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Why is depression so hard to beat?

depressionsurvival

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#1 Raptor87

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 06:01 PM


It doesnt make sense. Why would life make such a cruel thing to us. It's like there is no intention for us to have a second chance which goes against everything I know, life always want to prevail but with depression it's so hard. Once it get's in the bones it will always be lurking there, making one weak and fragile. Is it just that there is a huge lack of love in the world?

#2 johnross47

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 07:24 PM

No. No. No. No.
Depression does make sense, just not to the victim. There is a second chance. It can be fixed and it doesn't then lurk. Nobody would ever say it won't recur in any living person, but there is no necessity. The feeling of hopeless pointless doom is a symptom, not a fact.
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#3 nowayout

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 07:40 PM

Because it builds on itself. Depression makes me self-isolate. I am lonely but I just do not have the mental energy to talk to friends or family, never mind meeting new people, which makes the depression worse and makes me self-isolate more, and so on. Amnesty International considers isolation of prisoners to be torture - it makes even very healthy people go out of their minds very quickly - and yet we are doing this to ourselves.

On a couple of occasions in my life I have been pulled out of a mild depression almost in an instant by romance, the best antidepressant there is. Unfortunately, the nature of depression makes romance very unlikely to happen, to put it mildly, especially the more serious the depression becomes.

Edited by viveutvivas, 09 April 2013 - 07:45 PM.


#4 Reformed-Redan

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 08:01 PM

I think, people don't know how to take care of their mental health. Sure, were told to put a band-aid when we get a cut; but, what do you do when you loose a loved one or hate you're job.

#5 nupi

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 08:06 PM

I think, people don't know how to take care of their mental health. Sure, were told to put a band-aid when we get a cut; but, what do you do when you loose a loved one or hate you're job.



treat the root cause and get a new one or treat the symptoms and munch some ssri
agreed on hopelessness being more of a symptom than an actual reality, btw

#6 nowayout

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 08:23 PM

Actually no, nupi, the happier and more optimistic people tend to be less realistic (in studies) than the discontented. You have to be a little delusional to be really happy in his world. I see it all the time - unpleasant mediocre arseholes who seriously believe they are God's gift to womankind (or mankind, or humanity) and derive a lot of happiness from their delusions of grandeur.

This is why therapy has never done a thing for me. The beliefs I have that feed depression are not actually false, so it is kind of hard for a therapist to convince me otherwise.

Edited by viveutvivas, 09 April 2013 - 08:48 PM.

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#7 Thorsten3

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 09:57 PM

A lot of it is learned behaviour.

Interesting point above there, from viveutvivas.

Perhaps re-programming your brain so you become delusional, is the answer. Drugs defintely make me delusional and give me artificial happiness, but, they come with intolerable, shitty side effects that I don't tolerate in any shape, or form. Perhaps modern medicine may develop over the next 50 yrs and my prayers may finally be answered.

Edited by Thorsten2, 09 April 2013 - 10:08 PM.


#8 nowayout

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 10:15 PM

Interesting aside: Hallucinogens are coming back in vogue as potential antidepressants. Apparently a relatively short period of taking them (under supervision) can cause long lasting improvements in sense of well-being. Patients describe a long lasting feeling of connection with the universe and with other people that makes them feel that their life has meaning, and somehow reduces fear of death (from experiments in patients with terminal diseases); in other words, it sounds as if the hallucinogens cause the formation of a set of delusional beliefs that make the patient happy.

#9 Tom_

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Posted 10 April 2013 - 07:36 AM

Actually no, nupi, the happier and more optimistic people tend to be less realistic (in studies) than the discontented. You have to be a little delusional to be really happy in his world. I see it all the time - unpleasant mediocre arseholes who seriously believe they are God's gift to womankind (or mankind, or humanity) and derive a lot of happiness from their delusions of grandeur.

This is why therapy has never done a thing for me. The beliefs I have that feed depression are not actually false, so it is kind of hard for a therapist to convince me otherwise.


