"[L]osing the receptor that promotes depression in response to stress is something evolution thought would be a very bad move."
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.
@Kivrin: What makes me think is that maybe there's something in the environment we've created for ourselves that our brains interpret as stressful, sending some of us (at times in my life including me) into a more permanent depressive state.
Our environment (which is largely made up of human-created technology at this point) has changed much faster than our brains. #depression
@Kivrin: Thank you! I get so annoyed when people can't differentiate between clinical depression and depression that's related to a painful or stressful event. It's the root of most of the unhelpful advice that well meaning people offer to those who are depressed. #depression
@Kivrin: Yes, and/but to compound the problem, when people are clinically depressed they'll assign reasons to their depression: I hate my job, nobody likes me, etc, etc... so that you're guessing about the chicken and the egg. My father has been depressed for his whole life, but if you were to ask him, he's just been the unlucky recipient of a series of bad breaks. #depression
@Kivrin: Never mind the fact that the drugs people take don't actually *remove* the ability to feel depression or stress. They should be call "Mood levellers" cause that's what they do, they level one's moods. #depression
Plenty of genetic adaptations have simultaneous benefits and disadvantages. Reduced melanin in the epidermis is dandy for vitamin D production at high latititudes, but not so great for sunburn avoidance. Sickle-cell anemia is a good way to avoid malaria, but also results in crises. Lactose tolerance allows for a broader range of food choices, but also results in increased saturated fat consumption. Depression might be in the same category. #depression
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
@alouette: ITA, speaking as a psych grad. Evolutionary psychiatry is the new Oedipus complex - unprovable, explains the past but doesn't predict the future, ultimately useless b/cit doesn't address anything concrete or specific. #depression
The problem is: you can say that about anything. Depression. Mania. Anger. We are the sum total of the experiences and genetics of our ancestors, and while these adaptations might have been built up for a purpose, the process of evolution is a process of adaptation. As the environment changes, so, too, does the organism have to change, to survive and grow. An adaptation that may have served our ancestors well 50,000 or 250,000 years ago, may now, given the shift in human society, not be advantageous. #depression
@NefariousNewt: My manic episodes were very productive for my grades, my house's cleanliness, and my exercise habits. Unfortunately, it destroyed my relationships with friends and I kept getting in fights. The thing about a mental illness, even if you're getting good with bad, you're still getting BAD and it's still unhealthy. #depression
Is depression a perfectly natural response to stress, and does depression serve a real and helpful purpose? Yes, absolutely.
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
@AndPreciousLittleofThat: Exactly. I resent the idea that all antidepressents are ''happy pills''. They're not. While some of the more heavy duty anti-psychotics can completely regulate your mood, usually for particularly severe depression or Manic Depression, the normal SSRIs are simply to help you maintain a more normal level of serotonin, a chemical in the brain we all need for a variety of reasons. Is the nation over-medicated, and do they take medications as the end-all be-all for treatment? Yes. Are they necessary? Yes.
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
The problem with evo bio/psych is that they forget the world we live in now is not the world we evolved in.
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
@clevernamehere: Yeah, what this study seems to have found isn't that being depressed is beneficial -- it's that being prone to depression is beneficial. So what's going on in our society that makes us depressed, rather than just structurally able to be depressed? Because presumably our ancestors didn't actually become depressed -- if they did, they wouldn't have survived. What did they have that we don't? #depression
@clevernamehere: "The problem with evo bio/psych is that they forget the world we live in now is not the world we evolved in."
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
@wrapped in plastic: In general, I would blame the science writing but one of those articles is from Scientific American and they generally get the research right. #depression
While I agree I'm certainly stronger NOW, at the end of a really long depression - and perhaps stronger than I would have been without it - I'd still rather be a weakling without a couple of decades of misery behind me. #depression
I believe the underlying issue is that the American society, treats symptoms not problems (regardless of condition). If we can treat depression holistically, I believe we, as a society, could benefit from the changes that are suspected to come from it. However, in my experience, we treat the symptoms (yay pills! etc.) more readily than the whole person (diet, exercise, medication, therapy). And trying to convince anyone that the crushing depression they may be experiencing is and "adaptation" in many ways seems like a trivialization of his or her very real suffering.
