Don't let depression dictate your life

[bubble sunglasses]

i agree with caramel: people who think suicide is selfish REALLY dont have a clue how it feels or what people actually go through.

I disagree. People with depression to the point of despair may mistakingly believe, as mel put it, that

that no one cared about you and that you were simply an inconvenience/burden to their lives...that no one would notice you were gone for a while.

If that actually holds true, then the taking of one's life would be justified. But in actuality it's surely rarely the case that taking your own life would not have a seriously detrimental effect on the people close to you. It's selfish to kill yourself because you're putting your own suffering before the suffering of others, and it's an extremely difficult moral call to make that your suffering outweighs that caused by your death.

...yeah, my thoughts on the matter.

   
 Being depressed is selfish as in self-reflective, not in a way I'd condemn, but inherently so, as one is introspective. "Selfish" is a dysphemistic way of putting it.
  Like, if I'm happy, I'm more likely to be nice to someone, as a consequence of my circumstances.
   

[jess3254]

This is very sad

After reading a myriad of research on the topic while studying mental illness in IB psychology, it is my belief that severe depressive disorders (and the majority of mental illness) have a physiological cause (such as neurochemical, structural etc), and that it is near impossible for a patient to control their thoughts, feelings and actions. I think mental illness needs to be treated like any other disease.

The stigma surrounding mental illness in the community is shocking. There is a common misconception that it's an individual's "fault" for being struck by mental illness, and that they can control what's occurring. Unfortunately, these views still exist in the medical community. On the General Adolescent Ward at the RCH, I observed teenagers with mental illness being treated as burdens and second rate citizens. The girls with Anorexia on the ward were treated disgustingly.

[excal]

1 in 5 means that statistically, one of your friends in your group of friends is likely to have depression.

"1 in 5" means that if you kept pulling out random samples of 5 people at a time, and you did this a large number of times, the average number of people with depression that you will observe in those samples will be 1.

edit: actually no that's not really correct since it was "at some time in their lives,"

OH HAI CENTRAL LIMIT THEOREM (or Law of Large Numbers, I can't remember -.-)

(also, I'd say that the average will approach 1, as it will only equal 1 given infinite samples).

[cara.mel]

It's selfish to kill yourself because you're putting your own suffering before the suffering of others, and it's an extremely difficult moral call to make that your suffering outweighs that caused by your death.

What happened if you believed that no one else would suffer as a result? In fact, they'd be happier?

Ie, it holds true in your own mind what I have said before, and anyone's elses perspective (the 'normal' people) are all false

[jess3254]

If that actually holds true, then the taking of one's life would be justified. But in actuality it's surely rarely the case that taking your own life would not have a seriously detrimental effect on the people close to you. It's selfish to kill yourself because you're putting your own suffering before the suffering of others, and it's an extremely difficult moral call to make that your suffering outweighs that caused by your death.

...yeah, my thoughts on the matter.

As I said previously, I don't believe people with severe depression can control how they are feeling. They just want to end their physical and psychological suffering, and don't really consider the implications of their actions. They're not selfish. And considering they are treated like animals by some doctors, I can see why they feel the future holds no hope.

Quite simply, we just don’t know the causes of depression yet. In the future, it may emerge that depression and other psychiatric disorders are in fact, a cluster of non-fatal (if you don't count in suicide) neurological conditions that have a physical aetiology which manifests itself through psychological symptoms such as erratic mood swings or delusions etc. Who knows! I’ve never really understood the theories of “they can control it”. How on earth can you control something like, having hallucinations or being severely depressed? Which makes me think, even if the condition DID have psychological beginnings; for example due to extreme stress, perhaps the stress actually alters the way the patient’s body functions? WE DON’T KNOW YET! And I am sick of people judging individuals with mental illness. We don't actually know a great deal about mental illness yet, and I really want to dispel the misconceptions about psychiatric disorders.

It is already widely believed that both physiological and psychological factors contribute to the development of depressive disorders. Studies have suggested that heredity and genetic factors, neurotransmitters such as serotonin, and neurological factors such as the size and function of the hippocampus and neurogenesis could be involved in depression. After University, I'd love to do some research on this. I think Neurology is the area I want to specialise in.