Cognitive distortions are extreemly common in depression to the point of almost universallity. Studies of 50 + years of cognitive and affective research gives massive support to the claim.

You are completely miss repesenting the studies. People who are more pessemistic tend to be able to predict the likely hood of a situation. The correlation how ever was weak, when they subject the results to further analysis it was found the severely pessemistic where as wrong as the optimistic.

If you are depressed and think you are still thinking correctly, you're wrong - research is clear on this. Thats why Cognitive therapy is so effective in improving mood symptoms.

In reply to the question; munch on some antidepressants (follow the research - texas treatment resistant depression algorithum), behavioual activation, sleep hygine and management (melatonin, bright light therapy), psychosocial interventions, mindfulness practice and in a moderate depressive disease you can expect response in around 90-95% of cases at 6 months. Severe and chronic depressions have a faily similar response rate at around 80%. If you really are doing everything properly (which requires not lying to yourself) and you find yourself not improving signifcantly then other diagnoses need to be considered and approiate treatments. Personality disorders are the most likely - which with high quality psychotherapy and proper medical management respond well. In depressive illness non-response, OCPD, Borderline PD histronic where identified as most commonly causing treatment resistance.
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#10 YOLF

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 12:53 AM

A lot of it is learned behaviour.

Interesting point above there, from viveutvivas.

Perhaps re-programming your brain so you become delusional, is the answer. Drugs defintely make me delusional and give me artificial happiness, but, they come with intolerable, shitty side effects that I don't tolerate in any shape, or form. Perhaps modern medicine may develop over the next 50 yrs and my prayers may finally be answered.


Real happiness comes from having understood the cause of your depression and having done something substantial about it.

Interesting aside: Hallucinogens are coming back in vogue as potential antidepressants. Apparently a relatively short period of taking them (under supervision) can cause long lasting improvements in sense of well-being. Patients describe a long lasting feeling of connection with the universe and with other people that makes them feel that their life has meaning, and somehow reduces fear of death (from experiments in patients with terminal diseases); in other words, it sounds as if the hallucinogens cause the formation of a set of delusional beliefs that make the patient happy.



Do you think they'd have wanted that before they started dieing? I know I'd always rather die without delusions and with closure. I feel sorry for these people and I think I know who they are. It's terrible what becomes of them.

#11 YOLF

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 01:04 AM

Actually no, nupi, the happier and more optimistic people tend to be less realistic (in studies) than the discontented. You have to be a little delusional to be really happy in his world. I see it all the time - unpleasant mediocre arseholes who seriously believe they are God's gift to womankind (or mankind, or humanity) and derive a lot of happiness from their delusions of grandeur.

This is why therapy has never done a thing for me. The beliefs I have that feed depression are not actually false, so it is kind of hard for a therapist to convince me otherwise.


Cognitive distortions are extreemly common in depression to the point of almost universallity. Studies of 50 + years of cognitive and affective research gives massive support to the claim.

You are completely miss repesenting the studies. People who are more pessemistic tend to be able to predict the likely hood of a situation. The correlation how ever was weak, when they subject the results to further analysis it was found the severely pessemistic where as wrong as the optimistic.

If you are depressed and think you are still thinking correctly, you're wrong - research is clear on this. Thats why Cognitive therapy is so effective in improving mood symptoms.

In reply to the question; munch on some antidepressants (follow the research - texas treatment resistant depression algorithum), behavioual activation, sleep hygine and management (melatonin, bright light therapy), psychosocial interventions, mindfulness practice and in a moderate depressive disease you can expect response in around 90-95% of cases at 6 months. Severe and chronic depressions have a faily similar response rate at around 80%. If you really are doing everything properly (which requires not lying to yourself) and you find yourself not improving signifcantly then other diagnoses need to be considered and approiate treatments. Personality disorders are the most likely - which with high quality psychotherapy and proper medical management respond well. In depressive illness non-response, OCPD, Borderline PD histronic where identified as most commonly causing treatment resistance.



