Depression, happiness & the medicalisation of society

[DL82]

It’s interesting that our society has a medical term “Depression” for people who are always far sadder than the average, but no medical condition describing the opposite. In Middle Eastern society, being the kind of person who walks around with a massive smile on your face and a really chirpy personality all the time would be seen as just as odd as a ‘depressed’ person in Anglo-American society. As I’ve said before from my own experience, even the cultural difference between the UK average and US average of happiness can be hard to handle, with Americans seeming annoyingly upbeat to me, while Britons come across as dull and negative to Americans.

Has our society gone too far in advocating a universal vocation to happiness instead of a universal vocation to saintliness? So many of our children are now heavily medicated (again, moreso in America than in the UK, but this country is getting just as bad) for all kinds of behavioural conditions from Asperger’s, ADHD, Depression, and labelled that way from an early age.

There’s a kind of joy in knowing that it’s not always all about being happy, though that very idea seems perverse to most people in our society.

 

[gam197]

In the old Irish culture it was call “melancholy”. It is considered a normal part of the culture so you are right that different cultures see things differently.

Depression is a little bit more as some people are so gloomy that they can’t function. Hopefully it is only temporary but for some it isn’t; and only then are medications to be used.

 

[apricot_yogurt]

I wonder if it has anything to do with how grey and rainy it always is. At least here in Wales.

 

[whatevergirl]

It’s interesting that our society has a medical term “Depression” for people who are always far sadder than the average, but no medical condition describing the opposite. In Middle Eastern society, being the kind of person who walks around with a massive smile on your face and a really chirpy personality all the time would be seen as just as odd as a ‘depressed’ person in Anglo-American society. As I’ve said before from my own experience, even the cultural difference between the UK average and US average of happiness can be hard to handle, with Americans seeming annoyingly upbeat to me, while Britons come across as dull and negative to Americans.

Has our society gone too far in advocating a universal vocation to happiness instead of a universal vocation to saintliness? So many of our children are now heavily medicated (again, moreso in America than in the UK, but this country is getting just as bad) for all kinds of behavioural conditions from Asperger’s, ADHD, Depression, and labelled that way from an early age.

There’s a kind of joy in knowing that it’s not always all about being happy, though that very idea seems perverse to most people in our society.

Well, my mother was diagnosed as ‘manic,’ and she required medication to keep things balanced. I don’t think that prozac and the like are merely to put a smile on someone’s face–but, rather, depression can be a sign that something ‘else’ is wrong with someone. I see what you’re saying though. We often try to mask the symptoms of being unhappy with drugs, etc. I think self medication can be the choice of many in america as well. (alcohol, pain pills, etc)

But, there is a difference between someone who is dealing with a difficult time in life, and handling ‘redemptive suffering,’ as opposed to someone who is consistently in a down mood. Depression on a continual basis is not healthy, and medication is necessary and often life saving for many in these cases.

We do live in a society though that defines happiness differently than maybe some of us do. Happiness and peace are not the same things. I see a society filled with people who are seeking peace–but mistake it for temporal happiness.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have seen real, brain chemical based depression, and it’s a lot more than just being melancholy or “not upbeat”. It can be deadly. And I have seen the right medication put the person into a “normal” state; not manic, just stable and normal.

At the same time, I have seen massive and inept overdiagnosis of “depression”, for which medication is prescribed, often on a seemingly random basis. I truly believe GPs should not be allowed to prescribe psychotropics. But they do, and seemingly without giving a thought to a proper diagnosis.

I have also seen people who are so intent on “happiness” that they do things that destroy their families and their lives. And many of those have no idea at all what “happiness” is.

And I worry a great deal about the widespread use of Ritalin to treat “hyperactivity”. When I was in grade school long ago, I think they would have dosed every male, at least, among us. And, after years of Ritalin, which is nothing in the world but a mild amphetamine, people wonder why so many young people do meth when they get a little older.

Most psychotropics merely mimic or aid the action of naturally occurring brain chemicals, and I do think many people who have problems with depression could be trained to exercise a great deal of control over their own brain chemistry without drugs. I think a lot of people actually do this. Some of it has to do with one’s expectations of favorable outcomes, and habits of thought regarding that may well be related to cultural factors.

But as I said at first, I know there are people who absolutely, positively, need pharmacological help.

 

[KinseyMcGuire]

Well, for some people depression isn’t just about happiness, it’s about a chemical unbalance in the brain that causes unhappiness as well as other symptons. These symptons can get so bad that it ruins a person’s life or even can be a factor in a person taking their own life.

