med school and depression :(

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(I know this is an old thread, but I assume people might be feeling down about being back in class after break, so I will share my story of depression. Most of this response is copy/pasted from my response to a thread in another forum.)

I’ve always been a pretty mentally healthy person. Through high school and early college, I sometimes talked about being “depressed” when work was stressful and I couldn't go out and have fun all the time and I was feeling a little blue. But then I spent several months dealing with REAL depression, and now my view has changed dramatically.

During those months of real depression, I spent a ton of time sleeping - probably about 12-14 hours during the weekdays and more on the weekends. I wanted to stay in my dark room under the covers as much as possible, but I knew I had to get up and take care of my responsibilities. I felt like a robot, just going through the day's actions and waiting until I could go back home and take a nap. I had essentially no appetite and had to force myself to eat. Throughout the day I would put on a smile and trick a lot of people into thinking I was fine, but I felt like an empty shell. I withdrew from my friends, who tried to help when they sensed something wrong. My mom was also very concerned, but I told everyone "I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed." Inside I was thinking that there was no way they could understand how I felt. I didn't want to do anything, not even the things that usually made me happy. I love playing music, but during those months, I avoided it and when I had to practice for a lesson or play in orchestra, it felt like just another chore.

The most interesting thing to me was the fact that I wanted to feel better, I knew something was wrong, but it was like nothing could help me. This feeling was so frustrating, especially when friends would give the advice to "stop focusing on the bad and just be happier." I would cry for no reason. I would think about how I wanted to feel better and I was confused because there really was no reason to be feeling so down, and that would just make me cry more.

Unfortunately, I was one of the people who didn't seek help – I didn’t see a counselor and obviously didn’t try antidepressants. I just rode it out and things eventually turned around after a few months. While it was not fun at the time, I am now thankful for having the experience. All the times I was "depressed" before were a joke. I could never have understood what it is really like to be depressed without going through it, and I think I will be able to relate better to patients dealing with depression – hopefully be a bit more sympathetic and not say “just be happy, I don’t know what your problem is.”




OP, as you have heard from people, you are not alone. And like I said, when I was dealing with depression, I had no clue why I was so down. I had friends and loving family. I was doing well in school. I was physically healthy. It is such a helpless feeling to want so hard to be happy when you have no reason to be sad, but fail at doing so, especially when people say things like “it’s all in your head…just get over it.”

I personally wouldn’t jump quickly to medication. I really wish I had seen someone back when I was depressed, though, because I think talking about stuff helps a lot. I’m glad you are seeking help and I hope things are better for you now, a year later.

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This is really (no pun intended) eye opening... A lot of med students drink to relieve stress. I wonder if alcoholism has been studied in the med student/physician population. Is it more prevalent than in the general public...?

Lol, I know some people who are AA survivors in med school. They are lucky because they aren't near as likely to fall back on drinking after a tough week

This may seem like a stupid question but I was wondering does anybody like daydream a lot, is it normal? Like when I'm studying its like every 20 mins I start daydreaming, is that a sign of depression,

I hope not also, I daydream all day long, especially through lecture, about the most random stuff, like how globalization is affecting Alitalia's bankruptcy or if our hot professor is just acting naive and innocent or if she really is a bubblehead, does the rate or incidence for existential crisises increase with iq and how anti-evolutionary this is, how so-and-so probably is as a lover, whether I should buy a car, moped, or motorcycle to get around,what life would be like if I was born japanese....?

or maybe i just need ADD meds.
 
OK, so everyone has said that depression is normal in medical school. Here's my take on why:

Despite the home sickness and all the other life changes, our brains are stressed more than they ever have before. No matter what we did before medical school, it could never prepare us for what we've had to go through. So the learning brain is running wide open, full throttle for the past few months, and we expect the emotional brain to not be affected? Truth of the matter is, you brain is no different from any other part of your body. You put too much stress on it, it wears down. Unfortunately for many, this brain-wear and tear means depression.
So try to take time to exercise, to enjoy your hobbies, see a movie, and not worry about making derm or rad.
 
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The Dermatologist was depressed for four years in medical schools, but happy for the rest of his life. :D

Perhaps the key is not to worry pathologically. Some stress is necessary for good performance (without the stress of gravity our muscles and bones atrophy).

