A few thoughts on depression

The humiliating thing about depression, when it shuts down your ability to work, is not being able to explain why you can’t work.
 
“It’s like there’s this glass wall between me and my computer.”
 
“It’s like trying to hold together the south poles of two strong magnets.”
 
“It’s like trying to commit suicide when you’ve forgotten to take off the bungee cord.” (Phew, that analogy came steaming out of the dark side.)
 
None of this would make sense, I suspect to many people. But then many people also do not understand that there is a huge difference between being depressed and being absolutely miserable. I rather enjoy being miserable these days (when I am; it’s not a permanent state). It’s so nice, compared to being depressed.
 
Anyway, happily, at the moment I’m quite easily able to work. So I’m just marveling at the difference between how it feels now, and those other times.
 
  ***
 
Hm, since I’m reflecting on depression … when I started to read in the last couple of years that children are being diagnosed as being bipolar, I was really sceptical. I don’t have any conscious memory of being depressed before I was 16 (though I do know my first encounter with a mental health professional came around the age of 12). But I realised last week that the various rather nasty tinges to “reality” that I experience when I’m depressed are qualia I recall feeling from a very early age. The worst bit is when you still think it’s the world that’s permanently awful, and don’t realise that it’s you.
 
  ***
 
How do I deal with (bipolar?) depression now? Phew, it’s a hard-won skill to the extent that one has it.
 
It’s incredibly useful, firstly, to recognise it. To understand when your thoughts are taking on that peculiarly hopeless and/or obsessive quality. “Oh shit, it’s happening again. Oh, thank heavens, that’s what it is, that’s why things seem so awful. Oh god, this is scary, I hope it’s not going to be really bad. Oh, at least I can try and do something about it, now, now I know what’s happening to me.”
 
So once I know what’s happening to me, this is what I do, these days.
 
1) I’m on lithium and lamotrigine. I’m not sure to what degree they help. But I can’t say they absolutely do not help, either. I’m not sure. So I push up my dose, and get to my psychiatrist quickly. (My theory is that a good psychiatrist sees you first as another human being, and only then as a patient, in case you’re wondering; should also have a scrupulously rational and curious mind, and understand the limits of their dismal art.)
 
2) Yoga. Yoga is brilliant for depression. Not the vigorous stuff, ashtanga and the like. No, just plain old hatha yoga. Do what you can, only. A good yoga teacher only encourages, but never pushes you, anyway. (Which should help you recognise the bad ones.)
 
Learn the Salute to the Sun (an essential life skill for everyone, really), and try and start every day with a few rounds.
 
3) Sleep. Good sleep is so important. If you don’t know about sleep hygiene, Google it and find out. (This one is tough, especially if you live alone.)
 
4) Go easy on myself. I just can’t get as much done when I’m depressed. I have to make adjustments. Pare back expenses and hope I’ll make it through to when I can work full-speed again. Resist inadvertent pressures from others who don’t understand that I can only manage 15% of what I was managing three weeks ago.
 
Some first thoughts.

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How animals began dying before the Australian bush fires

The ancients believed firmly in omens, a belief which need not be interpreted in supernatural terms. It is often said that animals flee in advance of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. In Australia last week, it seems animals reacted as distinctly to the extraordinary heat that heralded the country’s awful fires. Reason no. 762 to take climate change seriously: a love of small, furry creatures. From the Sydney Morning Herald: The end of climate certainty | smh.com.au

When hundreds of small, grey-headed flying foxes began falling from the sky at Yarra Bend in suburban Melbourne, for some it heralded the awful events that would later unfold. It was Wednesday, January 28, one day into the ferocious heatwave that would wax and wane before returning with terrible intensity last weekend.

That first day, calls began pouring into Wildlife Victoria. As the bats were dying en masse in the city, ringtail possums were falling out of trees in the bush and distressed kangaroos, too weak to jump, were baulking at fences.

Hands up, climate change non-denialists

So guess how many wind turbines there are in South Africa?

