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I imagine depression is a multi-faceted problem and not singularly a chemical imbalance problem. On a holistic level it could also mean you’re spiritually broke

I imagine depression is a multi-faceted problem and not singularly a chemical imbalance problem. On a holistic level it could also mean you’re spiritually broken and don’t have the right tools to navigate life and its many hurdles. People need the right tools to navigate life.

alecbz 4y ago
Everything in your brain is made up of chemicals though. Even if one’s depression is caused by external factors (as opposed to some kind of inherent or congenital chemical imbalance), modifying the chemical state of your brain can still possibly address the depression. I’ve been on SSRIs for years — I’ve bounced back and forth on my view of depression. I think my brain is likely prone to respond to certain stressors in a depressive way, due to a combination of genetics and years of conditioning/“practice”. It seems possible to me that I could learn, via a combination of things like therapy and meditation, to notice and control my brain’s reaction to those stressors. But at the same time, “chemical interventions” like SSRIs have also seemed to help.
- alecbz 4y ago
  Musing some more while I'm here (a bunch of armchair psychology to follow): Everything in your brain is chemicals, but beyond that, external influences can I think cause very deep, "low-level" changes in your brain, that end up feeling more like chemical imbalances than they do like being upset about some particular thing. Like, the thought "I'm sad my partner left me" is made of chemicals, but I think depression operates on a much lower level than that of conscious thoughts like those, even when induced by some external stressor. When I pay attention to my own mood, I can sometimes notice specific things that trigger feelings of depression. Something stressful happens, I'm worried about something, etc., and I'll react by getting depressed. But the depression doesn't feel like it's tied to whatever just happened. I'm not sitting there being like "omg I'm so sad about X" -- I just feel depressed: I'm not getting much joy out of anything, nothing seems interesting or exciting, I'm not looking forward to anything, etc. It's only when I force myself to take a step back and ask "what might have happened recently to cause me to feel depressed?" that I'll realize "ah yes, X just happened, that's probably why I'm feeling depressed right now". But even after that realization, the depression _still_ feels disconnected from the stressor. My conscious brain knows that the depression was probably caused by X, but my subjective experience of the depression is still disconnected from X. I guess this is kind of analogous to waking up with back pain, wondering "what did I do to my back?", and realizing "ah yeah, it was X". Realizing what caused your back pain doesn't somehow alleviate the back pain -- the damage is already done. You can maybe try to do X more carefully in the future, but even that is no guarantee that X won't cause you back pain again. I think we like to think that because our brain is where our consciousness and ego and thoughts are, that we can control it in a way we couldn't control other body parts, like our backs. And that we ought to be able to "will away" mental pain in a way we couldn't just "will away" back pain. But that's not always the case; the brain's just another organ.
4oo4 4y ago
This 100%. Framing mental health as a purely individual or chemical issue distracts from the societal/cultural level problems you're hinting at. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of what we call the mental health epidemic is really just late capitalism being fundamentally unable to meet human needs of spirituality and emotional belonging. There's nothing inherently wrong with capitalism as a means to an end in an economic sense, but as an ideology and identity (as is especially pervasive in the US), it's extremely toxic. Capitalism in this sense dehumanizes people, and rewards and encourages lack of empathy and sociopathy. We're taught that it's OK to let people be homeless, starve, and die preventable deaths from lack of healthcare because it's their fault for not being able to succeed in a system that is designed to profit off their failures. We're told we can't fix these because of insufficient means, but in actuality it's a question of prorities and not wanting to midly inconvenience wealthy people to share small portions of their wealth to support the society from which they extract their wealth. Being in constant fear for your survival because your wages haven't increased in years while the cost of healthcare, food, housing and education keep increasing is disastrous for mental health, that shouldn't be surprising at all. If you're in that position you might be told that your employer can't afford to pay you enough to survive, when in actuality they likely still have healthy profits that are redistributed only to senior management and shareholders. Learning about the concept of internalized capitalism was a game changer for me. Once you decouple your self-worth from your perceived productivity for the economy/society (aka your value to wealthy elites), it's a lot easier for you to accept yourself and stop blaming yourself for something that's totally outside your control that you perceive to be as a personal failure. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/06/17/internalized-capitalism-harms-mental-health-productivity/7723416002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/06/...
- alecbz 4y ago
  I definitely think there are broad societal trends contributing a lot to mental health issues, but I'm less convinced it's capitalism exactly (depending on what you mean by "capitalism" of course[0]). Two societal trends that seem significant to me and my own depression are a) emphasis on individualism over community, and b) rejection of religion.

