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Is depression a benefit in disguise?

CrystalViolet

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Actually, my depression is pretty debilitating at times, and combined with panic attacks and anxiety. It's a fact for me, but I don't want people feeling sorry for me, and I hate it when I feel sorry for myself, as well. Life happens, and you got to live it. Got to get up, go to work ect, otherwise you miss the good things in life as well. If I can do it, other people can too. This, I do know, you have to be willing to change yourself internally, before your situation changes. Changing externals helps though. People saying they can't is most of the problem. The battles over right there and then. Nothing can be changed. Life's a bitch, but she can be pretty sweet too.
GLBT is really not the same thing. It's not a perception, you can't alter brain chemistries to stimulate hetero attraction. You can't alter diet and excersize away the gay. Getting enough sleep doesn't change that you feel like a man in a women's body.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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Actually, my depression is pretty debilitating at times, and combined with panic attacks and anxiety. It's a fact for me, but I don't want people feeling sorry for me, and I hate it when I feel sorry for myself, as well. Life happens, and you got to live it. Got to get up, go to work ect, otherwise you miss the good things in life as well. If I can do it, other people can too. This, I do know, you have to be willing to change yourself internally, before your situation changes. Changing externals helps though. People saying they can't is most of the problem. The battles over right there and then. Nothing can be changed. Life's a bitch, but she can be pretty sweet too.
GLBT is really not the same thing. It's not a perception, you can't alter brain chemistries to stimulate hetero attraction. You can't alter diet and excersize away the gay. Getting enough sleep doesn't change that you feel like a man in a women's body.

Again, it's totally awesome how you're dealing with your depression head on.

But my point was that some people's brains might be wired to not be able to kick depression once it exists beyond a certain point. That could be due to chemistry or some other biological manifestation, so in that way it is like GBLT.
 

CrystalViolet

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I'd like to put a disclaimer.
I don't know what it's like for other people. I may wax lyrical about what works, based on my own experiences, but I'm no pysch.
I apologise for stating my opinions bluntly, but they are just that, opinions. No intention of offending.
 

tinker683

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Interesting thread. I have several things I'd like to add and I apologize if I come off as being scatter-brained.

To answer the OP: I think it could but:

1) Only in the short term
2) Only with certain types of people

About Point 1: People who have depression for a prolonged period of time develop a warped perception of reality and as such the longer you have it, the more damage it will do and harder it is to fix cognitively.

About Point 2: Some people handle it better than others I think. Some people are more attuned or feel their emotions more powerfully than others. While some might be able to detach themselves from their emotions and their situation and be able to objectively try to pin-point what's wrong, others can be overwhelmed by the onslaught of their emotions and truly do become powerless very quickly to stop it.

Speaking for myself and I'll summarize: I grew up with a lot of negative attitudes about myself and my place in the world and held on to that attitude from the time I was in Kindergarten all the way until high school. Once I reached high school and I got to that point to where teenagers begin figuring themselves out and what it is they want to do and who it is they want to be I looked inside myself and saw....nothing.

Depression, for me, I think was inevitable given my perspectives but it was most emphatically not something I could have gotten over on my own. Having grown up with these perspectives in mind they were, by the time I reached high school, deeply ingrained into my psyche and indeed was one of the cornerstones by that point in time of how I approached the world. Also, my grandfather has SERIOUS bipolar disorder (to where he had to be committed because he got so delusional) and I understand that mental illnesses can be hereditary so that may have influenced it some.

So after 2 hospitalizations for my suicidal behavior, and 6 years of therapy that included medication (In the form of Effexor XR and Seroquel), and a *lot* of introspection, I was able to rebuild myself from the ground up and become the person you see posting this today :)

I got into an argument once with a person on another message board about whether or not I needed the meds. She told me that I was able to realize these things on my own and that's what got me through it. I had to stop her and end the discussion because my response to her was NO. Just....no. You do not understand where I was then, you can not imagine JUST how far deep into the hole I was..

It wasn't until I was on the meds that I was able to begin thinking clearly. I tried repeatedly to explain that to her and she just didn't seem to compute that.

Some people I understand can't take meds because it doesn't work for them or it makes them feel worse and my heart goes out to these folks. To those that can take it though and choose not too...well, the choice is in your hands. Do whatever you feel is right but please remember that you still do have options available.

