Re: about Depression
I think there are several things that maybe need to be taken into consideration here. Firstly depression may be a mental illness (or at least within that spectrum) but not all mental illnesses are depression. And not all anti-social behaviour is down to mental illness either.
Secondly, diagnosis for depression is a clinical one. No blood tests, no scans will show it up for definite - it's purely down to what the psychiatrist/doctor thinks. And if the said doctor has a 'thing' for one type of diagnosis over another, then that is what you will get.
Now anyone who has ever had depression or lived with someone who has it (or any other mental illness for that matter) will tell you that it's very real indeed. And it's not just the person who has the condition who has to live with it. It's not a question of 'being strong' or 'pull yourself together' - it can't be done, at least, not by everyone. And it can't be done all the time.
People can be down, they can feel depressed, but that doesn't mean they have depression, which is a totally different beast.
There are different solutions for different people - and again that's fine. Before people go all 'Oh but science says...' on me, I would like to point out that many of the drugs used to treat depression were actually developed to treat other conditions first. Such as epilepsy. Is curing epilepsy just a question of 'being strong' or 'pull yourself together'?? No, of course not. So
why is depression/mental health any different? I'm not sure that it is.
What I do know is that it is a killer. And we need to remember that before we are too unkind to those who ask for advice.
I think there are several things that maybe need to be taken into consideration here. Firstly depression may be a mental illness (or at least within that spectrum) but not all mental illnesses are depression. And not all anti-social behaviour is down to mental illness either.
Secondly, diagnosis for depression is a clinical one. No blood tests, no scans will show it up for definite - it's purely down to what the psychiatrist/doctor thinks. And if the said doctor has a 'thing' for one type of diagnosis over another, then that is what you will get.
Now anyone who has ever had depression or lived with someone who has it (or any other mental illness for that matter) will tell you that it's very real indeed. And it's not just the person who has the condition who has to live with it. It's not a question of 'being strong' or 'pull yourself together' - it can't be done, at least, not by everyone. And it can't be done all the time.
People can be down, they can feel depressed, but that doesn't mean they have depression, which is a totally different beast.
There are different solutions for different people - and again that's fine. Before people go all 'Oh but science says...' on me, I would like to point out that many of the drugs used to treat depression were actually developed to treat other conditions first. Such as epilepsy. Is curing epilepsy just a question of 'being strong' or 'pull yourself together'?? No, of course not. So
why is depression/mental health any different? I'm not sure that it is.
What I do know is that it is a killer. And we need to remember that before we are too unkind to those who ask for advice.
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