Wait when did we get good at treating depression?
Medicated treatment for ADHD has hit even higher numbers. Something like 70% of patients respond positively to medication (sometimes takes a while to get the right medication though), and 45% achieve full recovery (that is to say, ADHD stops being an issue for them if they're on their meds).
I mentioned this because conventional wisdom is something like: "Yes, depression as a chemical imbalance is a thing that exists, and you can kind of do something with it through treatment." But a lot of people are also "ADHD might not even be a real thing and is a result of helicopter parenting and lazy kids". But the science is much further ahead on understanding ADHD and treating it on ADHD than depression.
So the logic is:
- evolution is this amazingly powerful process that has resulted in the development of a vast diversity of astonishingly sophisticated and beautiful species of plants and animals, with the most advanced observed to exist in the known universe being the human inhabitants of planet Earth. However...
- a significant portion of this most beautifully evolved and advanced species are unable to function successfully without the use of medication to alter the naturally evolved chemical activity of their brain.
Personally I believe the first statement too much to be able to accept the second.
That is: I believe that conditions like depression and ADHD have evolved for a reason, and to suppress them with chemicals rather than understanding the reasons for their existence and responding to those reasons is to devolve or suspend evolution.
Where the paradox becomes so profound and damaging is that the people who go to serious effort to understand these conditions and to develop and advocate non-pharmaceutical methods of treatment, are often condemned and mocked as un-scientific.
But mercifully the tides are changing, and I can see a time in the future, not all that far off, in which we look back on the practice of dealing with non-compliant kids by feeding them amphetamines as one to be viewed with great shame.
Evolution doesn't happen for a reason. The whole point of evolution is that our biology and the way our brains work is bafflingly random at times. Depression is a crippling mental illness, it doesn't happen for a reason.
Responding to your points...
Do you also advocate stopping cancer treatments?
No and that's a misrepresentation of what I said.
I didn't say we shouldn't treat mental illness.
I said we can do better than giving amphetamines to children as a way of dealing with aberrant behavior, and that perhaps the key to finding the best treatment is likely to be found by understanding (not denying) its evolutionary origins.
I believe this to be true as I've seen this approach work on myself and others.
Stopping vaccinations, because not getting smallpox is interfering with evolution?
Again, I didn't say we shouldn't treat. And I'm not antivax, no.
When done right, vaccination enhances evolution. (FWIW I'm less convinced about giving flu shots to people with healthy immune systems for the same reason most sensible people are concerned about over-prescription of antibiotics).
In short, I'm fine with any medical intervention that steers the world further down the right path (I.e., enhances evolution).
I'm very confident that the widespread prescription of amphetamines to children will one day be shown not to be good for the world.
Evolution doesn't happen for a reason. The whole point of evolution is that our biology and the way our brains work is bafflingly random at times.
This not a statement of established fact; it is a statement of your understanding of evolution, which may or may not be complete or correct.
But natural selection is not a random process. It is a very deliberate process of adoption and distribution of traits that benefit the species.
So the fact that depressive and ADHD-like behaviours exist in so many people across many different regions and cultures, indicates that they have been positively selected and reinforced over many generations.
Another commenter in this subthread has offered a very plausible explanation as to why this may be.
Depression is a crippling mental illness
Trust me, I know, I've had it for much of my life and have witnessed many other lives be destroyed by it.
it doesn't happen for a reason.
Well for me the key to overcoming depression was discovering that it does have a reason, then addressing that reason at the most fundamental level (genetic expression).
And now I plan to devote as much of the rest of my life and available resources as I can spare, to researching the topic so more people have the chance to be saved from this menace.
Assuming that what you want is a complete end to mental illness - for everybody, regardless of their genetic predisposition - we both want the same thing.
In England the recommended treatment for ADD / ADHD isn't amphetamine as a first response.
Here's what NICE say: http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/attention-deficit-hyper...
http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/attention-deficit-hyper...
> Drug treatment is not indicated as first-line treatment for moderate ADHD.
> Offer parents or carers referral to a group parent-training/education programme on its own or with other group treatment (CBT and/or social skills training) for the child or young person.
> Consider individual psychological interventions (such as CBT or social skills training) for older adolescents.
> Where ADHD is present with a learning disability, offer referral to an individual or group parent training/education programme according to the preference of the child or young person and the parents or carers.
In England children should only be getting medication if they've been through a rigorous assessment and are seen as needing those meds.
