It feels pretty weird to me that people are almost programmed to recommend Therapy or Gym as the ultimate solutions.
Despite the fact that not all people are capable of doing both.
Further more, there is no study, as far as my knowledge go, that show any ultimate cure for depression. Matter of fact I had seen a study that suggest a very high percentage of people are drug treatment resistant (meaning that there depression would not get better with any prescribed drugs).
I had seen studies that say that training or even just daily walks can highly improve mood, but I had never heard that they fully cure depression.
If one is depressed, truly depressed and not just sad about real life events, one should see a Therapist. It is not weird, it is literally the way to seek treatment for Depression and other mood disorders.
Exercise has been demonstrated to elevate mood, but as far as I know, not a substitute for medication when dealing with mood disorders. If it worked, myself and many others wouldn’t be on meds.
No. A real depressed person should first go to a psychiatrist.
Therapist here. The concept of a “real depressed person” is brought to you by insurance companies (so they can deny coverage), the APA (so they can sell the DSM) and big pharma (so they can sell you drugs). The criteria are arbitrary and often discourage people from seeking help when they don’t think their suffering is “real enough.” Most therapists I know hate the diagnostic process, but we’re forced to do it so your insurance will pay for treatment.
Anyone who’s feeling depression that disrupts their lives is welcome to see a psychiatrist, or a therapist, or both. Both types of providers are here to help, and we’ll refer you to any additional providers if it’s appropriate.
Edit: for a deeper dive into the over-pathologizing of human experiences, I recommend Allen Frances’ Saving Normal and Ethan Watters’ Crazy Like Us. The latter has a chapter on GlaxoSmithKline’s crusade to change Japan’s cultural understanding of depression from a natural response to external events, to a pervasive disease that needs treatment (like Paxil!)
@Arkouda@lemmy.ca @Pro@programming.dev
I’m a person who’d be labeled as “truly depressed”, as I coexist with the so-called “depression” since my childhood. I went to several mental health professionals, tried several different medications (Paroxetin, Ritalin, Escitalopram, Aripiprazole). Nothing worked.
Here’s why: one can’t cure something without curing the root cause. One could take painkillers for a headache and the headache would temporarily cease, but the painkiller won’t cure whatever is causing the headache in the first place.
Turns out that my “depression” stems from something that can’t be cured, the ontological realization of the lack of True Will. It’s something way beyond mundane questions such as “I’m far into adulthood and I still don’t know what kissing is” or “I’m in adulthood and I didn’t manage to achieve a career”. My fundamental complaints can’t even be put into human language without sounding absurd, because they have to do with the absurdity of existence itself.
My “problems” can’t be treated by medications, my “problems” can’t be treated by professionals, because my “problems” exist beyond existence.
I have a problem with having being born without my consent. I have a problem with my awareness of the pointlessness of a fleeting biological existence before the carelessness and vastness of the Cosmos. I have a problem with the fact that I must “take responsibility” legally/socially about myself even though I couldn’t even choose to be born in the first place. I have a problem with the fact that I must seek to "do/be something/someone useful for society_ so I get to “afford to eat and have a shelter” by having a colorful piece of paper, when there’s no proper way to release my body from such needs. I have a problem with how this flesh-and-bones vessel imposes the continuity of existence unto me (“instinct of survival”).
Treatent won’t solve the root problem (lack of True Will), it’d be just gaslighting me into gaslighting myself by keeping me busy with fleeting mundaneity. As the movie says, “Don’t look up”: I must not see the ever-approaching dark lips of Death emerging from the darkness of spacetime continuum so I should take medication and walk myself to that queue over there so I can apply for countless jobs until I afford to be chosen by a
landlordemployer who expects me to grant them more profit.Even talks about one’s own choice on the continuity of existing (MAID) is met with societal rejection, for “life is a gift and we must be thankful to whatever/whoever granted us with life”. In this sense, suicide hotlines, treatment and medication aren’t so different from clergy and their religious dogmas in the time of feudalism, where peasants were convinced of their “transcendental purpose” to serve… Just history repeating itself.
