Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study • Hacker News Board

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#141

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #128

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You see, depression is fundamentally and immune disorder. That's a lot of certainty for something that is still very much uncertain. > By the way, why don't people get SSRI's when they are depressed with a flu? Because that's a short term, acute condition that will get better on its own? That's the same as saying "People in the hospital who can't breath are given oxygen, so why aren't runners who are breathing hard…

More certain than ever actually: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266635462... Regarding oxygen use during running, it is already something: https://trainright.com/hyperoxic-training-little-know-traini...

As best I can tell there's not implication of causation there - it could be that depression causes the immune disorder, just as it causes any other number of conditions. I don't know the value in assuming we can categorize it like that.

I assume with the oxygen thing you're intentionally missing my point which is that a regular momentary disruption isn't considered a disorder.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#142

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

holidayacct wrote: post #90

Anxiety is a disorder of the nervous system that is a by-product of civilization. We are one of the only mammals that gets anxiety, if you get anxiety in the wild you won't be alive much longer. Depression and PTSD are not responses to adversity. If you face adversity and suffer depression or PTSD you were raised psychologically weak in a way that is dangerous to you. There are people who have survived civil wars, dr…

Addressing only one of your dubious points, there is a considerable scientific literature on anxiety response in animals.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=anxiety%20response%20an...

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#143

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

b0rsuk wrote: post #11

frereubu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I learned during my psychology degrees that always stuck with me was that mildly depressed people are measurably better at judging probabilities of things happening. (Unfortunately I can't remember off the top of my head the structure of the study, or how much better they were). I wonder if that might fit into this, in that if you're mildly depressed presumably bad things are happening to you, so perha…

I remember reading an article like that. Also, it's a bit of a meme that if depression was 100% harmful then it would already be eliminated by evolution. I mean why shouldn't people prone to depression die off? Don't make a mistake, I'm still working on improving my life and uncovering the root causes. It is a silent thief of life.

Evolution does not and cannot give a shit about you is why really. Elimination by evolution requires it to be both utterly nonviable and not tied to anything else. Look at sickle cell anemia - one copy protects against malaria via mild blood cell deformation. Two makes them concave.

There are plenty of non-optimal things kept around because there isn't sufficient pressure to ensure it dies out.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#144

Post by bluntfang » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

nverno wrote: post #134

bluntfang wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For instance I bet a great swathe of the unemployed would not be depressed if they had a job. I think this is worth a rephrase. Something like: I bet a great swathe of people wouldn't be depressed if they didn't have to trade their time for food and housing tokens.

That is an unconvincing rephrasing though. The benefits of hard (rewarding?) work to mental health seem obvious [to me subjectively ofc]

It seems you're equating the requirement for a job with hard and rewarding work. What makes you think people won't do hard or rewarding work without the forced incentive of housing? What makes you think most people are doing "hard" and "rewarding" work at their jobs?

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#145

Post by least » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #130

slothtrop wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the layman suggesting that they know better than scientists/doctors is kind of dangerous That's a strawman.

Thank you. Yes, a strawman and so frustrating since I literally have the metabolic and genetic proof that I found out what was causing my mood disorder. And as a result the doctors are providing better and different treatment. This what this "layman" discovered.

Do you or don't you have a disorder? In the first post you made in this thread you very clearly stated you don't. Now you're saying you do.

The problem with your post is that you very discretely stated that you don't have a disorder even though you admit to being bipolar. Despite the fact that your "difference" has pushed you to suicide attempts, psychosis, and more. The fact that an effective treatment for you specifically was a low protein diet (which by your own admission still didn't remove the requirement for medication) doesn't make it not a disorder.

The attitude is dangerous because you are spreading misinformation about something you are suffering from, which in turn can result in someone else being harmed.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#146

Post by JimTheMan » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #107

JimTheMan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people just need to realise that depression is going to come from when the stressors in our environment overwhelm our ability to cope. It's not just something that arises from out of nowhere for most people. For instance I bet a great swathe of the unemployed would not be depressed if they had a job. Sounds like you were able to adapt and start doing things that would reduce your stressors. However I don't th…

>For instance I bet a great swathe of the unemployed would not be depressed if they had a job. I think this is worth a rephrase. Something like: I bet a great swathe of people wouldn't be depressed if they didn't have to trade their time for food and housing tokens.

