Depression is a label for a wide range of complex illnesses. I am sure that what you say is true for some people, but in some cases it simply isn't. I've got friends who have been helped by medications, and I've got friends who have tried medication and it didn't help. One thing that is counter productive is to assert that these medications don't work ever, because they do appear to be extremely effective in some cases. Which figuratively and factually is a life saver.
It works around half the time. So, yea it can cure depression though it does not cure everyone of depression.
It's kind of like rebooting a computer, it does not always work and sometimes it makes things worse. But, comparing the cost vs benefit it's generally worth trying.
Your insistence on evidence for a "cure" is nonsensical.
Doctors don't have a cure for depression at the moment, it's true. They also don't have cures for HIV/AIDS, or diabetes, or asthma, or lots of other chronic medical conditions (see https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta... for a list of the most common ones).
But they do have medications that can make it possible for people with those conditions to lead long, productive, more or less normal lives. Are you suggesting the people with these conditions should be turning those medications down? That they should refuse any treatment short of 100% removal of the underlying condition, even if by doing so they reduce the length and quality of their own life?
Why, exactly? Why on earth make the perfect the enemy of the good like that?
I did not suggest that people should turn down medication, or refuse treatment.
I didn't say anything other than that medication doesn't cure depression - which I stand behind.
Let me turn the tables on your indignance for a moment - why don't you care about the causes of depression? If the incidence is on the rise, the causes must be getting stronger. How can you condone simply restoring people to productivity with drugs when there is an increasingly serious problem harming them in the first place?
You are trying to redefine terms here. Depression is not the same as the underlying cause of Depression. You can go from Depressed to not Depressed without becoming normal or happy.
Further, it's not clear that the actual incidence is on the rise or if this is reversion to the mean etc. We have shifted what people call Depression and how willing people are to seek treatment. The age adjusted suicide rate was actually higher from 1950 - 1980 than it is today.
In 1950 the rates of suicide for 75–84 years old people was 31.1 in 2010 it was 15.7. If you look at the actual rate by age it's all over the map. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html
It's actually unclear what your argument is here. Remember that these comments are in response to an article about rising incidence of depression treated with multiple medications.
It sounds like for some reason you are now just trying to say that depression isn't really on the increase in certain places.
I have excessive hope, and that is one of the many causes of my depression. Another cause is apparently a chemical imbalance in my head, which certain drugs have helped with.
How would you suggest I go about curing my hope problem? I have too much of it. It's a double-edged sword in that it keeps me down, but it is also the only thing that stops me from 'pulling the trigger'.
Feeling depressed is a valid emotional state and a necessary one at certain times. It can help prompt change. Feeling hopeless or negative about the future can jolt you into action, overcome ingrained behaviors, etc.
Like many other things too much depression for too long becomes clinical depression. Then it is no longer serving its proper function and becomes a pathology. People with clinical depression can't "hope" their way out of it anymore than someone with eczema or cancer can "wish" those conditions away.
Imagine we used the term "stomach bug" for both food poisoning and stomach cancer. Now imagine you have stomach cancer and everyone keeps telling you to drink plenty of fluids, rest, and it will go away. That's basically what your post is saying.
If you can provide a source showing either that a deficiency of medication is the cause of depression, or that medications do cure depression, then I will provide a source.
From personal experience: medication stabilised my last depression 7 years ago. After his stabilisation me and my therapist decreased and finally overcame it using EMDR therapy (very interesting technology by the way). This after 18 years of on-and-off depressions in which unaware of my condition.
Actually no, the burden of proof is not with me. I am claiming that something doesn't exist - I.e. A medication that cures depression. This is similar to saying 'there are no unicorns'. Neither statement can be proven by citation since there is always the possibility that a unicorn (or a medication that cures depression) has been overlooked.
If there is such a medication, it should be trivial for savanaly to point it out.
I think a lot of people are getting confused about 'cure' vs 'management.' In my case it helped with neither.
SSRIs only /treat/ (not cure) a deficiency of serotonin, which for some people is all they need. I think some people have a strong genetic predisposition to depression, however that doesn't mean "therefore medication."
But depression comes in a lot more forms than just a simple serotonin deficiency, it's also thought that dopamine and norepinephrine play important roles. Personally, antidepressants never helped me, though a combination of physical exercise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_phy... - seriously read that, I used to think exercise was just about living longer and being "healthy" in some abstract sense, which were the opposite of what I wanted at the time) and meditation has helped. It hasn't made me happier but I think it's effectively treated my depression.
When someone doesn't have the ability to "lift" themselves out of their depression, there isn't suddenly a binary "either they need an SSRI/SNRI or RIP tough luck". Some people have hypothyroidism (this was my case) and no amount of psychoactive drugs is going to help with that because the neurotransmitters aren't even being manufactured in the first place and even if they were you'd barely have the energy to utilize them. Other people just don't respond to SSRIs but would still respond to the massive boost of not just serotonin but dopamine and norepinephrine caused by daily (especially aerobic or HIIT) exercise (it also rewires the reward centers and dozens of other things, read that article). Some people might have bottled up emotions or physical influences increasing their cortisol - high cortisol can make you feel depressed too. Meditating lowers that and brings out your emotions so you can cry if needed (which FURTHER decreases cortisol). That was kind of the last component for me.
Some depressed people need someone to not just give up after trying an SSRI but actively get them doing the lifestyle changes, whether that's self-applied in CBT as in Feeling Good, exercise, meditation, getting out more, whatever. Like they seriously need to be guided to do it in real time, they can't just be expected to even remember to do it. Also blood work and hormone tests are simple to do - it might just be a lack of micronutrients or hyper/hypothyroidism (especially in this age group of middle aged women. personally I'm 20f)