I have Tourette’s Syndrome, and I can say that while I hope this spring to wean off my meds and become medication free for the first time in twenty years, I also thank God every night that He’s granted man with wisdom to create medications to help people manitan a quality of life when they can’t do it on their own.

 

[Maxply]

I don’t know exactly how to put this, but if all you have in life is yourself and material things you gather, if that’s your ultimate purpose, then you had better hope to be happy with these limited things.

Maybe that’s why happiness seems like such a popular goal: a forgetfulness of more important goals.

 

[Elric]

It’s interesting that our society has a medical term “Depression” for people who are always far sadder than the average, but no medical condition describing the opposite. In Middle Eastern society, being the kind of person who walks around with a massive smile on your face and a really chirpy personality all the time would be seen as just as odd as a ‘depressed’ person in Anglo-American society. As I’ve said before from my own experience, even the cultural difference between the UK average and US average of happiness can be hard to handle, with Americans seeming annoyingly upbeat to me, while Britons come across as dull and negative to Americans.

Has our society gone too far in advocating a universal vocation to happiness instead of a universal vocation to saintliness? So many of our children are now heavily medicated (again, moreso in America than in the UK, but this country is getting just as bad) for all kinds of behavioural conditions from Asperger’s, ADHD, Depression, and labelled that way from an early age.

There’s a kind of joy in knowing that it’s not always all about being happy, though that very idea seems perverse to most people in our society.

Manic is what you are looking for. It might seem like a great thing to have, but it can kill you and destroy lives just as well as clinical/major depression can.

I think that some things become trends, at one time you didnt hear about a condition then all of a sudden everyone and their fainting goat suffers from the condition.

I agree that there is an over prescribing of medication and I dont agree with prescribing children medication unless it is absolutly necessary and there is no other alternative (its not good for their devoleping bodies to say the least), in a lot of cases a simple change in diet works wonders.

Depression is a problem and awareness of it is absolutly vital.

 

[Newbie2]

I have also seen people who are so intent on “happiness” that they do things that destroy their families and their lives. And many of those have no idea at all what “happiness” is.

And there is the $64,000 question…what constitutes happiness?

 

[brotherhrolf]

I have been clinically depressed for over twenty years. Both of my sons are bipolar. They have a far worse trial than I. All three of us are on medication. When I look back at my mother and my grandmother, there is a definite genetic component to this. Unlike them, I am not embarrassed to admit my illness nor am I embarrassed to acknowledge that I have to take medicines.

For all of you who are suffering, I want to pass on what a nun in my choir gave to me. The poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, was a Jesuit priest in the late 19th/early 20th century who suffered from depression.

The same poet who wrote this:

worldpubliclibrary.org/eBooks/WorldeBookLibrary.com/hoppoe.htm#1_2_4

(The World is Charged with the Grandeur of God)

Also wrote:

worldpubliclibrary.org/eBooks/WorldeBookLibrary.com/hoppoe.htm#1_2_37

Carrion Comfort and No Worst, Their is None’

And:

worldpubliclibrary.org/eBooks/WorldeBookLibrary.com/hoppoe.htm#1_2_43

Patience, Hard Thing and My Own Heart Let Me Have Pity on

And:

worldpubliclibrary.org/eBooks/WorldeBookLibrary.com/hoppoe.htm#1_2_47

Thou Art Indeed Just

I use these poems as prayer:

Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

 

[CapIV]

The supposed “epidemic” of depression is a scam. Psychiatrists don’t actually do any tests. They just ask you some questions, and go “wow you really are sad, take some mood lifters”. It is the same with how every other child nowadays is given drugs for “ADD”.

It is normal to feel depressed. You are not supposed to be happy all the time. If you are having problems, talking about it is ok, but you need to do something about it. Not take mood altering drugs.

And truthfully, with the shape the world is in today, it is amazing that everyone isn’t diagnosed with clinical depression.

 

[Elric]

The supposed “epidemic” of depression is a scam. Psychiatrists don’t actually do any tests. They just ask you some questions, and go “wow you really are sad, take some mood lifters”. It is the same with how every other child nowadays is given drugs for “ADD”.

It is normal to feel depressed. You are not supposed to be happy all the time. If you are having problems, talking about it is ok, but you need to do something about it. Not take mood altering drugs.

And truthfully, with the shape the world is in today, it is amazing that everyone isn’t diagnosed with clinical depression.

You are getting two things mixed up.

Being depressed is a normal occurence, as you stated you are not supposed to be happy all the time and there are situations that will make you “feel depressed”. It is perfectly normal.

Suffering from depression however is a completly kettle of fish to being depressed. It is a very difficult thing to discribe to someone who has not suffered from it and difficult to understand if you have not experienced it.

