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Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

psychologytoday.com

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Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#101

Post by user1999289 »

rifung wrote: post #24
jonny1090231 wrote: post #14

I have been suffering depression for long time and can tell you right now that this article is as wrong in describing how I feel as one could get it. Regardless of how my need are taken care of and how satisfied I should be with the status quo depression takes it all away from you without you understanding why and how. There are days that I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world, technically speaking, yet I fee…

I don't really understand how any part of what you said refutes the article. > There are days that I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world, technically speaking The reality is that each person's needs are different, and just because you are the luckiest man in the world based off society's values doesn't mean your individual needs are being met. I sympathize with the fact that you have depression but I don't r…

(1) Nowhere in the responses did the author mention medication as a cure to his depression. (2) I can't understand how someone who has not been suffering from depression can make judgements on what it is and how to cure it. It's like saying that drug-addiction is just a matter of will power and given proper motivation anyone can quit on their own accord, where the truth lies somewhere in the middle, for some it can be very easy, for others it is a life-long battle.

I have had a clinically diagnosed depression for some time and I can tell you that regardless of how I feel on the logical level i.e. all my needs are met and as the author said I do feel like I am the luckiest guy on earth, I can still be very depressed. I don't agree with the statement that in all cases depression is a disease but in some, particularly the more severe ones, the only way to lead a normal life is through medicating and therapy. There is no underlying issues...just depression as the actual disorder.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#102

Post by yarou »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #77
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this explain the higher rate of suicidal ideation/actions in depressed adolescents who are at their biological prime for reproduction?

I don't know. Except maybe that biologically they're supposed to have children instead of sitting in school and waiting for marriage, home and a job.

No idea what this means if you're a male. Males are fertile forever basically, so there isn't some "optimal" age to have offspring.

By your logic, males should be continuously fathering offspring throughout their lives, as soon as they reach puberty.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#104

Post by Fordrus »

danharaj wrote: post #94
Fordrus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me just take a moment to register monumentally huge agreement with your modification of the the metaphor at hand. The problem here is that huge numbers of other people are living in almost exactly the same circumstances - or ones that are objectively worse - and they register no depression . And here, by objectively worse, we're talking, risk their lives daily on a shoestring lifestyle that barely keeps them from…

Different people have different needs. There is no standard for what an awesome life is. Having an awesome life in some ways can still be miserable in other ways, and only for particular people. An "fantastic life" where one is depressed is not fantastic. Psychological diversity is a precious resource, and a society that is too inflexible to accommodate those who are particularly sensitive or have exceptionally diffe…

No, I don't think it's a straw man at all, I think it's absolutely correct in the sense that severe depression at a clinical level virtually precludes people just "figuring out what they're missing" or excising the things that suck from it - it will feel literally the same as when people assert that those suffering depression need to "buck up and face life." I'm saying that your assertion that it might be a strawman is indicative of a deep, insidious skew to your worldview on the matter - seriously.

I think this is all excellent advice for healthy people who have NOT fallen into clinical-level depression, but once depression has asserted itself, this immediately becomes horrible advice that, similar to "just get over it," encourages those who are depressed to take the most direct route to relief of their symptoms (suicide).

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#105

Post by [deleted] »

pc2g4d wrote: post #19

Amen 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…

[deleted]

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#106

Post by ross-life »

retbull wrote: post #48
themgt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the perspective, and ditto. It sounds condescending, and obviously physical brain damage (e.g. CTE) can cause depression completely separately from life circumstances, but I would venture that for a majority of people who say "My life is just fine but I am depressed anyway", their life is not actually fine. It's not even that they are lying, but we humans are very good at hiding truths, even from ourselves…

But drugs are awesome :D Seriously though, compared to being depressed when you can't fix it because you don't have any idea that something is wrong, drugs are fucking amazing. The shitty part is people end up trapped now as the drugs can fuel the negativity which lead to the depression in the first place.

But drugs are awesome :D

Completely depends on the drug, person and context.

The painkillers when I dislocated my shoulder and they had to reset it? Wonderful.

The antidepressants that after several weeks (so once they'd started "working properly"), made me feel "not unhappy" but like a robot and then also gave me vivid, real nightmares in which I died horribly over and over again? Not so great...

I'd never touch antidepressants ever again. For some people they do work, but for others they don't. Yet we still push them on everyone.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#107

Post by Dylan16807 »

danharaj wrote: post #92
Dylan16807 wrote: post #61

Earlier 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…

> My experience with SSRI's has been that taking away that mechanism is taking away creativity, emotional range, and introspective ability.

I'm not talking about SSRI's, I mean a theoretical way of removing only depression and the similar kinds of chronic anxiety. You can be very creative and introspective without being actively depressed.

> Reality distortion is reality distortion.

It's depression that distorts reality, even to the point of making you feel negative emotions that you know aren't true but can't stop.

> I reject procrustean medicine that fits humans to the mold of what is best for society, which is the primary environment in which anxiety/depression originate.

That's great. Me too. But that's really a different issue. You could fix that entirely, and you'd still have people hurt by depression.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#108

Post by chillwaves »

haberman wrote: post #52
tbirdz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From a purely mathematical perspective, how would evolution ever select for a trait that causes someone to destroy themselves for the benefit of others? It seems like any characteristic that prevents the individual from reproducing is by definition not selected for. But I could be misunderstanding something. Maybe it could work in the case of people who are already parents. Favoring the group could increase the likel…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#109

Post by Domenic_S »

graycat wrote: post #99
Domenic_S wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you misunderstood the Chief; CBT is the gold standard for treating anxiety-related disorders. See this meta-analysis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263389/

Naw, I understood the Chief. I followed your link to that paper -- sure, CBT , once unwind the acronym, sounds fine. That's what I thought would work on the patient in my family (by marriage, not by birth). But CBT didn't work. Not even a little, not a chance. And the patient was just awash in cognitive ability -- brilliant, actually. Or, maybe the brilliance caused seeing more threats and, thus, more anxiety. The us…

I'm sorry to hear that story. I hope this doesn't come off cruel because it isn't meant to be, but there are always outliers -- people for whom the gold standard, or any standard, just doesn't work. It's not a good idea to dismiss a well-studied treatment universally shown to be effective because we don't know if it'll work in a specific case. It's important not to anchor a patient -- already living on the edge -- with thoughts that 'maybe this isn't going to work for me'. On average, most people are average.

What we do know is that CBT is exceptionally good at handling most cases. No single treatment (for any disorder) works equally well/at all for all patients, but of course medicine is concerned with helping the largest population efficiently.

I hope one day we understand the brain better, to the point that people like your relative don't have to suffer anymore.

Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

#110

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

DanBC wrote: post #13
jolux wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you mean unsubstantiated? If you mean it's less than certain than sure, but SSRIs and SNRIs and NaSSAs and such improve depression greatly for many patients. That at least says something about serotonin levels in patients with depression.

Depression is different for different people. It's an umbrella term that captures many different types of illness. Anti depressants do work very well for some people; not so well for others; and not at all for others. Some people may have to try different meds. We know there's a genetic factor with effectiveness too. But it's useful to have other approaches to treatment, and that's where the good psychologists come i…

Indeed. It blows my mind sometimes how much people, including people who really ought to know better, grasp at the ideal of having the One True Explanation and One True Treatment for depression. It's not even just the division between biological and psychosocial approaches; I've seen some very troubling, almost childish bickering among adherents of various psychotherapeutic schools (some of the more esoteric and old-school types denounce CBT in much the same terms that they denounce drugs), and have learned the hard way that if I ever hear my psychiatrist tell me that something is "a really good drug", I need a new psychiatrist.
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