alecbz 4y ago

Everything in your brain is made up of chemicals though. Even if one’s depression is caused by external factors (as opposed to some kind of inherent or congenital chemical imbalance), modifying the chemical state of your brain can still possibly address the depression. I’ve been on SSRIs for years — I’ve bounced back and forth on my view of depression. I think my brain is likely prone to respond to certain stressors in a depressive way, due to a combination of genetics and years of conditioning/“practice”. It seems possible to me that I could learn, via a combination of things like therapy and meditation, to notice and control my brain’s reaction to those stressors. But at the same time, “chemical interventions” like SSRIs have also seemed to help.

alecbz 4y ago
Musing some more while I'm here (a bunch of armchair psychology to follow): Everything in your brain is chemicals, but beyond that, external influences can I think cause very deep, "low-level" changes in your brain, that end up feeling more like chemical imbalances than they do like being upset about some particular thing. Like, the thought "I'm sad my partner left me" is made of chemicals, but I think depression operates on a much lower level than that of conscious thoughts like those, even when induced by some external stressor. When I pay attention to my own mood, I can sometimes notice specific things that trigger feelings of depression. Something stressful happens, I'm worried about something, etc., and I'll react by getting depressed. But the depression doesn't feel like it's tied to whatever just happened. I'm not sitting there being like "omg I'm so sad about X" -- I just feel depressed: I'm not getting much joy out of anything, nothing seems interesting or exciting, I'm not looking forward to anything, etc. It's only when I force myself to take a step back and ask "what might have happened recently to cause me to feel depressed?" that I'll realize "ah yes, X just happened, that's probably why I'm feeling depressed right now". But even after that realization, the depression _still_ feels disconnected from the stressor. My conscious brain knows that the depression was probably caused by X, but my subjective experience of the depression is still disconnected from X. I guess this is kind of analogous to waking up with back pain, wondering "what did I do to my back?", and realizing "ah yeah, it was X". Realizing what caused your back pain doesn't somehow alleviate the back pain -- the damage is already done. You can maybe try to do X more carefully in the future, but even that is no guarantee that X won't cause you back pain again. I think we like to think that because our brain is where our consciousness and ego and thoughts are, that we can control it in a way we couldn't control other body parts, like our backs. And that we ought to be able to "will away" mental pain in a way we couldn't just "will away" back pain. But that's not always the case; the brain's just another organ.

4oo4 4y ago

This 100%. Framing mental health as a purely individual or chemical issue distracts from the societal/cultural level problems you're hinting at. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of what we call the mental health epidemic is really just late capitalism being fundamentally unable to meet human needs of spirituality and emotional belonging. There's nothing inherently wrong with capitalism as a means to an end in an economic sense, but as an ideology and identity (as is especially pervasive in the US), it's extremely toxic. Capitalism in this sense dehumanizes people, and rewards and encourages lack of empathy and sociopathy. We're taught that it's OK to let people be homeless, starve, and die preventable deaths from lack of healthcare because it's their fault for not being able to succeed in a system that is designed to profit off their failures. We're told we can't fix these because of insufficient means, but in actuality it's a question of prorities and not wanting to midly inconvenience wealthy people to share small portions of their wealth to support the society from which they extract their wealth. Being in constant fear for your survival because your wages haven't increased in years while the cost of healthcare, food, housing and education keep increasing is disastrous for mental health, that shouldn't be surprising at all. If you're in that position you might be told that your employer can't afford to pay you enough to survive, when in actuality they likely still have healthy profits that are redistributed only to senior management and shareholders. Learning about the concept of internalized capitalism was a game changer for me. Once you decouple your self-worth from your perceived productivity for the economy/society (aka your value to wealthy elites), it's a lot easier for you to accept yourself and stop blaming yourself for something that's totally outside your control that you perceive to be as a personal failure. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/06/17/internalized-capitalism-harms-mental-health-productivity/7723416002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/06/...

alecbz 4y ago
I definitely think there are broad societal trends contributing a lot to mental health issues, but I'm less convinced it's capitalism exactly (depending on what you mean by "capitalism" of course[0]). Two societal trends that seem significant to me and my own depression are a) emphasis on individualism over community, and b) rejection of religion.