Its like a constant (and irrational) feelings of having no self worth and uselessness which will not go away no matter what positive re-enforcement you get. Most of the time it goes hand in hand with sucidal urges/thoughts which feel like someone constantly berating you and telling you that everyone would be better off if you were dead, they can be pretty intense and wont go away no matter how unwanted they are.

Depression can effect your memory (you forget conversations that you had the day before or important appointments) as well as your concerntraition and other things, the nature of the disorder/disease means that it usually isnt alone and people can suffer from anixety (panic attacks) and/or OCD (routine is a comfortable thing) or some other disorder.

Psychiatrists cant do any “tests” for depression other than asking questions, because the very nature of it makes it very hard to develop a test for (I guess that you could cut someones head open and look at their brain, but I dont think that there are any physical signs for depression). So the only way to diagnose it is to “ask questions” and find out how the person feels. Its not exactly the most advanced method, but it seems to be the only one available for the present.

The medication is wonderful. They can help (if the right ones are prescribed), but they come with all sorts of fantastic side effects that can make coping with depression without medication seem like a really good idea. Things like shaking and twiching (parts of your body like hands or arms or your whole body) are common, execessive sweating, drowsieness (to the point of being a zombie), intense teeth aches, migranes. You could get any one or a combination of these and plenty of others.

Its also a problem with no specific cause, that can be set off at any time.

I agree that it does get overly diagnosed, but to call it a scam I think is a bit offensive. Especally to those that suffer (and I do mean suffer) from depression.

 

[CapIV]

This is my point. There is no test to be sure if someone actually has the severe medical condition of depression. It is just the opinion of the psychiatrist, who is more often than not sponsored by the drug companies to unnecessarily prescribe mood-lifters. I am not saying the condition doesn’t exist, I am saying the amount of people diagnosed with depression is a scam. As is the entire drug industry that feeds off falsely medicating these people. It doesn’t help that the condition is romanticized in the media in television and movies.

What is worse, this ridiculously over diagnosed “disease” is now grounds for you to live of the US gov’t on disability. And in Oregon, some doctors tried to justify euthanizing patients by saying they were “terminally ill” with “depression”.

I’m just saying that this modern society of labeling everyone as a victim is bogus. And is it not better to instead aid and encourage people to become self-reliant? Instead of blindly throwing mood lifting drugs at them?

 

[goofyjim]

This is my point. There is no test to be sure if someone actually has the severe medical condition of depression. It is just the opinion of the psychiatrist, who is more often than not sponsored by the drug companies to unnecessarily prescribe mood-lifters. I am not saying the condition doesn’t exist, I am saying the amount of people diagnosed with depression is a scam. As is the entire drug industry that feeds off falsely medicating these people. It doesn’t help that the condition is romanticized in the media in television and movies.

What is worse, this ridiculously over diagnosed “disease” is now grounds for you to live of the US gov’t on disability. And in Oregon, some doctors tried to justify euthanizing patients by saying they were “terminally ill” with “depression”.

I’m just saying that this modern society of labeling everyone as a victim is bogus. And is it not better to instead aid and encourage people to become self-reliant? Instead of blindly throwing mood lifting drugs at them?

It is not bogus. There are blood tests that will show certain chemicals lacking which will cause clinical depression. And once you have to be treated for it it becomes a disability. It usually hits before you have anytime to establish a work history therefore you ave to rely on government benefits until you recover.

 

[NewUlm1976_2000]

What is worse, this ridiculously over diagnosed “disease” is now grounds for you to live of the US gov’t on disability. And in Oregon, some doctors tried to justify euthanizing patients by saying they were “terminally ill” with “depression”.

I’m just saying that this modern society of labeling everyone as a victim is bogus. And is it not better to instead aid and encourage people to become self-reliant? Instead of blindly throwing mood lifting drugs at them?

In real depression it is a seriously disability as it is a totally disabilitating illness. I agree it is probably over-diagnosed and the drugs are over-prescribed but there are real cases out there to keep those policies in place. In major depression being self-reliant seems so far away.

It is a matter of setting limits and weeding out those who are playing the system with those with real, life altering and life threatening conditions.

 

[timotheos]

I dunno, folks. It’s a chicken and egg thing to me. Is a person depressed because of unbalanced brain chemistry, or is brain chemistry unbalanced because of depression?

I’ve experienced most of the symptoms mentioned in this thread and worse, pervasively over many years. I’ve been diagnosed in the past by some of the best. The meds occasionally seemed to help. (In reality, it was probably just placebo effect, as I wanted my doctors to believe they were helping me. I desperately wanted to trust modern medicine and science.)

