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djxsmith

Listed below are comments made by djxsmith between Tuesday, 26th February 2008 and Tuesday, 4th November 2008.

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What did your relatives do in World War One? 1:17pm on 04 Nov 2008 My Great Uncle Jack, now long deceased, used to tell the story of how he was in the trenches in World War One, walking along talking to one of his best friends, when a shell exploded nearby and sent over a piece of shrapnel which blew his friend's head off. The friend, he told us, took several more steps before collapsing. I don't know if it's true but my Great Uncle Jack had a wicked sense of story telling.
Depressed? 12:45pm on 26 Feb 2008 I can't speak for the 'moderately' depressed (surely there should be another name for that condition - it sounds a bit like being slightly pregnant or mildly dead), but my wife suffered terrible depression, probably post-natal in origin, which came on five years ago. Until she was diagnosed I - and she - thought she was going insane. Her personality changed, she became withdrawn, isolated, almost suicidal. Escitalopram changed all that. When she came off them after about a year her gradual slide back into depression was if anything even more alarming. Depression is not about whining and moaning and being a bit grumpy. It's a hormonal or chemical illness, every bit as physical as a broken leg. It can destroy its victims and their families. It is nothing to do with weakness in the sufferer - it is a condition that can afflict anyone. The researchers who say it doesn't do much to help the severely depressed need to go back and start again. And those people on this blog and elsewhere who say it's just a matter of pulling yourself together and getting on with it are blissfully lucky in their dismal ignorance, but they don't help in the struggle to dispel the myths and taboos about this particular mental illness. Without the drugs I firmly believe my wife would no longer be with us.

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