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Oh, depression definitely exists. It tends to be over-simplified and is too stigmatized, but it most definitely exists. Keep in mind that "depression" is a very

Oh, depression definitely exists. It tends to be over-simplified and is too stigmatized, but it most definitely exists. Keep in mind that "depression" is a very general spectrum disorder with many different forms. Saying someone has depression is a bit like saying "they're sick"; but they could have the common cold, flu, COVID-19, ect. It's worth noting that there are people out there with what I'll call "inexplicable depression". In other words, everything could be going right for them. You could look at their life and find no flaws. Loving parents, deep, rich friendships, good profession, success, loving relationship with a partner, and comfortable financial situation. They seem to have it all, but just want to die. More often there's at least some trauma and adverse experiences. On the flip side, you can find people whose lives have been and continue to be just awful; yet they're fine (or at least no depression). It's not always predictable whether someone will have problems, just like how some smokers never get cancer. There's a scale of severity and even some people with it can't relate to everyone who has it. Someone who grew up in squalor and abuse isn't going to relate to a wealthy person with body image issues. I've had some amount of depression myself, but I've still been unable to relate to my friends. For example, one that flunked out of college, because he wouldn't get out of bed. I've felt bad, but never to the point of letting my life completely wither away. I guess the guy just couldn't do it. He was abused growing up, experienced some relationship problems, and starting having severe issues. I have absolutely zero doubt that the person was sick. Healthy people aren't bedridden. Posts like this concern me. You don't have to accept everything psychiatry as a field says. You can be skeptical. However, there's too much backlash to the slightest amount of acceptance and de-stigmatization of depression. Yes, it exists, you really don't want to get it, and it's a serious problem we need to keep addressing.

viklove 7y ago
> They seem to have it all, but just want to die. Maybe this just isn't a problem like doctors make it out to be. Maybe life isn't worth living. It seems like if you try to take up this position, you get shouted out of the room because no one wants to accept the fact that life is utterly meaningless and futile for a subset of people, and it's not a condition -- it's just an objective analysis of the situation. Slaving away for 60 years and having to spend the vast majority of your healthy, waking hours making someone else rich isn't rewarding. It's pointless. The good things in life -- family, friends, hobbies -- are sidelined and you're only allowed to focus on them 2/7 days of the week. Yeah, life really doesn't seem like it's worth living.
- pfortuny 7y ago
  And that, my friend, is exactly how this mental sickness is diagnosed as a sickness: because for the majority of human beings, life is worth in and for itself, despite its suffering, nonsense and stupidity. A healthy person wants to live. Not wanting to is one of the ways of "being ill". And I am not shouting you out of the room: at all. Being objective requires acknowledging that most people want to go on living despite the difficulties. The inability of understanding that outlook is exactly why depression is defined as a sickness. And being depressed has nothing to do with "slaving it" and "sidelining the good things". It has to do with BEING INFINITELY TIRED and UNABLE to COPE with ANYTHING (even those "good things" feel bad, unworthy and unappealing when you are depressed).
  - viklove 7y ago
    > because for the majority of human beings, life is worth in and for itself Do we really know this is true? What percentage of people are just going through the motions because they don't want to cause pain to their family/friends, and what percentage of people actually just don't see the point? If suicide was culturally acceptable, or even normal, how many people would participate? Can you say with certainty that number is less than 10%? Because if 1/10 people don't see the point in living, then it doesn't sound like a disease to me. We live in a culture that promotes "positivity" and despises "negativity," so naturally we classify the lack of will to live as a disease, but I'm not so sure that it's that far outside of the norm. > It has to do with BEING INFINITELY TIRED and UNABLE to COPE with ANYTHING I'm no expert, but I'd imagine at some point you just get sick of putting on the act that stocking shelves at Walmart for 60 years is your life's true calling, or that writing code to track people around the internet to sell them more useless shit is really a valuable use of your life. Eventually you realize you're going to spend more of your life doing pointless shit than actually doing the stuff you enjoy, and that there's no escape from the system, that you're just a nameless, faceless cog in the machine, and that you actually have no real agency. So the only difference between being depressed and being healthy is how much energy you have to put up with that bullshit. Treating depression as a disease, and not as a rational reaction to the world we live in really feels like it serves only to benefit rich corporations, VCs, private equity, etc. because if the cogs stop turning, they stop making money. Then they would have to work a dayjob, and they would understand why depression is totally fucking normal.

viklove 7y ago

> They seem to have it all, but just want to die. Maybe this just isn't a problem like doctors make it out to be. Maybe life isn't worth living. It seems like if you try to take up this position, you get shouted out of the room because no one wants to accept the fact that life is utterly meaningless and futile for a subset of people, and it's not a condition -- it's just an objective analysis of the situation. Slaving away for 60 years and having to spend the vast majority of your healthy, waking hours making someone else rich isn't rewarding. It's pointless. The good things in life -- family, friends, hobbies -- are sidelined and you're only allowed to focus on them 2/7 days of the week. Yeah, life really doesn't seem like it's worth living.

pfortuny 7y ago
And that, my friend, is exactly how this mental sickness is diagnosed as a sickness: because for the majority of human beings, life is worth in and for itself, despite its suffering, nonsense and stupidity. A healthy person wants to live. Not wanting to is one of the ways of "being ill". And I am not shouting you out of the room: at all. Being objective requires acknowledging that most people want to go on living despite the difficulties. The inability of understanding that outlook is exactly why depression is defined as a sickness. And being depressed has nothing to do with "slaving it" and "sidelining the good things". It has to do with BEING INFINITELY TIRED and UNABLE to COPE with ANYTHING (even those "good things" feel bad, unworthy and unappealing when you are depressed).
- viklove 7y ago
  > because for the majority of human beings, life is worth in and for itself Do we really know this is true? What percentage of people are just going through the motions because they don't want to cause pain to their family/friends, and what percentage of people actually just don't see the point? If suicide was culturally acceptable, or even normal, how many people would participate? Can you say with certainty that number is less than 10%? Because if 1/10 people don't see the point in living, then it doesn't sound like a disease to me. We live in a culture that promotes "positivity" and despises "negativity," so naturally we classify the lack of will to live as a disease, but I'm not so sure that it's that far outside of the norm. > It has to do with BEING INFINITELY TIRED and UNABLE to COPE with ANYTHING I'm no expert, but I'd imagine at some point you just get sick of putting on the act that stocking shelves at Walmart for 60 years is your life's true calling, or that writing code to track people around the internet to sell them more useless shit is really a valuable use of your life. Eventually you realize you're going to spend more of your life doing pointless shit than actually doing the stuff you enjoy, and that there's no escape from the system, that you're just a nameless, faceless cog in the machine, and that you actually have no real agency. So the only difference between being depressed and being healthy is how much energy you have to put up with that bullshit. Treating depression as a disease, and not as a rational reaction to the world we live in really feels like it serves only to benefit rich corporations, VCs, private equity, etc. because if the cogs stop turning, they stop making money. Then they would have to work a dayjob, and they would understand why depression is totally fucking normal.