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Wow, suicide... Most people would tell me his life is their dream. Rest in peace.
by emptyfile 8y ago
Wow, suicide...
Most people would tell me his life is their dream.
Rest in peace.
- JshWright 8y agoDepression doesn't care how awesome your life is.
- ianai 8y agoIt can be a literal chemical imbalance in the brain. Nothing anyone has free will to decide to feel. (Ie they can’t “think it away”) We need a more inclusive society for this reason. Things like bullying and other ego boosters at the cost of others separate people.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 69132 8y agoThat whole "chemical imbalance" thing is a myth.
- jrs95 8y agoYup. Just to get rich selling pills that barely make a difference. As someone who’s probably had a prescription for every major anti-depressant, the only difference I never noticed from taking them is that my dick didn’t work. Not saying that depression isn’t a serious issue and that it can just be “thought away” though. But the drugs are really only helpful to some people, and there’s not much evidence to substantiate that this is just a chemical problem. There may be a chemical element, but IMO this is being exaggerated for profit. Meanwhile we aren’t dealing with any of the underlying social problems that probably play a much larger part.
- ianai 8y agoFunny, I’ve known several people who clearly were depressed through physiology. Nothing to do with being able to “think it away”
- jrs95 8y agoPhysiology and “chemical imbalance” aren’t exactly the same thing. Just because you’re physiologically predisposed to depression doesn’t mean that you can fix that by ingesting chemicals, which is usually what’s implied by that phrase.
- 4183821747 8y agoThe drugs can be really, really helpful to some people though. There is no doubt in my mind that Prozac saved my life 25 years ago.
- JshWright 8y agoYep, my wife was on Zoloft for ~18 months after a pregnancy (postpartum depression), and it absolutely made a massive difference.
- ianai 8y agoI first felt the genuine desire to seek out and socialize with strangers after a dose of kava. I now can’t take it as it conflicts with other medication. But before then and after then, I genuinely experience discomfort around all people.
- simongray 8y agoI recently read the book "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari which covers this issue. In fact, it's a really a book about some deeper problems of Western society (where depression, anxiety, etc. has been on the rise for a long time), so the pharmaceutical pill-pushing and the fairly debunked "chemical imbalance" explanation of depression really just sets the backdrop of the story. He emphasizes - like you mention - social changes in modern Western societies as major causes of depression. I really recommend the book. If you're not convinced or just want an audio version, then I recommend the episode of the Ezra Klein Show podcast where Johann Hari is a guest - that's what convinced me to read the book.
- gr33nman 8y ago“Rather than some embarrassingly reductionist, one-deficiency-one-illness-one-pill model of mental illness, contemporary exploration of human behavior has demonstrated that we may know less than we ever thought we did. And that what we do know about root causes of mental illness seems to have more to do with the concept of evolutionary mismatch than with genes and chemical deficiencies.” http://kellybroganmd.com/depression-serotonin/ http://kellybroganmd.com/depression-serotonin/
- turingcompeteme 8y agoKelly Brogan is an anti vaxxer and a HIV/AIDS denialist. It's very sad to see her getting linked here.
- gr33nman 8y agoI’m also wary of accepting controversial opinions at face value, and fully support your skepticism here. She’s not my favorite messenger, either. I don’t think ad-hominem attacks are fair, though. The article is full of references to evidence outlining her position. Do you have any critique of her arguments you can share?
- seattle_spring 8y agoCalling out why a doctor is a quack is not an ad hominem when questioning their qualifications as a medical reference.
- gr33nman 8y agoYes, but only if evidence is provided to justify calling the doctor a quack.
- hellofunk 8y agoEntirely untrue and offensive. Propagating this is dangerous and fuels the stigma that makes treatment harder. Not all mental illness is chemical, but a lot very much is.
