There’s 200+ different viruses that cause the common cold. When you get a sore throat or runny nose you don’t consider those to be the disease, you know there is an underlying cause.
Do you think Depression is similar to that? Do you think it is a symptom of some other disease or diseases?
If it’s a permanent, significantly unalterable biological imbalance of chemicals, I say disorder.
If it is a result of outside forces like a terrible job or a lack of opportunity or any outside circumstances, I say symptom.
Depends on the context, certainly.
This is a good question, because now I’m wondering if other languages have different words for or studies about externally induced versus immutable chemical depression.
Update, there’s tons of research that shows chemical imbalances in the brain don’t cause depression, at least not in some immutable way.
There’s definitely not enough known about depression clinically yet to answer your question.
It’s kind of like asking what color unicorns are before anybody has seen one in real life.
Wait I thought the chemical imbalance was why Robin Williams let go…
Robin Williams had a degenerative neurological disorder and didn’t want to live through the decline. Common misconception as media speculation was “funny man sad” long before the family shared any details.
Depression is a symptom. Major depressive disorder is a disease.
For me it’s more of a baseline but that’s not saying much.
Hey that makes two of us!
Both. It can be a symptom of a larger issue or it can be a condition in its own right.
The easy answer is it’s both; the hard answer is it’s complicated and here’s a 2 hour long podcast scratching the surface.
Depression is the name for a set of symptoms. The cause of depression can be a disorder, a disease, or environmental.
I would call it a disorder. Which in some way is a subcategory of disease but not quite the same thing.
Since there are distinct subtypes (unipolar, bipolar, melancholic, atypical, psychotic, catatonic, etc), there’s probably different mechanisms underlying each one.
These are clinical diagnoses but IMO “depression” has a myriad of variances. Everyone’s experience is of course personal. If someone is clinically depressed they’re probably experiencing a bunch of different feelings caused by various emotional and physical circumstances.
I think there are two separate things that are culturally called ‘depression’, but one of them is just inexplicable sadness.
We have a separation between feelings that we are allowed to feel and feelings that are frowned upon. Most negitive emotions belong to the former group. You are not supposed to feel hate, envy, anger or sadness. Sadness is only accptable in certain circumstances, like funerals, goodbyes, loss of a job, etc. So when people have an inexplicable period off sadness outside of those circumstances they often attribute it to depression. But this is a valid emotion that you are allowed and supposed to feel. And your body also has ways to deal with sadness. When I’m sad, I’m comfortable in knowing that eventually it is going to pass and there’s going to be relief.
But then there is ‘depression’. All of us are problem solvers, that’s just how all our brains work. All our life, whatever the issue is we always try to find a solution. And if the solution is not apparent or non-existent we weigh the effort of continuing to look for a solution against the the severely of the problem. For most of our problems the solutions are easily apperent and if they are not, it is usually an issue that is not worth wrapping our heads around. But then there are people with problems that can’t be ignored, fundamental issues of existence. And some of those problems are fundamentally unsolvable. So this is the point where your problem solving brain gets into a negative feedback loop of, ‘can’t ignore this problem, but theres no solution, but I can’t ignore this problem, but theres no solution, but I can’t ignore this problem, but theres no solution, …’. Even if you are not thinking about it, it occupies your mind and drains you mentally to the point where even other easily solvable problems become monumental tasks for you preoccupied mind.
An example is, having a bad childhood, therefore missing crucial early social development, this cascades into missing out on early romantic relationships, the lack of experience makes you even more undesirable. Even if you develop that later in life, you can’t turn back the clock, the time to experiment around has passend and now that everybody else around you is more mature you will always be held to a higher standard than you can fulfill. There is no solution to this, it is just the passage of time, natures law.
Another example is education, if all you life you’ve been told that all you need is a good education. And now suddenly the tides have turned and now the degree that you spend arguably the most important decade off your life barely pushing through is not even the bare minimum, you have a serious problem. You are to old and life has become to expensive to start over. Its even worse if on paper it shouldn’t be that way. On every corner you’re being told ‘Yes, but not you’. Again, theres no solution. The dice keep rolling against you and you’re running out of dice to roll.
