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I recently participated in a seminar for family members of the mentally ill, including "double" or "major" depression and bipolar disorder. Whatever semantic gyrations you want to go through regarding whether these are "legitimate illnesses", they are very real, cause real suffering, and they kill people and tear families apart.
I don't see why you would want to disavow any legitimacy at all to what these people go through. There IS sound science behind them, as well as pseudoscience, "big pharma" influences and other systemic problems, and caregivers with varying levels of (in)competence. Rather than dismiss it out of hand and urging people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, I suggest that you educate yourself about what has actually come to be known about these conditions and learn how you can have empathy for people with mental health issues, yet without enabling them.
In any case, it's seldom that severe depression is not co-morbid with other conditions, particularly anxiety. Yes, I have met people who learn to "think" or "trick" their way out of both conditions, over time -- especially those folks who can't find effective meds they can tolerate. It CAN be done, but it is rather like saying that you can set your own broken leg and go through the healing process without pain meds or antibiotics. Yes, you CAN try and you might even succeed. And this proves what, exactly? That you have a bigger zotz than the next person?
It seems that most people have trouble with something as simple as distinguishing reactive depression from clinical depression. Reactive depression is much more amenable to self-help or the mere passage of time, and often "suck it up and keep moving" is as good as anything for mild circumstantial / situational dysthymia. But clinical depression in all its forms is not a "suck it up" proposition for anyone who has it, and trying to make it so, could get someone killed.
I have known several people over the years who claim they have a mental illness and take medication to treat their depression. Problem is, all of these people are still depressed and never seem to nail down that perfect drug or perfect combination of drugs to cure themselves or treat the illness to the point they can say they are less depressed. This is because there is no cure for a mythological illness, I think depression is simply a copout and making people into legal drug addicts on meds that can many times make matters worse up to and including suicide. Get clean, its not working. There isn't a cure because its a state of mind for those who believe a pill can make them cope with life, the answer is within and requires belief in oneself and the power of their minds.
I don't believe in the myth of depression, the biggest mental health problem of our time. The problem is a lack of initiative, looking for an easy way out and buying into the 'chemical imbalance' BS. I call BS.
Discuss...
Do you think the brain is somehow magically immune to pathologies unlike every other single organ in the body. And you feel qualified to decide clinical depression is a myth based on what - that you have a brain? That you've been sad or something?
As for pharmacological treatments for symptoms - why would you expect them to "cure" depression?
And what about the measurable neurobiochemical differences between the depressed and the non-depressed. Is that simply made up? Or are the fMRI subjects knowlingly faking it and manipulating the results.
A what is "lack of intiative" anyway - can you quantify that or are you just talking out your arse?
Well-thought out post btw. Why don't you give us the benefit of your insight on climate change and fossils too.
Heres the conclusion of a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of a number of fMRI studies on major depression:
"The use of resting-state fMRI in MD research has yielded a number of significant findings that provide the basis for understanding the pathophysiology of depressive symptoms. Of particular note and deserving of further research are the roles of the cortico-limbic mood regulating circuit (MRC) and the interaction between task-positive and task-negative networks in MD."
So what's your interwebs armchair opinion on the cortico-limbic mood regulating circuit? Is it BS do you think?
Thought so, dingdong. Go give your opinion on the game instead.
Depression is a real illness. The doctors are the fakes. Many doctors seem to just prescribe the medication and then think that's it. They don't bother to try and figure out the root cause. While this may be fine for people who just have a chemical problem, many times the cause is environmental.
I agree with you. However, you can't blame the doctors. The depressed people themselves need to seek really therapy to change the conditions and situations in their lives. That's the real hard part. Too many people think a pill is going to change their lives.
Funny, I didn't know that my 28 years of dealing with depression and anxiety, and needing medication was the "easy way out". I suppose if I really did take the "easy way out", that I would not be here to type this.
It is amazing to me, in this day and age, that there are still holdovers from the John Wayne/rugged individualist/bootstrap era that persist in thinking that someone has to be all gnarled up in a wheelchair to be considered to have a "real" illness. Are there people that are quick to claim "mental illness" to avoid responsibility, to obtain benefits, or to get out of legal trouble ("the insanity defense")? I'm sure there are, but that certainly doesn't mean that mental disorders don't exist, or that they aren't debilitating. And it's not a though there haven't been cases of people who have feigned cancer (I used cancer because it seems, aside from a completely obvious physical disability, to be the "gold standard" to which your average layperson adheres in determining the severity of illness in general).
