Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / If You Think Everyone Is An Idiot... It May Be Depression

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If You Think Everyone Is An Idiot... It May Be Depression · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody and welcome to this episode of the doctor psych mom
• 0:09
  show recorded in my car. In case any of you notice any
• 0:13
  differences like the rain. I don't know what you can hear,
• 0:18
  or what you can't hear. I assume it's going to be fine
• 0:21
  and if not there's a million other episodes so you could
• 0:24
  listen to you. All right.
• 0:26
  So what is depression look like? Well, I mean a lot of people
• 0:30
  think that it looks like you being sad and crying or possibly
• 0:34
  just like laying around and being apathetic while yes, those
• 0:39
  can be key. Parts of depression, there are
• 0:41
  plenty of other aspects of depression that lay people do
• 0:45
  not know, and therefore cannot get the diagnosis that could
• 0:49
  potentially help them. So today, that is what we are
• 0:52
  going to talk about right before that though, I will tell you to
• 0:55
  subscribe because if you subscribe you get over like 100.
• 0:59
  25 other episodes most recently what to do and why your wife
• 1:03
  refuses to go back to work. That was the most recent one.
• 1:07
  I also have oral sex on women, which is always ahead and like,
• 1:10
  oh, so many others, really it? Six, seven.
• 1:14
  Oh, five ninety-nine a month and you get a shitload of episode so
• 1:18
  you should probably do that. Okay, so recently, I posted
• 1:22
  something on depression other, you know, more obscure signs
• 1:27
  that you're depressed, and I may even have done a podcast.
• 1:29
  Cast on this. But I honestly, it's like, who
• 1:32
  cares? You know, I mean, this shit is
• 1:35
  like important and it doesn't matter how many episodes I would
• 1:38
  have as long as it helps somebody.
• 1:41
  And with more episodes, more people understand what
• 1:44
  depression really is because it affects so many of us.
• 1:47
  So, first of all, depression is not just laying around and like
• 1:50
  crying all the time. That's that is a very big
• 1:54
  misconception. What else can depression?
• 1:56
  Look, like depression can look like anger.
• 1:58
  This is a a super big one to understand irritability,
• 2:02
  impatience and anger and if you're a parent it isn't like
• 2:05
  you're a bad person. If you're an angry parent, I
• 2:09
  mean, you got to work on it, but it doesn't mean that you're like
• 2:11
  a bad person. It probably means that you're
• 2:13
  struggling with untreated depression.
• 2:16
  And you know what, this could really help you understand your
• 2:18
  childhood because depression, as a huge heritability component,
• 2:22
  and if your parents were always assholes and they were always
• 2:25
  angry, well, likely they were depressed to and undiagnosed the
• 2:28
  same. Are undiagnosed even more on
• 2:30
  diagnosed because they weren't listening to this episode.
• 2:33
  And it was a previous generation where mental health was not
• 2:36
  really talked about so it can look like anger irritability
• 2:40
  snapping at people thinking everybody's a stupid idiot.
• 2:44
  You know. Like if you go around saying
• 2:46
  things like why is everybody so stupid?
• 2:48
  Why is everybody so incompetent? Why does nobody know how to do
• 2:51
  anything? Well you know what?
• 2:52
  Like who's the common denominator in these situations?
• 2:55
  It's you and you're being judgmental and irritable and
• 2:58
  everyone Isn't stupid. When it feels like everyone is
• 3:03
  stupid. A you're likely depressed and be
• 3:06
  you also learned a super negative judgmental style from
• 3:09
  growing up in a house where people probably said the exact
• 3:12
  same thing I'd quote. Everybody is stupid or useless
• 3:16
  or incompetent or inefficient or anything really.
• 3:21
  All right, so rage is not being able to control your anger,
• 3:25
  lashing out, irritability, impatience any of these - VD
• 3:29
  toward other people judge, mental illness.
• 3:32
  All of this stuff relates to depression.
• 3:35
  What else? When you are tired all the time
• 3:38
  people are not supposed to be tired all the time.
