It’s kind of hard to prove. I’d guess that real depression has existed for a long time at the current numbers, but the contributing factors may have changed over time. Also human psychology contributes to some mental disorders, so the knowledge of the existence of depression itself may contribute to higher rates currently. And the recognition of depression may be related to the way people see others in society. So when things were rotten, those with depression may not have seen themselves as any different than others. Since it’s difficult to assess depression already it’s hard to arrive at hard numbers now, other than to look at my first post and notice that that the rate of diagnosis of depression has increased, which isn’t the same thing as an increase in the rate of depression. Man that is all depressing to think about.
I think a lot has to do with the behavioral structure a person is in.
We know that a lack of sleep can exacerbate depression. I wouldn’t be surprised where countries where it’s normal to get a full night’s sleep have different outcomes than cultures where few people get in their eight hours. We know that frequent contact with strong social groups is associated with better outcomes. It follows that there is probably less depression in areas where that social contact is a normal aspect of life versus one where you must go out of your way to participate in a community. There are structures that can help keep a nascent depressive episode from ever blooming, and there are structures that can make a current depressive episode more likely to resolve.
It’s very inconsistent with my experiences. I’ve lived and worked in three very different cultures- modern US, rural Cameroon, and industrial China. In all of these places, I’ve worked in education and served as a confidant and informal counselor to youth aged 17-22. While every culture is different and I only had a small glimpse, I do think I get a pretty good snapshot of what is going on with youth.What I found is that mental health is vastly different everywhere you go. Even the very definition of “mental health” is different from place to place. While I did find some population of depressed people everywhere I worked, the number of people coming to me or displaying serious mental health issues, and the severity of their problems, varied widely.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise. Heart disease varies by country. Rates of broken bones vary by country. Diabetes rates vary by country. Flu rates vary by country. There is no disease that is unaffected by structural factors. Lifestyle, daily practices, living and working conditions, access to resources, public infrastructure, health and safety regulations, and even things like roads have a massive effect on who gets what diseases. Depression is certainly not the sole exception to this rule.
Yep…at least fifth generation here…on two sides. Asylums, shock therapy, baths, suicide, and self mediating with alcohol and opiates are all in my family history. Now we take antidepressants and go to therapy.
I recall reading an interesting article many years ago about the work of a psychologist in Africa, and he mentioned that while he saw mentally ill people both in “Westernized” people and people who lived traditional lifestyles, they were very different. Some types of metal illness were seen only in one grouping and not the other, some were more common or severe. And he also mentioned that the pattern of mental illness changed over time as various groups became Westernized.
I often wonder if there’s at least two different types of depression. During my Dark Days it was most definitely correlated with outside events-I had dropped out of college, the girl I loved rejected me, I saw no viable future for myself at all, and as such I ended up hating myself for being such a miserable failure.
But then I read stories where someone has a terrific spouse, a clicking career, a number of hobbies they are into, yet they’ll say they are depressed despite all that, and I’ll just wonder why (tho I do have my theories as I posted above).
Or, even better, develop a happiness which isn’t necessarily dependent on outside factors. Yes, sounds impossible, but what I mean by that is that you fully own your own happiness, such that you don’t give it up to outside influences, at all.
Well, I would be one that fits your second category. Despite having a life that was and is comfortable and fullfilling, I am suffering from a feeling of negativity and emotional “flatness” ( in lieu of a better word ). Had all the tests the Dr can think of, been on anti depressants, but with no result. I can’t even remember when I last felt happy.
Whether I am clinically depressed or just unhappy is debatable, but the effects are real.
I used to blame it on bad bosses, bad people and a bad world, but have come to realise it must come from within. Whether genetic or environmental, I don’t know ( though I suspect my mother had the same problem ), but I guess I’ll be this way till I die, which is rather sad.
Thanks for posting that. It’s how I feel, though I could never have described it like that myself.
The KNOWING that I should be happy, and not being able to be so is the worst part.
A bit of an extreme example, yours. You describe a crappy day. Let’s extend it, to someone who enoys a crappy life:
Say you are born in a poor family, with parents who are lousy role models. And you aren’t especially bright or talented at anything in particular. You drop out of school, use alcohol and/or drugs, rack up a criminal record, and have a couple of kids before you are 20. And - surprise surprise, the only jobs available to you with that sort of resume are fast food or the like. Heck, just for kickers, let’s even assume you have some physical health problem. Maybe Crohn’s, something congenital, or maybe you are in a bad car accident or a bar fight. While you are at it, you might as well start smoking, eat yourself up past 300 pounds, and develop diabetes, hypertension, and all the other health conditions associated with that.
Every day I encounter a lot of people who have REALLY CRAPPY LIVES. There are millions and milins of Americans living lives such as I described above. In the majority of these situations that I see, mental health professionals diagnose and treat these individuals as depressed. Hell, if you were in such a situation and you WEREN’T depressed with your life, I suspect that would be a greater sign of mental/emotional pathology than depression!
