TL;DR: My mood disorder was actually a gluten sensitivity, yours may be too.
Body:
Summary: Author depicts subjective experiences of depression, and some major life events which were affected by it, to illustrate how severe gluten's effect's can be for those who are allergic or sensitive to it.
Some time ago I left a comment or two in a few threads about depression. I had depression for close to twenty years and it had a substantial impact on my life and outlook. (Honestly, to say it was merely substantial is an understatement, but the statement suffices.) When I tried a gluten elimination diet in 2013/2014, my depression symptoms vanished.
A few people here have expressed an interest in my experiences before and after quitting gluten. Also, as it relates to self-improvement in general, I think this could be valuable information for any man trying to make his way through the modern morass.
Some background about myself:
I grew up in Germany, moved to the states, joined the marines, managed a pizza restaurant, went crazy, committed some crimes, did 6 years in the clink, and am recently out.
Physical symptoms & impact before quitting gluten:
It's crazy to look back at my life in light of the gluten sensitivity realization. I was just a few steps away from psychosis for most of my life, until I finally did go nuts at age 26. (More on this later.)
It is possible that I felt the effects of gluten-sensitivity prior to age 12, but I can't say for certain. I lived in Germany until age 12. It is possible that in the 80s, German food may have been less processed (I lived in SW Germany, mostly in small villages), and/or may have had less gluten in it compared with American food. It is also possible that the sensitivity did not manifest until I grew older; or that stress and epigenetic factors played a role. These are speculations.
In Germany I was the equivalent of a B student. I attended German public schools. After moving to America everything became difficult and confusing for me, even if it was theoretically easy. I instantly became a straight F student. Early High School was mostly Fs (0.58 GPA). By my last year I had figured out the system somewhat and got a 3.9 GPA my final semester, balancing out to an even 2.0. By that time, I had an irrational hatred of everything as a response to my depression symptoms.
After HS I joined the Marines. After three years of that I was kicked out, and I managed a pizza restaurant, where I ate tons of gluten daily and also began drinking tons of beer daily as a self-medication cycle for the depression. Beer also has gluten so it actually just made things worse; of course chronic alcoholism is not that great to begin with.
There was not a day I would wake up and not feel heavy, even before I became a chronic drinker. I was not overweight; this is a heaviness I always had trouble describing. It was more like there were lead weights strapped to me. My energy was always low. Even in the marines, with 7 mile runs three times a week and all the general exercise, I could tell that my energy was not where everyone else's was. I could keep up, but I had to push through two layers; the layer of the exercise itself and a hellish other layer which I never really understood.
I would often get a painful ache in my chest. This would accompany and amplify any negative feelings that I had, which were constant. Sometimes it would get bad enough that I thought I might be experiencing a heart attack. I never investigated it because the thought of actually dying thrilled me. It was a fairly serious physical pain. I suppose this could be what people call anxiety, but I never actually connected the word to that feeling, and I'm still not sure it fits.
My mood was usually terrible. Once every 20 days or so I would experience a few days where I felt "normal," but this was completely unpredictable and the normal days could just as well be days or months apart.
I was also a hopeless nice guy. I used stoicism to push all the shit waaay down and my personality was a complete facade to hide how horribly I felt. This was more out of consideration for others than for myself. I valued friendships and relationships more than I valued my mental health or my life. It was something of a catch 22, where loneliness would compound the symptoms in one way and being around others would compound them in another.
My thoughts were cloudy and disjointed. It was difficult to really make decisions. It was also difficult to see how my decisions turned into actions and turned into real-world results. I had a profound learned helplessness situation and a tendency for self-sabotage. Because much my negative experiences were not so much due to external events in my life, it didn't really seem to matter what I did. There was more to it than that, but these are some of the physical/mental things.
In truth I believed my life was not worth living. I felt completely powerless and that I was just waiting to die. I had nothing that I actually wanted from life. Some of this, looking back, was due to the typical beta/nice-guy outlook. I cannot believe how destructive this mental outlook can be, especially when combined with physical symptoms such as the ones I had.
I probably thought about suicide, in a very serious way, several times a week. I knew in no uncertain terms that I would probably die by suicide eventually. This was me just being honest with myself. Still, there was a kind of toughness in my ability to live with the symptoms, and I derived a certain sense of pride from it. The one thing that kept me from actually killing myself was the idea of becoming a professional musician, which is something beyond the scope of this post.
I was a thoroughly indoctrinated beta male with all the typical results, except that I am tall and reasonably attractive and often dated/screwed reasonably attractive women. However, due to the depression there were also long dry spells. I also had issues with one night stands because I dislike screwing stupid/annoying/uninteresting girls. I also had oneitis pretty often.
