(I wouldn't say I'm depressed -- not in the clinical sense anyway; but I do spend what I imagine is an abnormal amount of time thinking about it because of mother's passing away when I was younger).
Most people have exposure to death when they are young, but for some people -- for whatever reason -- it's more traumatic. It can become corrosive, subtly or not so subtly, affecting the decisions you make in a harmful way. Personally, I had cancer at a young age, and for years it screwed up the way I saw the world, without me even recognizing it. It took another crisis-type event for me to recognize it. Trust me, if it is something you are already cognizant of, it's better to deal with it now to prevent future crises, then to wait until then.
In that case, you shouldn't take any advice from HN unless that advice is to talk to a professional.
It's a lot like legal advice, sure people on the internet can talk about the issues, but they're probably wrong and even if they're right it's still unwise to take what they say at face value. The people with the professional capacity to help you can't do it well online for all the obvious reasons.
But for some of the suggestions, the advice is fantastic. Exercise more? Eat healthier foods at regular intervals? Practice positive thinking about the world and your life? Any one of them could help. ALL of them could help. And they can't hurt. Take every piece of "no-strings-attached" advice you can... and then ALSO consult a professional.
They can occur together too...
"Death is bad," said Harry, discarding wisdom for the sake of clear communication. "Very bad. Extremely bad. Being scared of death is like being scared of a great big monster with poisonous fangs. It actually makes a great deal of sense, and does not, in fact, indicate that you have a psychological problem."
...
But some people fear death all the time - they're sitting at home, watching tv, and they can feel their heart beating, and they think it's beating in a weird way, and that causes them to feel fear, which causes a bunch of physical reactions. Tense muscles, sweating, breathing changes; the person becomes aware of these and instead of ascribing them to fear they think these are the start of a heart attack. This causes even more fear and anxiety. Their heart is now hammering. They are "hyper aware" of their heart beat and breathing and sweating. They may well feel pain. This is not "in their head". It is real actual pain. It is the same pain that you would feel if someone punched you in the arm. They call an ambulance. They are taken to hospital.
In that situation no doctor is going to say "Don't be stupid, you're not having a heart attack" (because people do have heart attacks), so the doctor will strap the person to all sorts of machines.
But this doesn't relieve the anxiety. If anything, it just makes things worse. "They wouldn't spend all this money and time if it was just anxiety! I wouldn't be in hospital for this long if there was nothing wrong!"
And, when all the results come back negative that doesn't relieve anxiety either. "Oh God! It must be really serious, because they can't find it on their tests! Maybe it's cancer!"
Anxiety disorders quickly develop a strong grip on sufferers. Behaviours can be extraordinary. You only have to see the rituals that people with OCD go through to realise this.
An Anxiety disorder is neither normal nor healthy.
Anxiety disorders can be incredibly debilitating, causing considerable distress to people and being very disruptive.
Luckily, they often respond well to treatment.
Consider cognitive behaviour therapy - this can be applied by a therapist; or self applied by a book or website. "Mind over Mood" is a recommended book, but there are others just as good.
It's all a bit more of a spectrum.
There is serious money behind the chemical mental-distress-as-an-illness interpretation. If it's a medical problem then you need a medical solution. Anti-depressants anyone? They are being taken in such vast quantities they are starting to poison the water. [1]
[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21882-antidepressants-...
also this conversation is about true clinical depression and the difference between it and just feeling sad; it's not about some conspiracy theory of how every doctor wants us to be on meds or the fact that flushing medication down the toilet is poising our water supply.
please stay on topic if you want to continue the converation
Who gets to decide what is "feeling sad" with a cause and what is idiopathic "chemical malfunction". Care to offer any references? Objective diagnostics?
I included the bit about antidepressants to caution swallowing the prevailing medical model hook line and sinker with out pause for thought as to it's assumptions. Pretty sure that's on topic.
So... there may not actually be a huge difference in feeling sad about trauma and chemical problems. Not all chemical problems are genetic.
You are promoting a stigmatising, out of date, notion of mental illness which is based on ignorance. You are suggesting (whether you know it or not) that some depression is "real" (and based on a chemical imbalance) and some depression is not real (and is not based on a chemical imbalance).
This is unhelpful, and potentially dangerous.
It leads people to think that medication is the only way to treat depression. Medication is not the only way to treat depression; medication alone is unlikely to be much use for long term resilience.
The "Chemical imbalance" model is too simple and has too many flaws to be much use.
You don't know everything. No one does. No one ever will. One thing I know is this: if you treat yourself right today, tomorrow will be better for you than if you don't.
Maybe tomorrow you will figure something out, so give yourself the best chance you can: have a good meal (without a lot of sugar or animal fat) , do 20 minutes of moderate to intense cardio exercise, turn off your computer at least 90 minutes before bed, take a shower, write down (on paper) whatever is troubling or busying your mind today, then get a good 8+ hours of sleep, and tomorrow, just pick one item from that paper list and do one little thing to make it a little better.
I promise that tomorrow will be at least a little better than today, and a little better is always better than worse.
Give people a reason to say, "That's XceleratesMom's kid. She sure did a great job with Xcelerate, even though she didn't get as much time as she deserved."