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Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

psychologytoday.com

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Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#11

Post by themgt »

jolux wrote: post #6
golemotron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's better than the unsubstantiated theory that depression is a serotonin disorder.

How do you mean unsubstantiated? If you mean it's less than certain than sure, but SSRIs and SNRIs and NaSSAs and such improve depression greatly for many patients. That at least says something about serotonin levels in patients with depression.

"Opiates improve pain-in-arm symptoms greatly for many patients. That at least says something about opiate levels in patients with pain-in-arm."

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#12

Post by fucking_tragedy »

golemotron wrote: post #3
funkysquid wrote: post #2

> Or if you are outside for a long time in the cold with no jacket, upon feeling very cold, you don’t say that you have "a coldness disorder". A better example for anxiety or depression would be standing inside in a warm room, and despite everyone else in the room being comfortable, you are unable to warm up at all. When you complain, you are told that "everyone gets cold sometimes". This article doesn't seem to have…

That's better than the unsubstantiated theory that depression is a serotonin disorder.

Reminder that for panic disorder, OCD and severe major depression, SSRIs are effective.

I am not suggesting that depression is a 'serotonin disorder', just that this class of medication does work for some with this disorder and others.

The other side of this is that exercise, MAOIs, CBT, ERP etc are effective as well.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#13

Post by DanBC »

jolux wrote: post #6
golemotron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's better than the unsubstantiated theory that depression is a serotonin disorder.

How do you mean unsubstantiated? If you mean it's less than certain than sure, but SSRIs and SNRIs and NaSSAs and such improve depression greatly for many patients. That at least says something about serotonin levels in patients with depression.

Depression is different for different people. It's an umbrella term that captures many different types of illness.

Anti depressants do work very well for some people; not so well for others; and not at all for others. Some people may have to try different meds. We know there's a genetic factor with effectiveness too.

But it's useful to have other approaches to treatment, and that's where the good psychologists come in.

There is always a bit of a kerfuffle between psychologists ("It's all psycho-social!") and psychiatrists ("It's all chemistry!") (the analogies with computer language flame wars are obvious) and the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#14

Post by jonny1090231 »

I have been suffering depression for long time and can tell you right now that this article is as wrong in describing how I feel as one could get it. Regardless of how my need are taken care of and how satisfied I should be with the status quo depression takes it all away from you without you understanding why and how. There are days that I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world, technically speaking, yet I feel the 'saddest' and most depressed I have ever been. Don't believe for a second what the author claims here - depression is a disease and it needs to be treated as one. Very dangerous post indeed.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#15

Post by noxToken »

smegel wrote: post #7
jolux wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real depression comes out of nowhere, hits you like a ton of bricks, and makes you wish you weren't alive.

I agree with this, but I also think a lot of "non-real depression" is too easily diagnosed as the real thing. A lot of depressed people could be "cured" by just changing circumstances in their life (not that it is always easy, but saying there is stuff in your life you can't change and it is making you depressed, doesn't make it a mental illness). But you have worn out doctors facing a tough choice: do the near impos…

> A lot of depressed people could be "cured" by just changing circumstances in their life (not that it is always easy, but saying there is stuff in your life you can't change and it is making you depressed, doesn't make it a mental illness).

I believe what you're largely referring to is Adjustment Disorder. You're stuck in a situation, and but if the situation changes to something more favorable, the depressive mood (with time) goes away. In my experience, a lot of people in the military with a depression diagnosis tends to be Adjustment Disorder. The PT almost always ceases to display depression symptoms once their contract has expired. This is why (I believe) people tend to say, "Just cheer up, man. It's not that bad!" Others will see that changing something (smiling, going to a movie, visiting friends) can cure a case of the blues.

Note that I am not minimizing the effects that the depressive mood can have on person with Adjustment Disorder. I am just highlighting the difference between Major Depressive Disorder (change the situation, relatively same symptoms) and Adjustment Disoder (change the situation, no symptoms).

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#16

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

jonny1090231 wrote: post #14

I have been suffering depression for long time and can tell you right now that this article is as wrong in describing how I feel as one could get it. Regardless of how my need are taken care of and how satisfied I should be with the status quo depression takes it all away from you without you understanding why and how. There are days that I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world, technically speaking, yet I fee…

Depression could be a symptom of a bigger physiological problem.

