4 ms·

If we're supposed to be happy all the time, why are there so many sad songs? Seriously though it irritates me how people have been brainwashed to think depress

If we're supposed to be happy all the time, why are there so many sad songs? Seriously though it irritates me how people have been brainwashed to think depression is somehow abnormal. Here's something I've learned in life: Depression exists for a reason. There have been times in my life that I've been very depressed. Sometimes it was due to some event that happened but more often it was pretty random. During these periods, I've often been very creative or it has done something else that I didn't immediately recognize as a benefit at the time. Yes, it was painful. But life isn't supposed to be all roses. What I do think is wrong is taking (and getting hooked on) anti-depressants. A lot of my friends take them -- usually in response to a depression and now they've been taking them ever since. Unless you suffer from a very severe form of depression, I think anti-depressants do more harm over the long term than good, and many doctors of course want to keep their patients on them so it gives them an excuse to have an office visit. There's a lot of abuse, because there's a lot of money to be made trying to make people happy. In my experience, anti-depressants do not make you happy. They make you numb, and (at least for me) they destroy your sex life. What kind of life is that? I've come to the realization of acceptance. There's only so much I can control in my life, and that includes all the complicated chemicals swirling around in my head that are controlling my emotions. You start to realize that control and free-will is mostly illusionary, how you feel and what that does to you is more like a partnership with you and your body. There are of course things you can do but if your brain wants to make you depressed, you're going to be depressed and go through that experience. I don't think it wouldn't be as prevelant if it didn't serve some higher purpose, and I try to keep that in mind whenever I find myself depressed.

SonicSoul 9y ago
It's pretty sad when my friend tells me his doctor diagnosed him with a lack of something in his brain where only way to go is anti depressants for the rest of his life. He didn't even suggest aerobic exercise or diet, nope straight to prescription drugs. I'm not a doctor but based on my experience with depression and health, lifeStyle is so much more important than drugs no matter which disease you have or don't have
- DanBC 9y ago
  What your friend deserves is evidence based treatment. For depression that's a talking therapy (CBT), maybe combined with meds. The evidence for exercise as a treatment for depression is poor. http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. > Exercise is no more effective than antidepressants for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on a small number of studies. > Exercise is no more effective than psychological therapies for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on small number of studies. > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. > Attendance rates for exercise treatments ranged from 50% to 100%. > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive. this line, and the last line, are important: > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    Ex-depressed people that got out of it with exercises are a better reference than this "studies". Even more when you compare with depressed people currently taking drugs.
    - Tushon 9y ago
      "Anecdotal data is better than a study" ... that's a big agree to disagree.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  And the most depressing thing about this is that people with depressions don't wanna hear that their solution is so simple as diet, exercises and lifestyle. Depression comes with existencial crisis and (ironically) excess of entitlement so people think their situation is different, is biological, pathological, spiritual...
thomasfortes 9y ago
Please, don't equate being sad with being depressed, sadness is a normal part of the life, feeling miserable every waking moment is not.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  How do you define what is "normal" in life? Is it not normal for people to have periods of their lives (weeks, months, years) where they feel constantly miserable/sad due to a variety of reasons?
  - nether 9y ago
    It's a fair question. The mathematician Ted Kaczynski proposed depression to be largely a modern construct (emphasis mine): > Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions that exist in today's society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable. (Yes, we know that depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring here to those cases in which environment plays the predominant role.)
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      Aldous Huxley made the same point in the 1960's: >there is evidently a whole class of drugs effecting the CNS which can produce enormous changes in sedation in euphoria in energizing the whole mental process without doing any perceptible harm to the human body...a great deal of control could be used by not through terror, but by making life seem much more enjoyable than it normally does. Enjoyable to the point, where as I said before, Human beings come to love a state of things by which any reasonable and decent human standard they ought not to love and this I think is perfectly possible. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24712.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24712.htm

SonicSoul 9y ago

It's pretty sad when my friend tells me his doctor diagnosed him with a lack of something in his brain where only way to go is anti depressants for the rest of his life. He didn't even suggest aerobic exercise or diet, nope straight to prescription drugs. I'm not a doctor but based on my experience with depression and health, lifeStyle is so much more important than drugs no matter which disease you have or don't have

DanBC 9y ago
What your friend deserves is evidence based treatment. For depression that's a talking therapy (CBT), maybe combined with meds. The evidence for exercise as a treatment for depression is poor. http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. > Exercise is no more effective than antidepressants for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on a small number of studies. > Exercise is no more effective than psychological therapies for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on small number of studies. > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. > Attendance rates for exercise treatments ranged from 50% to 100%. > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive. this line, and the last line, are important: > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  Ex-depressed people that got out of it with exercises are a better reference than this "studies". Even more when you compare with depressed people currently taking drugs.
  - Tushon 9y ago
    "Anecdotal data is better than a study" ... that's a big agree to disagree.
owebmaster 9y ago
And the most depressing thing about this is that people with depressions don't wanna hear that their solution is so simple as diet, exercises and lifestyle. Depression comes with existencial crisis and (ironically) excess of entitlement so people think their situation is different, is biological, pathological, spiritual...

thomasfortes 9y ago

Please, don't equate being sad with being depressed, sadness is a normal part of the life, feeling miserable every waking moment is not.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
How do you define what is "normal" in life? Is it not normal for people to have periods of their lives (weeks, months, years) where they feel constantly miserable/sad due to a variety of reasons?
- nether 9y ago
  It's a fair question. The mathematician Ted Kaczynski proposed depression to be largely a modern construct (emphasis mine): > Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions that exist in today's society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable. (Yes, we know that depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring here to those cases in which environment plays the predominant role.)
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    Aldous Huxley made the same point in the 1960's: >there is evidently a whole class of drugs effecting the CNS which can produce enormous changes in sedation in euphoria in energizing the whole mental process without doing any perceptible harm to the human body...a great deal of control could be used by not through terror, but by making life seem much more enjoyable than it normally does. Enjoyable to the point, where as I said before, Human beings come to love a state of things by which any reasonable and decent human standard they ought not to love and this I think is perfectly possible. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24712.htm http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24712.htm