Eventually a relationship I was in turned sour, which tipped me over the edge. I had experienced several relationship cycles which had mirrored this one and for whatever reason that was it. I experienced a full-on psychotic episode where I started experiencing ghosts, had a psychic conversation with my future self, somehow used these interactions, and the "law of attraction," to get a decent job and buy a house, then proceeded to set my ex's childhood home on fire, with her father sleeping in it, after smashing her car window and putting nails under her tires. This was beta rage on steroids. (Fortunately, no one was harmed.)
I also realize that this was a metaphorical suicide for me. I left intentional evidence, not only because I wanted the ex to know it was me that did the crimes, but because I was finished living. There were also some psycho/superstitious reasons that I did this. Or perhaps my tendency for self-sabotage was merely manifesting at heights never seen before.
Eventually I was sentenced to ten years in prison, with five years parole. Six years later I'm out; and have discovered an emergence of all this RP stuff. It probably would have helped me quite a bit back then. People say RP is misogynist, but had I learned any of this stuff back then, or had an RP community to talk to I may not have committed my arson. My best friend at the time was a very progressive gay man and he was useless for any kind of support.
These days, when I eat things with gluten in them, I will usually feel hung over within ten to thirty minutes. It is just like a hangover from a night of heavy drinking. Imagine feeling like this for so long that you cease to think of it as being hung over and simply experience life in this impaired state. This is the closest analogy I can think of to what my depression was like. It will seriously detract from a person's mental health in the long run.
After eliminating gluten:
In prison I read Brain Grain, written by a doctor named David Perlmutter. My aunt had read it and sent me a copy in the mail.
According to Dr. Perlmutter's book, he has reversed cases of Depression, BPD, Schizophrenia, and more, with nothing more than a gluten-elimination diet. He believes gluten and sugar, together, do very harmful things to the body and the brain. He recommends not just cutting gluten, but also cutting carbs in general and replacing them with fat.
To me, a crazy diet sounded like nothing compared to living with depression. So I decided I would give the elimination diet a shot.
After trying it my depression symptoms abated significantly, and very quickly. Within a few days I seemed lighter. That heaviness feeling was disappearing. After a week or two I could honestly say I wasn't depressed in the slightest.
I also noticed that I had an easier time thinking, reading, talking, etc. I had been working on my social skills for some time, but things just seemed a lot more automatic to me.
I did notice an increase in vision acuity. Sometimes while walking I would suddenly notice some tiny detail on the ground, amazed at the sheer clarity of it.
I began losing fat really rapidly. I was 6/2" and around 207 lbs. This was a mix of muscle & fat, as I had been lifting in prison. I began losing 3 lbs of fat per week until I evened out at around 175 lbs. I appeared much thinner (duh). I reminded myself of actors from pictures taken in the 70s or 60s. I did not lose any strength.
My energy levels are very high compared with before. The worst day off-gluten is better than a good day on it. There is also a mood difference; it's quite relieving to be angry or sad about specific things rather than all the time over nothing/everything.
Occasionally I will cheat on my diet and weird things happen. Depending on the dose of gluten I will feel different effects:
High Dose: Several slices of pizza, a bagel, a sandwich
I almost never eat these things due to past experiences, but it has happened occasionally. Within 30 minutes I will get a severe headache and will feel as though hung over. As the food digests I will feel a sensation of "flecks" being in my blood. I will feel mildly drugged. Within a few hours I will feel tired and heavy. Sometimes I will feel an unprovoked anger that lingers for hours. I will get really gassy as I digest the food. The next morning I will wake up heavy. I will not feel like moving or exercising, or doing much at all. I will have thoughts much like my "old" thoughts, where I feel life is pointless, my accomplishments are shit, and I will actually contemplate suicide just like I used to. I may feel this way for another day or so, but it becomes negligible by the end of the second day.
Medium Dose: Sesame Chicken, quart of ice cream
I probably eat something like this once every 45 days or so. Within 12 hours I will feel a completely irrational anger that sweeps through me like a slow storm. It will last anywhere from 2-5 hours. I will sometimes feel slightly tired or heavy, but it is not as severe as in the past or with higher doses. In the case of the ice cream I'll get a hangover the next day.
Low Dose: Glass of Milk, lightly breaded chicken breast
When I first got out of prison I could feel the effects of gluten in a glass of milk. It's tough to describe but I can feel it within 10 minutes to half an hour, and I'll feel it for 4-5 hours, sometimes longer. It feels like little flecks in my blood and I'll feel mildly weakened and have mild trouble concentrating.
At present, I live in a halfway house and have to do a lot of compromising as I do not have the resources to buy food and cook for myself. My energy levels are lower than they were when I was the most fastidious about my diet in prison. Once I move out I'll become extremely fastidious about it.
Lessons Learned:
If you have low energy, low motivation, are depressed, have BPD, or are any kind of schizo, read the Grain Brain and try a gluten elimination diet. The results may surprise you.
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