• 3:40
  So some people are like, well I don't sleep, you know, I get up
• 3:43
  in the middle of the night like a million times or like, I can't
• 3:46
  sleep or I wake up too early because of, you know, like I
• 3:49
  just jump out of bed with like my heart racing so that's you
• 3:52
  know, so it explains why I'm tired.
• 3:54
  All you're telling me is you have more symptoms of
• 3:55
  depression. I'm probably anxiety too.
• 3:59
  So like if you are up and down all night and you can't sleep
• 4:03
  and your sleep is broken and terrible or like you're like
• 4:05
  ruminating at night and so you can't even get to sleep or you
• 4:08
  jerk awake thinking of all the things you have to do.
• 4:10
  That is more evidence that you're depressed, not less bad.
• 4:14
  Sleep is a symptom of depression and the resulting fatigue is
• 4:18
  also a symptom of depression. And it may not even be as
• 4:20
  related as you think because of feeling called leaden paralysis,
• 4:24
  when your arms and legs just feel heavy and you just want to
• 4:26
  just, you know, burrow into the couch and Link it for the whole
• 4:30
  night that too, is a symptom of depression.
• 4:33
  What else is a symptom? Rejection sensitivity,
• 4:36
  particularly for women who are depressed, who have atypical
• 4:40
  depression. So I know I did pose some
• 4:41
  podcasts on that. So just Google atypical
• 4:43
  depression on my site or just search it on my side or my
• 4:46
  podcast. By the way, Spotify has a much
• 4:49
  better system. Now where if you go to my
• 4:51
  podcast in the Spotify app, not the browser the app on your
• 4:54
  phone or the app on your computer then they have like
• 4:57
  literally you can search within a A podcast for a term.
• 5:00
  And so that's how I'm finding all my podcasts.
• 5:02
  Now, my own personal podcast, which I was previously really
• 5:05
  unable to do, you know, funny, ironic thing.
• 5:09
  I was not really able to find them either nor were you, but
• 5:12
  now there's a search engine, so that's good.
• 5:15
  Anyway, so rejection sensitivity is a big one, so you think
• 5:19
  everybody's judging you, if your husband is like, what are we
• 5:22
  having for dinner? And you burst into tears and you
• 5:24
  say, what does that mean? You don't think that I'm a good
• 5:26
  wife, you know, then either you get in.
• 5:29
  Period, which is, you know, real or you have rejection
• 5:33
  sensitivity for depression, from depression rather, this is very
• 5:37
  common and people do not understand it.
• 5:39
  Rejection sensitivity is not only a symptom of depression, it
• 5:42
  can be part of ADHD or like bipolar borderline personality
• 5:47
  or whatever. Various other things anxiety
• 5:50
  makes people like super sensitive to any sort of
• 5:53
  judgment but real rejection sensitivity.
• 5:56
  You know why? Because you are sensitivity to
• 5:58
  all. All hurt is more like so
• 6:01
  physical pain when you are depressed.
• 6:03
  It goes along with physical pain.
• 6:05
  So that's the next symptom I'm going to say but you know I'll
• 6:08
  just say it now. So physical pain, like body pain
• 6:12
  migraine IBS back pain, muscle pain.
• 6:16
  All this shit is is tied to depressive symptomatology.
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  So when your depressive symptoms, go up your physical
• 6:21
  pain goes up well. So does your social pain when I
• 6:25
  was in grad school in my doctorate?
• 6:29
  Was it? No, that was my Master's.
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  I did this analog this. Laboratory analog of rejection
• 6:34
  sensitivity which was this little game cyber ball and I use
• 6:37
  this in my Master's thesis research which was actually on
• 6:41
  smoking cessation. But I was on like rejection
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  sensitivity and weather. Like for people with different
• 6:47
  levels of rejection sensitivity the peer support would be more
• 6:51
  or less important in quitting smoking it.
• 6:53
  Anyway I barely even remember this.
• 6:55
  That might not even be right, this was eons ago.
• 6:59
  But anyhow, it was like, literally, how like, close to
• 7:03
  two decades ago. I probably did that when I was
• 7:05
  like, 26, I'm 42, I don't know math, whatever.