Some articles on depression, which discuss the causes:
“Depression, stress and the adrenal axis”
Carmine M. Pariante
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London

“A Swedish national twin study of lifetime major depression”
Kendler et al

“Suggestive linkage on chromosome 2, 8 and 17 for lifetime major depression”
VU University, Netherlands
Middeldorp et al

“Relationship of neurotransmitters to the symptoms of major depressive disorders”
Psychopharmological unit, University of Bristol, UK

article on suicidal rats

[ninwa]

It's selfish to kill yourself because you're putting your own suffering before the suffering of others, and it's an extremely difficult moral call to make that your suffering outweighs that caused by your death.

What happened if you believed that no one else would suffer as a result? In fact, they'd be happier?

It would not be selfish if you truly believed that. But since I highly doubt that that applies for anybody in this world, your friends/family/colleagues etc. would perceive it as selfish, with good reason - they can't see what you were thinking.

I see depression as typically a "selfish" illness - you are wrapped up in your own thoughts and feelings. It is like a veil between you and the world. Thus, suicide from depression would fall under this "selfish" banner. This is exactly what Jess has just said - they don't consider the wider implications of their actions.

This does not make them selfish the same way that a billionaire living next to a person facing bankruptcy may appear. I don't mean selfish pejoratively. Self-absorbed? Introspective? I dunno I can't think of a better word, my English phails

[humph]

It's selfish to kill yourself because you're putting your own suffering before the suffering of others, and it's an extremely difficult moral call to make that your suffering outweighs that caused by your death.

What happened if you believed that no one else would suffer as a result? In fact, they'd be happier?

Ie, it holds true in your own mind what I have said before, and anyone's elses perspective (the 'normal' people) are all false

Well that's the problem with mental illness: it becomes harder to relate to other people and understand what they're thinking, and easier to justify actions by filling in the blanks with your own negative thoughts. Is it justified to kill yourself if you (let's say mistakingly) think that everyone else would be better off without you? Objectively, no, but subjectively, yes, and a sufferer of mental illness has an extremely subjective viewpoint.

As I said previously, I don't believe people with severe depression can control how they are feeling. They just want to end their physical and psychological suffering, and don't really consider the implications of their actions. They're not selfish. And considering they are treated like animals by some doctors, I can see why they feel the future holds no hope.

Certainly not, many if not most people with chronic depression consider the implications of their actions; it would be immature not to. The suicide rate may be high, but it's not through the roof: most people with severe depression do not kill themselves, because they do not reach the point of despair where they feel that their personal suffering is greater than the possible suffering of others should they die.

I see depression as typically a "selfish" illness - you are wrapped up in your own thoughts and feelings. It is like a veil between you and the world. Thus, suicide from depression would fall under this "selfish" banner. This is exactly what Jess has just said - they don't consider the wider implications of their actions.

The problem with seeing depression this way is that it implicitly suggests that there is some sort of choice in being so self-involvement. Depression may simply be an inability to be happy while everyone else around you is.

Also, in my experience, some people with depression are often self-deprecating in that because they value themselves lowly, such that they see other people as somehow being better people than them. They would even value other people's problems to a greater extent than their own, because in their eyes, the other people's problems are more important, as they themselves are not. So in some cases depression can be almost selfless in that sense.

[Eriny]

I agree with the difficult to talk about part. If I'm feeling upset or whatever, I always think that telling people about it would just be a bummer, that other people are better off not knowing and that I don't want to burden them with my emotion, I want to protect them from feeling bad and I know that I can deal with my being upset better than other people can.

I remember once telling my mum while I was in year 12 that I felt really stressed and tired and she overreacted to the whole thing. Her response wasn't what I wanted and I couldn't communicate with her properly, so I then decided that telling people about emotional things in general is a really bad idea. It's very hard to make people understand, even when one is feeling normal sadness, as opposed to clinical depression.

There is a limit to how much we can reach out to others, and I suppose there is a bit of a barrier. Pain is a shared experience in that everybody feels it sometimes, but it's also an intensely private one. I can't properly explain whatever pain I feel to someone else beyond saying that it's 'bad', and this is a pretty poor indicator of the complexity of someone's emotions.

