Skydiving & Depression, does it help?

[mdrejhon 8]

I'd say better 50-50 chance it'll do wonders -- at the very least, the 'accomplishment' will help self-esteem!

My experience is that Skydiving, has actually, historically proven more reliable than anti-depressants alone (less than 50%), and more reliable than therapist alone (less than 50%), but I see a clear trend of better than 50% success rate with a skydiving prescription. I mean, in the real world, I see a clear trend. Doctors will not write a skydiving prescription, but I can vouch for a lot of people in this thread.

However, definitely tandem first. How you present it -- a trip -- a gift certificate -- you will need to use your judgement. You don't want to pressure her.

Remember to factor it into budget -- it's an expensive hobby, but so are medical bills!

Don't forget to make it combination therapy -- i.e. skydiving+friends, or skydiving+therapist, or therapist+meds, whatever -- personally skydiving+friends is probably cheaper, but everyone responds differently. Sometimes it's even motorcycle+nature+getting out of city. Just don't put her too much on skydiving+excessive booze!

And, it's often easier to coax a depressed person to do a tandem than get professional help for depression; some people are stubborn about it...

So give it a try. Tandem! And then a 2nd tandem. Then maybe AFF (using Tandem progression). Choose the dropzone carefully, some are more fun than others and the people there make a big difference especially to a new skydiver!

[crustySCSA69 0]

Will this help your daughter ? No one knows.

But personally, way back when, in college, I was in a massive depression (while not actively contemplating checking out, I was certainly trying to figure out if anything was worth anything, and calculating if that was an answer) and a friend who had started jumping told me about a class. So I figured, why not ?

At that class (the old days were so much more up front) they said
"we'll teach you everything that can go wrong.
we'll teach you what to do about it.
You may do everything right and still die, if you can't handle that idea you should leave now."

Everyone stayed. I had NEVER been in any kind of airplane. I wasn't scared at all, I was just AWED by flight on the way up, I was intrigued by the lunacy of crawling out onto the step (Cessna-182) ... I saw the guy say GO...

my fingers were approximately 1 millimeter off the strut when I had the most horrific panic attack I ever had (before or since) and was convinced I had just killed myself ... and was mentally kicking myself hard ... and the parachute opened. A malfunction and I was dead.

I realized right away, no matter what was depressing me, I wanted to be ALIVE. I have never thought of, or contemplated checking myself out since (and there have been some pretty bad times in there). This sport will
A. not have much of an impact on her at all in the long run
or
B. change her mind set profoundly

I highly recommend you guys go to a smaller DZ (not a Tandem mill, it should have a mix of students and experienced jumpers, but should not be a huge DZ, save that for later). At a smaller dropzone, where everyone has a beer and yaks in the evening, if you and your daughter show up for a second time THAT WILL BE NOTICED. you will have instant, encouraging friends. Give it a shot.

Hell, I always wanted to set up an operation that took catatonics up and tandem'd them on out. I feel sure we'd recover some people, I just don't think the legalities could be surmounted.