The last thing I'd like to comment on is people who take meds and expect them to work like Tylenol: That you just take the medication and suddenly everything will get better. It won't. The meds will either fix whatever is wrong with you or level you off enough to where you can regain some footing but, again, depending on how long you've had depression you have to fix the damage that's been done cognitively. If you'd told yourself forever and ever that you're worthless and that nobody will love you, a pill isn't going to change your mind about that...only you will, once you learned to start telling yourself that you ARE a worthwhile person to be around.

Anywho, that's my 2 cents. I apologize for being all over the place but I wanted to get all of my thoughts out there.
 
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Little_Sticks

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I don't think depression has any benefit in today's modern world. Out in the wild, if depressed and something wasn't working, I could see it sparking a motivation to leave or change a bad environment in search and hope of finding something better.

But in the modern world, the Earth is heavily populated and financially regulated. Their often isn't enough resources for all of a society to live healthy purposeful lives and so the majority of people want predictable security to be able to have this, and in doing so, they are willing to subjugate a minority of people to various forms of abuse with Pollyanna principles and the philosophy that if you aren't getting what you need then you aren't working hard or aren't willing to do what is needed to get what you need, even if that's a load of bullshit. And when all those principles and philosophies designed to protect the fat-cats fall flat on their feet, then we call the result a revolution, and fall back to our primal instinctive principles - you take what you can and those who are strong will get what they need. And if you aren't 'strong enough' to take what you need? Then you follow and support the strong who will help you or you die! And we have a cycle.

And so depression is supposed to alert a person to revolt and reshape their environment. But In this 'modern world' where we have so many bureaucratic obstacles and societal apathy to jump through before we even get the hope of changing anything, depression becomes more of a catch-22, where it let's you know you need to change something, but you're depressed because your attempts to change things constantly fail and all you get are turned noses and excuses from other people about why you fail. So you tweeter between angry desperation and, when tired, a detached, removed state that sees the self's pathetic inability to protect itself as a self-hating and a self-mutilating motivator in a reflection of the way other people see that self as. If a depressed one is lucky to live during a revolution, however, then they will be able to fight for the change they desire. But that rarely happens.

So am I depressing anyone yet? ;P
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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So after 2 hospitalizations for my suicidal behavior, and 6 years of therapy that included medication (In the form of Effexor XR and Seroquel), and a *lot* of introspection, I was able to rebuild myself from the ground up and become the person you see posting this today :)

I got into an argument once with a person on another message board about whether or not I needed the meds. She told me that I was able to realize these things on my own and that's what got me through it. I had to stop her and end the discussion because my response to her was NO. Just....no. You do not understand where I was then, you can not imagine JUST how far deep into the hole I was..

It wasn't until I was on the meds that I was able to begin thinking clearly. I tried repeatedly to explain that to her and she just didn't seem to compute that.

Some people I understand can't take meds because it doesn't work for them or it makes them feel worse and my heart goes out to these folks. To those that can take it though and choose not too...well, the choice is in your hands. Do whatever you feel is right but please remember that you still do have options available.

Wow. You have an incredible story. Thanks for sharing all that. :hug:

I don't think depression has any benefit in today's modern world. Out in the wild, if depressed and something wasn't working, I could see it sparking a motivation to leave or change a bad environment in search and hope of finding something better.

But in the modern world, the Earth is heavily populated and financially regulated. Their often isn't enough resources for all of a society to live healthy purposeful lives and so the majority of people want predictable security to be able to have this, and in doing so, they are willing to subjugate a minority of people to various forms of abuse with Pollyanna principles and the philosophy that if you aren't getting what you need then you aren't working hard or aren't willing to do what is needed to get what you need, even if that's a load of bullshit. And when all those principles and philosophies designed to protect the fat-cats fall flat on their feet, then we call the result a revolution, and fall back to our primal instinctive principles - you take what you can and those who are strong will get what they need. And if you aren't 'strong enough' to take what you need? Then you follow and support the strong who will help you or you die! And we have a cycle.

And so depression is supposed to alert a person to revolt and reshape their environment. But In this 'modern world' where we have so many bureaucratic obstacles and societal apathy to jump through before we even get the hope of changing anything, depression becomes more of a catch-22, where it let's you know you need to change something, but you're depressed because your attempts to change things constantly fail and all you get are turned noses and excuses from other people about why you fail. So you tweeter between angry desperation and, when tired, a detached, removed state that sees the self's pathetic inability to protect itself as a self-hating and a self-mutilating motivator in a reflection of the way other people see that self as. If a depressed one is lucky to live during a revolution, however, then they will be able to fight for the change they desire. But that rarely happens.

