need some advice on depression and pills

Newbie Joined: Oct 31, 2006 Posts: 21

tinker683 wrote:

Hello Dirk! What exactly do you mean by "meant to be feeling it"?

Well if we are not talking about a depression that is based in a physiological condition or drug related, that is it's depression as experienced by ordinary people everywhere, then it means something. No doubt I'm generalizing but depression arises as a mental state or an emotion as a response to an underlying cause or perception. I'm not aware of it normally being something you catch like a disease or it being a random event with no meaning.

Simply put depression is a form of communication with your essential being you should listen to and take the correct steps to deal with.

tinker683 wrote:

If you are referring to the "bad days" that everyone experiences, people with MDD included, then I would agree with you. For Clinical Depression however this won't work, at least it hasn't with my experience. Telling someone to rough it out when their brain is incapable of fixing itself is hardly a solution. The longer the person is depressed, the harder it is to overcome it because as depression lingers on, the person begins to develop a very bleak, very narrow view of the world. I know this because when I was hospitalized for the second time, when I started taking the meds that I'm on now, I had to search very deep inside myself to understand and accept things that most people believe reflexively like ,'You are a good person and have a right to be happy'. I had to do this because after living with depression for months it was extremely difficult for me to believe that happiness was something I could feel.

It is a difficult situation. I offered up my advice as food for thought and an alternative to the 'solve it with medication' solution. Part of the problem is that if you were properly equipped with the tools to get out of the depression then you most likely wouldn't have had the problem in the first place. So it's a question of whether you can learn to swim by yourself so to speak. People's personal resources vary widely so I don't really know what to expect. A lot of people find good advice by reading books but then not everyone enjoys reading. (PS I can recommend M. Scott Peck if anyone is interested)

I'd just like to add a little bit more here. Your subjective mind often can tell you which direction you should go in to improve your life. This is not a consciously directed process but more a feeling or an instinct that you should trust. Liken it to the same way you have an instinct for where the best moves in a chess game might be found yet you don't actually have to consider every possible move on the board. (I can recommend reading Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which is not actually about motorcycle maintenance really)

Newbie Joined: Oct 31, 2006 Posts: 21

JFAgnostic wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

You think somehow I don't know what depression is, then you say depression is a "Clinical disorder". Maybe you believe this is a useful insight but I'd beg to differ.

The rest of your post doesn't show me too well how you differ

What does the label Clinical disorder reveal other than severity? I don't consider this a useful insight if you want to understand depression.

JFAgnostic wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

Nor is it any help (or a fair analogy) to compare it to cancer or syphilis.

They are physiological diseases. Depression is not some ethereal, spiritual thing...it is just as physiological as cancer and syphilis. That's what makes it a fair analogy.

The differences are major. You can not make a meaningful comparison of depression with cancer and syphilis.
In fact to call depression "some ethereal, spiritual thing" is far, far closer to the truth. This realization hopefully will come to you.

Extreme depression is going to have physical consequences but that is not the same thing as saying it is a physiological disease.

JFAgnostic wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

My understanding is that medication for depression is only justified in extreme conditions to give people a chance to take the steps necessary to deal with the depression. It is by no means a cure. I'll stand by what I said before and I also agree strongly with the people who have suggested exercise for it's positive effects.

Medication alone can cure, though it is usually taken alongside counseling. I agree with diet and exercise, since they can provide what the medication can provide. Diet goes a long way toward fighting off some viruses and and bacterial and other infections, too. There is no hard line between "medicine" and "food". Food can be medicine.

Dirkmonger wrote:

Please note I'm not referring to types of depression that stem from specific physiological or drug related causes.

And here's why you don't understand depression!!! Depression is physiological.

Depression as I understand it is a mental or emotional state. In what sense do you consider it to be physiologically based?

The Learned Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 110

Dirkmonger wrote:

What does the label Clinical disorder reveal other than severity? I don't consider this a useful insight if you want to understand depression.

It means it's actually "depression" the disease, rather than a mood swing normally experienced by humans. People don't kill themselves over the normal depression--they sometimes do over clinical depression.

Dirkmonger wrote:

The differences [between cancer and syphilis and depression] are major. You can not make a meaningful comparison of depression with cancer and syphilis.
In fact to call depression "some ethereal, spiritual thing" is far, far closer to the truth. This realization hopefully will come to you.