• 7:09
  It doesn't matter point is cyber ball is an analog of laboratory,
• 7:13
  and the laboratory analog of social rejection and social
• 7:16
  ostracism developed by Kip Williams.
• 7:19
  See I remove all comes, it's like riding a bike developed by
• 7:22
  Kip Williams who was in Australia that was a researcher
• 7:25
  that developed cyber ball. So you're like in a little room
• 7:28
  on Line, which was a very, very simplistic thing.
• 7:33
  It was like everybody was a circle and then the ball was a
• 7:36
  circle, and I think you had arms, but you may not have even
• 7:38
  had two arms. And basically what happens is,
• 7:41
  the game can be set to ostracize you.
• 7:45
  So you think you're playing like this game of catch with people
• 7:51
  from different Labs, but in reality you're not and so after
• 7:55
  you throw to somebody, they basically never throw back to
• 7:58
  you again. And so some people take that
• 8:00
  really hard even though they're just a circle, you know.
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  And I'm sure that you guys can understand that, you know, like
• 8:07
  with your kids and stuff like you have some kids that like
• 8:09
  that would like be the end of the fucking day.
• 8:12
  They would burst into tears. Well, those people are high in
• 8:15
  rejection, sensitivity, and depression, leads to higher
• 8:18
  rejection, sensitivity. So it is borderline personality
• 8:22
  and other things that I mentioned ADHD etcetera.
• 8:25
  But anyway, so if your rejection sensitivity is high and you
• 8:28
  think But he hates you, everybody's judging you
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  basically all of judgment if you're judgmental or you feel
• 8:34
  everybody else's. That's something to think about.
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  As a potential, symptom of depression.
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  What else creativity when your creativity goes into the
• 8:42
  shitter? Then you're most likely in a
• 8:44
  depressive episode. If any of these other symptoms
• 8:47
  are there or if it's like tied to like also cynicism like
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  sometimes people are like yeah, I mean, like, I could like write
• 8:55
  like a book or something. Not a book of a book is a big
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  deal. So, I'd say like I can really do
• 9:00
  this interesting thing at work and my PowerPoint, but fuck
• 9:03
  everybody. Nobody even cares nobody would
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  even notice. So like, sometimes like a lack
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  of creativity, like you don't even like realize that, it's
• 9:11
  because your ass cannot think of some interesting thing to put
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  into the PowerPoint, really? You just like are so cynical and
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  judgmental that you assume that you're not being creative
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  because of like some other reason.
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  But when you really look at it, you don't really have any good
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  ideas to put into your PowerPoint anyway.
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  Because your creativity is down because your depressive.
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  Mythology is op another one that is interesting is people stop
• 9:33
  really liking music because the parts of your brain again that
• 9:37
  are like into, I don't know art appreciation, you know, like
• 9:41
  creativity again, just feelings like music evokes, a lot of
• 9:45
  feelings and when you're depressed, it's not often that
• 9:48
  you're just sad. You're also feeling really flat,
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  you know. And like what we call like
• 9:54
  blunted affect like, you can't really you, don't respond
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  contingently, you don't smile a lot.
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  You don't really like get upset. Like, super upset a lot like
• 10:02
  you're just kind of flat lining it.
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  And so music feels like kind of stupid novels feel kind of
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  stupid. You can't really get invested in
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  it any of the characters because you don't really give a shit
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  empathy goes down. So that relates to the next one,
• 10:16
  which is like a lack of empathy. So it's like you're looking at
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  your kid and your kid is crying over something, and you just
• 10:21
  don't really feel anything. Then you're like, what am I a
• 10:23
  psychopath if or you think? Well, that's because my kids
• 10:27
  kind of an asshole, anyway, you know, No, is because you're
• 10:31
  depressed most likely and of course, everything links to
• 10:34
  everything. So you're likely to be depressed
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  if your parents were depressed. And if your parents were
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  depressed, they were likelier to not show you a thesis that
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  everything snowballs and rolls downhill, right?
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  So then your kid is more likely not to show their kid empathy.
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  So this is why I got to get treated for depression.