But, unlike something like breast cancer, for example (and I use this example specifically because of the ubiquitous pink ribbon and "breast cancer awareness" campaigns), mental illness doesn't have the proliferation of highly visible awareness campaigns. There are no clever rubber bracelets or clever T-shirt slogans. There are no collection jars at the counters of our local businesses. There are no corporate campaigns. There are no 5ks. There aren't people banding together to offer assistance to the afflicted, or comments as to how said person is "courageous and strong" for fighting this battle.
Oftentimes, people who are dealing with mental illness get the exact opposite. We get told that we are "weak"; that our treatment (medication and therapy) is a "crutch"; we get told that we are engaging in "stinkin' thinkin'"; we get told that we need to snap out of it, or that we have to just suck it up, or even that we are faking it. People avoid us because the thought of mental illness makes them uncomfortable, or maybe because of some superstitious belief that it's somehow contagious, or because they have some cartoonish idea of what someone with mental illness is supposed to look and act like. I say this not because I want anyone's pity (IMO, pity is the opposite of respect), but to highlight the stark disparity with which society response to an illness like cancer vs. a mental illness. I grew up in an abusive household and remember an instance where I was vomiting profusely and was told to "stop acting", to give you just one example. To me - and I'm sure to others that have grown up under similar circumstances, and also deal with mental illness - these attitudes feel like an extension of that abuse.
What people don't seem to understand WRT to mental disorders is that the medication is not to serve as a "wonder drug" or happy pills. Medication is but one part of treatment, and the purpose of the medication is to help the sufferer to be more receptive to other forms of treatment, such as psychotherapy and also lifestyle changes. Specific medications, dosages, and even the manner in which the medication(s) are taken (time of day, for example) are going to vary from person to person. The way in which these conditions manifest themselves depending on one's age or gender can vary. The intensity of these conditions can vary from time to time in the same person.
I've been dealing with both depression and anxiety since I was 11 or 12, and the major depressive episodes I've experienced have occured at ages 19, 24, 30, and right now (39). I'm on Effexor right now (which is an SNRI, not an SSRI, BTW) and while it has helped with the panic attacks, I recognize that I'm experiencing another bout of major depression that I need to address. For five straight years, I tried to soldier through without any medication, and all it did was cause an increasingly debilitating situation with my panic attacks. There are many times where I've had to pull over on the side of the road, or call someone to pick me up, or have felt like I was going to pass out in the middle of a store or a parking lot somewhere. Despite the ignorance that passes as "conventional wisdom" out there, those of us that have mental disorders don't want to be drug dependent. We don't want to have a problem at all. We just want to be productive and lead regular lives, just like everyone else.
Just as bad as the general practitioners that throw drugs at the problem without truly trying to understand are those who convince us that we don't need medical treatment and that some alternative based on superstition and pseudoscience is the real answer. For a while, I got really interested in alternative therapies, and went to health food expos, and heard about how people have cured themselves of -yes, even cancer! - by drinking noni juice or eating some superfood harvested in some remote part of the world, or colon cleanses, or addressing some candida overgrowth or whatnot. While I believe that there is some merit to some alternative therapies and that allophic medicine has a long way to go, I also know that there is no shortage of hucksters and charlatans willing to prey on people that are desperate, frustrated, and mistrustful of the motives of the pharmaceutical companies.
It's not a myth, and it's not easy. I'm highly doubtful that any evidence that I can gather will truly convince someone that is that bound and determined to be ignorant and discompassionate towards those of us who deal with these illnesses. But if I can help someone that is suffering, or even if I can help those who have or have had loved ones dealing with these conditions, then I haven't wasted my time.
I have known several people over the years who claim they have a mental illness and take medication to treat their depression. Problem is, all of these people are still depressed and never seem to nail down that perfect drug or perfect combination of drugs to cure themselves or treat the illness to the point they can say they are less depressed. This is because there is no cure for a mythological illness, I think depression is simply a copout and making people into legal drug addicts on meds that can many times make matters worse up to and including suicide. Get clean, its not working. There isn't a cure because its a state of mind for those who believe a pill can make them cope with life, the answer is within and requires belief in oneself and the power of their minds.
I don't believe in the myth of depression, the biggest mental health problem of our time. The problem is a lack of initiative, looking for an easy way out and buying into the 'chemical imbalance' BS. I call BS.
