3 ms·

I'm 33 years old and assume I have a case of "long haul covid." Physical symptoms are a chronic shortness of breath & exhaustion. I get winded just talking on z

I'm 33 years old and assume I have a case of "long haul covid." Physical symptoms are a chronic shortness of breath & exhaustion. I get winded just talking on zoom. Pre covid I could run 3 miles no sweat. On the mental side I've also noticed effect: mostly depression, and it is totally correlated with the physical symptoms. On days where the shortness of breath is acute so is the depression. But here's the interesting thing: I'm not worried about the depression at all. In my late teens/early twenties I suffered from extreme depression. Thanks to {reasons} and {intervention}, I managed to overcome it by my late twenties, but it was a solid lost decade for me. I certainly wish I hadn't had that experience, but the silver lining is that I feel like I have practice with it. I hadn't felt depressed in years, but when I felt it on account of covid I was able to observe it and say "huh. I guess being sick made me depressed," which is vastly different than just being depressed without the ability to observe it. This has resulted in the realization that one can practice and train to deal with some mental health issues, and I feel like it's a skillset that I have now mastered. I didn't expect to have to use it again but here we are. As a young father, I hope to somehow pass this skillset on to my children without them having to go through the same experiences I did, and I wish that it were better woven into the fabric of our society. All societies teach some soft skills simply as part of their mores, taboos and worldviews and ours (western, american/americanized) IMHO fails utterly in this regard.

ryanmarsh 6y ago
Do you mind sharing the treatment protocol you were prescribed or self-adopted?
- el_nahual 6y ago
  Sadly, the answer involves many, many years. -------------------------- Things I'm certain helped: - Complete and total elimination of alcohol. I didn't have a sip of acohol for 6+ years. I will now occasionally have a beer, maybe 6 or so drinks per year? - 9 month leave of absence from school and work, moving back in with my very, very loving and kind parents. - Being showered with love and affection daily for years by close friends and family. -------------------------- Things that probably helped: - Talk therapy 3x a week for about a year, and weekly for about a year after that. - A heroic dose of psylocibin, about 5 years into my recovery. - Extreme amounts of exercise (real boxing) -------------------------- Things that were also included in treatment that probably didn't help but who knows: - I was on some SSRI (forget which) for about a year. - Three weeks of an involuntary stay at a run-down mental health clinic. This mostly had a positive impact on my understanding of politics and liberty, less so on curing depression IMHO.
blocko 6y ago
"Practice" with depression resonated with me. Having another episode feels much more familiar, and there's an advantage to having already recognized and improved a lot of issues with my thinking/coping patterns which exacerbated it the first time. If your car breaks down twice, the second time still sucks due to the core problems of money and time loss, but you now have less uncertainty surrounding the logistics+scope of getting it fixed. Mental health skills feel like a hard thing to teach in the abstract due to how personal a lot of the work is, but we could definitely do better. Occasional therapy as a normal preventative practice in healthy kids seems like a start

ryanmarsh 6y ago

Do you mind sharing the treatment protocol you were prescribed or self-adopted?

el_nahual 6y ago
Sadly, the answer involves many, many years. -------------------------- Things I'm certain helped: - Complete and total elimination of alcohol. I didn't have a sip of acohol for 6+ years. I will now occasionally have a beer, maybe 6 or so drinks per year? - 9 month leave of absence from school and work, moving back in with my very, very loving and kind parents. - Being showered with love and affection daily for years by close friends and family. -------------------------- Things that probably helped: - Talk therapy 3x a week for about a year, and weekly for about a year after that. - A heroic dose of psylocibin, about 5 years into my recovery. - Extreme amounts of exercise (real boxing) -------------------------- Things that were also included in treatment that probably didn't help but who knows: - I was on some SSRI (forget which) for about a year. - Three weeks of an involuntary stay at a run-down mental health clinic. This mostly had a positive impact on my understanding of politics and liberty, less so on curing depression IMHO.

blocko 6y ago

"Practice" with depression resonated with me. Having another episode feels much more familiar, and there's an advantage to having already recognized and improved a lot of issues with my thinking/coping patterns which exacerbated it the first time. If your car breaks down twice, the second time still sucks due to the core problems of money and time loss, but you now have less uncertainty surrounding the logistics+scope of getting it fixed. Mental health skills feel like a hard thing to teach in the abstract due to how personal a lot of the work is, but we could definitely do better. Occasional therapy as a normal preventative practice in healthy kids seems like a start