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  Just treatment always work. And what do I even mean by
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  treatment by the the best outcomes come from both therapy
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  and medication together medication.
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  Common medications for depression include ssris,
• 11:01
  selective, serotonin reuptake Inhibitors, meaning that there's
• 11:05
  more serotonin that stays in the synapses and bathes, your
• 11:08
  neurons, you know, in serotonin, which is the neurotransmitter
• 11:13
  that leads to a feeling of satiation and kind of
• 11:16
  contentment. So selective serotonin reuptake
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  Inhibitors include Zoloft Prozac right, but there are other ones
• 11:23
  like Wellbutrin is, I think it's either an snri or an ndr i--.
• 11:28
  Whatever. Serotonin norepinephrine and
• 11:30
  dopamine. Those are the neurotransmitters
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  that we think are implicated in depression, right?
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  Because everybody's theories are always like, we would people
• 11:39
  think this, but nobody's exactly.
• 11:41
  Sure. You know, why any of this stuff
• 11:43
  works for depression? That's not just me, not knowing
• 11:45
  things like that's like literally what psychiatrists say
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  because because we need to get further in our understanding of
• 11:52
  these theories behind the biological underpinnings of
• 11:56
  depression anyway, so there's other ones.
• 11:58
  Like Wellbutrin. There's people take Cymbalta
• 12:01
  that's for the. Also the people that have like
• 12:03
  pain associated with their depression, there's like a
• 12:06
  million things to try. They do many of them do have
• 12:10
  side effects, that's the reality, you know.
• 12:12
  And there's also mood stabilizers for people who also
• 12:14
  have personality disorders or who have bipolar.
• 12:17
  There's like there are a million things to try and you should
• 12:19
  really be seeing a psychiatrist not just your GP because your GP
• 12:23
  is not a specialist and these psychotropic drugs like a Tropic
• 12:26
  means medications for Logical disorders, right?
• 12:30
  So you should be talking to a psychiatrist.
• 12:33
  That's a specialist people say they can't find a psychiatrist.
• 12:37
  Literally Google psychiatrist near me or a lot of them are on
• 12:40
  psychology today.com. I don't have any prescribers
• 12:43
  working for me because I'm a psychologist.
• 12:45
  That's talk therapy. I don't prescribe nor do any of
• 12:48
  my people maybe one day I'll hire somebody at best life but
• 12:51
  right now I am not either way. A psychiatrist would be a good
• 12:55
  fit for that and for the therapy portion, which can help you
• 12:58
  Stand the psychological underpinnings due to whether
• 13:01
  it's your upbringing, which is always implicated and your
• 13:05
  current functioning understanding yourself better
• 13:07
  developing coping skills, alternate ways to deal with
• 13:11
  people such that your your depression doesn't poison your
• 13:13
  relationships, you know? And really developing
• 13:16
  self-compassion a different worldview challenging, your
• 13:20
  cognitions depression, makes you think everything is shitty and
• 13:24
  so is everyone. There's something called the
• 13:26
  depressive cognitive, Triad, meaning that you have - that
• 13:29
  It's about self world and future when you're depressed and
• 13:32
  therapy can really help you challenged those.
• 13:35
  So my point here is therapy plus medication works for many for
• 13:39
  the people that have terrible side effects with medication.
• 13:42
  Usually highly sensitive people, I myself have had like basically
• 13:45
  every side effect. You could possibly have to any
• 13:47
  medication that I've tried, so doesn't really work therapy, can
• 13:51
  then help on its own. There are also there are people
• 13:54
  that other things work for TMS transcranial magnetic.
• 13:58
  Ation exercise regimes, there's hormonal issues so functional or
• 14:04
  integrative doctors can tell you if there are hormonal issues
• 14:08
  thyroid issues. Like there's a lot of things as
• 14:12
  if you're a woman, getting up to perimenopause very few of us and
• 14:15
  that's in your 40s, go back to how women's Brains and bodies
• 14:18
  change in their 40s. That's a podcast that I've
• 14:20
  recorded that you can find with the Spotify search engine.