So am I depressing anyone yet? ;P

True, true. This is a bit doomsdayish, which I can definitely appreciate :) but sometimes is just takes a little tweak here and there, or some hard lessons, and you learn, adapt, and feel happier. There is also something to be said for 'finding your tribe.' There are many, many different ways to live today. It just takes perseverance and fortitude to find the best for each person. But, yes, if someone innately lacks the drive to change their life, I suppose they would be prone to more depressive episodes, and/or elect to go on meds to get through (talking about the people with milder depression).
 

Moiety

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I think it can be. I think I've been close to depression once in my life, and it certainly triggered a lot of learning and self-discovery and all that. I FEEL like a better person because of it too.
 

Salomé

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Modern day mothering sucks in comparison, so of course all mothers are on antidepressants.
Hold up a minute. The whole impetus for finding an argument for depression as a "benefit in disguise", is that, according to you, it doesn't make sense to "think that 30-50% of humans have a major disease of the mind".
Now you're saying that it does make sense because the "modern day" environment "sucks". Which is it? Can't have it both ways.
How does depression (treated or untreated) benefit these mothers and their children, exactly?

I don't see why saying that the mind is like the body regarding immunity vigor is so dangerous or surprising.
The mind is not like the body, it is the body. What I found surprising were your wild speculations about "brain morphology" and the types of depression that you think are adaptive and maladaptive. Based on apparently, nothing at all.
Life circumstances cause depression.
No, they do not. People are not economies. There is no life circumstance which will invariably produce depression. That's because no life circumstance affects everyone in the same way. People become depressed as a result of the way they think and feel about events that happen to them. There is always a subjective, cognitive component. Otherwise, curing depression would be very easy indeed. Your understanding of the disorder is fundamentally flawed.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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Hold up a minute. The whole impetus for finding an argument for depression as a "benefit in disguise", is that, according to you, it doesn't make sense to "think that 30-50% of humans have a major disease of the mind".
Now you're saying that it does make sense because the "modern day" environment "sucks". Which is it? Can't have it both ways.
How does depression (treated or untreated) benefit these mothers and their children, exactly?

The mind is not like the body, it is the body. What I found surprising were your wild speculations about "brain morphology" and the types of depression that you think are adaptive and maladaptive. Based on apparently, nothing at all.
No, they do not. People are not economies. There is no life circumstance which will invariably produce depression. That's because no life circumstance affects everyone in the same way. People become depressed as a result of the way they think and feel about events that happen to them. There is always a subjective, cognitive component. Otherwise, curing depression would be very easy indeed. Your understanding of the disorder is fundamentally flawed.


I was clear, I thought, in my lengthy posts throughout this thread. I suspect you are not reading them in their entirety. Not that I blame you. :smile:

It's not all black and white. I don't think anyone thinks it should be.
 

Synapse

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Okay people seem to be missing the point, almost like not really wanting solutions to why depression happens in the first place. But thinking its a disease of the mind, psychological instead of physiological, that its all just mental, that it happens out of thin air. I would of once been exactly like everyone else, saying take the meds. And they do help, they are designed as a mechanism to stimulate serotonin, except its the wrong approach.

I've been in the deep end more than a decade, tried a variety of anti depress anxiety med in the past, 10+ in fact. What I found is that. I've seen the patterns, short term help yes, long term highly suspicious. If you gotta be on meds for a long time then you got to wonder is it working or is it just stabilizing something that isn't working...

You know that western diets lack magnesium and iodine in our diets and that fluoride does a mickey on your body too right?

Fluoride-Magnesium Interaction
It can be stated that in intoxication with fluorine compounds, magnesium plays a protective role by countering and reducing the toxic effects of F-.

Brain cells have more T3 receptors than any other tissues, which means that a proper uptake of thyroid hormone is essential for the brain to work properly. Fluoride is a hormone disruptor. It mimics the action of many water-soluble hormones by interacting with G proteins, which transmit hormonal messages across cell membranes.

Common issues usually have common themes.
That's just a few ideas to consider.
 

durentu

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Psychology is in its infancy. The DSM reflects that. Until we really understand the nuances of the mind in all capacities, we will not really understand mental illness.

There is a difference between psychiatry and psychology. Both are a few thousand years old. It's not new as a body of knowledge and practice.