Yesterday, the Guardian published a story describing how Jim Hansen, the renowned NASA climate scientist, has called on President-almost-post-elect Obama to take decisive action on climate change in the next four years, arguing that we have almost run out of time.

“We cannot afford to put off change any longer,” said Hansen. “We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.”

Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming.* Yet the levels are still rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists.

A friend has noted that an overwhelming number of the commented responses to the Guardian article deny the existence of climate change, and wonders if the apparently high number of sceptics is reason for those of us who believe urgent action is necessary, to despair. But are there really that many climate sceptics out there?

What do you think? Are climate change denialists just a very noisy minority, or are opinion-leaders seriously out of touch with the feelings of ordinary people on this issue?

UPDATE Tuesday 20 Jan: My goodness, this post has been an interesting experiment. Looking at my stats, 90% of the clickthroughs arriving here have come from what we might call a, um, distinctly climate change sceptical website. Apologies, everyone, btw, I’m going to be offline till Sunday, so won’t be able approve comments till then.

* Runaway global warming refers to secondary warming processes set in play by the primary process of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere. For example, higher temperatures can increase the number of forest fires, which in turn pour more CO2 into the atmosphere. Another example: the permafrost in the Arctic Circle is beginning to thaw, releasing locked-away CO2 and methane, which is a greenhouse (warming) gas many times more potent than CO2 itself.

Talking about Gaza: ‘If Hamas were a bunch of vegetarians…’

I have in the last few days had an exchange of thoughts, impressions and views on the Gaza crisis with a Jewish friend in the UK. We’ve not actually seen each other in the flesh for over five years, so have taken special pains to avoid misunderstanding of each other’s tone, and have steered well clear of the kinds of virtualised screaming matches that are flaming across the net at the moment. I have certainly learnt quite a lot from the exchange, and renewed my understanding of a more Israeli-sympathetic perspective. It’s been an interesting process, as I think our fundamental values are probably pretty similar.

We have both taken pains to be as honest with the facts so far as we’ve been able to determine them, but please make your own judgments on how authoritative we are.

I’m not going to copy-edit it into perfection, so please bear with any rawness of language.

Being a family man, Michael’s been too busy to respond so far to my final mail, which should not be considered the last word.

 

On 2009/1/11, David Le Page wrote:

Sales guy v. techie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcQ7RkyBoBc

 

On 12 Jan 2009, at 1:21 AM, Michael wrote:

On the good side, this had me howling with laughter in between dealing with horrifying news from Gaza, and equally horrifying “analysis” from friends.

On the bad side, I tried to share it with my wife, who dismissed the whole thing, saying she didn’t understand enough of it for it to be funny…

 

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:45 PM, David Le Page wrote:

Hmm, I hope my analysis doesn’t fall into the horrifying category. I try to start with the sanctity of life, and work backwards.

I’ve had a couple of semi-awkward, incomplete conversations with Jewish friends this last weekend, who waver between horror, despair and tribal solidarity. 

“Skycar sets off on epic journey”

The plan is for the flying car to descend on African villages and for the team to challenge the inhabitants to a game of football before flying out. “I cant wait to see their faces,” said Laughton.

So the days of imperialist gits eager to polish up their egos by boggling the natives with gadgets are not yet over. Wankers. I would say that I’m grateful at least that they’re not trying to deliver democracy and peace through the barrel of a gun. But since one of them is former SAS (UK special forces), he’s probably already had a go at that.

Sorry if this post disappoints anyone just hoping to end their commuter torments, but the persistence of attitudes that were supposedly dead with the ostensible passing of empires irritates me.

And now for something completely different.

Gaza gleanings

 

War is horrible: Bodies outside the Hamas police headquarters in Gaza City, following an Israeli air strike on 27 December.

Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, who has written in the Guardian of the effects of Israel’s policies and attacks on Gaza.
 

 

“I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line.”

“Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.”

“In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion’s share of the scarce water resources.”

Enlightenment by firefly

Searched flickr, but couldn't find a pic better than my own!

