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> Thread about severe depression > Someone mentions lack of willpower and personal agency. It's honestly incredible how people STILL try to argue that depress

> Thread about severe depression > Someone mentions lack of willpower and personal agency. It's honestly incredible how people STILL try to argue that depressed people should "just get over with it", just stop being sad and stop being lazy. My god. Excuse me, but you have fundamentally failed at understanding what depression even is and apparently conflate it with some rebel teenager phase during puberty by telling people to just get a grip on themselves.

formerly_proven 5y ago
It's depressing to see drivel like this on HN. Literally this: https://i2.wp.com/www.robot-hugs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2013-11-21-Helpful-Advice.png?fit=630%2C1029&ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/www.robot-hugs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015...
JSavageOne 5y ago
Strawman fallacy. I never said that it was easy or "just get over it". To quote my original post: "Not to suggest that it's easy to get someone to do something that they don't want to do, but let's not remove personal agency here." My comment was simply disputing the other comment's assertion that forcing oneself to do something outside of their comfort zone like going to the gym when depressed is "borderline impossible to the point that it's an impractical and irrelevant suggestion". It is my belief that this victim mentality and remove of one's sense of personal agency in the matter is at best useless, at worst incredibly damaging. Even the original commenter stated that for some, depression is purely biological, whereas for others, it may involve behavioral components. It's kind of ridiculous that anytime someone mentions personal agency in a depression thread, one gets heavily downvoted with hoards of commenters jumping in to say "depression is purely biological and only treatable through medication and therapy!" Ok, perhaps this is true for many depressed people, but what is the breakdown of depressed people who's depression is purely biological like this vs. those who's depression is also behavioral (I would guess the former being a small minority)? Why are we not allowed to acknowledge the latter? How does speaking to self-agency make anyone worse off? Depression is complex. Let's not reduce it to something as simple as being a biological disease curable only via medication and therapy. In the past I would've said something along the same lines as my previous posts but excused myself out of the conversation earlier since I don't really have a horse in this race. But now that I have a close friend who's experiencing psychosis and basically lost his mind (eg. running around naked, talking to voices in his head) due to some psychiatrist prescribing him with the "wrong" depression medication, the issue has become personal to me. Apparently even the "experts" don't seem to know how to treat depression, so let's not speak so condescendingly and matter-of-factly as if anyone knows what they're talking about here.

formerly_proven 5y ago

It's depressing to see drivel like this on HN. Literally this: https://i2.wp.com/www.robot-hugs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2013-11-21-Helpful-Advice.png?fit=630%2C1029&ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/www.robot-hugs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015...

JSavageOne 5y ago

Strawman fallacy. I never said that it was easy or "just get over it". To quote my original post: "Not to suggest that it's easy to get someone to do something that they don't want to do, but let's not remove personal agency here." My comment was simply disputing the other comment's assertion that forcing oneself to do something outside of their comfort zone like going to the gym when depressed is "borderline impossible to the point that it's an impractical and irrelevant suggestion". It is my belief that this victim mentality and remove of one's sense of personal agency in the matter is at best useless, at worst incredibly damaging. Even the original commenter stated that for some, depression is purely biological, whereas for others, it may involve behavioral components. It's kind of ridiculous that anytime someone mentions personal agency in a depression thread, one gets heavily downvoted with hoards of commenters jumping in to say "depression is purely biological and only treatable through medication and therapy!" Ok, perhaps this is true for many depressed people, but what is the breakdown of depressed people who's depression is purely biological like this vs. those who's depression is also behavioral (I would guess the former being a small minority)? Why are we not allowed to acknowledge the latter? How does speaking to self-agency make anyone worse off? Depression is complex. Let's not reduce it to something as simple as being a biological disease curable only via medication and therapy. In the past I would've said something along the same lines as my previous posts but excused myself out of the conversation earlier since I don't really have a horse in this race. But now that I have a close friend who's experiencing psychosis and basically lost his mind (eg. running around naked, talking to voices in his head) due to some psychiatrist prescribing him with the "wrong" depression medication, the issue has become personal to me. Apparently even the "experts" don't seem to know how to treat depression, so let's not speak so condescendingly and matter-of-factly as if anyone knows what they're talking about here.