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New York, 5:16 AM
Sat Nov 21
67 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/03/09
Our natural intellectual problem solving skills no longer serve our evolutionary role. Of course depression goes way beyond what our bodies and brains need, because we shouldnt have stress over half the ridiculous things we manage to create stress over in the first place. We ought to only have depression when we know we haven't done what we need to to get enough food and shelter for our family. Instead we wonder if we will get rich enough to throw a million dollar sweet sixteen party.
11/03/09
The SciAm article raises a lot of interesting points and does not dumb down the research quite to the level of a Newsweek audience. Especially interesting was the author's point that this finding could lead to better therapies for depression which actually focus on helpful rumination rather than discouraging the person from ruminating on the issues behind their depression at all.
I know a lot of people are up in arms about this, but as a person who has suffered from long term mild depression (in addition to more serious bouts for those of you who would say it isn't the same), it's refreshing to see depression discussed as a state of brain activity rather than a horrible affliction, which must immediately be solved by the drug companies. #depression
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Also, I'm exasperated with the "Well I don't see how this applies to me, so this science cannot be true" way of thinking that is so, so common. #depression
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Emphasis added by yours truly, because that "in response to stress" is key here. It's logical to be depressed in response to stress. I don't think anyone wants to get rid of our capacity to feel depressed, period. But people with clinical depression experience these feelings in the absence of explanatory stimuli. That's when the receptor becomes a problem. So you use drugs to counteract a malfunction (e.g., serotonin reuptake) in another area of the brain.
11/03/09
Our environment (which is largely made up of human-created technology at this point) has changed much faster than our brains. #depression
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While evolution is a wonderful thing, I am beginning to wonder if the field of psychology should start staying far far away from it (speaking as a psych student myself). #depression
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11/03/09
"This does so much for you! Give me some!"
"You don't have my disease, it won't do shit for you because there's nothing to fix."
It's like seeing somebody sick improve on antibiotics and trying to steal Penicillin so you can look and feel that much better. #depression
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11/03/09
I just feel that that sort of statement can lead to the idea that people shouldn't help others who are having trouble, because they would be taking a way an opportunity to grow. Most people who make it through hardships don't do it completely alone. Some do, but most do not.
I don't have depression, thankfully, but I have been through hardships and the tone of these articles rubs me the wrong way. You don't look at someone in pain and say "but it's good for the species! It's good for YOU!" That's awful. It minimizes the issue that people out there are hurting and hating themselves and their lives and the world around them.
The study I think is helpful. The spin it gets and that I think it could get is not. #depression
11/03/09
That's very interesting, but wouldn't any adaptation occur only because individuals without the trait all died before they were able to reproduce or, for some other reason, never reproduced? Natural selection doesn't necessarily indicate that a trait makes it more likely for individuals to thrive, just that the trait doesn't inhibit them from successfully reproduce a new generation...right? #depression
11/03/09
People need to understand the shades of grey when it comes to depression. It's not a tumor to be removed--at a certain point it's just part of my personality that I'm sometimes saturnine and moody. And maybe that's adaptive in some way, who knows--I think I'm better at facing realities and working from them than a lot of my friends, but the opposite would be the case if I'd never been in therapy or weren't on meds. If you're without hope, you give up. With my meds I remember hope. My brain has room to memorize that I've ever been happy, and believe me: I used to forget.
11/03/09
But to infer from that conclusion that depression in general is an "adaptive" and therefore helpful condition is to ignore its numerous and harmful long-term effects. And in my past experience, depression rarely occurs by itself; it's often accompanied by (or triggered by) another condition. Plus, when people are diagnosed with depression, a good doctor won't immediately reach for the strongest med out there; they'll start you off on something small (like Wellbutrin, for example) and see how you respond.
And I'm disturbed by the narrow definition the authors have of depression, as if the alternative is, as they say, a "perpetual state of unwary bliss." Rather, I've always understood and experienced depression as a lack of feeling at all; nothing gets through, whether happy or sad. When I went on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, all it did was turn down the white noise in my head to let me concentrate on making even basic decisions. #depression
11/03/09
I can understand how mild depression CAN serve a purpose. But the negative symptoms far outweigh the ''positives'' for most patients, and I hope that the general public does not begin to think of what is a true mental disorder, Clinical Depression, just something that sufferers need to ''deal with'' and feel lucky that they have, because it's just in NATURE. That can be a dangerous notion to spread around.
For me, clinical depression hasn't been a particularly positive experience, besides my own personal growth, and how I've become a much stronger person mentally by learning about myself through my struggles. The complete lack of motivation, helplessness, melancholy, self-worthlessness, sleeplessness, loneliness, weight-loss, feeling nothingness, I felt when I have had worse episodes could not have been healthy for me as an individual.
If I continued to feel that same way to this day, I wouldn't be in college, and looking ahead to the future. I'm thankful I have gained back motivation, because I need it in order to go towards the rest of my life. Do I have periods when I feel worse than others? Absolutely. But I have educated myself to know that is a result of the events around me, my environment, and my brain, and I'm able to be easier on myself to get through it. Depression still needs to be taken very seriously. #depression
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For most of human history, daily living was a struggle. People had to constantly deal with finding food. If you are clinically depressed, there is a good chance you will not be able to do this and will end up dead.
The structural ability to be depressed as a species can have evolutionary benefits without depression actually being beneficial. #depression
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I find that's more a problem with the way scientists' findings are reported in the media, rather than with the research papers themselves.
"The structural ability to be depressed as a species can have evolutionary benefits without depression actually being beneficial."
I'd put money on this being the point that the researchers were actually making in their original paper. Somehow that kind of analysis often gets lost on the way from the academic journal to the newspaper science pages. #depression
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