While you're right that people who are depressed are usually pretty ignorant, it is only due to social pretense. The depressed are essentially a side effect of everyone else's peace of mind. I had it explained to me this way by a very happy woman in the know who was full of life and optimism:

"A button that has been pressed down is said to have been "depressed." That is what you are rather than the depressed that you think you are." She was very right. I took me a while to recognize what she had meant.

#12 Tom_

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 07:47 AM

The depressed are not ignorant by definition (the amount of ignorance in the world and the amount of depressed should still leave a good cross over) they are not thinking rationally. Which has very little to do with societal pressure and a lot to do with schema's, abnormal dopamine transmission, increased serum cortisol etc...which is why in its severest form depression takes on a delusional, hallucinatory quality (psychotic depression).

#13 brainslugged

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 09:40 AM

This may be interesting to you.
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#14 Tom_

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 09:43 AM

Seen that, its a good lecture.

#15 nowayout

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 01:14 PM

Real happiness comes from having understood the cause of your depression and having done something substantial about it.

Do you think they'd have wanted that before they started dieing? I know I'd always rather die without delusions and with closure. I feel sorry for these people and I think I know who they are. It's terrible what becomes of them.


Have you ever been really unbearably depressed (or dying)? I would rather prefer some drug-induced delusional happiness.

#16 YOLF

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 08:52 PM

Real happiness comes from having understood the cause of your depression and having done something substantial about it.

Do you think they'd have wanted that before they started dieing? I know I'd always rather die without delusions and with closure. I feel sorry for these people and I think I know who they are. It's terrible what becomes of them.


Have you ever been really unbearably depressed (or dying)? I would rather prefer some drug-induced delusional happiness.


I've been close, I pulled myself out of it to spite death in ignorance. So truly, just the opposite.

#17 nowayout

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 09:10 PM

Real happiness comes from having understood the cause of your depression and having done something substantial about it.

Do you think they'd have wanted that before they started dieing? I know I'd always rather die without delusions and with closure. I feel sorry for these people and I think I know who they are. It's terrible what becomes of them.


Have you ever been really unbearably depressed (or dying)? I would rather prefer some drug-induced delusional happiness.


I've been close, I pulled myself out of it to spite death in ignorance. So truly, just the opposite.


I am glad for you, but I would argue that you probably haven't been quite there.... when someone gets to the point of suicide, they are not going to worry about the possible harm to the self that a happy drug-induced delusion could cause.
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#18 YOLF

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 09:25 PM

Real happiness comes from having understood the cause of your depression and having done something substantial about it.

Do you think they'd have wanted that before they started dieing? I know I'd always rather die without delusions and with closure. I feel sorry for these people and I think I know who they are. It's terrible what becomes of them.


Have you ever been really unbearably depressed (or dying)? I would rather prefer some drug-induced delusional happiness.


I've been close, I pulled myself out of it to spite death in ignorance. So truly, just the opposite.


I am glad for you, but I would argue that you probably haven't been quite there.... when someone gets to the point of suicide, they are not going to worry about the possible harm to the self that a happy drug-induced delusion could cause.

I was actually talking about an illness. I don't think I'd want to go out drugged though. I don't think I'd want to be drugged to delusion before cryopreservation either. I'd be too afraid someone would talk me out of my cryonics plans to claim the insurance money or use my delusional state to question my judgement for getting cryonics.
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#19 splitastone

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Posted 11 April 2013 - 11:57 PM

Take a close look at the language in your post. You're telling your brain a very sad story. My guess is you've been telling your brain a sad story for quite awhile and it's second nature to you. There may have been a time in your life when telling your brain a sad story was useful or helpful to you (perhaps when you were younger). You may have learned from others that telling your brain a sad story was the "right" thing to do.

The bottom line is this:

1. Your brain does not care what kind of story you tell it.
2. Your brain will believe anything you tell it repeatedly (this is how people are "programmed" in cults)

You have access to your language 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Consider telling your brain a different story about your life and do so repeatedly and often. At first it will seem strange to you and your brain will "reject" the new story you are telling it. Just keep on telling your brain your new story everyday (several times a day) and soon you begin to notice how different your life is.