In my mind the most damaging thing seems to be the idea that you need to make a certain score (or for that matter, pass a certain test the first time around) or be in the top of your class to be a "good" doctor. Granted these things factor into residency options, but there are plenty of career options for all graduating medical students. Some of the best physicians I've run across in my life were not AOA, and some who were were AOA not at all helpful or impressive from the patient perspective. Yes, you need to learn your stuff, and you can do that even if you are in the bottom of your class. Many tests separate students on the basis of rather arbitrary and sometimes irrelevant details.

There really are plenty of opportunities to have a rewarding career. Yes, we should study and do our best, but we also need to be aware of our limitations and make sure that we take care of ourselves ... have a sense of balance and take care of serious issues like depression, should they occur. Failure to do so, really can have serious negative consequences and harming ourselves is not worth it in the long run despite whatever admiration our high achievement might temporarily generate.
 
I've been depressed off and on throughout med school. Mostly on. I have good friends and decent, but not great grades. I think for me a lot of it is just my personality. Perpetual high stress wears me down. No amount of sex, friends, or beer is going to make med school less stressful. It just is what it is. The best thing to do is try to keep it in perspective. It can't go on forever. It is at least going to change after first and second year, so you've got that to look forward to. And if you find something you absolutely love, it'll be stressful in residency but at least you'll know exactly what you're working towards. But, depression sucks. I know how you feel... One thing I did that helped was cut back on studying and started sleeping more. And ironically, my grades improved. Hang in there! You're not alone...
 
I'm an M1 and I found myself a little bit depressed around mid-November through December. Our first block (gross & histo) ran from early August until the first week of November. I think being a first-year and trying to stay on top of anatomy kinda led me to run on adrenaline through that period and I kind of blocked everything else out. I did very well in both classes but I wasn't as happy during the mini-break between blocks as I figured I'd be.

Essentialy I think I woke up and realized for the first time that:
1) Undergrad (my four favorite years so far in life) is over and since I'm attending med school at the same school and campus as I did for undergrad, I'm going to be reminded of what I'm missing now everytime I see certain things (my fraternity house, friends' old houses near campus we used to hang out at, bars we stayed at till 2am on weeknights, etc).
2) My favorite time of year (late summer/early fall) had passed by me and I hadn't even noticed until after those classes were over.
3) The days of getting very nice scholarship residual checks and care-free spending of money have been replaced with massive tuition checks, debt and budgets.

I think it was my quarter-life crisis, haha.

I think getting to hang out with people outside of med school helped snap me out of it around Christmas though. At a certain point I realized I how fortunate I was to be in school and working my way toward doing what I want to do. I also realized that if I had the choice between moving on in life and becoming a doctor or staying in undergrad and continuing to live with 27 other guys in a house where I had to wear flip flops to shower while avoiding the occasional spilled beer, I think I'd choose to move on. Getting a little older sucks, but 23 isn't exactly eldery and I know now that there's a ton of things I want to do in life (travel a lot, move somewhere close to the beach, get married, have kids, etc) that will probably trump my favorite undergrad memories of keg parties or football tailgates. At least I hope so :eek:.
 
You're definately not alone. I'm typically the kind of "hard-shelled" guy that you wouldn't think it, but I actually spent a significant amount of time crying during the beginning of M1 year (in private, of course, haha). I know a lot of my friends were worse off than I was. I do know that some of them went and got a lot of really useful help - there are some great people at our school (and yours, too) that will help you out.

I would just say realize how NORMAL it is (I don't know anyone who has been happy all the way through) and don't try to bottle it up. Just find someone to talk to.
 
The other thing to remember is that being med students doesn't make us immune to the misfiring synapses and body chemistry abnormalities that can happen to anyone. I've had some mood issues in med school that had nothing to do with school when they started--though once they did, falling behind on work certainly didn't make me feel *better*--but rather turned out to have significant biochemical and possibly endocrine components. Depression and anxiety above some threshold are illnesses themselves or can be symptoms of other illnesses, and looking after your own health is still important and necessary, even/especially with everything else we have going on.

Mood issues certainly may be more common in med students than some other groups thanks to "life stressors," and finding ways to deal with those is a good place to start and may be all many people need (I say "all" like it's an easy thing to do...). But some percentage of people are also going to have some underlying problem that makes it hard to feel good (or even okay) even if life seems to be going well, let alone if it's not. We're still only human, and that happens to humans sometimes.
 
For those of you in states that ask, do you plan on disclosing your diganosis and treatment on licensing applications?
 
For those of you in states that ask, do you plan on disclosing your diganosis and treatment on licensing applications?