Discuss...
You nailed it! You figured it out! And I have MORE information: diabetes is not an illness either. It's just an excuse for people who gain weight and to carry around snacks and eat, claiming their "blood sugar is low". And companies are always coming up with diabetes medications, but no one gets cured. The *** is up, the original poster is right! Use the power in your mind to overcome this fake disease!
It's so predictable the way that some people like to cling to their "diseases."
There are many new, innovative ways to deal with depression, et al, that have nothing to do with traditional medicine.
You would think the people who truly suffer from these "conditions" would be interested, but most often, instead, they become hostile and insist that they have a "legitimate disease" - I am guessing to reconcile their dependence or preference for ingesting drugs into their systems (which they actually can have no real idea of the impact on their bodies/moods/long-term well being).
Heck...i was born depressed. I remember laying in the crib looking out the window at the grey dreary gloomy days and cold winds blowing, for months on end, and wondering, what planet was I born on? Yuck. It progressed from there - never ended; every day was not a "festival" in my mind. So, not real depressed, just not "up" most of the time. It was no incapacitating problem. It just took me 20 to 30 yrs to realize that the world I was born into was not consistently what i like, and so, over the years, from the time I was little, I learned to deal to with it....in fact, just a little teeny tiny bit depressed is normal for me. Importantly, I have been consistently that way, so I learned over years how to live with it. My mood is one, to one and a half below zero on the number line and so what? In 60 years I've come to realize that and did what I had to do to deal with those low, less then ebulient thoughts and mindsets the best I could - or for that matter, had to at the time. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. Ya live ya learn. No biggie it turns out.
The bottom line is that I would never need to be medicated (even though I meet the criteria for "depressed"). And thank goodess for that. Because I am, who I AM and it works good enough for me. A clear mind is way more valuable then a blurred existence. Psychotropic drugs are very helpful to some, but can be very destructive to many.
Last edited by Mittelschmirz; 02-28-2014 at 04:14 PM..
It's so predictable the way that some people like to cling to their "diseases."
There are many new, innovative ways to deal with depression, et al, that have nothing to do with traditional medicine.
You would think the people who truly suffer from these "conditions" would be interested, but most often, instead, they become hostile and insist that they have a "legitimate disease" - I am guessing to reconcile their dependence or preference for ingesting drugs into their systems (which they actually can have no real idea of the impact on their bodies/moods/long-term well being).
I'm pretty shocked but also amused on how angry and violent some of these responses have been from depressed people. The hatred and animosity from some posters have left me feeling that these people are entitled individuals and probably best left alone from society.
But I do believe depression is an illness. I've been depressed a few times in my life but it's always been an external negative life event like work, breakups, death of loved ones, health issues, etc etc. Thankfully it's never been internal. When things are going great, I'm always happy no matter what.
It's so predictable the way that some people like to cling to their "diseases."
There are many new, innovative ways to deal with depression, et al, that have nothing to do with traditional medicine.
You would think the people who truly suffer from these "conditions" would be interested, but most often, instead, they become hostile and insist that they have a "legitimate disease" - I am guessing to reconcile their dependence or preference for ingesting drugs into their systems (which they actually can have no real idea of the impact on their bodies/moods/long-term well being).
Just as predictable is the way in which certain people cloak themselves in their security blanket of ignorance and arrogance. Fortunately, my "disease" is easier to treat.
It's a futile effort to try to get someone to understand that these illnesses do exist if someone is hell-bent on believing otherwise in the face of overwheming evidence. I might as well nail spaghetti to the wall. And I'm certainly not going to waste the energy that I need to manage my condition in order to ingratiate myself with anyone that considers their stubborn beliefs to be far superior to decades of research and the experiences of millions of people.
Just as we don't say "Jane IS cancer", but rather, "Jane HAS cancer", I am not defined by my depression or my anxiety. They are just two conditions that I happen to have, and need to treat, whether or not anyone "agrees" with it or not. There could very well be people reading these boards that are undiagnosed and don't realize that they could very well have a treatable condition. There are people that have lost loved ones to suicide that needlessly beat themselves over the head with survivor guilt, because this is certainly nothing that could have possibly been within their control. Having these illnesses - sucks. Trying to deal with a loved one - sucks. But I would have to say that the biggest obstacle to treatment - besides money - is the stigma.
In the words of MLK, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
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