Edited by splitastone, 12 April 2013 - 12:00 AM.

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#20 nowayout

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 12:18 AM

You have access to your language 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Consider telling your brain a different story about your life and do so repeatedly and often. At first it will seem strange to you and your brain will "reject" the new story you are telling it. Just keep on telling your brain your new story everyday (several times a day) and soon you begin to notice how different your life is.


I remember reading about a study claiming that the technique you describe works as you say for extroverts, but actually has the opposite effect (increases depression/anxiety) on introverts. Can't find it right now.
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#21 Mishael

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 01:40 AM

My thoughts are that depression which I think I am familiar with can be made worse by the imagination. It has been said that many times a certain fear is not in actuality realized when the true situation arrives. For example you might stress your mind all day long worrying about if someone will be in your house when you arrive there and hurt you. This is just an example (don't do this to yourself) but people can really create these kinds of thoughts that will continually harass them as long as they keep dwelling on them and they will go over them over and over again finding absolutely no solution or relief of mind, and this will in turn cause illness. Part of life is to realize that good and bad times follow us all through life and it really cannot be helped. I can't control who or what I see at the supermarket or the mall. A killer may be there or my next girlfriend. I have faith in my God that He will take care of me.

On another vein, depression is exacerbated by drugs, pure and simple. I think a healthy diet (grains, fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, legumes), good sleep, exercise, water, sunlight, air, and trust in a higher power is all a person needs. I think when you experiment with drugs you are diving into an area of science that is too deep and complicated to be as useful and safe as the above prescription. The bottom line is if you do something reckless to yourself your body will retaliate. Strength of body and mind I don't think will ever come from the habitual use of drugs.
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#22 Adaptogen

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 05:36 AM

As painful as it is, depression is not all loss. hundreds of years of history have shown the strong connection with melancholy and creative genius. it is the deepest brooding and thoughtful contemplation of the world, a dissatisfaction with everything not being as great as it should. this has brought about some of the greatest movements. there is deep meaning in your unhappiness, seek it out.
you should find a creative outlet. pick up an instrument, write, or paint, even if you never have before

Aristotle said, "Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.” That is, you should climb until you acquiesce your dissatisfaction, not drug yourself into a stupor of complacency.

Abraham Lincoln suffered from severe depression, here is an excerpt from his poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy" :

Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never knew;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?

All good reading if you are interested:
http://www.mmu.k12.v... creativity.pdf Depression and Creativity
http://www.stanford....n/Sussman.pdf A Neurological View of the Tortured Artist
http://www.bu.edu/wc.../AnciNort.htm Melancholy in Ancient Greece
http://helenadeprees...dposition.pdf A loss of the cultural significance of melancholy
http://books.google....oogle....lse Depression As a Spiritual Journey

Edited by Adaptogen, 12 April 2013 - 05:38 AM.


#23 nowayout

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 01:24 PM

As painful as it is, depression is not all loss. hundreds of years of history have shown the strong connection with melancholy and creative genius.


It may be the case that mild depressives and possibly some bipolar people can be creative, although it is a myth that they are more creative than regular people. Applied to severe depression, what you quote is nonsense.
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#24 Tom_

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 04:46 PM

50 years of research has shown absolutely no correlation between intelligence or creativity and any type of mental illness including but not limited to Major depressive disorder, Bi-polar affective disorders and schizophrenia. Quite the reverse, every mental health problem is correlated with low IQ.

#25 Adaptogen

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 06:29 PM

There is no denying the innumerable creative accomplishments that have come from depressed artists.

The incidence of mental illness is by far highest in poets, writers, other artistic professions, as is alcoholism .

"Kay Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and the author of "Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament," said writers were 10 to 20 times as likely as other people to suffer manic-depressive or depressive illnesses."

http://www.nytimes.c...nted=all&src=pm

Take a look at this table: http://books.google...., mania&f=false

The lifetime depression rate of poets is 77%, fiction writers 59%, and composers 46%. the lifetime prevalence of mental illness, in the form of any affective disorder, in writers was 80% compared to 30% in the control group.

