I Thought Depression Was A Myth....

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
21

I understand depression. The point you clowns seem to have lost on you is this:

Depression can exist without wanting to kill yourself. People can have massive depression without WANTING TO END IT.

There may be a statistical relationship between depression and suicide, it is not an exactly linear path that ALWAYS means that someone commiting suicide was MORE DEPRESSED, it means they didn’t WANT to live ANYMORE.

If you’re on a desert island *DYING with no access to food or water YOU CAN BE MORE DEPRESSED THAN SOMEONE WHO KILLED THEMSELVES, because people can have crippling depression, WHILE STILL WANTING TO LIVE.

ITs not simply that theres this scale of depression like this |------------------------------------------------------------|

where the people at the end commit suicide and the people in the middle don’t. Theres a correlation with depression and suicide obviously, a HUGE CORRELATION.

But to say that person A who kiled themselves was more depressed than person B who didn’t is BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT.

Some people no matter how depressed WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO PULL THE TRIGGER, EVER. because they literaly do not have the courge to pull it, they could NOT.

That is not to say they aren’t JUST AS DEPRESSED AS SOMEONE WHO DID KILL THEMSELVES. ONLY THAT THIS PERSON, HAD OTHER COGNITIVE SYMPTOMS, WHICH MADE DOING SO EASIER, OR HARDER.

Depression isn’t the only factor leading to suicide, inability to think clearly due to that depression and etc etc etc lend a hand.

And as to saying that its arrogant to say that I was ‘as clinicially depressed as other people’ no its not arrogant to say. I was brutally depressed, go take a fork and put it on your face and stick the end of the fork into a toaster, do it every 10 minutes for a year.

After you do that, after your forced to endure that, come back and tell me its arrogant of you t o say you experienced clinicial depression over it.

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My point is that people who commit suicide are more than just really really really depressed, a lot of the time, they have other cognitive symptoms which contribute to their ability to make that decision.

The idea that fear could never over-come depression with the notion of killing yourself is ignorant and stupid and fucking ignorant. Those people on the desert island, were more depressed, and they didn’t kill themselves, ,probably becuse they didn’t have the host of other cognitive problems, that people that depressed, routinely have.

23

Sure, people can be happy, with diseases.

Thats not my point.

My point is that some groups of people who choose life over death can be just as depresseed as people who kill themselves. Because somtimes things like fear can overcome depression no matter how powerful it is. If you’re too afraid to die because of say HELLFIRE, if you truly are convinced of hellfire, that kind of fear can prevent you from commiting suicide, while someone else in the same place would have.

I could give you a million examples.

24

In fact I think its extremely arrogant to imply that I never felt clinicial depression to the extent which others do. I just told you that I have a condition which routinely produces pain, known and described by the medical community as some of the most acute that can be felt. I explained at length that the pain i routinely felt was at least x10 worse than getting a massive knife put through your arm (as thats happened to me before as well and I can compare)

Where do you get off telling someone whose felt pain that most people can never imagine, that they were never clinicially depressed about it?

No its not absurd for a cancer patient to claim they had clinical depression, no its not absurd for someone suffering from extreme joint pain to say that had depression that equaled other people’s depression who took pills for it.


I have trigeminal neuralgia and I know thats an abstracted concept to you and every single other human that hasn’t experienced it first hand, but to even suggest someone suffering from that condition was arrogant to say they were as depressed/more compared other people is beyond idiotic.

When the words “Most acute pain known to humanity” is in the disease discription, you have no justification, or right.

25
  • wiki.

I have collapsed on the floor in agony, like someone hit me in the face with a baseball bat (Which happened to be electrified), from the stimulation of; brushing my teeth. So yeah, its safe to say that my claims are not arrogant, but a reflection of reality.,

26

…that’s some condition you got there, Cyrene - is it hereditory, or acquired through stress, or of unknown origin? I can see why you’d be depressed: with something like that making life difficult… Is the pain generated from your own body?

27

Sorry Cyrene, I wasn’t trying to make light of your pain in any way. I read the wiki article and it sounds excruciating. Do any of those pain medications work for you? And on top of the intense pain, some of the worst consequences sound like the difficulty in getting a correct diagnosis and in receiving support. I hope your friends and family are there for you.

28

It can be caused by pressure due to an artery on the nerves in the face, its not dangerous for most people, but an issue of genetic predispostion I suppose. On top of that, bad enough swelling can put pressure on the nerve and somtimes joint conditions.

But don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t truly offended by the notion that I didn’t have clinical depression at some point, I did, but i realize that other people have it much much much worse, I never meant to imply that I had reached the levels of depression that some people do, I didn’t.

back to topic:::

My main point, the one that I still believe is that suicide and depression aren’t linked in this completely simplistic chart where the more depressed a person is the more likely they will be to commit suicide, that idea is not untrue, its obviously true to a massive extent because the correlation is massive.

But plenty of the most depressed people have anxiety disorders, some people cannot even think of killing themselves without going into such a panic attack that they pass out, let alone actually have the calmness to pick up a gun, it’d shake right out of their hand, many people ARE THAT ANXIOUS. if you have a massive anxiety disorder, what could possibly be harder than killing yourself?

