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Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

psychologytoday.com

21–30 of 281 posts

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#21

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#22
post #19

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 p…

I completely agree, thanks for the insight. A little disappointed to see people dismissing this article right off the bat.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#23
While trying better to understand someone else in my family, the expert advice I got was that anxiety is nearly always genetic, that is, nature and not nurture. And the expert claimed that it is known that psychotherapy, e.g., as suggested in the OP, doesn't work for anxiety or some of its other symptoms, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, paranoia, hysteria, psychopathic-passive.

For more, there is

David V. Sheehan, M.D., The Anxiety Disease.

where he argues that, even after controlling on various obvious candidate variables, anxiety disease is four times more common in human females than human males. He conjectures that the difference is so great that at some time the disease must have had some reproductive advantage.

Or, some people come from just horrible backgrounds and still do not suffer from anxiety disease, while other people come from apparently ideal backgrounds and do suffer.

Of course, a child gets from their parents both nature and nurture, so we have to suspect that can be difficult to separate the two.

Still, IMHO, on this quite serious subject, the OP is a bit too simplistic.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#24

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…

I don't really understand how any part of what you said refutes the article.

> There are days that I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world, technically speaking

The reality is that each person's needs are different, and just because you are the luckiest man in the world based off society's values doesn't mean your individual needs are being met.

I sympathize with the fact that you have depression but I don't really see how the article is dangerous. If anything I would think that it's good to try and find/fix any underlying issues which cause the depression if possible rather than just hoping medication will make everything go away.

We still don't have a good understanding of the brain and psychological disorders..

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#25

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…

I don't think depression is just one thing, certainly not the way they are prescribing SSRIs these days.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#26
post #18

> 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…

> 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.

What sort of therapy is that?

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#27
post #19

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 p…

I'm not sure why you are calling this a new paradigm. Don't most, if not all, therapists deal with depression as a symptom for necessary changes in life circumstance? Yes, every particular case is different, but in general, therapy is meant to motivate you to make a change---either in perspective, or practice or upon external sources of angst.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#28
post #4

> 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…

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

I think there are many types of "real" depression - and I feel like oversimplifying such a complex condition doesn't contribute very much to the discussion.

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#29
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. What sort of therapy is that?

Air in face is APAP for sleep apnea.

Belt under the feet is a treadmill for exercise.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#30
post #19

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 p…

Thanks for the perspective, and ditto. It sounds condescending, and obviously physical brain damage (e.g. CTE) can cause depression completely separately from life circumstances, but I would venture that for a majority of people who say "My life is just fine but I am depressed anyway", their life is not actually fine.

It's not even that they are lying, but we humans are very good at hiding truths, even from ourselves. It can be very hard to truly admit that one is unhappy about one's life, and frankly many people have never really experienced a true sense of fulfillment, peace, belonging, purpose and happiness, and don't know what it would feel like or understand how lacking the feeling is in their lives.

"My life is fine" generally means "I've checked the right boxes: 'success', 'friends', a relationship, but I still feel empty." Don't use drugs to numb that feeling. Listen to it.

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