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When You Are Depressed, Make Something

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Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#351

Post by cgriswald »

ZeroFries wrote: post #244
cgriswald wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the reason you are feeling depressed has nothing to do with how things are going. My depression was caused by things that had happened in the past and that I didn't spend any time consciously thinking about. Dealing with that stuff took some work, but once I did, my depression lifted and hasn't returned. Depression means, even if things are going well, you can't feel good about it .

Every effect is caused by something that happened in the past. The physical trauma of past situations reared its head. Sounds like an external factor to me.

I agree with the other poster. Either your point of view is tautological, or you aren't really talking about depression.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#352

Post by lightedman »

yellowapple wrote: post #229
lightedman wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There's no mention of that in the DSM" The DSM changes so often that I wouldn't really rely upon it for a definition.

Our understanding of psychology and the human brain changes so often that I'd have a hard time trusting a source that hasn't been recently updated. Even with that said, the average time between DSM revisions is, what, every 15 years, give or take? I wouldn't exactly call that "often".

I can't trust the DSM because so many studies, experiments, and results regarding psychology and psychiatry simply cannot be reproduced or repeated with any degree of reliability.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#353

Post by jpfed »

oddlyaromatic wrote: post #334
jpfed wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, depression is a disease independent of external factors. Just to clarify, are you saying that systems as intensely interconnected as brains in bodies in the world only ever enter depressive states... for no externally visible reason? What kinds of external factors are you counting (or discounting) here?

Not parent, but I think I can help clarify. As goofy as it can sound: "being depressed" or in a "depressive state" can have many causes and some of them are obvious, but those states are not the disease of depression, exactly. They are serious, of course, and can be life threatening in their own right. But the distinction here is that depression can act like any other disease or illness - like, would making more frie…

That's not what the person I replied to said. They said

>However, depression is a disease independent of external factors.

Which sounds like "all depression is a disease independent of external factors". Further supporting this interpretation is that they "completely disagree" with the person they were replying to, as if their comment stood in contradiction.

If we are weakening the parent to just say "There exist cases of depression not caused by external problems" then they don't really contradict what they are replying to. The person they were replying to said "When you are depressed, see if there's a serious problem in your life" because they acknowledged that potential causes of and contributors to depression were numerous and heterogeneous.

When I'm debugging a program, the bug can come from lots of places. When I see a bug, I should definitely see if I'm failing to validate input. If someone told me "I completely disagree. Bugs are caused by hardware failures" I would tell them "if you are saying that all bugs are caused by hardware failures, you are simply wrong. If you're saying that some bugs are caused by hardware failures, then that in no way contradicts the wisdom of seeing whether I'm not validating my inputs".

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#354

Post by mustacheemperor »

mildbow wrote: post #322
smacktoward wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unfair. It's more like: 1986 - I feel sad. Well that's life. Kills self six weeks later In other words, it's not that people today are getting treatment for things that people in the past just knew how to live with; people today are getting treatment for things that people in the past died from. People drank themselves to death, or ODed on drugs, or put a rope around their neck, all because they couldn't calm…

What bullshit (the "I feel sad. Well that's life. Kills.. " triggered me :)) Feeling sad is part of life. Dealing with it requires practice. I think people did it a lot better before our age of needing to be happy all the time or worry something was wrong with us.

I don't really grasp how people who have only ever felt sad and have not experienced clinical depression are so quick to assume that only the former exists. Like, if you'd only ever had normal headaches and met someone with cluster headaches, would you just insist to them that their head just hurts and they need to deal with it?

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#355

Post by Jugurtha »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #52
Jugurtha wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this thing where I'll think about all the things I'll never do.. At 17, I'd go "I'll never be as good as Gauss". At 19, "Jesus, Lagrange taught at college at age 19". At 20, "Galois died at 20..Damn.." The only thing that I have going for me is that I have dissociated my emotional/psychological state and my intellectual pursuit to become smarter than I was the day before. I can work on stuff when I'm happy,…

Mozart died at 35 ... of strep.

I'm missing your point. Do you mean he was unlucky not to have lived enough, or to have died of strep? (the 'or' is a boolean 'or', not a colloquial one. i.e: not mutually exclusive).

