Depression in the US (Full Lecture) with personal commentary

YouTube decided to auto play a lecture about Depression in the U.S. by Stanford’s Saplosky for me. I found it interesting and informative.

I was diagnosed with major depression and panic and anxiety disorder when I was 18. I have actually suffered from these things for most of my life though. I don’t remember a time in my life when I was not depressed, even as a young child. In 2013 I was also diagnosed with CPTSD, which I came to understand probably began at a very young age for me. It’s all related.

I was born with a heart deformity, and as a result, I suffered from Supraventricular Tachycardia. Even as a newborn and infant, I had to be taken to the emergency room to have my heart restarted in the correct rhythm. I have needed a shot of adenosine to stop and restart my heart countless times in my life. I was always convinced I was dying, even as a small child.

Adenosine creates a feeling of “impending doom” because it briefly stops your heart so that it can restart in the correct rhythm. What I am saying is that my fears are based on very real instances of something that has really happened to me countless times in my life. I have experienced the feeling of my heart stopping – the feeling of dying – numerous times in my life. And I have been absolutely terrified each and every time.

When given as a rapid IV bolus, adenosine slows cardiac conduction particularly affecting conduction through the AV node. The rapid bolus of adenosine also interrupts reentry (SVT causing) pathways through the AV node and restores sinus rhythm in patients with SVT.

What happens when you give adenosine?

When people say “you’re worried about nothing” they have no idea what they are talking about. It’s very upsetting when people say such insensitive things. Maybe their fears are superficial and frivolous because they haven’t faced any trauma in their lives yet, but my fears are firmly rooted in fact and science. I have countless memories of the exact same experiences and I am afraid the same things will happen that have already happened to me before numerous times. I’m not imagining anything. I’m remembering real events.

Even though I had heart surgery in 2014 to finally fix this congenital heart defect, it has taken a huge toll on me mentally, emotionally and physically to have lived with this my entire life. Even though the pathway in my heart has been ablated, it could become an issue again someday. Or, a different pathway could form in the future. Ablations are not always final solutions.

I don’t know if I could survive another heart surgery. The first one was rough. Anesthesia is very risky for me. I have bradycardia because my blood pressure pills are a beta blocker, and as a result my pulse and respiration drops sharply. I’m terrified of going under anesthesia again, and I hope I never need another surgery. But I’m a realist and know that it could be needed again someday.

For that reason, every single time I wake up in the middle of the night with a racing heart, or when I’m just sitting there doing nothing and my heart races for no reason, it terrifies me all over again. Is this it? Did another pathway form? Did my SVT come back? Am I going to die now instead of later? In 2020, my heart has raced so many times, I’ve been kind of scared.

Thankfully, I haven’t had a full blown episode of SVT in 6 years. The surgery was successful. But I am acutely aware of what a gift that really is, and that it could be taken away from me at any time. Even though my SVT is “cured”, I still suffer from several other hereditary conditions. PCOS, PKD and HS are the three other biggest things affecting me. Life has never been easy for me, nor will it ever be. Between SVT, and my other hereditary conditions, I can’t remember a single day of my life where I was not in pain of some kind, somewhere in my body. It’s no wonder I’m majorly depressed.

When you are depressed, everyone always tells you to just “cheer up”. And people like to say that “lots of people have it worse than you do”. This is true, lots of people do have it worse than most of us, and I’m extremely aware of that without the reminder.

Generally, I am incredibly cheerful for a severely depressed person with anxiety, CPTSD and several painful chronic hereditary illness. If I had $1 for every time I have heard “But you don’t LOOK Sick, in pain and/or Depressed” from some well meaning person… it would be a LOT of dollars to spend on medical marijuana or other things that make me happy. LOL.

But sometimes, I need to take a moment to grieve, and to acknowledge how hard I work to appear “normal” and “happy” to make other people comfortable while I am between a 5-7 on the pain scale every single moment of every single day of my life. I don’t so much as take an aspirin about it. I used to live on ibuprofen and other pharmaceutical drugs, but they damaged my organs and had nasty side effects. It’s not worth it to me. I don’t ever want to take another harmaceutical again unless it’s required to save my life. Just medical marijuana and blood pressure pills for me, Thanks!

It’s nice to hear from a Stanford man that it’s not as simple as just deciding to not be depressed anymore. That kind of toxic positivity is rooted in fiction, not science. I wish everyone would watch this and understand that depression is an actual biological disease and not just “all in your head”. We didn’t ask to be traumatized. We didn’t cause the things that traumatized us and it’s not our “fault” that bad things happened to us.

Our genes also play a role in the way that we process trauma. When we are traumatized it creates disease in the body and the mind, and both of these ailments are something that we need to work to heal, just like we would heal any other biological disease.

With that being said, it can be hard to find a therapist that you actually click with. Harder still to afford them if you do. Good luck to anyone who is working to heal trauma. Peace and love to you.

Uploaded Nov 10, 2009

Stanford Professor Robert Sapolsky, posits that depression is the most damaging disease that you can experience.

Right now it is the number four cause of disability in the US and it is becoming more common. Sapolsky states that depression is as real of a biological disease as is diabetes.

Stanford University: http://www.stanford.edu/

Stanford University Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/stanford