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A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#101

Post by luckylion »

presiozo wrote: post #27

I wonder what's the correlation between this and people being underpaid. I'm fortunate enough to have my own house after graduation so I don't have to pay rent. But I have friends that don't have this luxury and man, they are struggling. Besides eating and rent they can't afford anything else in a month. No question here what's giving them these feelings

I don't know whether there's a large correlation, but I believe it would mostly be in the severity of outcomes. Depression isn't "because life is hard", but life being hard makes dealing with depression harder than life being easy.

I know people who are very wealthy who struggle with depression, I know people who are very wealthy who don't even really understand the term because they've never experienced anything remotely close. And I know both types who are not wealthy at all. From my personal experience, money doesn't matter in that regard. But it's definitely better to struggle with depression without the added stress of keeping up with the bills, and when you've gotten through it, you're having a good life if you've been rich before, and you're going to have to pick up the pieces and try to glue them back together if you haven't.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#102

Post by orwin »

username90 wrote: post #70
samvher wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compare Sweden to the other Scandinavian countries (which is the most suitable comparison considering population distribution and habits) the light measures actually seem to have resulted in a much higher prevalence. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/sweden-co...

Yes, but not catastrophic prevalence. The question was whether not locking down things like schools would result in much higher deaths than we currently see in for example England or New York. The answer is no, not necessarily.

Targeted lockdown was a good idea in the context (not that much different clusters).

Sweden was since the beginning at the place where France will be next week, but Sweden did not have the Mulhouse cluster that crippled multiple hospitals in eastern France.

Many thanks to Switzerland and Germany for helping us saving a dozen patients by the way.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#103

Post by ithkuil »

jobigoud wrote: post #33
tayo42 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick google search says that not true its a bit higher for the us. Its also bimodal https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-bir... Edit: I actually think i confused my self with the age of first birth and age of parents, ignore that first line

The grand parent comment probably made the same mistake because there isn't any country where the mean mother age at first birth is 32 or 33, that is, 6 years more than US 26.3 or 26.9 (depending on sources).

Yes, indeed I took the average age of the mother of any birth and not the average age for the birth of the First child.

Official Italian ISTAT report for claims 31.1 for mother age at first birth. Still significantly higher than US fwiw.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#104

Post by crocodiletears »

pjc50 wrote: post #59
crocodiletears wrote: post #49

The nation's been psychologically wrong-footed during an election year where the incumbent is the most controversial president in decades (one who's been impeached, even), the challenging party's primary process has been subjected to accusations of corruption and favoritism (at best) by the presumed nominee's opposition, and been riddled with suspicious errors. That alone would be a memorable storm and a half for our…

And there's a global pandemic on and people are stuck inside.

Wait, that too? Woof. Not great.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#105

Post by luckylion »

fermienrico wrote: post #36
logicslave wrote: post #6

I'm telling you, the elite of this country in the 90s and the early 2000s sold this whole country up the creek. Both sides of the political spectrum pushed ultra capitalist policies and broke the common fabric of America. All meaningful blue collar work was outsourced, large swaths of intelligent highly competitive workers insourced from other countries, artificial boosting of financial assets, etc. The old America i…

Not just America, but all nations have decided that let's gut out the local manufacturing of goods, allow complete exploitation of labor in one country and then reap the benefits. Now there is only one place that knows how to make stuff. Executives benefited tremendously at the expense of their homeplace. This way the entire fabric of the country tears apart and gets so tangled that voices of reason, science, truth a…

> The state of democracy is in danger. From top-bottom to left-right, the entire nation is dividing and these troughs will not be easily coalesced.

Divide et impera. But it doesn't even have to be a conspiracy and "class warfare", it seems that "enemy action" is hard to tell apart from "we've just let things happen and this is what happened".

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#106

Post by kenneth »

rumanator wrote: post #20
username90 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A young person is building their life, lockdown is preventing them from doing that. For example a person looking to build a family will miss out on a few months they could find a partner, and the fertility clock is ticking

> A young person is building their life, lockdown is preventing them from doing that. I find this comment utterly mind boggling. The US's stay at home orders were issued when? Mid to end of March? That makes it what? About 1 month? Are we supposed to believe that "young people" suddenly get into a tail spin because they have to endure a whole month of not finding a partner, get to know each other, make life plans, an…

14-20% unemployment in the matter of months is normal, then?

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#108

Post by pjc50 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #83
luckylion wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to emphasize especially that it's okay to take medication. It's not "cheating", you're not going to get graded at the end on how you beat the depressive episode. They're far from perfect and you may have to try multiple times to find one that's working for you. I know how uncomfortable it can be to get off of SSRIs (brain zaps aren't fun at all!), but imho even considering them as part of the package, it still…

But keep in mind antidepressants aren't a panacea and can even make things worse. My girlfriend has tried medication like antidepressants and anti conception, but basically anything that changes her brain chemistry sent her spiraling down even more. Turns out she has ADHD and that class of medication is much better at stabilizing her mood.

The prescription system for these things is very .. unscientific? Because there's no good diagnostics other than asking the patient questions about how they feel. So it ends up like the optician's "can you see better with this or this?" except the minimum timetable for most of the medications is several months to "try".

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#109

Post by henriquez »

qqj wrote: post #98
Pfhreak wrote: post #12

I've dealt with depression and anxiety for many years. I just want to tell anyone who happens to read this: it's ok to ask for help, it's ok to go to therapy, it's ok to use antidepressants. Find the tools that work for you and keep asking for help when you need it. (Believe me, I know how hard it is.)

I would caution against using any sort of chemicals, try to exhaust all other options first. You don't want the sort of problem where you feel unlike your own self without some substance, not to mention that most of them basically reduce you to a zombie. Sleepwalking through life isn't my idea of living.

I think this is an unfair characterization and borderline misinformation. Medication can be net positive given severe symptoms. Every person is different, and medication for psychological issues should not be a first line of defense, but it can be helpful and potentially life saving.

When you make a blanket statement like “medication will turn you into a zombie”, not only are you wrong, but you could be turning people away from a potentially life saving treatment.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#110

Post by himinlomax »

spicyramen wrote: post #37
Pfhreak wrote: post #12

I've dealt with depression and anxiety for many years. I just want to tell anyone who happens to read this: it's ok to ask for help, it's ok to go to therapy, it's ok to use antidepressants. Find the tools that work for you and keep asking for help when you need it. (Believe me, I know how hard it is.)

Isn't antidepressants in America one of the reasons of the opioid crisis...?

Antidepressants have nothing to do with opioids. Almost none of those who are still on the market even have the slightest addictive potential. In fact, even products which only had very minor such potential have been withdrawn, even though they were much milder than drugs on the market such as benzos or opioids.

Also note that opioids are depressants, though that is not an antonym for antidepressant.

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