Comments on: Could Depression Be Nature’s Way of Saying, “Think!”?

By: Carol

Carol — Wed, 04 May 2011 00:38:10 +0000

I have suffered from depresssion from the age of 15. Through Psychotherapy I discovered I had been abused from an early age by my father. He continued to abuse me verbally through my teens esp. when I was dating. He even set up my brother to spy on me. I was date-raped when I was 21. (I was saving myself for marriage.) I then entered into something where I thought I belonged to this man. My sister had a plane ticket in my name and sent me to another country to join my parents. They were told lies by my sister and physically abused me, although by this time I was 21 Y. O.
I married a man I hardly knew. He was abusive in every way. I had 3 children with him. After 32 yrs. I phoned the police….after many yrs. of abuse. He left me, because of his pride and embarrasement. That was 10 years ago. We are now divorced. He is a multi-millionairre and I live under the poverty line. Life is definitely NOT fair. I dated for a while, then met “the man who would be my life-long love of my life”. We lived together for 5 yrs. I made a terrible mistake of having wine while taking meds.
It turned me into a “witch”. I told him to leave..which he did.
I experienced a horrible breakdown.
I am still suffering and have applied to a health centre.
I hope they can help me.

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By: regime

regime — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:48:45 +0000

I’ve always thought depression was an evolutionary disadvantage.
Its commonly known that a number of depressed individuals choose to self-terminate. They could be trying to avoid passing along faulty depression-riddled DNA.
Low sex drive could be another way to prevent the depressed person from passing on the faulty DNA. Same could go for the desire to be alone.
The lack of or loss of interest in activities that used to be enjoyable, well that’s just icing on the black cupcakes of depression; further pushing the depressed individual down the path of isolation and possibly self-termination.
Having suffered from depression for the past 15 years, I feel I can safely say there is NO advantage to depression (evolutionary or otherwise)–at least not my personal flavor of depression.
I bet subsequent comments will back me up on this at least: modern science and medicine don’t know crap about depression.

By: 314159pi

314159pi — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:58:26 +0000

@bruce your argument that we missed the point of the article lacks causality.
your statement that
‘several who have begun to think more clearly are slowing coming out of depression.’
is not proof of concept. a more practical examination of your statement might be contextualized to understand that depression by definition impairs thought. people don’t come out of depression because they are thinking better or think their way out of it. Instead the improved thoughts of people coming out of depression is an indication of that improvement, not a cause of it. it is you my friend who has missed the point.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:23:13 +0000

I agree with other statements that while a person may be able to “think” her way out of a mild depression, Major Depressive Disorder is definitely another story.

For me, it was impossible to think at all, except for those repetitive self-depreciating thoughts that repeatedly told me I was totally worthless, hopeless, and helpless. Only when an antidepressant actually started helping a bit could I actually start the process of thinking about anything it all. As I remember, the first weeks of therapy simply kept me going from week to week between therapy sessions.

I need to comment on something written in an earlier post:

“I think the best cure for depression is to really have, or get serious problems, like perhaps have your house blow up on that one day and night where you happened to not be home. That happened to me, and when I ‘illegally’ walked through the ashes of the leftovers and saw the melted refrigerator, I burst out in tears because I knew I was the luckiest person in the entire world.”

I don’t know about anyone else here, but when I was in my deepest and darkest depression, as stressors kept piling up, the deeper and darker my depression became.

Something as horrible as my house blowing up would probably have pushed me so deep I would not have been able to function at all. There is no way I could have thought I was the “luckiest” person in the world just to be alive. Still being alive could very well have been the last thing I wanted.

By: Rachel Eisenstein

Rachel Eisenstein — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:18:18 +0000

True depression, as opposed to temporarily feeling sad or helpless, is not a social, cultural, or psychological phenomenon. It’s a biological imbalance. If pharmaceutical agents, or potentially safer treatments like magnesium, St John’s Wort, Rhodiola rosea, and vitamin D, can “cure” depression, there’s little evidence for this “not thinking” theory of depression. It’s true that psychological resolution of a pressing problem will make you feel better, but more often than not, people who are depressed are creating negativity and problems that would not exist in a healthy individual. There’s no way to think yourself out of it.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:33:25 +0000

I often think my way out of depression. I know of several people who were implicitly taught to NOT think of solutions, but to wallow and they are all depressed most of the time. Could it be that chronic depression is the result of refusing (or not knowing how) to think of solutions? Indeed, several who have begun to think more clearly are slowing coming out of depression. You may have missed the point of the article.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:23:54 +0000

I agree with his statement, somewhat. Non-biological depression (depression caused by something outside of the dysfunction of “natural” processes) forces someone to really “think” of their current state.