Seeing young talented people is another cause of depression. Being reminded that there’s nothing you are really good at because all your life you’ve been behind, swimming upstream to not get washed away. Having no time to get into anything because you were always looking for the most effortless distraction for you occupied mind. Even if you know now that it’s not about talent but about dedication and practice. If you’d would start now to get good at something, by the time you’re proficient enough you’d either be to old to impress or to old to enjoy you own proficiency. It’ll be just a constant reminder that ‘you could’ve started earlier’.In general I would say that depression is a symptom of things that we can’t but wish to control like the passage of time, luck, decay, etc. I also wouldn’t call it a disease because it’s more of a base line of complex life. There are basically two base lines, being completely unaware of your problems (being obliviously happy) and being hyperaware of your problems (being depressed). Ideally you would spend all your life right in the middle between those two. But depending on what type of person you are, if you are not actively working towards the middle you will naturally gravitate toward one or the other. The issue is that golden retriever energy people are usually not regarded as problematic, whereas downer people are.
I became hyperaware of my problems until I stopped regarding them as “problems”. So I’m neither obliviously happy nor depressed. I like this third state most so far.
Yeah, but sometimes your mind slips and for a second you forget to disregard them, and you know the next few days are gonna be unmeditated fun (hell).
No regerts
Always forward.
While you do touch on the mechanics of thought-feeling triggers there is a lot to be said for how a person gets to a depressive state as a result.
I think you are being reductive in how you’re separating people and how they experience these sorts of thoughts.
Bad thoughts and sadness exists but that doesn’t mean every person experiencing it depressed.
Many people can have those thoughts and feelings as you say but function every day and may pause on the thought and feeling connected to it but respond or react in their own learned way and may move onto other things. They might experience it many times in a day. But just cuz they don’t sit down and cry on the sidewalk about it doesn’t mean they aren’t experiencing these thoughts or feelings.
Calling them obliviously happy assumes and predicts a lot about them as if they cannot experience sadness. This assumption is synonymous to how a person with bpd will decide ‘no one can experience feelings as strongly as I do’ where they misplace where the issue lies at how they react to the feelings they have. Not that the feeling is any different. They are overwhelmed by the feeling for a lot of reasons but that does not mean other people they compare themselves to do not experience the same feelings (triggers) they do.
This just serves to alienate people for self preservation to hold onto an illness as unique and defining themselves by it.
we can all experience these thoughts and feelings therefore I do not believe triggers to what may lead to depression make the entire story. The thought might be there, and the feeling to kick it off but a person who is prone to depressive states move into a darker area after that.
Depression can be hereditary where you have people who are more predisposed to the physical and encompassing depressive states which can trigger some other compound issues such as addictive personality disorders.
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Thoughts are another topic into themselves. And there is many ways a person can react or respond to them.
The habits as you point out, to see most challenges as a personal jab at their own performance I believe so much of this is trained. Just as much as it can be untrained
Comparing ourselves to others is pretty ingrained in society where we have bad habit sayings to reflect it more.
Eg: “be grateful you’re not that person”
Eg: reward and punishment system for teaching
Eg: using real life people as an example/idolizing
This teaches people to be in a constant competition with other people around them.
Then you have the people who just see that as a challenge regardless or don’t see it at all and capable to find joy and celebrate another persons success without a thought to their own performance. Whether it be from therapy or perhaps that is their predisposition. That doesn’t make them oblivious to the very thoughts and feelings that may be a trigger for someone else.
I can be either, but for most it’s a symptom and there are many reason, lack of sunlight, lack of social interaction(even for animals), lack of proper nutrition(can cause irateness). But for some it’s not solvable without deep intervention from therapy and drugs.
Depression is a disease. Malaise is a symptom.
Either/or. Often times it’s the primary disease, other times it’s secondary. It is a disease of its own right, but can be the consequence of other diseases - whether psychological, neurological, or physical.
Tremor is maybe a more direct comparison than a cold. You can have essential tremor, in which tremors are idiopathic and the primary diagnosis. On the other hand, tremors can also be symptom of multiple sclerosis. It just depends on the individual.
Frequently, it’s a chicken or the egg situation. Did the individual develop PTSD because they were already predisposed to/experiencing depression or did they become depressed after developing PTSD?
Sometimes depression is also just a natural consequence of being sick and/or disabled. Chronic pain, physical limitations, the inability to maintain a healthy social life, poverty as a consequence of disability - it can really take a toll on your mental health.
Neither.
It is a condition.
Its a disease, it has its own symptoms. If two people get a virus they will both catch a cold. If two people lost their job one of them might try to commit suicide while other one might only gets sad.
You shouldn’t compare psychological disorder to organic disease. There is a reason they’re called “disorder” and not “disease”.
Organic disease have a very specific definition and very specifics criteria, so you can actually have a formal diagnosis process. It’s epistemologically impossible to do so for psychological disorder, which have more broad definitions based completely over statistical norms.
P.s. while this is a very important distinction, this doesn’t mean that psychological health is less important or that is not important to seek help and therapy for psychological suffering.
