-4 months I was getting really low so went back on it (though this was during lockdown so maybe not the best of times to try it!).

But all in all, it's definitely benefited me.  I'm on a half dose I think which is 100mg

[tonyh29]

15 hours ago, T-Dog said:

Posted in the 'Health and Sickness' thread but probably better suited in here.

Does anyone have any experience of taking Sertraline? I recently had quite a 'big' life event that has potentially changed my life, and I started developing OCD symptoms a couple of weeks after, to the point where it was affecting my work. Doc put me on Sertraline and I've been on it since Jan, and at first it seemed to work quite well. The dosage has been upped since, and now I feel worse, more anxiety based OCD about a number of things. I'm guessing 'life' has caused the anxiety, but I don't understand why it's hit me like a train when I'm on double the dosage now? 

TIA.

goes without saying I'm not a Doctor   , but it could be worth asking yours about Propranolol instead of Sertraline ?

Propranolol is a beta blocker but kinda similar to Sertraline  , but maybe with no side effects like you are experiencing (in some case people get prescribed both) 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

45 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

goes without saying I'm not a Doctor   

You could have mentioned this before you did my prostate examination.