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Are you familiar with what it’s like to have depression? It’s not something you can really ever get rid of, even if you can mitigate it with medication and life

Are you familiar with what it’s like to have depression? It’s not something you can really ever get rid of, even if you can mitigate it with medication and lifestyle changes. It’s there, though not dominant, even when things are going well and even when you’re in a positive mood. I struggle with similar feelings, and the idea that depression becomes something that is there but can be put to positive use absolutely tracks with my own experience.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
I think depression can spiral into a positive feedback loop that forms a depressive disorder. Mood affects life which affects mood which affects life... Many people who haven't been stuck in that positive feedback loop have still been blue. Their capacity to feel happiness is muted just like ours, but they are successfully able to get out of that with a behavioral change. That's not always the case with a depressive disorder, and it can take a multi-faceted approach of medications, lifestyle change, sleep hygiene improvement, sometimes electroshock therapy for those people to get out of it.
BurningFrog 6y ago
> Are you familiar with what it’s like to have depression? Pretty sure there are many distinct conditions that we now call "depression". Your description is very true for some of them, and not at all for others.
podgaj 6y ago
Please read my other posts. I have a 35 year history of hospitalizations for both manic and depressive episodes and I have attempted suicide twice. I have lived with 9 month long depressions where all I could do was watch cartoons and not enough energy to even brush my teeth. If one cannot get rid of depression then one cannot get rid of heart disease or cancer.
- sizzle 6y ago
  Have you been tested for lyme's disease regarding the lack of energy?
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
I had it a large chunk of my life. It went, eventually. It can go but that's because it's not in my nature/mind/brain/chemistry/whatever. In this I'm very fortunate, but please don't completely rule out defeating it, though the odds are poor.
Delk 6y ago
This probably varies by the person. Some people might get a single episode, then get through it one way or another, and never have another one. Others might have a lifelong tendency or vulnerability to it, and in that sense it might always be there in the background. I'm fairly certain I was more or less depressed (although not diagnosed) in my teenage years and early 20's. In my later 20's things were brighter, although I probably had a tendency for some amount of depression, especially during the darker winter months of the year (I live in the north). However, there were definitely times when I wouldn't have considered myself depressed. I'm not sure I'd even say it was "there" at those times, in the sense of being actively present in any way, even in a non-dominant way. Later on, I got another deeper episode of depression that I'm still battling. Yet other people might have it always there in some way, as you say.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

I think depression can spiral into a positive feedback loop that forms a depressive disorder. Mood affects life which affects mood which affects life... Many people who haven't been stuck in that positive feedback loop have still been blue. Their capacity to feel happiness is muted just like ours, but they are successfully able to get out of that with a behavioral change. That's not always the case with a depressive disorder, and it can take a multi-faceted approach of medications, lifestyle change, sleep hygiene improvement, sometimes electroshock therapy for those people to get out of it.

BurningFrog 6y ago

> Are you familiar with what it’s like to have depression? Pretty sure there are many distinct conditions that we now call "depression". Your description is very true for some of them, and not at all for others.

podgaj 6y ago

Please read my other posts. I have a 35 year history of hospitalizations for both manic and depressive episodes and I have attempted suicide twice. I have lived with 9 month long depressions where all I could do was watch cartoons and not enough energy to even brush my teeth. If one cannot get rid of depression then one cannot get rid of heart disease or cancer.

sizzle 6y ago
Have you been tested for lyme's disease regarding the lack of energy?

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

I had it a large chunk of my life. It went, eventually. It can go but that's because it's not in my nature/mind/brain/chemistry/whatever. In this I'm very fortunate, but please don't completely rule out defeating it, though the odds are poor.

Delk 6y ago

This probably varies by the person. Some people might get a single episode, then get through it one way or another, and never have another one. Others might have a lifelong tendency or vulnerability to it, and in that sense it might always be there in the background. I'm fairly certain I was more or less depressed (although not diagnosed) in my teenage years and early 20's. In my later 20's things were brighter, although I probably had a tendency for some amount of depression, especially during the darker winter months of the year (I live in the north). However, there were definitely times when I wouldn't have considered myself depressed. I'm not sure I'd even say it was "there" at those times, in the sense of being actively present in any way, even in a non-dominant way. Later on, I got another deeper episode of depression that I'm still battling. Yet other people might have it always there in some way, as you say.