Found in 2 comments on Hacker News
pdfernhout · 2019-02-22 · Original thread
Maybe of interest: "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel A. van der Kolk https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01... "Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives."

A lot of it is historical, so you might want to skip to the sections on treatments like EMDR. The author shows how nightmares are the brains attempts to process what happened and has suggestions for moving past them. While Bessel van der Kolk practices in the USA, perhaps you could contact him (or the group he works through) and see if he or they can suggest an informed and compassionate practitioner in your country?

Bessel van der Kolk and his associates can be reached here: http://www.traumacenter.org/

An interview with him: https://onbeing.org/programs/bessel-van-der-kolk-how-trauma-...

You may also find this book of interest too: "Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain" by David Conroy https://www.amazon.com/Out-Nightmare-Recovery-Depression-Sui...

A key point David Conroy makes is that all too often when people reach out for help with pain exceeding their coping resources (and so leading to suicidal thoughts) that the people they turn may just heap more pain on top of everything, which sounds like what happened to you. But it does not always have to been like that and David Conroy explores alternatives in his book.

And you might also want to look into "The Lifestyle Cure" which has a fairly high cure rate for depression using a combination of omega-3s, sunlight & vitamin D, exercise, social interactions, mental habits to avoid negative ruminations, and improved sleep: https://tlc.ku.edu/

But if it is past trauma that is causing the worst issues, addressing that first might help get you on an upward spiral and then you could try those other ideas to continue towards greater wellness. Hope this helps.

pdfernhout · 2019-02-15 · Original thread
See also: Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain by David Conroy https://www.amazon.com/Out-Nightmare-Recovery-Depression-Sui...

"Out of the Nightmare. An all-out assault on the barriers that stand between you and recovery from depression and suicidal pain. decomposes recovery from depression into recovery from envy, shame, self-pity, grandiosity, fear, stigma, social abuse, and the double binds and vicious circles of the mythology of suicide. A drug-free approach to getting better and staying better. This book provides counselors with a bold new non-technical framework that is free from the prejudices that deter the suicidal from seeking help. It provides those who have lost a loved one to suicide with a broad array of new conceptual tools to understand the tragedy and to find help for stuck positions of bereavement. Most importantly, it provides all those who suffer from depression with hundreds of resources to find their way out of the nightmare."

A suicide by an employee or within the families of employees touches many lives and can significantly impact productivity. Along with advice for suicidal individuals, the book includes suggestion for first responders, counselors, friends, and those who sadly are survivors of someone else's suicide. A major focus of the book includes deconstructing harmful ideas surrounding how people often think about or respond to those who have suicidal ideation and suggesting a more effective way of thinking about suicide prevention called the aggregate pain model.

Some key ideas from the book are summarized here: https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/index.html

"Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could. Don't accept it if someone tells you, "That's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible."

One of the fundamental challenges in an organization or society is to destigmatize asking for help to avoid the classic dilemma those with suicidal thoughts face when they expect asking for help will only increase their pain from whatever reactions occur -- such as job loss or being ejected from a university community. By reconceptualizing suicide as an involuntary action that occurs when total pain exceeds resources for coping with pain, David Conroy provides a morally neutral way for organizations and society to think about suicide prevention in a productive way. Rather than focus mainly on intervening in a crisis, organizations can rethink their operations to reduce participant pain and to increase coping resources. This helps everyone in the organization, not just those who have reached a threshold where pain is very close to coping resources. Early intervention is much cheaper and more successful than waiting for a crisis. This model shows how organizations can approach suicide intervention in hundreds of way. One of those ways is also making people aware of success stories where individuals overcame depression and related suicidal thoughts.

Aggregate pain includes physical pain, emotional pain, and social pain. Reducing pain in any area by even a small amount may bring a person below a threshold for suicide. Similarly there are many types of coping resources from interacting with a friend, to going to a funny movie, to receiving adequate health care, to interacting with a pet. There are also some short-term coping strategies like denial or drinking which may have long-term negative consequences that become new sources of pain when done to excess.

More coping methods for transcending depression can be found in books listed here: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations...

(Posted in memory of Robin Rochlin Cooperman -- a good friend from college who became a psychiatrist to help people who had mental illness and related challenges. I dearly wish she was still around for many reasons -- including to discuss such books with.)

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