- jdietrich 8y agoChemical imbalances may possibly play some role in depression, but we have no idea of which chemicals or what the "correct" balance is. Antidepressant drugs do work, but we don't really know why. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors appear to work. So do monoamine oxidase inhibitors. So do selective norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitors. We used to think that tianeptine was a serotonin reuptake enhancer, but we now think it's a mu-opioid agonist; either way, it seems to work as an antidepressant. Opipramol is a stone cold whodunnit of a drug. Nobody really knows what causes depression. We know that there are certain risk factors, we know that there are useful treatments, but we don't really have a clue what's going on inside the brain. The chemical imbalance hypothesis isn't particularly accurate or particularly helpful. Psychiatrists see some patients who are severely depressed for no apparent reason, but most see far more patients who just have lives that would make anyone miserable. Depression is emphatically not randomly distributed - prevalence rates are vastly higher in certain groups, for reasons that can only plausibly be psychosocial. The chemical imbalance hypothesis lets society abrogate responsibility for the fact that a lot of people are justifiably downtrodden, despondent and hopeless. We need to recognise depression as a complex, multifaceted disorder with neurological, cognitive and social components. Antidepressant drugs have life-changing effects for some patients, but psychotherapy and lifestyle interventions are also enormously valuable. Some patients achieve complete remission within weeks of starting antidepressant drug treatment; others have tried four or five drugs with no noticeable benefit. If you're suffering from depression, you'd be foolish not to try drug treatments, but you'd be equally foolish to only try drugs.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- daxorid 8y agoI'm going to defend 69132 here. 1. We know that the symptoms of many different varieties of mental illness have been helped by the administration of SSRIs and other drugs that alter brain chemistry. 2. But what we most assuredly do not know is that mental illness patients have detectably different brain chemistry from baseline. We assume from (1) that (2) follows, but we have no actual evidence of (2). Herein lies the problem. We cannot make a scientific statement on (2) predicated only on (1). In this specific sense, OP is correct. And the downvotes are unfair. And more research is needed.
- volkl48 8y agoSometimes an awesome life can actually make it harder. It's easy to justify being depressed when you have a crappy life. (even though your depression probably doesn't have some cause like that) "I am depressed because I am living in a bad apartment in a bad part of town, working a bad job. If I get a better job and can afford a better apartment, I'll be happy." Assuming you have some hope for that happening, that can keep you going. At the very least, you have something you think is a cause and things are easier to deal with when we at least think we know why they're happening. "I have everything I could ever want, and I'm still depressed." Pretty easy to let that spiral you into thinking you're never going to get better and that there isn't any hope.
- mieseratte 8y ago> "I have everything I could ever want, and I'm still depressed." Not only that, but it becomes very easy to tell yourself that you don't deserve success. It's easy to look at your life and say "I haven't really worked that much harder, lived that much more virtuously. I don't deserve this, this should be someone else..."
- piker 8y ago"I should’ve died in my 20s. I became successful in my 40s. I became a dad in my 50s. I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really nice car — and I keep looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights." From the man himself.
- justaguyhere 8y agoI remember reading about a very successful female model's suicide few years ago - didn't know who she was and can't remember her name now. What I do remember was that she was quite successful materially and jumped from 20th floor (according to the news article). But what hit me the most was her age - she was just 20 :( Every person is different and we may never understand what bothers them, even if they appear successful and happy on the outside.
- CuriouslyC 8y agoMost cases of depression do care how awesome your life is. Depression rates aren't spiking because people's brains have suddenly stopped working properly, it's because society has gotten progressively more dehumanizing. It is also a mistake to think that being a celebrity is necessarily awesome. The loss of privacy and the barrier celebrity presents to having genuine interactions can literally be a killer.
- afishisafish 8y agoI read a few of his books last summer and he sure didn't choose for the easy life. Still an incredible charismatic and passionate person, fantastic writer too. Cheers Anthony
- the6threplicant 8y agoIt's literally him and David Attenborough that have the job everyone wants.
- elliottcarlson 8y agoRichard Cory BY Edwin Arlington Robinson Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich—yes, richer than a king— And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.