Depression-- Dissatisfaction or Disease?

[Quixotic Son]

I have never made a deep thoughts thread before so any authority higher than me can move it if inappropriate.
I recently watched a video on Youtube from a right wing guy about depression being more of a choice rather than a mental illness.

The Truth About Depression

Why does popular culture glorify and fetishize depression?It's now a form of virtue signaling to constantly drone on about how depressed you are on social me...

youtu.be

The video had me rethink how depression is typically seen from a psychological standpoint. Is it really a mental illness or just an epidemic of dissatisfaction due to the overload of information from the Internet, social media, etc.? If it is dissatisfaction, what can we do to possibly relieve society from the "doomer" mindset?

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

I have never made a deep thoughts thread before so any authority higher than me can move it if inappropriate.
I recently watched a video on Youtube from a right wing guy about depression being more of a choice rather than a mental illness.

The Truth About Depression

Why does popular culture glorify and fetishize depression?It's now a form of virtue signaling to constantly drone on about how depressed you are on social me...

youtu.be

The video had me rethink how depression is typically seen from a psychological standpoint. Is it really a mental illness or just an epidemic of dissatisfaction due to the overload of information from the Internet, social media, etc.? If it is dissatisfaction, what can we do to possibly relieve society from the "doomer" mindset?

That video conflates chemical depression, psychological depression, and the mood known as depression.

 

[The Great Chandler]

Eh, some people just get depressed, even the happiest of homies. Best thing to do is find a way to keep yourself busy, talk with a psychiatrist, and just ignore that nagging negative voice in your head

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Depression is a big word; some people have long times of sadness by traumatic experiencies, like death of relatives or specific actions against them but others have more chances to having it by lesser problems or ever existencial ones (provoked by genetics generally)... like me.
I'm gonna be honest, getting sad for information overload is a retard thing; is actually how the world works, media trying to appealing the typical agenda, people trying to hide his atrocious feelings and either way get fucked or even acting like victims when actually they're the root of the problem. If those things affect you, bro; stay away from the computer screen for a while.
At least a thing i learned in all this time is one thing; stay close with your most trusted people and never betray them; loneliness actually is one of the most factors to apply suicide nowadays.

 

[Myra]

I have never made a deep thoughts thread before so any authority higher than me can move it if inappropriate.
I recently watched a video on Youtube from a right wing guy about depression being more of a choice rather than a mental illness.

The Truth About Depression

Why does popular culture glorify and fetishize depression?It's now a form of virtue signaling to constantly drone on about how depressed you are on social me...

youtu.be

The video had me rethink how depression is typically seen from a psychological standpoint. Is it really a mental illness or just an epidemic of dissatisfaction due to the overload of information from the Internet, social media, etc.? If it is dissatisfaction, what can we do to possibly relieve society from the "doomer" mindset?

People have suffered from depression a long long time before technology and the Internet arrived.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

More like being a pussy. Unless you had legitimately terrible upbringing or fucked any possible way to improve your life (not willingly), then depression is just a bitch way of looking for sympathy points and/or justifying to yourself and others your laziness.

 

[User names must be unique]

That video conflates chemical depression, psychological depression, and the mood known as depression.

Fairly sure doctors do too tbh, there aren't any blood tests or brain scans to diagnose mental illness. The vid is dogshit in other regards though.

The Boom in mental illness happened after the Thud experiment destroyed public trust in psychology, so psychologists set about looking for new better ways of diagnosing. They came up a with a simple yes/no questionnaire the answers would be fed into a computer that would spit out a diagnosis.

To test their system they administered the questionnaire to random members of the public, the computers found that over 50% of all participants had some form of disorder. Rather then reassessing the system, they just accepted it was correct and declared there had been a hidden pandemic all along.

The more I learn about psychology/psychiatry the less I trust it, I honestly believe they create more problems than they solve.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

Fairly sure doctors do too tbh, there aren't any blood tests or brain scans to diagnose mental illness.

Actually, you can give someone with clinical depression an MRI or CAT scan and observe their brain chemistry's difference from that of a normal person. For psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, the differences are even more acute, to an insane degree. Current standards are the result of the field not having caught up to the latest science yet.

 

[Taylor Swift's Ghostwrite]

A really good psych, which there are very few of tbh, will ask you a lot of questions about your depressed state. There is chemical and situational depression which are different animals.

Therapy is the key treatment for the latter, with meds being temporary. Medication is key for the former with therapy there just to help redirect your bad brain from being an asshole and wanting depression chemicals it has gotten used to drowning itself in.

 

[User names must be unique]

Current standards are the result of the field not having caught up to the latest science yet.

So what you're saying is there aren't any brainscans involved in diagnosing depression. I didn't say they couldn't simply that they don't.

I should have been more clear mental illness exists no doubt, I just see the medical industry as too eager to pathologize certain normal or temporary changes in behaviour or mood.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Depression Real Hahahaha Nigga Just Pump Iron Like Nigga Get Swole Haha

 

[Cyclonus]

 

[L50LasPak]

Given the state of the world is not exactly hard to think of countless reasons why people would be unhappy. I've begun to question the chemical imbalance side of the debate - why are our brains so poor at maintaining a base line of homeostasis? If there is a chemical imbalance causing depression, then it must be produced in response to stimuli. I don't believe the brain just goes haywire for no identifiable reason, unless you really are that unlucky when it comes to the genetic lottery. But there are far too many cases of depression for that to be the case.

 

[The Real SVP]

A mere symptom of systemic inflammation.

 

[REMEMBERMKULTRA]

I'm extremely depressed. My plan is to wait for my parents to die and kill myself with my shotgun.

 

[L50LasPak]

I'm extremely depressed. My plan is to wait for my parents to die and kill myself with my shotgun.

Hanging's easier to do and less messy if you do it outside. Depends on how much you hate your landlord I guess.

 

[REMEMBERMKULTRA]

Hanging's easier to do and less messy if you do it outside. Depends on how much you hate your landlord I guess.

My cousin hanged himself but he botched it and tore his fingernails out trying to loosen the noose. I'd rather my death be quick and painless.

 

[Dyn]

Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain juices. If you're just sad because you can't get laid or your dog died or whatever they call it 'adaptational disorder'.

 

[Lemmingwise]

My cousin hanged himself but he botched it and tore his fingernails out trying to loosen the noose. I'd rather my death be quick and painless.

Like that scene in rules of attraction!

 

[furūtsu]

Depression isn’t just an illness in a bubble.

It’s also a symptom of many other conditions.
PL:

Spoiler

I have PMDD. Basically PMS on steroids. One week a month I get suicidally depressed. The rest of the month I’m fine and I’m actually straight manic on my period proper.

I can’t exactly choose to have a severe chemical imbalance. It just happens. I can choose how I respond to it; I can choose whether to neck myself or stare despondently at a wall for 5 hours or go out for a short walk; but I can’t choose to not feel the tidal wave of fucked chemicals crashing over my brain.

My experience, rare as it may be, leads me to believe that depression is involuntary. Whether one seeks to treat it or let it fester is another matter.