Of course I oversimplify; I know not all people/doctors/regions are like that.
And I do see some of that kind of attitude among some in Australia too, but societal attitudes and the government controls on pharmaceuticals that exist here and the U.K. keep things more moderate.
I cannot speak for those with depression, but ADHD has easily tripled the amount of stress I have in my life, if not more. It causes impulsive behaviour that can wreck relationships(both personal and professional), and makes it extremely hard to concentrate on many things that aren't totally gamified from the outset.
There's a trope about how ADHD ends up being a gift because of creative thoughts coming to you, and that the medication will dull your senses... but I don't buy it too much. There have been studies that have measured no noticable difference in "creative capabilities"(hard to measure, granted) when being medicated and non-medicated.
Before being put on medication, I had never finished a single piece of homework in my life. Afterwards I was able to finish the homework assignments before class was even over. I would study autonomously, and was able to reach my full potential because I was able to manage my thoughts for the first time in my life.
There is no moral high-ground to not medicating oneself, just like there is no moral high-ground to using crutches when you have a broken leg. Asking me not to medicate is the same as asking me to go through meaningless suffering in almost every social interaction. Countless studies have shown that medication is much much more effective than any form of behavioural therapy (and that BT has an extremely high failure/"relapse" rate).
I don't think it's right to mock people looking for non-medical treatment, because various reasons mean you cannot have access to alternatives.
But medication has been proven to be very effective, and BT has proven to be a very difficult path... if you are a parent of a child suffering from ADHD it is your duty to at least explore the medication option in my opinion.
There is likely to be no higher reason for ADHD and depression to exist. We have looked at "normal people's" brains, and see that for depression/ADHD some things work differently. And that these people tend to have lower-quality lives because of a lack of something... It's hard to argue that there's a reason for it all except in some religious context. It's not like there's a higher reason for brain tumors either.
As an aside, despite the fact that I currently love where I live (Japan), I always consider moving back to the US if only to get access to medication that is illegal here. My life is a lot shittier (still great overall though) because of some drug laws. I have spent a lot of time working on different non-medical coping techniques that have helped out a lot, but nothing matched the chemicals.
I've tried looking into alternatives but because ADHD isn't recognized in adults here it can be difficult to convince a physician
I'm sorry to give the impression that I think you and those like you should suffer without treatment.
I really don't.
And I don't believe ADHD is a myth or anything like that. Quite the opposite.
I just believe we can do better that what the medical profession currently offers.
I mean, don't you think it would be a shame if we couldn't?
Don't you think it would be great if we could come to fully understand mental illness at a fundamental level, then develop treatments that gave you even better health than what you've already experienced, without the need for stimulant drugs?
There is likely to be no higher reason for ADHD and depression to exist.
Not wanting to labor the point on a topic that's clearly sensitive to you, but in short: evolutionary theory says there must be a reason why these traits are so widespread.
I'll leave it there for now.
Countless studies have shown that medication is much much more effective than any form of behavioural therapy (and that BT has an extremely high failure/"relapse" rate).
Yes I can accept that. Behavioural therapies tend to be formalised ways of telling patients to "just try harder". They fail because the real issue is below the conscious mind (where "trying harder" works), in the subconscious mind and in the physiology (organ function, gene expression).
My personal experience is that there is a highly effective approach to treatment that works both on a physiological (all the way down to gene expression) level and a subconscious emotional level.
It may not be widely known or adopted yet, but it is attracting growing interest among ordinary people looking for better answers, if not mainstream science researchers, yet (due, I think, to the perverse economic incentives that prevail in that field, and the professional disincentives to pursue unconventional theories).
But from what I can see, it's just a matter of time.
If you're a first world schlub, however, it prevents you from sitting tidily in your little box and people get mad and you get sad, because conformity is identity. Your genes only get passed on to a sports sock. There are no new valleys to discover.
So it works with both ideas - and depression isnt dissimilar - old adaptation for dealing with sickness, injury and winter that just isn't helpful anymore.
Cage a bird and you need to adapt its diet and care. Same with humans.
There are no new valleys to discover.
Except there are.
It just needs the right kind of awareness and encouragement.
Cage a bird and you need to adapt its diet and care. Same with humans.
Indeed. And my hope (and belief) is that we'll soon see much better techniques than amphetamines for providing said care. Opening that metaphorical cage is probably a big part of it.