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Content behind Clickbait headline: Depression is a "freeze" reaction to stress, effectively shutting down to avoid triggering a dangerous response from the env

by lupire 2y ago

Content behind Clickbait headline: Depression is a "freeze" reaction to stress, effectively shutting down to avoid triggering a dangerous response from the environment. To me this seems quite a stretch, and maybe some conflation with "learned helplessness". In my experience, depression is an irrational fear reaction. When something good happens, the brain suddenly thinks "this is not good, failed, it's worthless, a waste of effort" or "this was a mistake; this is going to end in disaster for me, I shouldn't have done this." It's not adaptive just because it's occasionally a correct prediction by chance. A more common adaptive reaction to adversity is carefulness/stress: heightened awareness of the world and intense effort to choose safe decisions, and to fantasize ways to escape.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
One way I would think of depression is, it's a condition that is triggered by a case where it seems like you fundamentally as an identity don't fit the current environment, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change the environment, or yourself to adapt to that environment. Nothing is going to make you happy, because there is something fundamentally wrong. And in many cases it won't be obvious that something is fundamentally wrong. It could be that you are genetically not wired to adapt to modern environment, which was never there. For example you are forced to go to school when it doesn't fit you, later in life forced to work at something that is not according to your talent or passion. I wouldn't call it like a reaction to fear.
- nullindividual 2y ago
  I think depression can lead to apathy, anhedonia, even nihilism but having that as an origin point for depression seems quite out of place. The last sentence of your main paragraph is the reason for my username. It’s certainly not the origin point for that feeling, however. It isn’t fun to realize that everything you touch within your own lifetime is temporary. Work is largely meaningless. Abusive partners, officials getting away with clear (attempted) murder because they can hide behind a piece of paper, and so on. Sure life is “unfair”, but it is unfair for the vast majority due to it being stacked for the vanishingly tiny minority. And the majority is powerless to stop the abuses. Why bother?

by lupire 2y ago

mewpmewp2 2y ago

One way I would think of depression is, it's a condition that is triggered by a case where it seems like you fundamentally as an identity don't fit the current environment, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change the environment, or yourself to adapt to that environment. Nothing is going to make you happy, because there is something fundamentally wrong. And in many cases it won't be obvious that something is fundamentally wrong. It could be that you are genetically not wired to adapt to modern environment, which was never there. For example you are forced to go to school when it doesn't fit you, later in life forced to work at something that is not according to your talent or passion. I wouldn't call it like a reaction to fear.

nullindividual 2y ago
I think depression can lead to apathy, anhedonia, even nihilism but having that as an origin point for depression seems quite out of place. The last sentence of your main paragraph is the reason for my username. It’s certainly not the origin point for that feeling, however. It isn’t fun to realize that everything you touch within your own lifetime is temporary. Work is largely meaningless. Abusive partners, officials getting away with clear (attempted) murder because they can hide behind a piece of paper, and so on. Sure life is “unfair”, but it is unfair for the vast majority due to it being stacked for the vanishingly tiny minority. And the majority is powerless to stop the abuses. Why bother?