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Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
181–190 of 281 posts
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#182The comments here are depressing. People who are actually depressed are saying that the author is completely wrong about their depression, while others with no experience of depression are nitpicking at them with for what passes for logic on the internet. The truth is, this PhD is not a psychiatrist, appears to have little clinical experience except whatever his "practice" has thrown his way, and, tellingly, refers t…
I have a close family member that suffers from treatment-resistant rapid cycling depression. Basically, throughout the year, she cycles from hypomania to normal to depression. And there's no real/consistent trigger for these episodes. There's a history of bipolar disorder in the family, so clearly it's genetic.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right on. Most people with actual depression are rarely able to visit a doctor, let alone survive the hoop jumping required to see a psychiatrist, yet alone get a referral for a psychologist, yet alone participate in a study. Frankly, I doubt there has ever been a study ever done on depression where the majority of participants actually had it. It is simply not realistic. You'd have more luck getting a paraplegic int…
Perhaps there are some who exaggerate. But I wonder how many people who never experienced life-altering depression would be interested in this thread, and how many people who did would follow it. My intuition says the second number is bigger and that generally speaking, most people here have had experience with either meds, therapy, or untreated life-altering depression.
Everyone likes to think they've had depression. It's the human struggle -- only it's not. It is the inability for neurons to recover from stress. Most people are able to recover. People with depression are not. Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people fall back to high school level psychology. Amazing how psychologists, too, are somehow exempt from paying attention to the state of neuroscience. Psychology is to neuroscience what philosophy is to physics. Only psychology has done a lot more damage. Nice to see that meta study after meta study is slow debunking all those years of phony studies. Meanwhile they wine and rage and refuse to go back to university, and instead take to the blogs and snake oil. It makes me sick.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps there are some who exaggerate. But I wonder how many people who never experienced life-altering depression would be interested in this thread, and how many people who did would follow it. My intuition says the second number is bigger and that generally speaking, most people here have had experience with either meds, therapy, or untreated life-altering depression.
Everyone likes to think they've had depression. It's the human struggle -- only it's not. It is the inability for neurons to recover from stress. Most people are able to recover. People with depression are not. Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people…
> Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people fall back to high school level psychology. Amazing how psychologists, too, are somehow exempt from paying attention to the state of neuroscience.
I realize there are different levels of grief and depression.
I'm saying, there are people in this thread who were clinically diagnosed, dealt with depression for years, and have stories about that. Some had bad experiences with meds. We should not discard the experiences of these people simply because there are some people out there who mistakenly think they've experienced depression. The fact is, many of the people in this thread have. Patients don't need to understand all of neuroscience. They can still share their experiences.
> Meanwhile they wine and rage and refuse to go back to university, and instead take to the blogs and snake oil. It makes me sick.
There is recent research that suggests some meds can cause harmful manic behavior. This is not to be ignored either.
Other people have a right to share their opinion. You have the right to feel sick about it. One of these is under your control, perhaps with the help of a friend or therapist. The other is definitely out of your control.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are suicidal ideation/attempts and 'successful' suicides explained by this hypothesis?
As I read this, its not a hypothesis, nor is it a theory. Its just a long value statement about how to think about what's going on. You can accept or ignore this, and it won't change the science at all.
Fantastic comment. Medical history is replete with quack-theories and charlatans offering various cures. Blood-letting to balance the body's "humours" for example.
The wonderful thing about scientific progress is that it shrinks the space quacks and charlatans have to peddle their pet theories and cures.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#186[deleted]
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#187Has anybody here had any success with applying Alexander Technique for treating depression and/or anxiety? I'm asking this because I suspect that many technology workers are using wrong posture while sitting behind the computer (and most start this bad practice at a young age, including myself). I have recently started forcing myself into a better posture and I must say that I'm feeling much better. Of course, perhaps this is just a coincidence, so I'm wondering about any other experiences.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#188The comments here are depressing. People who are actually depressed are saying that the author is completely wrong about their depression, while others with no experience of depression are nitpicking at them with for what passes for logic on the internet. The truth is, this PhD is not a psychiatrist, appears to have little clinical experience except whatever his "practice" has thrown his way, and, tellingly, refers t…
Indeed. Speaking as a sufferer of a serious depressive disorder, one well educated on the current medical science, I find these discussions incredibly frustrating. Everyone brings out their anecdotes about how their aunt 'just got better through positive thinking, and you can too!' Or people just throw in whatever pop-psychology is currently in fashion. If we were having this conversation in the 1950s, all the smarty…
At the risk of sounding snarky or disrespectful, I can't fail to notice how often people suffering from depression become all passionate and fiery when discussing the cause of (their) depression.
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone likes to think they've had depression. It's the human struggle -- only it's not. It is the inability for neurons to recover from stress. Most people are able to recover. People with depression are not. Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people…
> Everyone who is a human being, who has gone through grief, may entertain the idea they've had depression, and may follow this thread, but very few both to pay attention to the state of the art. Instead people fall back to high school level psychology. Amazing how psychologists, too, are somehow exempt from paying attention to the state of neuroscience. I realize there are different levels of grief and depression. I…
Everyone has the right to share opinions.
Unfortunately the diagnosis of depression has been down to opinion also. Not an opinion informed by understanding, but by criteria of a disease no one yet fully understands, concocted by a bunch of cocaine snorting pompous bullshit artists (too far?).
Being diagnosed means a doctor listened to you describing a bunch of feelings and looked up a checklist, and matched some of those words you said to the checklist, and presto! Depression! Have a pill, be on your way.
And if you speak out against psychology then it's all explained by anti authoritarianism, and they put you in with the jews, and the gays, and the anarchists. Yes, homosexuality, and anti-authoritarianism were once recently on the checklist. You can't win. Complete gaslight tactics.
Please understand, I'm not having an argument here, I'm venting some rage, big time. Nothing personal. Some of us have been through the ringer by bastards like the writer of that article. Well meaning bastards. True nurse ratchett evil bastard ..... has aneurysm
Re: Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
each year 19,000 americans die from prescription opioid overdoses and another 10,000 die from heroin overdoses which often start with prescription opioid use. In my experience (as an anaesthesiologist), people who use opioids as a response to non-pain problems are some of the most miserable people there are. It might work for a couple of weeks, but soon you're tolerant, addicted, intermittently withdrawing and your l…
Saying that prescription opioid use is a cause of heroin overdoses ignores the fact that the reason people move to heroin is because of the paranoia about addiction which causes their prescriptions to be cut off in the first place. In the same vein (no pun intended) I've been looking for stats but not being able to find anything about what percentage of prescription opioid overdoses occur while the patient is being a…
> that the reason people move to heroin is because of the paranoia about addiction which causes their prescriptions to be cut off in the first place
Well it seems they are right, if people will move to an illegal substance right after they get cut from it