For you to say "the realization hopefully will come to" me is just a bit dickish on your part. I, also, read books. I have been treated for depression. A realization has come to me. To call it something ethereal, something that you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps from, is part of the problem today. YOU are part of the problem. Perhaps you are getting at the plight of modern man, and that being an ethereal and spiritual thing. I would agree that the modern environment is more conducive to depression, but it's also more conducive to cancer--it's still physiological. There is, after all, not ether and no spirit.

Dirkmonger wrote:

Depression as I understand it is a mental or emotional state. In what sense do you consider it to be physiologically based?

Mental and emotional state, in the sense that it's a mood, yes, but it's foundation is physiological!! A chemical imbalance in the brain is a physiological state that may lead to changed emotional states. The chemical imbalance can be treated with medication (and often with diet and exercise), and this can fix the emotional problem. Sometimes, this is a cure in and of itself--sometimes, lifestyle changes are required--sometimes, there's no getting out of the problem in the long run, and constant treatment, medication and other, is required.

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:59 am

well with this topic anyway, my wife decided to cancel that doctors appointment and was going to decline the pills anyway. I do agree with some points about letting it pass, but then again as noted above its not always healthy. I don't think she has bad enough depression to warrant pills and I told this to her and she agreed. I think its over whelming stress that is key to this. So we're going to work on getting rid of stresses and better diet/exercise.

Newbie Joined: Oct 31, 2006 Posts: 21

JFAgnostic wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

What does the label Clinical disorder reveal other than severity? I don't consider this a useful insight if you want to understand depression.

It means it's actually "depression" the disease, rather than a mood swing normally experienced by humans. People don't kill themselves over the normal depression--they sometimes do over clinical depression.

When you say Clinical Depression you are really saying that no matter what it is and whatever has caused it, Medical Science now considers the symptoms to be so debilitating that an intervention is called for. Yes they treat it as a disease since that is what the tools at hand in medicine are designed for and it's an area they're comfortable with.

JFAgnostic wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

The differences [between cancer and syphilis and depression] are major. You can not make a meaningful comparison of depression with cancer and syphilis. In fact to call depression "some ethereal, spiritual thing" is far, far closer to the truth. This realization hopefully will come to you.

For you to say "the realization hopefully will come to" me is just a bit dickish on your part. I, also, read books. I have been treated for depression.

You're right, definitely dickish sounding, sorry. I was intending to be optimistic but it came out badly or, er, dickish.

JFAgnostic wrote:

A realization has come to me. To call it something ethereal, something that you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps from, is part of the problem today. YOU are part of the problem. Perhaps you are getting at the plight of modern man, and that being an ethereal and spiritual thing. I would agree that the modern environment is more conducive to depression, but it's also more conducive to cancer--it's still physiological. There is, after all, not ether and no spirit.

No spirit? Since depression ie essentially a state of being in low spirit I'd have thought it was real enough.

JFAgnostic wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

Depression as I understand it is a mental or emotional state. In what sense do you consider it to be physiologically based?

Mental and emotional state, in the sense that it's a mood, yes, but it's foundation is physiological!! A chemical imbalance in the brain is a physiological state that may lead to changed emotional states. The chemical imbalance can be treated with medication (and often with diet and exercise), and this can fix the emotional problem. Sometimes, this is a cure in and of itself--sometimes, lifestyle changes are required--sometimes, there's no getting out of the problem in the long run, and constant treatment, medication and other, is required.

I'd say it's more accurate to say it has a physiological footprint, you can measure some sort of data related to the state of depression. However, for it to be truly considered physiological the cause must be physiological. Except for some specific types of depression this isn't true.

To illustrate further I imagine all extremes of emotional or mental states have some measurable physiological presence at the chemical or hormonal level. Should you then infer that these chemical states cause emotions like joy or happiness or rather that the emotions cause or exist as the chemical states? (There's some interesting research on Buddhist Monks along these lines)

The Learned Joined: Feb 27, 2006 Posts: 110

Dirkmonger wrote:

I'd say it's more accurate to say it has a physiological footprint, you can measure some sort of data related to the state of depression. However, for it to be truly considered physiological the cause must be physiological. Except for some specific types of depression this isn't true.

