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

psychologytoday.com

241–250 of 272 posts

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

#241
post #235
post #158

Out of necessity (after existing conventional treatments offered little help) I've been conducting a 10+ year self-experiment related to this topic. Like others have described, when I started experiencing symptoms of conditions resembling anxiety, depression, ADHD, mild bipolar, paranoia and CFS/ME, I initially sought mainstream medical psychiatric treatment and undertook talk therapy and was prescribed anti-anxiety…

This is known as psychodynamic therapy for others who want a name for it. There are therapists that specialize in it. I must warn you its a very long type of therapy with a lot of sessions, so it will cost you $$$. Also some people use it as a weekly whining session for years and never get anywhere with it, so please go into it trying to get results.

> Also some people use it as a weekly whining session for years and never get anywhere with it, so please go into it trying to get results.

A bit harshly formulated, but I agree. I've seen people being quite aimless in their therapy. I'd recommend becoming an expert on your own condition.

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

#242
post #132
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. But the signal is still the disorder that needs to be fixed. Any psychiatrist will tell you that psychiatric medications only treat the symptoms of mood disorders and that they do not know the cause of most of them. It is hogwash that they think mood disorders are "only chemical imbalances in the brain". They know these disorders are polygenic and environmental. But for some people, a short dose of SSR…

Amphetamines have shown some promising results in actually curing depression. There is a vicious cycle of depression where the anhedonia and lack of motivation cause the sufferer to allow the underlying causes to get even worse leading to deeper depression. Amphetamines can help break that cycle and ideally even start a virtuous cycle where their use can be tapered and eventually discontinued. It's vitally important…

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

#243
So much of what we think is knowledge is actually just a construct to allow someone to make some money. You cant make billions of dollars selling pills through educational reform. Carbs have a longer shelf-life, high profit margin and are hunger inducing so fat was demonised. Recycling doesnt work because its not cost effective but the plastics industry pushes it to shift responsibility away allowing them to fill our world with garbage. You cant make money with treatments out of patent so meds like chloroquine are demonised with cherry-picked research. We are swimming in an ocean of garbage presented to us as fact.

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

#244
post #132
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. But the signal is still the disorder that needs to be fixed. Any psychiatrist will tell you that psychiatric medications only treat the symptoms of mood disorders and that they do not know the cause of most of them. It is hogwash that they think mood disorders are "only chemical imbalances in the brain". They know these disorders are polygenic and environmental. But for some people, a short dose of SSR…

Amphetamines have shown some promising results in actually curing depression. There is a vicious cycle of depression where the anhedonia and lack of motivation cause the sufferer to allow the underlying causes to get even worse leading to deeper depression. Amphetamines can help break that cycle and ideally even start a virtuous cycle where their use can be tapered and eventually discontinued. It's vitally important…

> However used improperly it can end in amphetamine addiction or even psychosis.

Someone I know managed to do that, despite being on intramuscular antipsychotics. Unfortunately no middle ground, the meds keep him anhedonic and abulic, but without them it's mania. I would be careful with stimulants.

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

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” -- E. Cioran The trouble with "death means salvation", and believe me I know that yearning, is that you don't get to experience this salvation. Suicide is literally not the answer, because you will never get to experience the relief on the other end. This is the essence of Cioran's quote here. It would have been better to not e…

Believe me, I know what it is to suffer. But even though I lean against suicide strongly since I've lived the whole "if you're going through hell keep going" thing, and the relief when the (years long) suffering is over is immense. However, I struggle with things like a suicide pill given to air force pilots. Would it be better to be tortured for years? To have your family knowing that your fingernails got ripped out…

> However, I struggle with things like a suicide pill given to air force pilots.

it does raise an interesting, if morbid question. personally, I think it is fine for someone to kill themselves (or receive assistance in doing so) if they are facing a near certainty of terrible suffering for the rest of their life. the tricky part is the "certainty" bit. many people experience varying degrees of suffering at some point in their lives, but it is uncommon for it to persist throughout their entire lives.

if you are interested in a way to sidestep this specific question, I would point out that the pills are not only for the benefit of the pilots. the measure is also to protect others who might be harmed by information divulged under interrogation.

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Can you give an example, personal or otherwise?

This is not an anonymous nickname, so I wouldn't be able to give you an honest and full answer.

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Trauma of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller is probably a good read to throw in here if this is the direction you're looking to explore - especially if you can get an early edition that hasn't been watered down. Some of her perspectives into experiences as a child that are commonly accepted as "normal" but are often experienced by the child as trauma and grow into dysfunction as adults were interesting.

Is it "Trauma" or "Drama"? The version I'm seeing on Amazon is "The Drama of the Gifted Child". ETA: I found this interesting, too - the author's own child wrote a book about his negative childhood experiences: https://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-mother-dearest-1...

It's "Drama"

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

#249
post #105

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Different treatments affect different people differently. This isn't particularly controversial, but the layman suggesting that they know better than scientists/doctors is kind of dangerous. There is of course room to be skeptical and ultimately you know what's going on better in your head than anyone else does, but that's not really actionable across an entire population of people suffering from something similar to…

There is a problem with how we diagnosis illness today. We diagnose off of symptoms and symptoms only. The reason this is a problem is there can be multiple different things that cause identical or nearly identical symptoms. Today we think of those multiple things as one, but they're not one thing, they're different things. If they were the same, they would have the same cure. Parent knows he has a BH4 deficiency. In…

This doesn't deviate from what I said at all.

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

#250
post #126
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with what it’s like to have depression? It’s not something you can really ever get rid of, even if you can mitigate it with medication and lifestyle changes. It’s there, though not dominant, even when things are going well and even when you’re in a positive mood. I struggle with similar feelings, and the idea that depression becomes something that is there but can be put to positive use absolutely tr…

Please read my other posts. I have a 35 year history of hospitalizations for both manic and depressive episodes and I have attempted suicide twice. I have lived with 9 month long depressions where all I could do was watch cartoons and not enough energy to even brush my teeth. If one cannot get rid of depression then one cannot get rid of heart disease or cancer.

Have you been tested for lyme's disease regarding the lack of energy?
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