It may be true that a little depression is a brain-building, and this evolutionarily progressive in the long run, but that won't make the depression patient (e.g. yours truly) feel any less like a rat from day-to-day. #depression
This article is only making it harder to get insurance help for my brand Wellbutrin. If I take the much, much cheaper generic I get diabetic-like symptoms (that was a fun couple of weeks). I'm trying to ween myself off of it entirely now because of lack of funds but I'm worried I may be sucked into the depression I fought so hard to get out of. Sorry, my "adaptation".
How does the average depression of society correlate with the release of anything by Radiohead, most of The Cure and a good portion of Depeche Mode?
If such a thing hasn't been tested, I'd like to volunteer myself for research. Maybe twice.
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There are SO many variables in depression, clinical and otherwise, I wonder if we'll ever figure out how to treat it properly. Diet, love life, work stress, not enough exercise, blah, blah, blah...
We're delicate creatures.
I would be curious to see how two people, with similar stress/depression/lifestyles, respond to drugs vs. exercise. I was bummed the fuck out earlier this year, like really bad. Since I started exercising daily, I feel like a much different person. Getting compliments on losing weight doesn't hurt either.
@Jeremy: I go to the gym three times a week, and work out hard (I'm starting to train for a triathalon). I'm also on anti-depressants. And sometimes the gym helps, but most of the time, the drugs are what prevent me from injuring myself.
The whole, "Get up and exercise" mentality is somewhat hurtful, because it implies that it's all in your head, and that medications aren't helpful. #depression
@activearchivist is a professional hippy: AA, I wasn't implying that "get up and exercise" is the way to cure depression, I'm sorry if that's how I was taken. I'm just curious if it does ultimately help some people long term. And how can we diagnose that, maybe? #depression
@Jeremy: i was bummed the fuck out for nearly a year about a year ago but i knew i wasn't clinically depressed. i was processing my emotions on a hard experience. it was a process.
now, if i felt like that all the time and never came out of it i doubt anything but therapy and meds would help in conjunction with the other stuff the helps us when we're natuarlly depressed. #depression
@Dauphine: It's helpful, but its effects are really mixed for me anyway. Sometimes if I go, I'll feel better; but if I'm really down or heading there, it doesn't help at all. #depression
@activearchivist is a professional hippy: Yeah, it's one of those "in addition to meds and therapy" things, rather than "Exercise can cure you! :D :D :D" which it seems like the studies get transmuted to somewhere between actual scientificosity and publication. #depression
@Jeremy: No, I agree with your re-wording. A study like that would perhaps be helpful, although I am wary of denying needed meds or therapy to depressed folk.
I have a very visceral reaction to people who tell me that I just need to exercise more and I'll feel better because in my experience, they have no idea what they are talking about.
Edited by activearchivist is a professional hippy at 11/03/09 4:13 PM
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@activearchivist is a professional hippy: It totally should not imply that it's in your head!! (though I understand that some people unfortunately think that).
I'm lucky enough not to suffer from any clinical depression, but I know that exercise when I'm stressed can make the difference between me biting someone's head off for breathing too loudly, and having a calm day. It's the last thing I feel like doing at those times, but by the end it's helped a bunch.
Unfortunately I imagine with clinical depression while it might help some, it probably does so much less on a relative level since there's so much further that the mood needs to be elevated to get to "normal", if that makes sense. #depression
@Jeremy: There are sooo many layers to clinical depression. Depression is a combination of physical & psychological factors and the ratio of those factors will vary from person to person. Which is why there are so many drugs and therapies out there. It's just such an individualized thing. Exercising more would probably help some (as studies suggest) but have no effect on others. #depression
@Jeremy: Kaiser supplies drugs and small-group evals and a series of classes that teach you coping mechanisms and how to avoid/work with triggers. They also strongly encourage dietary changes and aerobic activity. These help, they don't cure. In my experience. #depression
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And you could make the argument that the ability to create and use pharmaceuticals is yet another evolutionary adaptation. Getting into which one is the "healthier" option by virtue of its evolutionary provenance commits the naturalistic fallacy.
I read somewhere that her relationship with her husband was really damaged and unhealthy, and that one of the few times she felt like he cared for her was after she'd have an abortion. He'd be all distant and cold, then she'd get pregnant and have an abortion, and he would become very tender and caring toward her.
