depression

when i first started reading i thought, fuck you when i'm depressed i can hardly do anything. but apparently that's the important bit. it helps you concentrate on your problems by making you pretty much unable to do anything else.

on page three it says if depression was a brain malfunction then getting the depressed person to express what's making him or her depressed would make things even worse. but in fact it helps lift the depression even sooner. fuck knows how they did that experiment, who the control group was, but anyway. counseling generally helps depression, and all that is is getting someone to express their problems.

so, it turns out you're a shit depressive if you're depressed and not expressing and resolving what's making you feel depressed, analysising it and such like. this makes anti-depression drugs bad and emo-kids good. just so you know. (although i guess emo-kids have made a lifestyle out of depression and find depression easier than enjoying life, and god/evolution probably didn't mean for that, so you can still mock them, it's okay.)

There's an awful lot of research going on at the moment looking at an evolutionary basis for depression. Some of it makes sense, and we're gradually moving towards a more coherent theory (or at least a more coherent theory of treatment), and away from, here's some pills, they'll solve all your poblems, which is obiously a good thing. But we've some way to go yet.

There's also an issue which is, is this a theory of true major clinical depression or a mild mood disorder? Over the past few decades, many of the groups with a vested interest (pharmaceutical companies, researchers, mental health charities etc..) have promoted figures of 10%, 25%, 50% of people having a depressive episode in their lives. I think this is counter-productive. The percentage of people who experience major clinical dpression is less than 2%, and putting forward figures of 50% feeds the old prejudice that people with depression just need to pull themselves together. Another example of this would be the ridiculous re-invention of manic-depression (quite rare) into bi-polar disorder (being diagnosed with increasing frequency). I saw one paper that suggested 25% of the population had symptoms of bipolar, which is deliberately blurring the issue. If 25% of the population had true manic depression the world would be completely fucking insane. It's now being diagnosed on the basis of depression with compulsive tendencies. Well yes, if you take shit loads of cocaine over a long period of time you will end up with depresion and compulsive tendncies, it doesn't mean you're a manic depressive, it means you're a stupid media cokehead wearing the latest mentalist badge of honour.

Wait, what were we talking about again? I'm going for a walk, might add some more later.

yeah, the article doesn't make any difference between mild depression and clinical depression. it seems to assume they're the same thing.

it annoyed me that the article claimed analytical ability improves when you're depressed. i'll always look on a bad side of life when depresed, and i'm not sure that helps my analytical ability too much. i'm certainly not objective. i suppose this could be so i stay depressed until i work out what's really wrong. still, i'm a little uncomfortable with the idea i'm more analytical when depressed. i don't have the ability to see what's good in my life when i feel depressed, that's for sure.

I hate when people think a regular sad mood is the same as clinical depression

Yeah, depression causes totally irrational thinking.

  On 8/31/2009 at 4:00 PM, inteeliguntdesign said:

yeah, the article doesn't make any difference between mild depression and clinical depression. it seems to assume they're the same thing.

 

it annoyed me that the article claimed analytical ability improves when you're depressed. i'll always look on a bad side of life when depresed, and i'm not sure that helps my analytical ability too much. i'm certainly not objective. i suppose this could be so i stay depressed until i work out what's really wrong. still, i'm a little uncomfortable with the idea i'm more analytical when depressed. i don't have the ability to see what's good in my life when i feel depressed, that's for sure.

Here's a story for you. I was heavily depressed last April, mostly because I fell in love with a girl and couldn't sleep. I was getting more and more tired each day which is what was making me depressed. Well, I did some truly remarkable shit durin that period to distract myself. I ran my heart out at track practices and broke my 400m hurdle record by seconds. I was getting 100's on tests and making music in my spare time - I made about an hour's worth of music back in April, actually the only good music I've ever made. Everything I've made since has been shit, because I can't get focused like I could when I was so depressed. It was a form of extreme escapism. Now I'm happy and jolly and fuck it, I'd rather be riding my bike than sitting and making music. And when I sit down to try to make something I'm really not inspired at all.

Well I've never gotten over the girl, but since April I've dealt with it in a healthy way. I began getting active (bike-riding, weight-lifting) in my spare time on top of running. I got into wilderness survival, hiking, learning about what in nature is edible and what isn't. I started napping in the afternoons to deal with how tired I was was, and I tried lucid dreaming (although I still haven't had one. last lucid dream I had was three years ago!!!) My crazy teenager hormones made me obsessed with this chick but I've been using it as motivation, doing shit like living healthy/working out/tanning to make myself appealing to the opposite sex. Though, I didn't have that same escapist focus, and quit track and stopped caring about school. (Although I took 4 AP tests in May and my scores came back a month ago - all 5's.)