Sudden pain isn't itself a disease, but a symptom of some other underlying issue. Why can't depression be the same way? No one here is discounting the discomfort of the depressive experience.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#17

Post by yason »

jonny1090231 wrote: post #14

I have been suffering depression for long time and can tell you right now that this article is as wrong in describing how I feel as one could get it. Regardless of how my need are taken care of and how satisfied I should be with the status quo depression takes it all away from you without you understanding why and how. There are days that I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world, technically speaking, yet I fee…

how satisfied I should be with the status quo depression

I'd be pretty damn depressed if I were thinking in terms of how satisfied I should be with the status quo. A person needs more than having his/her needs taken care of -- what is it? That search is part of the whole life, and you won't find any answers at all for yourself unless you're harnessing the power of depression. Labelling it as a disease will not get you anywhere but just leaves you as a bystander who unfairly got sick.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#18

Post by lotyrin »

funkysquid wrote: post #2

> Or if you are outside for a long time in the cold with no jacket, upon feeling very cold, you don’t say that you have "a coldness disorder". A better example for anxiety or depression would be standing inside in a warm room, and despite everyone else in the room being comfortable, you are unable to warm up at all. When you complain, you are told that "everyone gets cold sometimes". This article doesn't seem to have…

I disagree, this is pretty different from depression-is-just-sadness.

The article is not shortcutting to a non-solution, it's pointing out that there can be overlooked root causes beyond the symptom, and this can be a very valuable thing to point out to people, leading to actionable solutions to their problem.

I was diagnosed depressed for many years, and it turned out I simply had the expected affect given I was not socializing enough, exercising enough, or sleeping well enough given an undiagnosed case of sleep apnea and a bit of a spiral from obsessing about trying to stay employed despite that affect.

Talking myself in circles, messing around with serotonin, none of this got me anywhere because it wasn't solving the actual problems. I didn't need any of that, I needed a machine that pushes air into my face at night and another one that pulls a belt below my feet in the morning, but the professionals I visited failed to prescribe these.

People have no basis of comparison when it comes to their direct subjective experience with long-lived habits so someone who exercises regularly can say "if I couch-potato too hard, I'll start to feel gross", but someone who doesn't can't as easily observe "I feel gross all the time because I never exercise enough". Likewise with hygiene, regular social exposure, sleeping properly, eating properly. It's important to think of mood as a complex function with many inputs and a good amount of feedback and delay.

Certainly it can be the case that depression is its own root cause, and one should not reject talk therapy or prescriptions to help with it, but I definitely recommend people search for something they may have overlooked.

Maybe there are good psychiatrists and therapists which will find these kinds of things, but I haven't met any. Patients should be aware they need to consider them.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#19

Post by pc2g4d »

Amen to this article. As one who myself once believed my depression "came out of nowhere" (but which, in retrospect, was an obvious symptom of my emotionally destructive family and school environment) and who tried for many years to smother those feelings with antidepressants, I feel strongly that this article presents a wiser path.

Evolutionarily speaking, it seems likely that depression/anxiety are there for some purpose, and yet we treat them both like meaningless pain meant only to be banished using drugs. I believe both are signals that something in our environment is not working for us. They indicate emotional or physical needs unmet---needs for safety, autonomy, connection, etc.

Often the individual suffering is fundamentally unaware of their own circumstances. I didn't realize how messed up my family relationships were growing up until much later. There are various reasons for this unawareness, but I believe the depression/anxiety are there to force our conscious self and the people around us to acknowledge that something is wrong.

This isn't just the old nonsense about depressed people needing to cheer up, and that it will pass in a day. This is a completely different paradigm that explains depression and anxiety as meaningful signals of underlying problems rather than as inexplicable suffering to be numbed through prescription medication. I believe it will prove the more robust and also the wiser way of looking at these experiences.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#20

Post by darkclarity »

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #5

This is a terrible article that completely treats depression as the fault of the individual. Pretty irresponsible frankly.

The way I got out of those sorts of issues was by noticing that the medical system is inadequate. It is geared towards hiding symptoms with drugs - to get people back into work, even if those people are a mess inside.

It's all down to personal responsibility. You have to find the drive inside to constantly push. To forget the victim mentality that society encourages. To fix one problem at a time. To fight the hellish mode that your mind has enabled.

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