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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

#201

Post by tim333 »

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…

>it's just repeating the old ideas that depression and anxiety are the same as temporary sadness

His main argument seems to be that depression is a symptom of mucked up relationships. Googling "depression symptom relationships" his is the only article arguing that in the first 40 results. So it seems at least somewhat original.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#202

Post by studentrob »

cairo_x wrote: post #189
studentrob wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people fall back to high school level psychology. Amazing how psychologists, too, are somehow exempt from paying attention to the state of neuroscience. I realize there are different levels of grief and depression. I…

Everyone has the right to share opinions. Unfortunately the diagnosis of depression has been down to opinion also. Not an opinion informed by understanding, but by criteria of a disease no one yet fully understands, concocted by a bunch of cocaine snorting pompous bullshit artists (too far?). Being diagnosed means a doctor listened to you describing a bunch of feelings and looked up a checklist, and matched some of t…

> Please understand, I'm not having an argument here, I'm venting some rage, big time. Nothing personal.

Got it, no sweat.

> Some of us have been through the ringer by bastards like the writer of that article. Well meaning bastards. True nurse ratchett evil bastard ..... has aneurysm

I can understand if you've been mistreated by people who work in health. I don't see how the author is to blame or how you have come to feel he would treat you the same way. That's a mistake people commonly make, putting labels on people. All of our brains try to find patterns, so it's normal, but individual people are incredibly unique, and much more so than snowflakes. We may not all be good but we are all equally deserving of each other's respect.

That said, vent on! And feel free to lob any complaints my way about anything I've said. I'm not easily offended.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#203

Post by tim333 »

d4amnation wrote: post #87

So I have depressive symptoms for quite some time. I've talked to my doctor like 2 years ago about it. He told me that the only way to get a therapy is to seek out a therapist on my own. This is fine, I can understand that. Just like an alcoholic must accept that he has problems and seeks out for help. I am not going to lie, it is a tough thing to do. But as an general scepticist I have the huge problem to find someo…

This seemed to work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11368800

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#204

Post by tim333 »

stantona wrote: post #9

This is pure generalization and does not apply to those who are clinically depressed or suffer bipolar.

The guy says "Depression and anxiety are, for the large majority of cases, emotional signals." I don't think he'd ever say it was true for all cases.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#205

Post by raihansaputra »

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…

i'm with you on your description of 'those days'. i feel like (and technically true) all my needs are met and i'm much, much luckier than most people. but those are the worst days. i just hope this feeling would end, and for you too.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#206

Post by tim333 »

foobarqux wrote: post #69

The article seems to essentially be advocating psychodynamic psychotherapy, which isn't new but seems to be out of favor compared to thoughts-cause-emotions models common in CBT.

I don't think he's advocating that at all. More sorting your life out if that's what's causing the depression.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#207

Post by tim333 »

bischofs wrote: post #125

What does this have to do with software or tech? are developers all depressed or something? Is this site just turning into another reddit? Someone please help me to understand why hacker news should be a safe place for depressed people to talk about their feelings, there has to be a better venue for that.

I think Hacker News is unusually analytic on these things. The attitude is more that the neural computer has a depression bug, is there some hack that'll fix it?

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#208

Post by brianwawok »

oxide wrote: post #160
dools wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that prescription opioid use is a cause of heroin overdoses ignores the fact that the reason people move to heroin is because of the paranoia about addiction which causes their prescriptions to be cut off in the first place. In the same vein (no pun intended) I've been looking for stats but not being able to find anything about what percentage of prescription opioid overdoses occur while the patient is being a…

contrary to popular opinion these days, I think pain is undertreated and routinely so. quality of life should take priority over dependence concerns especially in the elderly.

But what is the root cause of pain? I used to be depressed and in a lot of pain. I could have got anti depressants and anti pain rXs. Turns out I was just fat and my body was mad at me. Switched to an active lifestyle and everything got better.

Does that mean it would work for everyone? No. But no doctor told me to go run. they either gave me medicine A or B or C, and changed doses to try and minimize side effects. It's terrible but I understand. I can't go to an overweight depressed friend and tell him he needs to fix his life not take drugs for his bad back.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#209

Post by brianwawok »

c0rtex wrote: post #141
Dylan16807 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>If a situation is causing no problems outside of depression/anxiety, and you took away the depression/anxiety mechanism, there would be nothing wrong with it. The article's premise is that having one's core psychological needs go unmet is like having a broken bone. If you take away the pain from a broken bone, you still have a broken bone. As you say, there is nothing wrong with taking the pain away. But the bone is…

Yes but giving someone antidepressants for 30 years is like giving someone advil 30 years for a broken bone. Set the bone, then do advil for a week while it sets. But this isn't how drugs are used in the US. You get on them as a lifelong journey.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#210

Post by DanBC »

oxide wrote: post #160
dools wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that prescription opioid use is a cause of heroin overdoses ignores the fact that the reason people move to heroin is because of the paranoia about addiction which causes their prescriptions to be cut off in the first place. In the same vein (no pun intended) I've been looking for stats but not being able to find anything about what percentage of prescription opioid overdoses occur while the patient is being a…

contrary to popular opinion these days, I think pain is undertreated and routinely so. quality of life should take priority over dependence concerns especially in the elderly.

Opioids are not a suitable treatment for long term pain, especially in the elderly.

People need rapid access to pain management clinics, with weight loss and strength building exercise, and access to meds (which in long term pain are often not opioids).

Giving those people opioids increases their risk of accidental death, and suicide. It gives them an addiction. But worse it does not treat their pain - they will still have the pain.

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