Psychiatry and psychology are different in that psychiatry can write prescriptions, psychologists cannot.

Psychology was considered a branch of philosophy until 1879.

The classification of mental disorders in an official sense dates back to 1840, this is 170 years ago. The DSM's first publication is 1952.

---

The argument that psychiatry and psychology are in their infancy is just not correct.

---

In the 20th century, some guy (I cannot recall his name), called psychiatry's bluff. He had volunteers goto mental hospitals who are completely healthy, but to lie about hearing voices in their heads. All of them were admitted into the hospital and none were allowed to leave for a few years. After which the event was made public and they were released describing their experiences. The embarrassed mental hospitals then challenged him to send more and they will be confident in an accurate diagnosis. After some time, they selected a dozen or so 'operatives' and claimed that they found his people. He explained that he sent no one at all.

They failed in both false positives and false negatives in the context of experts and professionals.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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There is a difference between psychiatry and psychology. Both are a few thousand years old. It's not new as a body of knowledge and practice.

Psychiatry and psychology are different in that psychiatry can write prescriptions, psychologists cannot.

Psychology was considered a branch of philosophy until 1879.

The classification of mental disorders in an official sense dates back to 1840, this is 170 years ago. The DSM's first publication is 1952.

---

The argument that psychiatry and psychology are in their infancy is just not correct.

---

In the 20th century, some guy (I cannot recall his name), called psychiatry's bluff. He had volunteers goto mental hospitals who are completely healthy, but to lie about hearing voices in their heads. All of them were admitted into the hospital and none were allowed to leave for a few years. After which the event was made public and they were released describing their experiences. The embarrassed mental hospitals then challenged him to send more and they will be confident in an accurate diagnosis. After some time, they selected a dozen or so 'operatives' and claimed that they found his people. He explained that he sent no one at all.

They failed in both false positives and false negatives in the context of experts and professionals.

It's relative to what you are talking about. I am referring to its validity as a science (and it is a young science), and in the context of how much we know compared to how much we don't know about the mind. There is also an element of how well it works, which, judging from this thread, isn't always that great. And it's also my understanding that it's only been since the 50's that other sciences have started converging with psychology, so there hasn't been much time for it all to coalesce and fall out, to have large numbers of studies and to reach the general public, looking at the mind from different perspectives, compared to other sciences.
 

Mole

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They failed in both false positives and false negatives in the context of experts and professionals.

And the result was to de-institute the asylums where the patients were to be cared for by the community.

Unfortunately some governments saw this as a way to save money. And the asylums were de-instituted but no money was made available for community care. And the community couldn't care less.

And so we see patients living on our streets or in boarding houses without care.

And this co-incided with illegal drugs flooding our streets, and to ease their suffering, the patients self medicated. And so we had addiction piled on top of mental illness.

And to add insult to injury we call them losers.
 

Fecal McAngry

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The medical model of depression is unhelpful.

What is the proven chain of causation? Neurochemical states cause depression or depression causes neurochemical states?

Imperfect, maybe, but unhelpful?

Two drugs I am familiar with can cause depression in me very easily--Clomid, and Pegasys. Here's a little experiment. Clomid is very, very cheap. Go to alldaychemist dot com, buy some Clomid and take, say 200mgs/day for at least 10 days (I'd feel bad after 3 days at 25mgs/day) or until you begin praying for your own death. Then google Clomid and learn about how the estrogenic isomer zuclomiphene reliably causes depression in a large number of users...

Oh, and here are some friendly and hilarious words of advice from Hepatitis C Treatment-PEGASYS

"The most serious side effects of PEGASYS and COPEGUS are:

* Problems with pregnancy
* Mental health problems (such as irritability, depression, anxiety, aggressiveness, trouble with drug addiction or overdose, thoughts about suicide, suicide attempts, suicide, thoughts about homicide, hurting other people, and hallucinations)..."
 

sculpting

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^ooh, that means my fish are on prozac.
827516u0bwr1xrik.gif


EDIT:
that's the first common drug (related to this topic) that comes to mind. The water supply probably contains much worse though.

When I worked in Dallas at the med school they would dump ethidium bromide down the drain.

I think culturally we've gotten to a point where many have 'forgotten' or haven't even been taught that low-level depression/sadness/dissatisfaction is a part of life (as you say), and might even last for a number of months until the situation is resolved or the person comes to terms with things. I think there is less of an acceptance/awareness these days that it's o.k. - even normal - to be down and out at times. Many might jump straight to the meds. I believe this contributes to inflated %'s of depressed people as cited in the OP.