Anyway, turns out my depression was caused by my terribly sinful and prideful life, making a mockery of truth by creating my own truth, based on the arrogant, “post-Christian”, self-centered, pleasure-centered, secular humanist philosophy being fed to me from every direction. I felt hopeless and worthless for many years, due to my persistence in following an insane life philosophy. I swear, it changed my brain chemistry. Why was I the one depressed, when everyone around me doing the same thing seemed happy? Simple. Because God, hallowed be His name, in his infinite grace and mercy kept me from achieving happiness in my evil pursuit.

I wonder how many others suffer from depression paradoxically not because they are ill, but because of the insanity of the world. Probably more than we think.

-Tim

 

[Elric]

This is my point. There is no test to be sure if someone actually has the severe medical condition of depression.

They can only do what they can and “asking questions” is what they can do.

They a doing research all the time, they might find something that a cat scan can pick up.

It is just the opinion of the psychiatrist, who is more often than not sponsored by the drug companies to unnecessarily prescribe mood-lifters.

While this would be true of some psychiatrists, there still isnt a need for generalisations like this.

I am not saying the condition doesn’t exist, I am saying the amount of people diagnosed with depression is a scam. As is the entire drug industry that feeds off falsely medicating these people. It doesn’t help that the condition is romanticized in the media in television and movies.

I dont follow you on this whole “scam” bit.

Are people misdiagnosed?

Of course they are, its not an exact science. But they get misdiagnosed both ways (those that have it are told that they dont quite often).

Do they get the medication wrong?

Yes they do. The process of medication is very much trial and error, there is no way to tell how people will react to the medication or if the medication will work for them until they take it and it gets into their system properly.

Do psychiatrists deliberatly misdiagnose and mismedicate for drug company kick backs?

There is the possibility that some do. But in this age of litigation and the doctors being culpable for the treatment that they give, that is quite a dangerous situation to get into.

What is worse, this ridiculously over diagnosed “disease” is now grounds for you to live of the US gov’t on disability.

Actually that would be more down to our knowing more about depression and realising that it is a debilitating illness.

And in Oregon, some doctors tried to justify euthanizing patients by saying they were “terminally ill” with “depression”.

Well I wouldnt agree with them on that, some people can be cured of depression, they need more help and access to treatment rather than being killed.

I’m just saying that this modern society of labeling everyone as a victim is bogus. And is it not better to instead aid and encourage people to become self-reliant? Instead of blindly throwing mood lifting drugs at them?

I dont think that you really have an understanding of mental illness and depression in particular.

One of the reasons there are more people with depression is because a lot of the stigma associated with mental illness has reduced. Not that long ago, it was something that wasnt talked about much less admitting to having because it was amongst other things a sign of weakness. Now we are realising that it is an illness and like getting the flu or a broken leg, you go to a doctor for treatment.

We are realising that it is ok to seek help for depression and that there is nothing wrong or weak with admitting that you have depression.

 

[hasikelee]

Well, surprise surprise I think the epidemic of depression in America is due to the abortive culture.

You think kids don’t grasp how disposable they are? Women losing their children expected to be happy about it? Men responsible for the death of their children? Missing playmates, missing classmates, missing coworkers.

It’s all so deep, so repressed, rotting under the surface. Seems everyone is very, very angry. And anger shoved under the surface quickly turns to depression.

And, yes, the weather. That cloudy, rainy weather can send me into the deepest lair of depression. I love England, but would turn down every job offer.

 

[Elric]

Well, surprise surprise I think the epidemic of depression in America is due to the abortive culture.

You think kids don’t grasp how disposable they are? Women losing their children expected to be happy about it? Men responsible for the death of their children? Missing playmates, missing classmates, missing coworkers.

It’s all so deep, so repressed, rotting under the surface. Seems everyone is very, very angry. And anger shoved under the surface quickly turns to depression.

And, yes, the weather. That cloudy, rainy weather can send me into the deepest lair of depression. I love England, but would turn down every job offer.

Thank you for that “interesting” monologue. I think that you might have saved researchers years of research and billions in research funds.

I dont think that you should push your agenda into a topic like this, especally in such a fantastic way.

Yes abortions can cause some people to suffer depression, as can many things. But saying it is the sole cause is frankly, stupidity and offensive.

I would urge you to look into depression and re-think your apparent “take” on the subject.

 

[hasikelee]

Thank you for that “interesting” monologue. I think that you might have saved researchers years of research and billions in research funds.

I dont think that you should push your agenda into a topic like this, especally in such a fantastic way.

Yes abortions can cause some people to suffer depression, as can many things. But saying it is the sole cause is frankly, stupidity and offensive.

I would urge you to look into depression and re-think your apparent “take” on the subject.

Um, I think my tone was missed here…