#26 nowayout

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 07:35 PM

There is no denying the innumerable creative accomplishments that have come from depressed artists.


You are committing a classical logical fallacy. If poets are more depressed than average, it does not follow that depressed people are more likely to be good poets, as you seem to think. It could be true that poets are more depressed while, at the same time, it could be true that depressed people are far less likely to be good poets (or good anything else) than healthy people.

Draw some Venn diagrams if this confuses you.

This fallacy must have a classical name in logic but I can't think of it right now.

Edited by viveutvivas, 12 April 2013 - 07:42 PM.


#27 Adaptogen

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 07:44 PM

non sequitur? i'm just saying..if you take a look at the world's most prolific artists, it seems more than coincidence that so many of them suffer from depression and other forms of mental illness.

Edited by Adaptogen, 12 April 2013 - 07:49 PM.


#28 nowayout

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 09:38 PM

My personal take on that is that depressed people tend to gravitate to creative occupations not because they are necessarily better at them (maybe they are worse) but because they are less likely to be able to keep a regular job.

There is also a romantic notion of the melancholic artist that may be part of the self-image of many creative types, but thinking and expressing melancholy thoughts in your art are not the same thing as being clinically depressed. Far from it.

As for bipolar people, there may be something to their being especially creative or at least productive when they are in a hypomanic state, but I don't really know.

Edited by viveutvivas, 12 April 2013 - 09:46 PM.


#29 Reformed-Redan

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Posted 12 April 2013 - 10:03 PM

As painful as it is, depression is not all loss. hundreds of years of history have shown the strong connection with melancholy and creative genius. it is the deepest brooding and thoughtful contemplation of the world, a dissatisfaction with everything not being as great as it should. this has brought about some of the greatest movements. there is deep meaning in your unhappiness, seek it out.
you should find a creative outlet. pick up an instrument, write, or paint, even if you never have before

Aristotle said, "Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.” That is, you should climb until you acquiesce your dissatisfaction, not drug yourself into a stupor of complacency.

Abraham Lincoln suffered from severe depression, here is an excerpt from his poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy" :

Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never knew;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?

All good reading if you are interested:
http://www.mmu.k12.v... creativity.pdf Depression and Creativity
http://www.stanford....n/Sussman.pdf A Neurological View of the Tortured Artist
http://www.bu.edu/wc.../AnciNort.htm Melancholy in Ancient Greece
http://helenadeprees...dposition.pdf A loss of the cultural significance of melancholy
http://books.google.....oogle....lse Depression As a Spiritual Journey

Ewgh, sounds like Schopenhauer. I'd rather be blissfully ignorant than a goose-stepping bearer of Truth.
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#30 YOLF

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Posted 13 April 2013 - 02:28 AM

This may be interesting to you.



Hmmm... Well Aubrey definitely has a better beard....

Other thoughts:

He omits artificial social factors that contribute to incidents. For instance, watching the news is always stressful and it designed to be that way and news casters regularly get your adrenalin running with their facial expressions and reactions to everything. Everything seems to be an emergency and that's all news, and it is addicting IMO these designs are predatory marketing given the existence of MDD. Why not consolidate all of that kind of news to one channel (ENN the Emergency News Network) and not present emergencies, nuclear war threats, and constant emotional heartache. I think constant exposure to this stuff can be debilitating. I've seen it in more than one person.

In the case of identical twins, one often has better nutrition in the womb than the other. Does health order effect depression? If you are the less healthy twin, are you more likely to have depression?

More on the role of adrenalin? Adding my experience to what he's saying, the presence of adrenalin has a strong effect on depression (in my experience adrenalin enhances other feelings), why mess with the other stuff and not start with checking adrenalin levels as kids and lowering them if needed? IIRC he was talking about blocking it in the brain, what about just plain blocking some of it all together? Am I missing something? This is a hindsight question and I'm exhausted ATM.




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