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

psychologytoday.com

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

#221

Post by sassycassie »

hexxiiiz wrote: post #122
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…

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…

good points

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

#222

Post by proverbialbunny »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #40
kbos87 wrote: post #15

This feels so obvious. 30 years from now, we might very well look back at these labels we applied to people, implying something is wrong with them for responding to their negative circumstances, and feel like we were living in the dark ages. When we see historic rises in mental disorders following an external event like the coronavirus pandemic, is it not something we should reasonably expect? I can accept that some…

I hope so, and that what we now call depression will be considered as silly a moniker as hysteria or "troubled humours" back when.

Exactly. When it comes to depression the chemical imbalance theory comes from Zoloft. It is a drug that accidentally had the side effect of reducing depression in some patients. Curious scientists wanted to figure out why, so they examined it. Turns out Zoloft boosts serotonin in the brain. This created the chemical imbalance theory, but since then study after study for decades has disproved this, yet for some sort of reason the theory stays in the mainstream.

Ibuprofen can cause an ulcer. Imagine some primitive ape sees this blood loss and assumes the blood loss is what reduces inflammation. The Zoloft serotonin study follows the same faulty logic.

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

#223

Post by [deleted] »

framecowbird wrote: post #4

I'm most surprised to learn that this _isn't_ the current prevailing view in the medical profession. I am not a doctor, but it's always seemed more natural to me to view depression and anxiety as adaptive behaviours - albeit perhaps ones that can end up being triggered too far. I read an article once (wish I could find it) that one advantage of mild depression was as sort a "call for help and support" from other embe…

[deleted]

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

#224

Post by anoncake »

maxlamb wrote: post #217
podgaj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying people with heart disease do not have a disease because they stopped eating poorly and the heart disease went away. You did have a metal disorder. You were just lucky to find the cause. The cause was job stress. I have a mental disorder that was harder to find the cause. But I did as well.

Heart disease means presence of plaque in arteries, it is physically verifiable, the plaque is physically stuck to the artery walls and is much harder to get rid of. If you are doing something that makes you unhappy because you really need the money and then as soon as you stop doing it you are happy again, I really don't see how you can define this period of unhappiness as a mental disease.

Depression is not just being unhappy.

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

#225

Post by zepto »

least wrote: post #220
zepto wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about normalizing abnormality? If by abnormality, you mean traits that are far from the center of a population normal distribution, then I agree that this is essential information for a person to have about themselves. Nobody is encouraging people to think they aren’t different from the norm, when they in fact are. Abnormal, disordered, or diseased are very different things, and should not be confus…

> Who said anything about normalizing abnormality? It's implicit in the original comment i responded to. > If by abnormality, you mean traits that are far from the center of a population normal distribution, then I agree that this is essential information for a person to have about themselves. Nobody is encouraging people to think they aren’t different from the norm, when they in fact are. People are encourage others…

You seem to be someone who has a very deep trust in medicine and in particular psychiatry to produce good outcomes for people.

I can respect that difference of opinion.

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

#226

Post by [deleted] »

framecowbird wrote: post #4

I'm most surprised to learn that this _isn't_ the current prevailing view in the medical profession. I am not a doctor, but it's always seemed more natural to me to view depression and anxiety as adaptive behaviours - albeit perhaps ones that can end up being triggered too far. I read an article once (wish I could find it) that one advantage of mild depression was as sort a "call for help and support" from other embe…

[deleted]

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

#228

Post by proverbialbunny »

podgaj wrote: post #72
leto_ii wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You did have a metal disorder. You were just lucky to find the cause. The cause was job stress. You could phrase it that way, but the fact remains that for me, I feel, there was an objective external cause to my unhappiness. It wasn't a spontaneous and inexplicable 'chemical imbalance in the brain'. It was a reasonable reaction to a shitty life experience. > I have a mental disorder that was harder to find the caus…

But you see, I was hospitalized several times for my mood disorder. I have come to find out that there was an objective external cause of that as well. The problem is not with the psychiatric "cures", the problem is the psychiatrists. It took a test to LOOK at my brain chemistry form them to see what was going on with me. It took 25 years of convincing them to give me the test. THAt is the disorder. Shitty life exper…

>Shitty life experiences, and almost every environmental input, will affect chemicals in our brain and body.

I think that is a key point many people fail to see. Our present moment (including our thoughts and beliefs in the present moment) determine what chemicals get released in the brain.

Calling something a chemical disorder is overlooking correlation is not causation. (That does not imply pills can not be helpful and should not be considered.)

Did you end up finding a cure on your end? What was it?

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

#229

Post by least »

zepto wrote: post #225
least wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who said anything about normalizing abnormality? It's implicit in the original comment i responded to. > If by abnormality, you mean traits that are far from the center of a population normal distribution, then I agree that this is essential information for a person to have about themselves. Nobody is encouraging people to think they aren’t different from the norm, when they in fact are. People are encourage others…

You seem to be someone who has a very deep trust in medicine and in particular psychiatry to produce good outcomes for people. I can respect that difference of opinion.

I don't have a particularly deep trust in either medicine or psychiatry. My personal experiences with dealing with humans in either has been largely negative. That said, I largely attribute that to the people i've interacted with and not with medicine in general.

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

#230

Post by burkaman »

xhrpost wrote: post #212
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…

Interesting counterpoint, but if you don't make changes then, aren't you just trying harder at the same thing every day, expecting different results? I guess I sympathize with OP as "try harder tomorrow" just hasn't seemed to work for me. What is it you're suggesting if stop and rest is actually the wrong thing to do?

I think it's different for everyone, but therapy and/or drugs are often effective when your own efforts aren't enough. "Stop and rest" is not the wrong thing to do though, it just might not help.
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