I’m not willing to just say that everyone who avoids suicide, avoids the crippling depression which is the main cause of suicide. I don’t think thats accurate, thats my main concern.

29

Why would all therapy work statistically the same as well besides placebo effect?

30

but back to the issue, I never meant to suggest that overcoming depression was a matter of willpower. Only that the brain, environment and genes are all interconnected, and that the thoughts can turn on and off genes which can turn on and off brain function, people can ‘think’ their way out of it, but to call it easy, or to suggest that everyone has this ability is probably unfair.

Like, I know how I come across sounds that I discount depression and think its ‘in the head’ but my thoughts/opinions on depression are a lot more complex than that, and not so straight forward. Its an issue about the super huge interactive loop between brain, genes and environment.

I sincerely doubt depression is ‘caused by a chemical imbalance’ in such a straight-way. People are adapted to be brutally depressed circumstancially and to keep that depression when it matters, thats an issue of simply experiencing somthing horrible and being adapted to remember it, ,and being emotionally scared over it. THeres issues of improper brain function and blood flow, theres issues of improper nutrition, theres issues of genetic predispositions towards being more depressed than average.

I’m not saying chemical imbalance is incorrect, only that, its an incomplete picture, and when genes can effect the chemical balance of the brain, and the environment can turn them on/off, its a LOT more complicated than that.

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f

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Then it seems that we’re in agreement Cyrene.

I hope I didn’t state or imply that I know for a fact you haven’t experienced depression to the extent that others have. I simply do not know, and of course, nobody could. How could we know any other reality than that of our own? We have charts and graphs, fancy machines that show the electrical activity of the brain, but no way of being able to experience another’s reality created by their consciousness.

I agree that there is more at work than simply a chemical imbalance in the brain when it comes to depression. There has to be cases where people become depressed due to circumstance, and there are cases in which people become depressed seemingly despite circumstance. There are those who commit suicide, seemingly because of their mental states, and those who simply would never allow that as an option, regardless of circumstance. As you mention, it’s far from simple, which would explain why science has so much left to uncover in regards to the brain, psychology, medicine, etc.

Which I guess is the point of my post. I thought it was as simple as people creating their own reality, choosing which thoughts and beliefs to hold, and their experience was a direct outcome of that. Now, I believe it’s much more complex. It’s not a simple assembly line, where parts can be brought in and pieced together to create the same output every time.

33

Well i’m glad that we agree.

Even if ‘thoughts’ can turn on a gene which can change the chemical structure of your brain a lot of the time simple ‘thoughts’ won’t turn it back off, like, maybe a person had an experience on top of the thoughts which helped turn that gene off or on.

anyway, my point is that the brain is so super-complex that its hard to say anything with accuracy without envoking the results from many, many, many, many, many different sciences and even then, our understanding about depression and how to treat it, would be sad.

right now, people do not take reuslts from numerous fields (all the good results which can make a interactive web of information) but stick to one or two fields, maybe even one or two bad fields, so our depression treatment options, even *IF people are getting better, are highly questionable.

Until we understand the interactive feedback loop between environment, genes and brain, we can’t really understand depression or treatment of depression. Some fish, can grow massively, just by exposure to other fish in the environment, they see the fish, this shit starts off neurochemical changes, which turn on different gene (the genetic changes could happen before the neurological one) the result is this fish has the ability to biological alter itself massively from small environmental stimuli.

thats an adaptation specifically, but, it gives people an idea about how interactive those things actually are, and how complex.

34

Good luck .

35

That’s fucking insane. How often does that happen if you don’t mind me asking? I’m intrigued by this.

36

electrical jolts that last that long for seconds and seconds (opposed to being a jolt) are rare. most jolts last shortly, but, its repeated jolts. And it flucuates, some months not very much, other months, way, way too much. I’ve had days where dozens of jolts aren’t uncommon. Despite the shattering pain, unless they get really frequent, its quite livable I guess.

Some anti-depressants can actually calm the nerve, which helps stop the pain. (Not through curing depression. by literally slowing down the nerve signal in the face. which is massively massively over-acting in tri-geminal neuralgia patients.)But I refuse to treat myself, with that. If I was a patient with certain forms of trigeminal neuralgia, I might not have a choice, though. Its not somting that I would judge someone for, anyway. but the non-dangerous side-effects of pain are not as bad (in my mind) as the noted side-effects of anti-depressants.

I have face-shocks, lots of people who try to come off antidepressants get a nice little side effect sweetly labeled; ‘brain shocks’ I haven’t experienced them, but i’m not overly psyched to try.

I don’t want anyone’s pity or anything, keep that in mind. (though I’m not suggesting anyone offered it). I’m just not comfortable talking about myself, much. Takes a lot of effort to explain, not because I don’t want to, but I find myself as a topic of discussion, boring. (I just always write long posts).

37

You’ve got my respect.

38

A few months back, after one of your rants, I sensed (yes sensed) that there was something physically debilitating about you, but I didn’t know what - turns out I was right, Cyrene!

All our experiences manifest into who we are in the present: the results of which can be read/sensed in any given individual…

39

I actually made the whole thing up. :wink:

40

…did you now!

this is what I had said…

…do tell?