I keep trying to make music, but I have to force myself to try and it always comes out really bad. I've almost given up, and I'm hoping maybe the music course I'm taking in september will kickstart my musicality again. I hate depression because I feel like it takes away from life. But I can't deny that I was at my most creative back in april no matter how miserable things were.

This is probably my first serious post on watmm, actually I think this place has gotten extremely fucking boring lately. Sinicalypse and a few others are the only ones left who are really interesting. Oh well, back to making half-assed one-liner posts

they should be given different names. Depression for chronically miserable people, and a different word for actual need-a-lobotomy-to-stop-yourself-trying-to-commit-suicide depression.

this article is the purest bs

  On 8/31/2009 at 6:07 PM, vamos scorcho said:

this article is the purest bs

agreed

Interesting read but I don't know how much merit it truly has. I am interested to find out how these "next generation" of pills work because this current gen ain't done shit for me besides give me side effects.

depression exists because some chicks find brooding guys hot, simple as

clinical depression is different than brooding; girls don't find clinical depression attractive.

lol?

heh, sorry that was stupid, am tired

Thats strange, I've always found depression to make it harder to concentrate, not the other way around.

I suppose I can see the merit here but all that its saying is that depression is designed to make you stop being depressed. I wouldn't go as far as to say that getting depressed actually helps you get things done.

  On 8/31/2009 at 8:26 PM, thehauntingsoul said:

Thats strange, I've always found depression to make it harder to concentrate, not the other way around.

me 2

EDIT: Except in a FEW rare instances in which i was musically prolific, but then couldn't finish a track for 3 months, so yeah....

  On 8/31/2009 at 8:26 PM, thehauntingsoul said:

I wouldn't go as far as to say that getting depressed actually helps you get things done.

Well, not "things", but resolving the one thing that is causing the depression. According to the theory, it does stop you getting things done, if you define things as everything except for pondering about what's wrong.

I find pondering what's wrong to make thinks worse, sometimes much.

  On 8/31/2009 at 10:54 PM, sneaksta303 said:

I find pondering what's wrong to make thinks worse, sometimes much.

I agree totally, but that's something I can't help doing when I've been depressed because I can't even force myself to look for other things to occupy me, which leaves me to ponder even further and spiral downwards into deeper gloom. SSRIs have worked for me though, whether that be an expedient solution or whatever.

Last winter I felt quite bad and I studied a lot. Now I can't reach those levels anymore.

I like that the article suggests depression wires your brain to be analytical. When i'm depressed, I cant focus on reading or everyday shit, but I did pretty well in architecture school on a design project one semester when the gf started growing distant.

but when i'm depressed, it's constant, for months, and I dont feel like expressing it to anyone because I feel like i'm being a burden. so depression doesnt have much of a useful function for me. quite the opposite usually. thinking for long periods of time fucks me over. and yeah SSRIs seem to work.

It's funny how the article assumes that you're already having sex and that if you lose interest in it, it's because youre depressed. what about the much more likely scenario: you're depressed because you're not having sex?

  On 8/31/2009 at 10:44 PM, inteeliguntdesign said:

  On 8/31/2009 at 8:26 PM, thehauntingsoul said:

I wouldn't go as far as to say that getting depressed actually helps you get things done.

 

Well, not "things", but resolving the one thing that is causing the depression. According to the theory, it does stop you getting things done, if you define things as everything except for pondering about what's wrong.

But isn't that a self serving problem?

It seems like what you're saying is that Depression helps you get rid of Depression?

i can make some amazing music when im depressed....not even suicidal depressed...but with an increasing feeling of dread, ominous, ethereal, very existential....i can make some good shit when im in those moods.

you ever just get together with your friends and bum each other out and jam on drum machines?

not really but we go the black sabbath jam band route when im with people.

  Quote

Well, not "things", but resolving the one thing that is causing the depression. According to the theory, it does stop you getting things done, if you define things as everything except for pondering about what's wrong.

It depends on what's making you depressed.

i have been in and out of clinical depression for the last 2 years, much better right now (since I finally stopped SSRI use and started doing shit with my life) and my general opinion is, in a severe depression you don't have all indians in the canoe so to speak.

Getting yourself to focus less and turn inward CAN be a good thing, but the stigma it creates might aswell further the depression, because we most easily get depressed when we are burdened with the most responsibility and urgency.

The best thing I ever did for my depression was writing up goals for my life and then starting to pursue them.