I suppose I am speaking from experience. I feel no financial pressure but am greatly unhappy after being made redundant. Work gave me purpose that is hard to replace.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#147

Post by texasbigdata » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

slfnflctd wrote: post #52

At first I viewed the depression I started fighting in my teens as a scourge, a defect, something broken to be fixed. I have since come to see it as an important signal. When I am managing my life and mental states well, it often fades into the background. When it starts to flare up, like with some kind of physical pain, that's telling me I need to pay attention and change things up a bit. Furthermore - and perhaps m…

Very good book, “the Depths” about depression. It argues it’s partially an evolutionary response.

Also “quiet” by Susan Cain is even more excellent and insightful about introverts.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#148

Post by wittyreference » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #109

wittyreference wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largely because articles like this generally focus on what I think of as “layman’s depression”, or “layman’s anxiety.” That is, a mild form of the condition that straddles the gray area between “personality” and “mild personality disorder,” that diminishes quality of life in a perceptible but not devastating way. Then you go work on a psych floor and meet people whose depression is so severe it induces catatonia; peo…

Interpreting that as “an adaptive response” is ridiculous. An adaptive response “taken too far”, on the other hand, is the very definition of wide swaths of disease - autoimmune, cancer, etc. These two statements don't add up for me. If you do accept that various autoimmune disorders and cancers are essentially adaptive responses taken too far, then why can't depression similarly be considered the same? Or is your po…

Sorry, your question is fair -- let me elaborate:

I feel the OP puts forward two statements, categorizing depression as "adaptive", or "adaptive response taken too far." I wish to address each of these separately.

Having seen what these maladies do, I believe that categorizing them as "adaptive" is a position that can only be borne from "have never seen these diseases in their full spectrum, largely responding to mild, layman's-presented versions of them."

Separately, addressing the concept of them being "adaptive responses being taken too far," I find essentially tautological. Give me a little leeway to oversimplify when I say that there are two broad categories of disease: exogenous (trauma, infection - things done to us by the external environment) and endogenous (things that occur from dysregulation of human physiology).

((Aside: the above is, like all models, wrong. There are interactions and predispositions between biology, exposure, etc. I aim to use the above to illustrate a point about "adaptive response gone too far", not to overlook the full biopsychosocial model of disease.))

Calling a non-exogenous disease "an adaptive response taken too far" is a tautology. All human physiology arises from homeostasis - it's all "adaptive" in purpose, if not in effect. So all endogenous disease can be described as "adaptive response that is acting maladaptively."

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#149

Post by johnnujler » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

It took humans thousands of years to adapt to the side-effects of the agricultural(Neolithic) revolution (https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mist...). I think we are in a similar situation—psychological revolution?—where the side-effects due to social media, globalization, and other related phenomenons are starting to change the landscape. My guess is we will soon see that the plateau we have attained in the form of psychological disorders will slowly fade away in couple more generations as people start adapting to this kind of stress. Maybe our generation is evolution's transition point? At least I hope that it is, I've never seen this at this level of intensity with my grandparents'/parents' generation and I do not want to see this with the next generation.

Re: Anxiety, depression, and PTSD may be adaptive responses to adversity: study

#150

Post by derefr » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #137

hexxiiiz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may make sense for you in particular, but it a lot of people the signal provided by depression is distinct in its persistent alarm about something that isn't really in the present. Listening to the signal and stopping to take stock of it and make changes is often what makes depression so paralyzing, since it is characteristic of it that this doesnt help. Depression for most people is that "stop, stop, rest" happ…

> about something that isn't really in the present Or is it? Therapy, especially gestalt or existential, often makes people realise that something really is off with their outlook on life, relationships with other people or other things like this — something that they had paid no attention to and perceived as "normal", that really wasn't. And in the end, what started as their fight against depression ended up as work…

For some people, these diseases (depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, intermittent explosive disorder, etc.) are lifelong maladies present from birth; where even if the disease only “showed up” later on, it is known from the person’s genetics/neuroanatomy/etc. that it was inevitable for this person to get them, eventually, regardless of environment or lifestyle.

Such cases are no more adaptive than Cystic Fibrosis is adaptive. They’re malfunctions.