To illustrate further I imagine all extremes of emotional or mental states have some measurable physiological presence at the chemical or hormonal level. Should you then infer that these chemical states cause emotions like joy or happiness or rather that the emotions cause or exist as the chemical states? (There's some interesting research on Buddhist Monks along these lines)

This is certainly an area for debate, but I'd say that joy and happiness ARE chemical states. One doesn't cause the other. What we call joy is a chemical state, just as there is a thing we call gravity--but gravity and that thing we call gravity are not causes of one another, they are the same thing.

Cancer has a physiological footprint, and chicken pox has a physiological footprint. We can measure date related to the state of cancer and chicken pox. Yet the cause of cancer (often) and of chicken pox is not physiological--one is often caused by environmental factors--diet, toxins, etc,--while the other is caused by a virus. No, no, no: they are physiological diseases caused by other things--bad diet, perhaps, and virus, and predisposition and constant exposure to other environmental hazards. Depression is the same. I believe you are falsely separating the mental and emotional--and what you'd call the spiritual--from the physiological. There is nothing to us but our physical selves--yes that's a materialistic perspective, and perhaps that's what the real argument is all about.

Thinker Joined: Mar 14, 2003 Posts: 454 Location: USA

Dirkmonger wrote:

Well if we are not talking about a depression that is based in a physiological condition or drug related, that is it's depression as experienced by ordinary people everywhere, then it means something.

With all due respect, all moods, emotions, and the disorders associated with them are "based in a physiological condition". You seem to be trying to separate mild depression that everyone experiences from time to time and MDD, as if the two originate from completely different sources. They don't. Both are physiological in nature. The only difference between the two is severity and whether or not the brain is capable of resolving the imbalance on it's own.

Dirkmonger wrote:

No doubt I'm generalizing but depression arises as a mental state or an emotion as a response to an underlying cause or perception. I'm not aware of it normally being something you catch like a disease or it being a random event with no meaning.

Firstly, you're not generalizing, your building a false dichotomy. You're trying to use words like "inner being", "spiritual", and "ethereal", words that are themselves vague and obscure, and then using those words to describe a chemical imbalance in the brain.

You are correct when you say that the person needs to make changes in their life or their cognitive processes if they are to recover from depression. How drastic those changes must be is contingent on the severity of the disorder.

As for your second statement that you can't get depression like a disease or 'randomly' , I point you to these sites.

Link 1: http://www.allaboutdepression.com/cau_01.html

Link 2: http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/58/6/545

Link 3: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/157/10/1552

All three sites demonstrate that genetics and brain structure play a large role in mood disorders, particularly MDD.

Dirkmonger wrote:

Part of the problem is that if you were properly equipped with the tools to get out of the depression then you most likely wouldn't have had the problem in the first place. So it's a question of whether you can learn to swim by yourself so to speak.

That's possible. If I had had a better self esteem back then I might have had a better chance of dealing with it. Of course, it's also possible that it wouldn't have made a lick of difference. My grandfather had bipolar disorder, which means I have a genetic predisposition toward it.

Dirkmonger wrote:

People's personal resources vary widely so I don't really know what to expect. A lot of people find good advice by reading books but then not everyone enjoys reading. (PS I can recommend M. Scott Peck if anyone is interested)

Depending on the severity, this is good advice.

Dirkmonger wrote:

I'd just like to add a little bit more here. Your subjective mind often can tell you which direction you should go in to improve your life. This is not a consciously directed process but more a feeling or an instinct that you should trust.

I will agree that your subconscious mind often has a better idea of what's better for you than your conscious mind. Just nitpicking a bit with this statement, it presupposes that you have a healthy mind. If your brain is imbalanced in some way, you might not make the best decision, for yourself or those around you

Dirkmonger wrote:

Liken it to the same way you have an instinct for where the best moves in a chess game might be found yet you don't actually have to consider every possible move on the board. (I can recommend reading Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which is not actually about motorcycle maintenance really)

I'm not sure how as to how 'listening to your gut' as opposed to thinking several moves ahead increases your chances of winning a game, so I won't comment on this. As for your recommendation, I'll have to look it up. My only problem with books of Zen, Buddhism, and such is that they, like you, like to use words that have no materialistic meaning and can therefore be difficult to construe what it is they mean.