• 14:24
  But anyway, like a lot of us women that are in the earliest
• 14:28
  stages of Menopause when your Cycles are either shortening or
• 14:31
  lengthening or whatever, you just feel kind of different
• 14:34
  depression is hugely associated with hormones, particularly for
• 14:38
  women. But really now just for
• 14:40
  everybody, because when men have low T, they're depressed as shit
• 14:42
  too. So, you know, you got to like,
• 14:46
  do everything you can. I have posts on
• 14:48
  treatment-resistant depression, and like how to conceive of
• 14:51
  that, and what to do instead. But the point is the, let's not
• 14:54
  put the cart before the horse. Like, if you're listening to
• 14:57
  this, you may be like, oh, Shit being like, not creative, not
• 15:00
  wanting to listen to music and thinking that everybody's an
• 15:03
  asshole is depression. Well then fuck, I really have
• 15:06
  depression. So we don't know like you may
• 15:08
  not even have known that until this instant.
• 15:11
  So we have no idea what could help you.
• 15:12
  So your first plan of attack schedule.
• 15:15
  The therapist the therapist is somebody like a psychologist,
• 15:17
  social worker, licensed professional, counselor at
• 15:20
  cetera and with either a psychiatrist or if you want your
• 15:24
  first pass to be your GP then do that but don't do nothing.
• 15:27
  Don't don't like listen to this. Like oh that's uncomfortably
• 15:30
  familiar but I think what I'm going to do, what my parents
• 15:33
  have taught me to do, you know in my what my childhood motto
• 15:37
  was growing up, was just ignore shit.
• 15:39
  You know, if it makes you feel uncomfortable that you know,
• 15:42
  probably work, no it won't, that's why you're in this
• 15:44
  position. So if any of this resonated with
• 15:47
  you or describes your spouse or describes your child, get help,
• 15:51
  try to fucking work on things in a different way than just
• 15:55
  ignoring them. That's what you owe.
• 15:57
  Maybe not to yourself. Like Like maybe you don't care
• 15:59
  about yourself right now because you're depressed but definitely
• 16:02
  for your kids, maybe for your spouse, maybe that's still a
• 16:05
  motivator. But definitely for your kids is
• 16:08
  you really want to work on depression as much as you can
• 16:10
  for the sake of your children, in whatever way that means to
• 16:14
  you, right? So, I mean, not not, there's a
• 16:17
  million ways to skin a cat, right?
• 16:19
  So, so some things work for some and some things don't work for
• 16:21
  others, but at least knowing that you may be depressed as
• 16:24
  half the battle. Another one, which I realized,
• 16:27
  as I was talking to, you was motivation.
• 16:30
  When people are depressed, they have a real lack of motivation.
• 16:33
  So, it's a catch-22 that's why exercise those work frequently.
• 16:37
  Like look, there's all these people who are like real good
• 16:39
  exercise. God bless them and they're like,
• 16:42
  oh, you know, I keep my depression at Bay with
• 16:44
  exercising. Yeah, that's cause you're a
• 16:45
  fucking good shape, man. So, you know, like like it's
• 16:50
  when somebody has been on the couch for like, 6 months
• 16:52
  straight, and they feel like fatigue and In paralysis.
• 16:56
  Sometimes they really need an antidepressant to get them to a
• 17:00
  place where they can even get off the couch to even take the
• 17:03
  fucking walk around the block. I mean I hear you of course
• 17:07
  exercise is good for depression. Sure and that feels impossible.
• 17:14
  It would be like saying you know what would really be motivating?
• 17:16
  Why don't you like just go schedule a TED talk like you
• 17:19
  would present it and that would make you feel really excited and
• 17:22
  then that would probably help your depression.
• 17:24
  It's like what like I Can't even like figure out which brand of
• 17:27
  chips. I want like, you know, I'm gonna
• 17:29
  like like fucking like become like a famous person given TED
• 17:32
  Talks. I bet it really would help my
• 17:34
  depression so would running a marathon and also fuck you
• 17:37
  because like I'm sitting here on the couch.
• 17:39
  So, you know, you got to start where you're at.