If they ask, you have to answer it honestly. From what I've gathered, most states ask if you have an illness that would affect your ability to work. Most people with a diagnosis of depression could probably answer no to that one. However, some states (I think Texas) do ask if you've ever been diagnosed or treated for a mental illness, and yeah, you've got to share. If it gets out later that you lied on an application, you'll be in deep trouble.
 
Depression. I know it all too well -- as evidenced by these responses, you are not alone. Some people deal with it more than others, but it seems that many medical, dental, and even law students deal with it so much more than people who are not in intense professional programs. People with "normal" lives and schedules...

Professional school compounds the problems we are having in other areas of our lives, and magnifies depression and stress to levels that seem unbareable at times.

In my particular situation, my REAL depression started hitting when my girlfriend of 5 years broke up with me right before I started dental school. I had to move to a new city thousands of miles away - and somehow emotionally stabilize myself enough to get through the hell I was about to endure. I was absolutely devastated at the loss of my girlfriend. There are no words to describe the way I felt. The summer before dental school, I started hitting the bottle really hard. I was forced to stay at my hometown in total solitude. I spent a few months alone with no real social contact whatsoever other than my parents. When dental school started, the schedule and demands of the first year just made my depression so much more apparent. I barely had time to meet anyone other than my classmates, who were also buried in **** so deep that they could barely sleep at night. I tried to meet a few girls, but they were not on my plane of thinking.....the fact that they were very shallow and superficial people made it worst - they all had this delusional "celebrity" mentality.. Alchoholic consumption went up drastically. There were times when I would have to have 4 or 5 drinks a night just to catch 4-5 hours of sleep. I missed my family, and spent a rediculous amount of time outside of school alone. I studied so much and spent so much time doing lab work at home that I started becoming delusional. There comes a time at 4 AM when you are staring at the ground and you ask yourself very profound questions about what you are doing.

I would come home every day depressed and self medicating with alchohol was my way of putting the problems off. My roomate was a 2nd year law student and he seemed to drink even more than I did (he was really down a lot too)....for some reason law students drink massive amounts of alchohol. At least I had a drinking buddy, haha. Anyways, that was a poor way to deal with the issue at hand. I woke up and made the decision to get sober and try to be sociable with people, even though they may not be my type. I excersized more often and ate healthy. I still drink regularly - but nothing like I did then. School is still rediclously difficult and I am lucky to get sleep at night....I guess this is my way of saying that it is normal to be depressed in times of heavy duty stress. I am trying to find a way out of the bottomless pit of depression still, but I am keeping it at bay by focusing on what I need to do. And that is work hard and get through school.
 
Wow, Logjammin's post is quite eery...so similar to my experience it isn't even funny (read my post on page 1, a full year ago). Amazing how you tend to think that you are the only one sometimes going through hard times (amongst your classmates for example) but it's impossible to realize the kind of stuff others are going through as well.

I feel for you logjammin, I had lots of the same issues but it seems you had it even worse than I did (my relationship was a bit over 2 years vs. your 5, and I at least didn't move to a new city; i actually live with my parents, so I have family as a support system). It was just a slew of different things that hit all at once, and no matter how hard or tough you think you are are, there are things that can happen to you that can and will crumple your defenses, no matter how strong. My gf leaving me the week before med school started hurt real bad, especially since i kind of saw it coming a couple of weeks before, AND i knew it was my fault 90%. The guilt and remorse is the worst...stubborness or whatever sets in and you let things slide, and then surprise, your fear comes true. All of a sudden you're alone. The best part is that 3 months later I found out (thank you facebook, since we split on good terms, we are still "friends") she is dating this worthless POS (who has the iq of a rheseus monkey, reads at a 3th grade level, is kind of fat, balding heavily at age 26, and loud and obnoxious) who was always trying to hit on her before while we were still together. The only thing they have in common, and the only reason they're dating is their shared gung-ho passion for the campus church youth group they're both members in. The one I always avoided attending so I could go shoot pool with the guys and have a couple of beers. Yep. For the longest time seeing pictures of them "happily together" pop up all over my home page was an agonizing sight every time I wanted to log in and send my friends b-day messages or whatever, until i learned not to click and just ignore. Then when my grades started dipping and the workload was increasing steadily (especially anatomy) it almost became too much to bear.