Unfortunately, no treatment will make me forget how existence is inherently servile, to which I’ll continue to shout until Lady Death gets to finally kiss me: “Non Serviam”.
Free will doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean you don’t. Do something fun with your time. I would recommend creative writing.
@Arkouda@lemmy.ca Even if I get to do something (such as I’m doing right now while trying to express something profound, aware of how I’m probably just yelling to the clouds), it doesn’t change the fact that the world behaves like a prison where all lifeforms are thrown to “make a living” (i.e. surviving and competing against other lifeforms because their own vessels offer no other option other than the biological preprogramming of “instincts”).
Also, the “exit hatch” is so tight and spiky that one must endure utter pain while trying to squeeze through it. And things like MAID, which would allow one to conscientiously and finally choose something about their own existence, “must be allowed only for the terminally-ill” because “life” is something so, so “sacred” that people can’t even dare to think of choosing other than “living” (a.k.a. constantly trying to avoid and postpone the unavoidable by trying to fulfill the vessel’s needs while being forced to play the unskippable game of social compliance), because they “must do something fun with their time” and thinking otherwise must be inconceivable!
And it sounds no different from how prisoners must “do something” with their prison time, be it reading a book, playing cards and small-talking with other inmates, taking the obligatory sunbath for the daily dose of Vitamin D, scratching the wall so to keep track of days, or doing the obligatory physical exercising at the grass-field…
I can’t help but wonder why some Demiurge threw me to endure the lifelong punishment of “existing”, with all the whistles and bells inseparable from human existence: paying taxes and subscriptions (despite any condition of unemployment), seeking and serving jobs so a rich person can become more rich, conforming to civil duties, serving the military and, in many countries, forcefully belonging to some religion, etc, etc… It’s so absurd that even Absurdist philosophers would have a hard time trying to frame existence in less absurd terms.
I’m not denying how some moments can be “happy” or “enjoyable”, but it doesn’t make life less of a prison. It just makes me momentarily distracted from the prison while still being behind the bars of the baryonic matter.
The only thing that really comforts me is knowing how the kiss from the Lady Scythe-Bearer is inevitable and even humans with their fancy tools are powerless against Her, but for me to need to wait for Her bittersweet lips is like a prisoner needing to wait for serving their sentence before getting to gather with their loved one.
My point is: people like me should be allowed to choose to end our own existence without having to endure pain and the high certainty of failure from an attempt of our own (and trust me, I’ve been trying and failing because my vessel is preprogrammed with the pesky survival instincts). My point is that MAID should be also allowed to anyone who are consciously willing to choose it. But, yeah, it’s such a taboo for many people.
I struggled with this for a while too. But ultimately, I found the meaninglessness more freeing than anything. A cold and indifferent universe makes the elegance of physics and the intricate diversity of life that much more beautiful. The fact that consciousness exists at all is a marvel.
You’re right, death is inevitable. But non-existence is the default state. We didn’t exist for billions of years in the past, and we won’t exist for billions of years in the future. Life is recreation time. We get to observe the world, have experiences, interact with other consciousness. We’ll be called back to oblivion eventually, and as far as we can tell we only get one ride. What’s the rush in getting off?
I prefer to think of life more like a game than a prison. There are cool things to do if you follow the quests, but you can also just bug off to the wilderness to appreciate the graphics. It’s totally open world. Find something cool and obsess over it, create something just for the sake of creation, help other people who are struggling.
If nothing matters anyway, it’s impossible to waste your life. The rules are made up, you can choose to do whatever you want, if you put in a little effort. Even the effort can be fulfilling, it’s not very satisfying to just get everything you want.
So yes, the cosmos are inscrutable and unfeeling, yes, death is inevitable. But so what? What’s the rush? You are not the first to feel ennui, many before you have come out the other side with an absurdist appreciation for a “purposeless” life. Rushing to the exit just seems a bit premature to me, assuming you aren’t in chronic and terminal physical pain. Who knows how your views can change in even a few years, but you’ve gotta be around to find out.
In the Netherlands you’d be eligible for assisted dying. After therapy and psychiatric assessment, of course.