• 17:42
  And for many people, they need like that infusion of a little
• 17:45
  bit of energy psychotropic, Lee from a medication.
• 17:48
  And as I make my chip analogy, I most recently, discussed in a
• 17:52
  podcast, it wasn't most recent for you guys to hear it, but it
• 17:55
  was one of Most recent ones I either recorded or heard myself
• 17:59
  saying, anyway, decision fatigue.
• 18:02
  When you can't figure shit out when you don't know what you
• 18:04
  want for dinner all the time, and you're blaming that on your
• 18:07
  husband making, you do emotional labor, that's not emotional
• 18:10
  labor. If you can't figure out what you
• 18:11
  want for dinner, that's a you problem and that's depression
• 18:14
  decision. Fatigue is a big aspect of
• 18:16
  depression and I have all the, you know, all the empathy in the
• 18:21
  world. But like don't blame the fact
• 18:23
  that you can't make a decision on anything that isn't it
• 18:26
  depression or probably or possibly ADHD the thing about
• 18:29
  going to a psychiatrist. By the way, versus your GP is
• 18:32
  they can really assess you and figure out what's going on.
• 18:35
  They can do a fully valid figure out.
• 18:37
  Is it depression, is it ADHD? Is it bipolar 2?
• 18:41
  Is it borderline personality? Like what the fuck is going on?
• 18:45
  Because if you are not happy and you've kind of really not been
• 18:49
  happy for a while, there may be a million things at play and
• 18:53
  you're not an expert, you know, so figure it out.
• 18:56
  A psychiatrist can do that. A psychologist can also do that
• 18:58
  but then a psychologist can prescribe some trying to make
• 19:01
  things like as easy for you as possible.
• 19:03
  Psychologists can give a full neuro.
• 19:04
  Psych evaluation for like, ADHD figure out if you're like
• 19:07
  depressed, anxious, like what. But like a psychiatrist can do
• 19:11
  that and then you leave with like a prescription that day.
• 19:15
  So while you would think I would be advertising, you know,
• 19:18
  therapy more. The reality is is that if you're
• 19:22
  deeply struggling with depression, I have seen in work
• 19:26
  quicker. You know, it certainly Works
• 19:28
  quicker than therapy for the people at works for now, that's
• 19:31
  not to say there's not a role for Psychotherapy, like or I'd
• 19:34
  be world's biggest idiots. I've devoted my life to this,
• 19:37
  this is my career, but like if you literally cannot get off the
• 19:40
  couch or First Step should be the psychiatrist, it really
• 19:43
  should not be the therapist and they'll tell you, if they're if
• 19:46
  they're worth their salt, they'll say you should also be
• 19:47
  in therapy and that's when you can get into therapy, you know?
• 19:51
  But like I mean this is the damn truth.
• 19:54
  Like I mean we're not even talking about ADHD.
• 19:56
  But let's just like do like a tiny little segue into that.
• 20:00
  If you're struggling with ADHD, the number one thing that works
• 20:02
  is medication from anything that I've seen.
• 20:05
  People are just a different person.
• 20:07
  It's like almost immediate like they are just like holy fuck
• 20:11
  like I can do shit. Whoa, like I did got so much
• 20:14
  done today. Therapy does not do that for.
• 20:16
  You therapy can help you with the low self-esteem associated
• 20:19
  with ADHD. It can help you understand why
• 20:21
  your wife thinks that you're a super big prick.
• 20:23
  You know, and what to say to her instead?
• 20:25
  And how to deal with yourself with self-compassion and how not
• 20:28
  to be a dick to your kid, who's triggering you, because he has
• 20:30
  ADHD to and maybe how to get laid every few weeks, you know,
• 20:34
  like what your wife probably doesn't want to do.
• 20:35
  If you have untreated ADHD, lots of stuff.
• 20:38
  I find my my feel to be very valuable but does it literally
• 20:42
  help your brain to have different wiring instantly?
• 20:48
  No overtime overtime. Yeah, but not like pills do so
• 20:53
  so let's be reasonable. All right.
• 20:55
  Hope that y'all got something out of this and I will talk to
• 20:58
  you soon. Bye guys.