Not sure about the whole adaptive piece of this, but I do think navigating through low-level depression can foster better self-awareness and potentially create more resilience and strength for future situations. And, as others have mentioned, depression is a powerful indicator that something or other is off-kilter in your life.

Of course you then have depression caused by chemical imbalances or the like, which would be a different story I suppose - but that would be a pretty small % of individuals... certainly not the 30-50% (although personally I think/believe that society as it is now, and as the majority try to adhere to, is going to exacerbate depression..I think many aspects of it are out of balance)

This may actually be very true for extroverts. There is a lot of value in your thoughts here.

A WHO study awhile back showed 1/3 of individuals qualify as mentally ill at some point in their lives. If I recall correctly it split into 15% mild/12% moderate/3% severe mental illness.

A larger percentage of the severely mentally ill commit suicide than of the mildly mentally ill. However when looking at absolute numbers, the number of the mildly mentally ill who die by suicide is far greater than the number of severely mentally ill, due to there just being so many more of them.

The point? Do not disregard the importance of treating someone who seems to be suffering from only mild symptoms of mental illness. That treatment should consist of what the patient feels comfortable with.

(Having said that, the one time I took valium....yummy....it was the best medical procedure ever. To this day still smile wistfully when talking about my stomach endoscopy. S-O-O H-A-P-P-P-Y.....mmmmmmmm.....)

Almost as good as cuddling.
 

spin-1/2-nuclei

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Okay people seem to be missing the point, almost like not really wanting solutions to why depression happens in the first place. But thinking its a disease of the mind, psychological instead of physiological, that its all just mental, that it happens out of thin air. I would of once been exactly like everyone else, saying take the meds. And they do help, they are designed as a mechanism to stimulate serotonin, except its the wrong approach.

I've been in the deep end more than a decade, tried a variety of anti depress anxiety med in the past, 10+ in fact. What I found is that. I've seen the patterns, short term help yes, long term highly suspicious. If you gotta be on meds for a long time then you got to wonder is it working or is it just stabilizing something that isn't working...

You know that western diets lack magnesium and iodine in our diets and that fluoride does a mickey on your body too right?

Fluoride-Magnesium Interaction
It can be stated that in intoxication with fluorine compounds, magnesium plays a protective role by countering and reducing the toxic effects of F-.

Brain cells have more T3 receptors than any other tissues, which means that a proper uptake of thyroid hormone is essential for the brain to work properly. Fluoride is a hormone disruptor. It mimics the action of many water-soluble hormones by interacting with G proteins, which transmit hormonal messages across cell membranes.

Common issues usually have common themes.
That's just a few ideas to consider.

In my opinion this is a good article explaining the basics of what we know about the chemistry behind depression (& it's a quick read). - The Chemistry of Depression

There are some questions regarding the effectiveness of antidepressants. The major ones being related to 1.) down-regulation of neurotransmitter receptors, 2.) adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus & 3.) variations in individual biochemistry. There is evidence that antidepressants are helpful for some patients but my friend with a PhD/MD in psychology and psychiatry says that about 30% of patients are not helped by these medications. Obviously that is still a significant number of people.

Another major contribution to this problem, which is more related to my area of knowledge, are the side effects. The purpose of these drugs is to regulate the synthesis and degradation of the key monoamines associated with depression. So one problem is that their ideal concentration in the serum is not exact for every human. It's a one size fits all approach that we are using now and that typically only works well for a small percentage of the population. Many things can effect a person's biochemistry like environment, diet, genetics, and disease. This can be related to the difference between a carpet bomb and precision/smart bomb in the military. Carpet bombs can be effective at destroying a target some of the time, but occasionally they miss the target and they almost always involve collateral damage and are required in excess.

Therefore currently some scientists in computational biomedicine and drug design and delivery are researching the development of drugs that are adaptive and/or personalized i.e. smart/precision bombs. This would do away with many of the side effects (collateral damage) and also decrease the number of patients who cannot find any benefit from taking the drug (missed target). So there is hope that there will be effective pharmaceutical help for the people with severe clinical depression that cannot benefit from counseling.
 

lunalum

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(too long, didn't read the whole thread...)