I spent most of first year until like feb. down in the dumps, thinking about what happened over and over, drinking myself to sleep, not sleeping anyway, attempting to keep my grades somewhere out of "fail" range and stressing through a rebound relationship that should have never happened. I tried to make myself feel better by dating a girl with a hot body but piss-poor qualities in every other department, especially personality (textbook histrionic, as well as majorly selfish and high maintenance), for I guess physical pleasure, trying to make myself feel like a hot shot again and perhaps to rub it in my ex's face...needless to say it was a bad idea and only made everything that much worse.

Oh well I'm ranting and I'll stop now. I know everyone must tell you the same thing logjammin, but it's true... it will get better with time. I used to think i would never improve, but things change.

Advice:
1-don't get into a serious relationship for a while. You'll only try to mold this new girl into your ex subconsciously and then be seriously disappointed when you realize this won't work.
2-limit the booze (and any other substance use). Aside from not being overly healthy in general, it can give you a gut. A gut will make you feel worse, especially when you're trying to date new girls and get self conscious.
3-spend quality time with friends when you're down.
4-workout...period. helps in SO many ways.
5-be optimistic...with time, things will get better

I couldn't believe it had been a year since I wrote that....back then i swore I would never be happy again, but now a year later, aside from an occasional droop every now and then, I'm like 70-80% better overall :D
Give it some time, it'll happen.
 
Although I have never had depression, I have had brief moments where I have felt pretty down. So, what to do? Here's what helps me when I am feeling depressed (I say "feeling" b/c it usually doesn't last more than a couple days):
1. Pray and devote time to your spiritual/religious life
2. Exercise (gotta love those endorphins!)
3. Call your family (especially mom)
4. Spend time w/significant others/good friends
5. Remind yourself that medical school only last four years (really, three years...from what I hear 4th year is a breeze!)
God bless. :)
 
same here.. i do have a group around me but i feel out of the group .

I haven't finished reading the thread yet, but I feel this is a good point to throw in my two cents. A classmate and I were talking about how we feel that we don't have any real "true" close friends in med school, and she made an excellent point about two girls in my class. They didn't know each other before they got here and after 5 months, they are stuck to the hip best friends. I was talking about there instant bonding and close friendship with a little bit of jealousy and my classmate mentioned that some people form those kinds of bonds because they have to. The situation we are all in forces some people into relationships that they just need. They may not really be the closest people in the world, and they may have never bonded if they hadn't been stuck here together. Some people just need it more than others. I too have noticed that most people are in groups, but for the most part, I feel the majority of us don't really feel like we fit. And it is because we don't; we become friends because we have to. If we weren't all stuck in this situation together, we may have never spoken to most of the people in our classes. I like my classmates and I have several groups that I feel I can fit into comfortably from time to time, but when it comes down to it - we're just grasping onto what's available.

Anyways... onto the main topic of the thread. I have always been the kind of person who get down really easily. Bearing this and the fact that med students get depressed so easily and frequently in mind, I have made a strong effort to give myself as much time off of school as possible. I am not the best student, and I will not be in the top of my class, but I am going to make it through with average grades. I will also make it through with sanity. I spend as much time with my hubby as possible, eat healthy most of the time and don't beat myself up for when I break down and eat junk, and make sure to go out to the bars with my med schools friends, and go out to dinner with my friends from my former life. I also try to take at least one complete day off of studying. This balance keeps things in perspective.

We have test block in a week and a day and I'm a bit freaked out about how much stuff we have to learn (neuro and phys = :eek:), but after I cover a few more hours of material today, I'm taking the rest of the night off. Otherwise, I will burn out before our last exam on the 15th.

As someone else mentioned, what keeps me going isn't going to be the same as anyone else, but I think most people agree that a key to maintaining sanity is to make sure you've got time for yourself, family, and friends. Even if you don't have any family or non-med friends around and you don't think you are friends with any of your classmates, try to go out with them anyways. It especially helps when you realize everyone (from the #1 person to the last person) in your class is just as freaked out by all the material as you are.

:luck:
 
I am also going through a tough tiime right now.
My school is in a small town and I am far away from family and friends.
Endless tests and sitting in a lecture hall all day have been creating so much stress for me. This packed schedule has been going on for seven months now. And I have another test next week.

I found that counseling helps. But with the busy school schedule it has been hard to make it regular. Agree with one of the previous post, that under constant stress, brain wears out.

It's essential to learn how to get away and have some fun sometimes. Otherwise stress and depression can get out of control.
Also, be in touch with friends and family who make you happy.

Remember, firs two yeas of med school will pass one day.
 
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