I actually read this book already (my friend works in publishing and brings me random advanced readers copies) and it is an amazing and gripping read. Her story is tragic and she is a great writer..she doesn't excuse herself or her actions though she paints the story of a young girl in an emotionally unbalanced and kind of abusive (emotionally) relationship with a much older man. While I still don't fully understand why she did this to herself, I think her story is fascinating and I admire her bravery in telling it.
She is not a pro-choicer's nightmare because she is a statistical outlier. She's clearly a very ill woman whose form of self-mutilation happened to be a controversial medical procedure.
In that same ABC article, it is stated that 40% of half the unplanned pregnancies in America are terminated through abortion. Most of these women are over 30 and are also mothers. These are the people about whom the debate (if you agree that there should be a debate at all) should focus -- not Vilar, who likely stands alone in the number of abortions she's had.
On a side note, is anyone else curious why she wrote this book, knowing fully well that she and her children are now going to be targets?
This strikes me as a mutated form of Munchhausen Syndrome. She probably liked the attention she got from her husband, liked that weird combination of fear / excitement that disturbed people often have about medical procedures. I think all these abortions are a symptom of her mental illness - and thus have nothing to do with the abortion debate as a whole, no more than a severe hypochondriac would have to do with the health care debate.
@laureltreedaphne: At some point her abortion provider should have taken a step back and said, "Hey, something is not right here." I said this before, but a doctor wouldn't continually provide pain medication to an addict who is prone to injuring themselves...so why was her doctor continually providing her abortions without ever questioning her mental stability? At some point, he should have recognized her self-destructive behavior and referred her to a doctor that could have helped her emotionally. This went on far too long.
@lizziesaint: What could they really do though? Refusing the abortion clearly wouldn't do anyone any good if she was already pregnant. She was prescribed birth control and wouldn't take it. They could refer her for counseling but they couldn't exactly force her to go
@colormeroutine: I was thinking more along the lines of referring her to a psychiatrist or a counselor than refusing the abortion. Also, I think a more invasive form of birth control would have been appropriate, like an IUD. I mean, if she was really having a problem taking her birth control as opposed to purposely discarding it...
11/03/09
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
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/04/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
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
11/04/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
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
11/03/09
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
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
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
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
It may be true that a little depression is a brain-building, and this evolutionarily progressive in the long run, but that won't make the depression patient (e.g. yours truly) feel any less like a rat from day-to-day. #depression
11/03/09
11/03/09
If such a thing hasn't been tested, I'd like to volunteer myself for research. Maybe twice.
--
There are SO many variables in depression, clinical and otherwise, I wonder if we'll ever figure out how to treat it properly. Diet, love life, work stress, not enough exercise, blah, blah, blah...
We're delicate creatures.
I would be curious to see how two people, with similar stress/depression/lifestyles, respond to drugs vs. exercise. I was bummed the fuck out earlier this year, like really bad. Since I started exercising daily, I feel like a much different person. Getting compliments on losing weight doesn't hurt either.
Sorry. Rambling. #depression
11/03/09
The whole, "Get up and exercise" mentality is somewhat hurtful, because it implies that it's all in your head, and that medications aren't helpful. #depression
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
now, if i felt like that all the time and never came out of it i doubt anything but therapy and meds would help in conjunction with the other stuff the helps us when we're natuarlly depressed. #depression
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
I have a very visceral reaction to people who tell me that I just need to exercise more and I'll feel better because in my experience, they have no idea what they are talking about.
11/03/09
I'm lucky enough not to suffer from any clinical depression, but I know that exercise when I'm stressed can make the difference between me biting someone's head off for breathing too loudly, and having a calm day. It's the last thing I feel like doing at those times, but by the end it's helped a bunch.
Unfortunately I imagine with clinical depression while it might help some, it probably does so much less on a relative level since there's so much further that the mood needs to be elevated to get to "normal", if that makes sense. #depression
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/03/09
11/04/09
11/03/09
Also, Sharon Begley is a hack. #depression
11/03/09
@mbprice: #depression
11/03/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
In that same ABC article, it is stated that 40% of half the unplanned pregnancies in America are terminated through abortion. Most of these women are over 30 and are also mothers. These are the people about whom the debate (if you agree that there should be a debate at all) should focus -- not Vilar, who likely stands alone in the number of abortions she's had.
On a side note, is anyone else curious why she wrote this book, knowing fully well that she and her children are now going to be targets?
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09
09/22/09