DesolateThief,
Yeah, I did address this in “Alcoholism”, but it’s still a very good question.
To many of those who responded to this thread, including but not limited to
SomeoneIsAtTheDoor, Waft the Helpless Youth, and even ShaneyTiger and OniOmega,
There is a pervasive societal misunderstand of what depression is, and how in fact depression is correlated with intelligence. To say “intelligence allows you a greater understanding of the shit the world is in” is to entirely misappropriate blame. The harm this does is subtle, but pointed: depression isn’t, generally speaking, sadness oriented around a cause: rather, it is a huge host of negative emotion occurring literally on its own, which often then finds things to latch on to. When a person loses his job, he may become sad; however, a depressed person, once depressed (for reasons that may have a psychological trigger, or may be purely chemical) may latch onto things to feel bad about, but these occur as an after-effect. The end result is, depressed people are told to cheer up because the things about which they complain “aren’t so bad”. This misses the point entirely, since those things weren’t the cause of the anguish in the first place, even though the depressed person may even believe they are.
DesolateThief, you’re hardly alone - an astonishingly large percentage of people (and much more so for creative, intelligent people) have depression to varying degrees, ranging from just feeling sadder in the winter for no discernible reason, to being suicidal and having drug-resistant symptoms, which is a pretty tough combination.
The first thing I should tell you is, IGNORE ADVICE FROM ANYONE WHO COMES FROM PURELY PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH. Philosophy is a great mental exercise. Free will? Who knows. Language creates concepts more than expressing them? Maybe. When it comes to matters of the mind, philosophers try to claim firm ground - but really, psychology, pharmacology, and especially neurobiology have discovered an incredible amount more in the few decades they’ve been around, than philosophy has in two millenia - literally.
The second thing I should tell you is, first, anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. It’s an unfortunate combination, but they’re just as correlated as intelligence and depression are. The good news is that there are lots of treatments, ranging from upping your vitamin b12 intake and getting more exercise, to medications that are very safe and work for a large number of people. (These medications, by the way, shouldn’t be actively sought out by people with mild symptoms - but for those who are having a tough time of it, there should be no hesitation in being willing to try them if other approaches have failed.)
The last thing is, you should really STOP using marijuana to alleviate anxiety. I can’t stress this enough. I’m not saying this because marijuana is arbitrarily “bad for your brain” - I’m saying it because while it makes you feel better short term, it SIGNIFICANTLY worsens symptoms over the long term, for depression, but especially for anxiety. The more you smoke pot to get rid of anxiety, the more frequently and the more intensely you’ll have anxiety in the future. If you are feeling anywhere close to the point where you’re willing to smoke to alleviate symptoms, you should be taking anti-depressant medication instead, which is very effective against anxiety.
I know a lot about… well, the neurobiology of the brain regarding depression and anxiety, as well as a variety of methods of treatment, and things to steer clear from. I know you were more interested in a intelligence ↔ depression link in general, but if you have any questions about anything regarding this, definitely PM me.