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#356

Post by oddlyaromatic »

jpfed wrote: post #353
oddlyaromatic wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not parent, but I think I can help clarify. As goofy as it can sound: "being depressed" or in a "depressive state" can have many causes and some of them are obvious, but those states are not the disease of depression, exactly. They are serious, of course, and can be life threatening in their own right. But the distinction here is that depression can act like any other disease or illness - like, would making more frie…

That's not what the person I replied to said. They said >However, depression is a disease independent of external factors. Which sounds like "all depression is a disease independent of external factors". Further supporting this interpretation is that they "completely disagree" with the person they were replying to, as if their comment stood in contradiction. If we are weakening the parent to just say "There exist cas…

I think this is mostly about what the formal and informal definitions of being depressed are. Informally people describe depressive states, and feelings of sadness, loss of hope, desperation, and so on as "being depressed". Those feelings are awful, but if they are coherent with real circumstances like grief, or a job you hate, then those feelings are somewhat appropriate and changing circumstances should help. Depression, the disease, is not coherent with reality or circumstances. It unfortunate that the same word it's used for these related but different states.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#357

Post by jpfed »

oddlyaromatic wrote: post #356
jpfed wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the person I replied to said. They said >However, depression is a disease independent of external factors. Which sounds like "all depression is a disease independent of external factors". Further supporting this interpretation is that they "completely disagree" with the person they were replying to, as if their comment stood in contradiction. If we are weakening the parent to just say "There exist cas…

I think this is mostly about what the formal and informal definitions of being depressed are. Informally people describe depressive states, and feelings of sadness, loss of hope, desperation, and so on as "being depressed". Those feelings are awful, but if they are coherent with real circumstances like grief, or a job you hate, then those feelings are somewhat appropriate and changing circumstances should help. Depre…

>Depression, the disease, is not coherent with reality or circumstances.

Where are people getting this idea? I mean, I suppose I could accept it as a definitional exercise in the same way that I can accept the idea that "gurple" is a bluish tint of red. But if you look at, say, a recent DSM, it doesn't say that external circumstances preclude a diagnosis of depression.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#358

Post by laurex »

While I believe depression has biological contributors, it's amazing how much learning techniques to combat the mental spiral can do to help avoid depression, along with the "maintenance" of proper sleep, food, and exercise. It seems strange that learning "thinking techniques" can have such an impact on "chemical imbalance," but in my experience, anyway, practicing these techniques works better than drugs do for affecting chemically-connected depression, though that may strike you as controversial. Two things that have been helpful to me are Dr. David Burns's book Feeling Good (https://feelinggood.com/books/) and Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication methods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmHVrkdzr8A.

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#359

Post by oddlyaromatic »

jpfed wrote: post #357
oddlyaromatic wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is mostly about what the formal and informal definitions of being depressed are. Informally people describe depressive states, and feelings of sadness, loss of hope, desperation, and so on as "being depressed". Those feelings are awful, but if they are coherent with real circumstances like grief, or a job you hate, then those feelings are somewhat appropriate and changing circumstances should help. Depre…

>Depression, the disease, is not coherent with reality or circumstances. Where are people getting this idea? I mean, I suppose I could accept it as a definitional exercise in the same way that I can accept the idea that "gurple" is a bluish tint of red. But if you look at, say, a recent DSM, it doesn't say that external circumstances preclude a diagnosis of depression.

I have in my life been very closely connected to several people with depression and maybe that experience is influencing my opinion too much, I will check out some resources and diagnostic criteria, as it has been a while!

Re: When You Are Depressed, Make Something

#360

Post by Fnoord »

nulbyte wrote: post #335
kzrdude wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a chance to avoid and reduce the risk of it sounds like the same to me.

Indeed, they do sound the same. They are not. If I buy a lotto ticket, I have a chance to avoid losing. If I win, it's over. If I lose, it's over. It's only good for one drawing. However, I have some risk of cancer as long as I am alive. I may be able to do things to reduce that risk, but my chances are infinite as long as I breath. I can choose not to play the lotto, but I can't choose not to get cancer.

Let us assume the goal of a human is to 'lead a long and happy life'.

The chance you win the jackpot with Lotto is miniscule. It is basically so small, that it isn't worth the investment. You're better off not taking that chance because the risk isn't worth the reward. These games are, basically, fallacies designed to manipulate humans, tricking them into behaviour they should not [logically] resort to.

With cancer, you have genetic risks to get (certain types of) cancer, sure.

However, for example living next to a highway increases the chance you get cancer. So, not living there increases your chance of not getting cancer [at a young(er) stage of your life]. Which increases the goal of human life as we agreed upon.

So I agree they're not the same, but your example of Lotto (or similar games) I find rather bad.

I think with regards to cancer this is related to risk/reward. People take risks such as speeding, eating overburned food, or living near a highway. They feel the risk is worth the reward, and they live under the assumption they get away with it.

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