4 ms·

> When you say 'it's perfectly natural for people to experience X', what you may actually mean is 'many people suffer from mild depression and/or bipolar disord

by h1karu 12y ago

> When you say 'it's perfectly natural for people to experience X', what you may actually mean is 'many people suffer from mild depression and/or bipolar disorder symptoms without ever being treated', which is absolutely true. I would argue that what people call "mild depression" IE symptoms that do not warrant a diagnosis.. is actually not depression at all but rather part of the normal human range of emotion and feeling. Many people latch on to the advertising concept of "mild depression" but that doesn't mean it actually exists

kevingadd 12y ago
So you go directly from 'doesn't warrant a full diagnosis' to 'doesn't exist'? What exactly are you suggesting here? Are you saying it's not a spectrum of symptoms, from mild to severe, and that there is a bucket of people with 'no depression' and a bucket of people with 'real depression'? What is your basis for such a statement? Otherwise, you're agreeing that there is a spectrum of symptoms, but somehow the symptoms on the milder end of the spectrum 'don't actually exist'? A diagnosis is different from a prescription. Just because you have a diagnosis of depression doesn't mean you automatically need to take antidepressants; the diagnosis is used as a tool to understand the general set of symptoms you might experience and what the treatment methods are. Again, depression is not 'abnormal' emotion or 'abnormal' feelings. Neither are the effects of bipolar. They are both 'normal' and entirely natural biological mechanisms, the problem is that those mechanisms are acting to an atypical degree and causing negative side-effects. In many cases the treatment methods are also entirely 'natural', not involving any pharmaceuticals. Another way to put this: It is normal for someone to become depressed in response to tough circumstances or disappointment. It's normal for someone to get amped up and slightly manic in response to stress or an immediate threat. Those are natural mechanisms. When the depression or stress response lasts for days or weeks, that is where it starts to enter into territory where a physician might diagnose it as clinical depression, or hypomania, or mania. Again, the problem is not the feelings, it's the duration and magnitude of the feelings - the feelings and physical effects lasting well after the initial triggers are gone.
- h1karu 12y ago
  > So you go directly from 'doesn't warrant a full diagnosis' to 'doesn't exist'? What exactly are you suggesting here? For example flu-like symptoms do not necessarily mean that you have early onset AIDS or ebola virus even though those diseases do produce flu-like symptoms. Therefor people shouldn't refer to those common symtoms as "mild ebola" or "mild AIDS". The same principle applies to mental health and words like "depression". > Another way to put this: It is normal for someone to become depressed in response to tough circumstances or disappointment I would argue that this is incorrect. If a certain human condition is normal then by definition it is not an illness! Therefor to use the word 'depression' to characterize normal circumstances is not only a misnomer but a dangerous charade that downplays the seriousness of the genuine mental illness. A whole generation is confused on this point in my opinion due to advertising campaigns that are designed to confuse them and the doctors don't seem to be motivated to help clear up this confusion and I can only assume that is due to profit incentive.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - lfuller 12y ago
    AIDS and the ebola virus are not spectrum diseases - you either have >= 1 ebola / HIV viron in your system or you don't. This is entirely different from depression which is a spectrum disorder with many differing degrees of severity.
    - h1karu 12y ago
      The existence of a "spectrum disease" is a misnomer. The people who invented the term clearly defined it as an approach to researching disease, merely a psychological crutch to use when thinking about disease and not something that actually exists. This flawed "research view" unduly medicalizes problems which are simply challenges people face in life. There was talk of including some limited use of the term spectrum in the planning of the DSM-V but that's all it was, talk.

by h1karu 12y ago

kevingadd 12y ago

So you go directly from 'doesn't warrant a full diagnosis' to 'doesn't exist'? What exactly are you suggesting here? Are you saying it's not a spectrum of symptoms, from mild to severe, and that there is a bucket of people with 'no depression' and a bucket of people with 'real depression'? What is your basis for such a statement? Otherwise, you're agreeing that there is a spectrum of symptoms, but somehow the symptoms on the milder end of the spectrum 'don't actually exist'? A diagnosis is different from a prescription. Just because you have a diagnosis of depression doesn't mean you automatically need to take antidepressants; the diagnosis is used as a tool to understand the general set of symptoms you might experience and what the treatment methods are. Again, depression is not 'abnormal' emotion or 'abnormal' feelings. Neither are the effects of bipolar. They are both 'normal' and entirely natural biological mechanisms, the problem is that those mechanisms are acting to an atypical degree and causing negative side-effects. In many cases the treatment methods are also entirely 'natural', not involving any pharmaceuticals. Another way to put this: It is normal for someone to become depressed in response to tough circumstances or disappointment. It's normal for someone to get amped up and slightly manic in response to stress or an immediate threat. Those are natural mechanisms. When the depression or stress response lasts for days or weeks, that is where it starts to enter into territory where a physician might diagnose it as clinical depression, or hypomania, or mania. Again, the problem is not the feelings, it's the duration and magnitude of the feelings - the feelings and physical effects lasting well after the initial triggers are gone.

h1karu 12y ago
> So you go directly from 'doesn't warrant a full diagnosis' to 'doesn't exist'? What exactly are you suggesting here? For example flu-like symptoms do not necessarily mean that you have early onset AIDS or ebola virus even though those diseases do produce flu-like symptoms. Therefor people shouldn't refer to those common symtoms as "mild ebola" or "mild AIDS". The same principle applies to mental health and words like "depression". > Another way to put this: It is normal for someone to become depressed in response to tough circumstances or disappointment I would argue that this is incorrect. If a certain human condition is normal then by definition it is not an illness! Therefor to use the word 'depression' to characterize normal circumstances is not only a misnomer but a dangerous charade that downplays the seriousness of the genuine mental illness. A whole generation is confused on this point in my opinion due to advertising campaigns that are designed to confuse them and the doctors don't seem to be motivated to help clear up this confusion and I can only assume that is due to profit incentive.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- lfuller 12y ago
  AIDS and the ebola virus are not spectrum diseases - you either have >= 1 ebola / HIV viron in your system or you don't. This is entirely different from depression which is a spectrum disorder with many differing degrees of severity.
  - h1karu 12y ago
    The existence of a "spectrum disease" is a misnomer. The people who invented the term clearly defined it as an approach to researching disease, merely a psychological crutch to use when thinking about disease and not something that actually exists. This flawed "research view" unduly medicalizes problems which are simply challenges people face in life. There was talk of including some limited use of the term spectrum in the planning of the DSM-V but that's all it was, talk.