Thinker Joined: Mar 14, 2003 Posts: 454 Location: USA

BlasphemousMusic wrote:

well with this topic anyway, my wife decided to cancel that doctors appointment and was going to decline the pills anyway. I do agree with some points about letting it pass, but then again as noted above its not always healthy. I don't think she has bad enough depression to warrant pills and I told this to her and she agreed. I think its over whelming stress that is key to this. So we're going to work on getting rid of stresses and better diet/exercise.

Hey BlasphemousMusic,

Sounds like a plan. I hope everything works out! Smile

Newbie Joined: Oct 31, 2006 Posts: 21

JFAgnostic wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

I'd say it's more accurate to say it has a physiological footprint, you can measure some sort of data related to the state of depression. However, for it to be truly considered physiological the cause must be physiological. Except for some specific types of depression this isn't true.

To illustrate further I imagine all extremes of emotional or mental states have some measurable physiological presence at the chemical or hormonal level. Should you then infer that these chemical states cause emotions like joy or happiness or rather that the emotions cause or exist as the chemical states? (There's some interesting research on Buddhist Monks along these lines)

This is certainly an area for debate, but I'd say that joy and happiness ARE chemical states. One doesn't cause the other. What we call joy is a chemical state, just as there is a thing we call gravity--but gravity and that thing we call gravity are not causes of one another, they are the same thing.

Okay picture it like this. Your mind and body are like the software and hardware of a computer. When you write an essay on your computer those words exist at some level as a series of voltages in the hardware, but you wouldn't somehow determine that series of voltages and then deduce that this is what caused the essay.

JFAgnostic wrote:

Cancer has a physiological footprint, and chicken pox has a physiological footprint. We can measure data related to the state of cancer and chicken pox. Yet the cause of cancer (often) and of chicken pox is not physiological--one is often caused by environmental factors--diet, toxins, etc,--while the other is caused by a virus. No, no, no: they are physiological diseases caused by other things--bad diet, perhaps, and virus, and predisposition and constant exposure to other environmental hazards.

Whoa, hold on. Cancer is the uncontrolled division of cells. Whatever the original stimulus the problem concerns the cells and cells are wholly physiological entities. Treatment is based around this knowledge.

JFAgnostic wrote:

Depression is the same. I believe you are falsely separating the mental and emotional--and what you'd call the spiritual--from the physiological. There is nothing to us but our physical selves--yes that's a materialistic perspective, and perhaps that's what the real argument is all about.

Alright have it your way but let's expand it a bit. (I'm taking this from the philosopher Robert Pirsig and the book "Lila" now)

The conventional world we are familiar with exists as four systems, inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social patterns and intellectual patterns. That's all there are, the only thing left out is a thing Pirsig terms Dynamic Quality which acts in each level to evolve superior patterns. The deal is, only the first two categories exist in your "materialistic perspective". You are leaving out cultural and intellectual systems.
(As an aside it is worth noting that each system exists almost independently from the one below it and essentially keeps the lower level in check - they ascend as a kind of moral order from inorganic to intellectual)

I'm going to hazard a guess and suggest that a lot of depression is contributed to by a lack of awareness of this natural order of things and more specifically by being locked into some of the evolved static patterns that exist.
If that sounds very abstract I highly recommend the books.

Newbie Joined: Oct 31, 2006 Posts: 21

tinker683 wrote:

Dirkmonger wrote:

Liken it to the same way you have an instinct for where the best moves in a chess game might be found yet you don't actually have to consider every possible move on the board. (I can recommend reading Robert Pirsig's book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which is not actually about motorcycle maintenance really)

I'm not sure how as to how 'listening to your gut' as opposed to thinking several moves ahead increases your chances of winning a game, so I won't comment on this. As for your recommendation, I'll have to look it up. My only problem with books of Zen, Buddhism, and such is that they, like you, like to use words that have no materialistic meaning and can therefore be difficult to construe what it is they mean.

Calculating the chess moves is a very analytic activity, that's definitely not what I'm referring to. What I mean is before that and without really having to think about it you have a sense of where the best moves might be found, this is a non-intellectual process. For example a computer program would have to calculate every possible move on the board and then evaluate them. Humans don't do it this way.

If you are used to Zen books not using materialistic meanings then you'll find Pirsig's book to be a breath of fresh air, it uses our language in a way that makes sense. Besides there is a great true story interwoven with the philosophy.


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