My startup, Krewe (https://www.gokrewe.com), aims to help people make a new group of close, meaningful friends in their neighborhood and become connected with their local community. I really hope it'll go a long way towards alleviating depression for many people.
Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
211–220 of 281 posts
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Gregg is in the business of classifying and tinkering with the way seriously mentally ill people are treated and pigeonholed. Advice being given by people who don't know the answers, especially when it comes to the suicidal, is incredibly irresponsible.
You know that feeling you get when something is broken and you see someone trying to fix it, and you know you can do better, and you want to push them out of the way and give your own advice, because you're sure yours is the best way? You just know it? That has been the MO of psychology. A long line of men and woman pricking up their fingers and saying, I've an idea, try this. On live, human subjects. Think I'm being overly dramatic? Look at his frikken tree of knowledge model. It's like this giant pantomime admission of this failure, but then goes on to say that his model -- unification of all the nonsense -- is the light in the darkness. His model is like the epitome of what all pseudo sciences attempt -- to first suspend disbelief and criticism with a cheeky wink towards an indirect admission of nonsense, then to about turn and pile themselves upon genuine physical sciences and claim, not only to be a part, but to be a vital piece of the puzzle. It's like some L. Ron Hubbard type shit. It's incredible really. The realm of psychology is full of people like him. It is theoretical anthropology at best. At worst it is malpractice.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#213Earlier 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…
>Depression is similarly crippling and unhelpful. Though it must have some function or evolution would have got rid of it. My theory is keeping your head down may be helpful if you are screwing up socially. These days if the people who know you don't like you you can just move but in the hunter gatherer days that may have been fatal.
Evolution tends to keep things that increase survival chances, but it can also keep useless features. Also, when the environment changes, a previously useful feature may become useless. Evolution doesn't ensure that feature will disappear, unless it provides a major disadvantage.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#214Earlier 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…
>Depression is similarly crippling and unhelpful. Though it must have some function or evolution would have got rid of it. My theory is keeping your head down may be helpful if you are screwing up socially. These days if the people who know you don't like you you can just move but in the hunter gatherer days that may have been fatal.
Sometimes you can infer from evolution that a trait is useful. But only if the trait:
1. Is in a stable part of the genetic code, giving opportunity for bad traits to be weeded out.
2. Is not correlated with a different useful trait that overshadows its goodness/badness.
3. Shows up early enough to affect reproduction.
Human intelligence is quite recent, so prerequisite #1 is not met. We have no idea if prerequisite #2 is met, and prerequisite #3 is met.
So natural selection can't tell us if depression is/was useful. The kinks of human intelligence are not yet worked out.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#215Earlier 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. My experience with SSRI's has been that taking away that mechanism is taking away creativity, emotional range, and introspective ability. Reality distortion is reality distortion. I reject procrustean medicine that fits humans to the mold of what is best for…
That can fall amongst their side-effects, but it doesn't have to be. If you are experiencing them you should absolutely discuss that with your doctor, and whether the side-effects are tolerable at the level they are at. They also don't distort reality, they raise the level of serotonin in your brain. Now on the opposite side we do not have a fundamental understanding of how any of that works. For instance, the serotonin levels in the brain of a healthy person might be lower than those of someone suffering from depression. We simply don't have the knowledge know why things are happening specifically.
Speaking from personal experience, which is all I can really do given that I am not a medical professional, they brought be back to a basic level of functionality. In direct regards to what you had mentioned they didn't take away creativity, emotional range, or introspective ability, quite the opposite in fact. Before I began treatment I was rapidly falling towards not ever leaving my room and hiding from people all the time. I am not saying they are for everyone. I just want to point out that we all need to be careful assigning our experiences to others on this.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#216Amen 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…
> 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…
Depression is sometimes described a numbing experience. Everything loses color, loses that spark. Sometimes, everything hurts, nothing feels good. Making the same daily decisions is painful and slow, like walking through an ocean of glass.
Depression gives you the power to make really big decisions. Everything hurts about the same. Going to work is about as painful as staying home, meaning it's easier to quit a horrible job. It's easier to divorce an abusive partner. It's easier to pack up life and start over.
Having been through extreme depression multiple times, I can say with confidence that it makes those really big, really scary decisions a lot easier. You get thoughts like "it would all be over if I never saw that person again". "I would enjoy life if I got a divorce and moved back to my home town". "My job is abusive and it's slowly killing me, having no income is better than hating 70 hours of every waking week".
If you are depressed and having those types of thoughts, you might actually be right. Following through on those major, traumatic changes might actually be what you need to do. And depression makes it easy to do so. Normal life becomes so bad that change is welcome, because change feels like a way out.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Depression is similarly crippling and unhelpful. Though it must have some function or evolution would have got rid of it. My theory is keeping your head down may be helpful if you are screwing up socially. These days if the people who know you don't like you you can just move but in the hunter gatherer days that may have been fatal.
Sometimes you can infer from evolution that a trait is useful. But only if the trait: 1. Is in a stable part of the genetic code, giving opportunity for bad traits to be weeded out. 2. Is not correlated with a different useful trait that overshadows its goodness/badness. 3. Shows up early enough to affect reproduction. Human intelligence is quite recent, so prerequisite #1 is not met. We have no idea if prerequisite…
#1 Dogs can get depressed so it doesn't need human intelligence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness)
#2 Depression has a major effect, I doubt it's overshadowed
#3 You get depressed teenagers
So I'd think 1,2 and 3 are met.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#218Earlier 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…
Depression is sometimes described a numbing experience. Everything loses color, loses that spark. Sometimes, everything hurts, nothing feels good. Making the same daily decisions is painful and slow, like walking through an ocean of glass. Depression gives you the power to make really big decisions. Everything hurts about the same. Going to work is about as painful as staying home, meaning it's easier to quit a horri…
> Having been through extreme depression multiple times,
Have you been diagnosed with depression by a mental health professional?
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are suicidal ideation/attempts and 'successful' suicides explained by this hypothesis?
First let me preface this by saying that I have no training in psychology or related fields, so this comment may be complete bunk. I think that suicide could have some evolutionary advantage in a group. Say there is a member of a group who has become sick, injured, or otherwise incapacitated and is unable to contribute to the group. The group must spend more work to take care of the member than they receive back from…
> I think that suicide could have some evolutionary advantage in a group.
Sounds like archives of Sarah Perry’s The View from Hell[0] may be something you’d interested in checking out. She touches upon a range of suicide-related topics and provides references for further reading.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#220Amen 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 often notice people assume evolution to be "wise" and "nice" when searching for evolutionary explanations, which it is neither.
Evolutionarily speaking, just because something has evolved does not mean it happened for a purpose, or is useful at all.
Pathological anxiety and depression may actually be purely disadvantageous mutations which nevertheless still passed evolution filters because they are not disadvantageous enough to wipe out 100% of their carriers.
Or they may have a much uglier purpose than you have assumed, for example, to force weak individuals (in)voluntarily withdraw from consuming resources useful to others, or even to kill themselves completely, which might be "wise" during foraging times but is nothing but useless breakage in civilized age.