I also relate somewhat to feeling as though nobody would care very much if I were to stop existing. When I was in primary school I was extremely quiet, moreso than now, and I felt ignored. Sometimes I wondered if I was invisible or even if I existed in the first place. I considered that if I just went away, I wouldn't be missed, or at least not terribly. This isn't how I feel now, but it's still a very real feeling and I can easily see how these kinds of thoughts would motivate someone to just go away. I suppose then, I'd encourage people to acknowledge and talk to people who seem lonely and make sure they know that they are important.

[bubble sunglasses]

   I was 'depressed' off and on for a while, citing a reason which I now see was largely superficial and irrelevant. I just wasn't doing anything and was susceptible to feeling bad and staying that way for a long time. I'm still really lazy/unmotivated [I do Arts and haven't this year been to a tutorial or got any marks (maybe I should enlist droodles' help )], but I know myself better so I can still have fun and also view negative emotions philosophically. Like I was way depressed aged 14 when I was in love with a someone [now my friend] who I couldn't have, but now I'd see it as a more positive emotion, certainly more than apathy.

[ninwa]

The problem with seeing depression this way is that it implicitly suggests that there is some sort of choice in being so self-involvement. Depression may simply be an inability to be happy while everyone else around you is.

Also, in my experience, some people with depression are often self-deprecating in that because they value themselves lowly, such that they see other people as somehow being better people than them. They would even value other people's problems to a greater extent than their own, because in their eyes, the other people's problems are more important, as they themselves are not. So in some cases depression can be almost selfless in that sense.

Yeah, you're right. I don't like using the word "selfish" but can't think of a better one ...


Does anyone look back on their depression and think differently of it now?
Back when I was 15 and "depressed" after breaking up with a boyfriend I was truly feeling low, didn't want to wake up, didn't feel like doing anything, on the verge of doing something stupid etc. But now when I look back on it I don't see it as depression, I see it as me overreacting and being a drama queen.
I wonder why though. I think it might be a result of my parents drilling into me that teenagers do not have the emotional depth to feel things as complex as love, passion, or indeed, depression.

[bubble sunglasses]

 
 see my 1st post here for your 1st point and my 2nd for your question

[jess3254]

What type of depression are we talking about here? Major Depressive Disorders, or situational depression/ depressed mood? You guys seem to be talking about the latter. 

In situational depression or depressed mood, there is an element of control, and the symptoms experienced are in no way as severe as clinical depression.

There is a difference between being quite "down" due to the situation, and being pathologically and continuously unhappy and distressed. I think it is important that people aware there is a distinction between the two, so they don't underestimate what people with Clinical Depression actually experience.

Just to clarify, I was talking about Ongoing Clinical Depression in my previous posts.

[bubble sunglasses]

   Yeah, you're right actually, Jess

[jess3254]

Also, in my experience, some people with depression are often self-deprecating in that because they value themselves lowly, such that they see other people as somehow being better people than them. They would even value other people's problems to a greater extent than their own, because in their eyes, the other people's problems are more important, as they themselves are not. So in some cases depression can be almost selfless in that sense.

You're just describing "low self esteem", which is definitely a symptom of severe depression. So what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the person already have low self esteem, making them more susceptible to depression, or did they develop depression and as a result exhibit the symptoms you outlined? Or, did they always possess a depressive personality due to heredity?
Which as I stated previously, I suspect started with a neurological change which the patient cannot control.

[humph]

Also, in my experience, some people with depression are often self-deprecating in that because they value themselves lowly, such that they see other people as somehow being better people than them. They would even value other people's problems to a greater extent than their own, because in their eyes, the other people's problems are more important, as they themselves are not. So in some cases depression can be almost selfless in that sense.

You're just describing "low self esteem", which is definitely a symptom of severe depression. So what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the person already have low self esteem, making them more susceptible to depression, or did they develop depression and as a result exhibit the symptoms you outlined?
Which as I stated previously, I suspect started with a neurological change which the patient cannot control.

Depression first, then self-esteem. Though of course low self-esteem is both a cause and a symptom of depression.

The thing about the neurological causes of depression, such as imbalances of chemicals and hormones in the brain, is that though they can be controlled through medication, they don't address any other contributing factors. Medication won't bring back a family member who has passed away, or the love of a former partner.
At the same time, counselling or dealing with issues such as these won't restore chemical balance to the brain.

The issue is, of course, determining in a depressed person whether things likehereditary predisposition to mental illness, personality disorders, an upsetting event occuring etc. have actually caused the depression, or are a result of it.