Last week, I was standing on my outside deck, enjoying the valley. A small bug alighted on me, and I was pretty sure it was a firefly as I’d recently managed to capture one on video. I thought it might interest a friend who was coming to dinner that evening, and I went inside to find an empty plastic yoghurt tub in which to keep it till she arrived that night.

But when it came to actually sealing the tub, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I imagined this small creature with a short life going around and around in circles on the smooth plastic, forced to breathe the subtle fumes that most plastics emit (you can smell them; you’d smell nothing if they were not there). I feared I might that evening open the tub and find a dead firefly.

I released it again.

Energy insanity in South Africa

This 11MW solar thermal power station in Seville, Spain, is being expanded to 300MW of capacity. Pic: Flickr – Chausinho

A solar thermal plant being developed in Seville, Spain, will produce 300MW of power at a projected cost of E1,200bn, or R11,6 billion. That’s an installed cost of R4-billion per 100MW. A prototype 11MW plant is already up and running; it’s almost a thing of beauty – take a look here or here. (The rays you see in the atmosphere have not been added to the photograph – they’re not illustrated but real, created by the intense illumination of the solar array hitting atmospheric dust and moisture.)

Eskom’s (our parastatal national electricity provider) prototype Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) is likely to cost R25 billion. The projected output is 120MW. By my admittedly rough calculations, that makes the cost of building the PMBR approximately FIVE times more expensive than solar thermal. Even using the figures Eskom prefers to use, which are of course far lower than R25-billion, the PBMR remains much expensive than solar thermal. (The PBMR has also been judged an economic non-starter for South Africa, by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, according to documents Eskom accidentally sent to Earthlife Africa.)

What you probably don’t know about heroin

Basically, it’s harmless.

Addictive yes, but worst side effect is constipation. (Visions of heroin addicts storming shops stocking senna and liquid paraffin.)

Black market heroin becomes poisonous and dangerous because unscrupulous dealers cut it with all kinds of pollutants. — Nick Davies

The available evidence indicates that heroin, when provided in pure form, is a relatively safe drug. Hence it is primarily the illegal nature of the drug, rather than its pharmacological properties, which leads to the health and social problems associated with its use. — Ostini, Bammer, Dance and Goodwin. 1993. ‘The Ethics of Experimental Heroin Maintenance’, Journal of Medical Ethics

In other words, we f**k up heroin addicts; the drug doesn’t.

In the late 1960s, there were a few hundred heroin addicts in the UK, mostly living in central London. They got their heroin not from dealers — but on prescription from psychiatrists.

Then, following an outburst of media hysteria and pressure from the US, the authorities forced the doctors to restrict the supply. A black market was created. Addicts began turning to crime. New supply chains to the East opened up. Thatcher completed the disaster, shutting down legal heroin altogether in favour of methadone. Twenty years after the clampdown had begun, that stable population of a few hundred users had expanded to 300,000 criminals and basket cases, linked to around 70% of all break-ins, shoplifting and robberies in the UK.

[This is a precis from chapter one of Nick Davies' book, Flat Earth News (find it on Amazon UK or Kalahari.net), and you can read more about the heroin story on his blog.]

Kogelberg

A delicate pincushion, leucospermum caligerum, growing alongside the Palmiet River

On Boxing Day, a friend and I headed out beyond Hangklip (which needs to be climbed, I realise) to the Kogelberg Nature Reserve to run and walk a 24km circuit, which was lovely, though more trees here and there would have been welcome; great pools in the Palmiet River, though, long and deep enough for serious training should one be thus inclined; and so many flowers I’ve not previously seen outside of Kirstenbosch.

. . . oh crap, WordPress have broken their dashboard (and I see, the css for galleries is dodgy too) and I can’t see what I’m typing properly, in Safari. Okay, mostly everything does still work in the html view. . .

With substantial breaks for at least two swims, it took us five and a half hours. A long, slow sustained climb at the start, but frustratingly, there were no obvious ways to ascend any of the peaks. The reserve map provided is woeful, showing no topography and is an invitation to get lost. I’m still not sure whether we followed the ‘proper route’ or not, though that’s of purely academic interest.