With my last post acting as the caveat, I’ll simply just say that it doesn’t have to be that way. Try to completely reinvent your life-what do you have to lose?
This suggests some of what I’ve so inartfully been trying to say.
-There are a lot of people who don’t seem to WANT to reinvent their lives in the manner you suggest.
-Others feel that are unable to do so - for any number of reasons.
-Still others perceive themselves as having a great deal to lose from change, whether it be a loss of whatever secondary gain, or a fear that any alternative would be worse than their current existence - howver terrible it might be.
Just to complicate things, there are some who would characterize the 3 possibilities I just described as symptoms of depression.
But that often seems to suggest a bit of a chicken/egg situation.
Is your life shit because you are depressed?
Or are you depressed because your life is shit?
Does it matter which it is?
I don’t think it’s necessarily a sign of society gone wrong.
For example, we’re quite tribal. In a situation where we’re in a small group with a strong sense of belonging, fighting another similar group that is a clear-cut enemy (no conflicts of interest), I’ll bet we’re far less likely to get depressed. That doesn’t mean it’s a good way to organize a society.
Also, my personal opinion is that depression is a flaw of Homo sapiens rather than it being something that was ever that useful. It just didn’t manifest much pre-civilization because we didn’t have so much free time to stop and think about stuff.
So…we’re victims of our own “wiring” at this point.
This is basically what I was going to say. Several of the world’s major religions are based around the idea that life is a cycle of misery and there will be happiness in the life to come.
The thing is, there are plenty of depressed people who have professional jobs and live regular middle class or even affluent lives.
My WAG is that it is the lack of social connectivity combined with the constant bombardment of media depicting an idealized American Dream lifestyle. Facebook and the Internet doesn’t help but this goes back to the early days of television and radio advertising. The America portrayed on TV skews much wealthier and more successful than IRL and characters frequently live well beyond what their means would be. They may do it subconsciously, but people draw comparisons between their own lives and the idealized images they see on TV and even their friend’s Facebook postings.
The nature of the work we do also contributes. In most jobs, even high paying ones, individuals are often a small contributor to some larger nebulous purpose. Their “value” is often tied to arbitrary standards set by the whim of the organization. It’s difficult to derive any meaning or sense of acomplishment from the work we do.
A hundred years ago, farmers probably didn’t get depressed. They just lived their life. They woke up early, did their chores because they needed to get done. Their “performance review” was the crops grew and the animals didn’t all die. And they weren’t bombarded by images telling them their life wasn’t good enough because they didn’t drive this car or wear that brand.
I think you are both right, but I think it’s a falacy to believe that some combination of the right boss or right job or owning the right house full of crap is the solution.
Instead they went to churches where they were bombarded with messages about how life was about suffering, the world was a place of punishment, and about how they and all of humanity were sinners who deserved every bit of it.
Because the pharmaceutical companies are in business to make money. Period.
Every person they can get hooked on drugs increases their bank accounts. They do not give a rat’s ass if people need the drug or not.
Depression is one of the easiest things to convince a person they have, then you get them to take this marvelous “medication” to make it “all better.”
It is total bullshit.
If that last part was directed at me, I’ll just respond and say that that isn’t my full position, and that true peace must come from within, must be fully owned by the individual in question. But that process can be jump started by embarking on a brand new path. Said above sentence in fact is a perfect example of translation (reshuffling the deck chairs, tho there’s often more to it than that), when what is truly needed is transformation. As I said in another post, this society we are in right now almost fully denies the possibility of radical transformation of this sort (a quick stroll through GD here will reveal that), and as such you’ll get all these posts where people will bemoan what appears to them to be an almost certain fate. To go against that grain you have to truly push hard and uncompromisingly at the margins, usually all by your lonesome, and without support from others who know what they are talking about it isn’t easy. But it can be done.
Are you implying that I haven’t tried to do so? Have you have been there and done so yourself?
Even if you had, it is meaningless, as every person has a different life story, with different causes, and with different levels of depression, or whatever you want to call it.
The time to reinvent my life would have been 33 years ago when I got partnered up with the hag from hell, but we all make mistakes that sometimes blight our lives.
<what do you have to lose?>
Everything that has meaning in my life.
Besides, I have no idea of what to become instead of what I am now. It’s not as though there is an alternative “happy me” lurking inside waiting to be allowed out.
I am one such.
In fact, for 28 years I worked in a respected occupation caring for the sick and infirm. but rather than feeling valued, I was abused mercilessly by my managers and some co workers. While that may not have been the reason for feeling down, it certainly didn’t help.
If I didn’t start taking medication about 10 months ago, I wouldn’t be posting this today.
It has not “made it all better”. It just got me though a very tough time.
What you say about true peace coming from within is certainly true, but sometimes we learn that too late to be able to do anything realistic to change the situation we are in.
It’s difficult to emark on a new path, when our body is decrepit, and not long for this existence.
New beginnings are great for the young and fit. I had a few in my life, but long past that option now.