Two scientists suggest that depression is not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation that brings certain cognitive advantages

I don't really buy into this suggestion. I would think that depression is more of a mental adaptation that malfunctions into a sickness.

It is strange that they suggest that it is because depression forces people into being analytical. That is the exact opposite of what it did to me. It made me just feel sick pretty much all the time. I almost didn't think at all. I could not think. I just felt sick and cried, pretty much. I talked and talked and talked and talked to alleviate a little of the boredom because if I didn't, I didn't hear anything, just silence in my head. It cannot be functional if it allows the person to see that something is wrong, but leaves them much more helpless to solve it. It is a very misunderstood illness.

What are your feelings about functioning people being put on 'low dose' antidepressants?

Well, if the person is functioning pretty much as well as before, I don't think she/he really meets the criteria for depression. There needs to be a disabling sort of sadness/malaise, not just that everyday sort that comes with the stessors of the universe. Depression does seem to be a neurochemical malfunction in nature, so if someone starts to lose their functioning, trying low dose antidepressants is a most-reasonable first step.
 

Vasilisa

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I think it is good to recognize that all sad feelings do not constitute depression. I think people are too quick to casually say they are depressed when they just mean sad. And I do think it is good to express depth of emotion and feelings, obviously it has given the world many timeless works of art. But when it comes to celebrating the thinking process of the depressed mind, I get wary. As a person who ruminates, I appreciate the benefits of this thoughtfulness, this kind of temperament. But I think that in depression it typically leads nowhere but down.

I recommend to you all Viginia Heffernan's great essay on depression from Unholy Ghost. I want to share excerpts because I think they can give an insight to people who have never experienced depression and because I think they illustrate the haywire rumination well. She describes how she viewed her depression, not as a sickness, but as work. Classified work with a strict confidentiality clause.
Every day I felt sadder and stranger. If depression came into my life attached to heartbreak, as one virus piggybacks another, it soon asserted its independence, bringing conclusions to mind that were captious, adamant, and dark. I began to see life as too long, too easy to botch, and, once botched, impossible to repair..... Those flights of rhetoric put me in a bind: the beliefs and actions that grew out of being depressed justified depression, and renewed it.
Every day of my life seemed tainted by the Pattern - exorbitance followed by crash and comeuppance. What once seemed a fresh life now appeared twisted and grim
Down here, under the flickering, basement light of depression, my field of vision narrowed..... As I brooded on how dingy everything seemed, I wondered if I had thrown myself into depression in order to avoid having a career. It seemed like a possibility, particularly since this theory implied that I was both melodramatic and lazy. Insights generally rang true to the degree that they were self-savaging.
As I pressed through my history, in search of mistakes and patterns, I kept right on scaling down and crying for hours on end.
her theory that most alarms her loved ones:
...when it hit me. I didn't need a cure; I wasn't depressed at all. I had broken free, in fact, and was out from under some social tyranny. I was let loose into a liberty of desperate unhappiness, which was in fact glory. Maybe I was getting a true religion, after my lifetime of shallow faith; maybe these were revelations that would enlighten and stabilize me or even raise me up.
so these passages sound to me like example of rumination the OP was discussing. So what then?
I took the antidepressant the next day and almost immediately I began shelving the voluminous theories that had occupied my mind for six months. That was humbling. It seemed I had been working in isolation on dead-end research. My special, classified work had produced mostly obsolete and esoteric exercises. And the questions I had considered matters of life and death now struck me as a style of toy thinking (akin to "Does Truth exist?" and "How do we really know what the color 'blue' is?") to be put aside in adulthood. Even now it scares me to realize that my months of depression study came to so little; maybe I haven't realized it yet.
 

Mole

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I think it is good to recognize that all sad feelings do not constitute depression. I think people are too quick to casually say they are depressed when they just mean sad. And I do think it is good to express depth of emotion and feelings, obviously it has given the world many timeless works of art. But when it comes to celebrating the thinking process of the depressed mind, I get wary. As a person who ruminates, I appreciate the benefits of this thoughtfulness, this kind of temperament. But I think that in depression it typically leads nowhere but down.

Yes, it's a form of obsession where we repeat the same thoughts over and over again and elaborate them.

And just as a trance can be induced by any repetition, so Clinical Depression can be seen as a form of trance induced by the repetition of thoughts.

And the way to interrupt a trance is by introducing an extraneous element, whether it is medication or cognitive therapy or sometimes pure chance.

And when the trance is interrupted, it as though we wake up.
 
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