Although it’s kinda hard to walk through life like this, without depression I would not be where I am today.

At one point, my depression was so terrible that I needed to make a decision about my life- work day and night to improve it, or die.

Depression encourages me to work my way out of my previous state, and to take risks that I thought was too risky before my change.

Now, I am an investor and a business owner. I wouldn’t be hungry enough to pursue these fields if I wasn’t somewhat depressed.

Of course, my case is very specific. I don’t see how depression, in general, has any benefits.

By: 314159pi

314159pi — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:58:22 +0000

@donna you make a very valid point. we as individual sufferers of depression cannot generalize our own situations into universal solutions.
there may be some forms of depression for which the researchers conclusions are correct even if my own afflictions don’t fall into this category. but i am not sure i generalized. i think maybe the researchers did the generalizing and that’s why the refutation seemed obvious to individual sufferers even if the obvious is not correct!
in your own case donna, you say that thinking can help you relax. i don’t want to nitpick but that is an anxiety issue. perhaps the anxiety is triggered by depression then i can understand your associations. but anxiety and depression are a little different. our point was that depressed people don’t think well because their thoughts are muddled. one doesn’t become depressed to improve one’s ability to ponder and one cannot think their way out of depression. you may disagree with this and i think you do. but anxiety is not depression so perhaps it can be dealt with rationally when depression cannot be treated through self awareness.
i think amanda’s point about the article that depression can be a logical response etc is interesting. i am not sure though that we are speaking in the same terms because depression is not merely a mood or logic modality. depression is very clearly defined in the dsm and it is a long-term problem not a mood. it is associated with weight changes, serotonin levels etc.
so i don’t think that a thoughtful depressive ‘funk’ is the same thing as depression. i also don’t think the idea of ennobling depression is a particular new or evolutionary idea since it can be traced back to the idea of ‘melancholia’ in medieval europe. individuals of a ‘saturnine disposition’ — dominated by the planet saturn in astrology were presumed to be disposed to melancholia while individuals dominated by the planet jupiter were jovial or happy. i will gladly stipulate that astrology is silly but i want you to know where these ideas come from without advocating them.

By: Donna

Donna — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:28:46 +0000

My husband requires meds for his severe depression. He was never taught he could do anything right or think his way out of anything, so it wouldn’t help him. HOWEVER, I tend to mild to moderate depression – especially seasonally – and meds don’t help – but thinking dpes. Analyzing and understanding are the key for me – and something he wants nothing to do with. So I think all of you who are making judgements because of your own experience aren’t seeing that it’s not the same for everyone. When I realize what is going on, I can relax. I understand that’s not possible for everyone – but you who need meds don’t speak for all of us!

By: Amanda Chapman

Amanda Chapman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:34:43 +0000

I think the argument of the original article was that depression could be a logical response to being faced with a complex problem. We probably all know the difference between hunkering down for a few days to evaluate a relationship or job versus becoming mired in pointless ruminations about what we should have done differently in the past. I think lots of good CBT can help draw this distinction.

Endogenous depression that comes out of nowhere is a different story.

By: 314159pi

314159pi — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:02:22 +0000

@dee you have a good point in your cancer example.
but no one has to have depression to be a psychiatric researcher anymore than one has to be a serial killer in order to teach criminology.
wat would be useful here if these researchers had read some oral histories of depressed persons or taken a few because it is practical to define one’s understanding of a phenomenon before explaining it. in fairness we can stipulate how depression is defined in the DSM but i do not think these researchers understand the nature of depressed thought as you have clearly pointed out. so while these researchers might know what depression is, these don’t understand the thought processes which they are trying to explain in a practical way.
but these two are very smart people. i went to their respective websites and there’s a lot they can contribute to a dialog about depressive behavior. the problem with their analysis of depression is that it is seductive to depressed people. i posted about this article in the psych central forums some days ago and got many positive responses and thanks for doing so. i refrained from characterizing my own subjective feelings about the article in introducing it to other disabled people. and so many of them were gateful for an article about the mentally ill that made them feel special smart or a little better because it is the reverse of the usual.
we have no reason to argue that these learned gentlemen know little about depression. on the contrary, this optimistic make lemonade from lemons attitude is a bit desperado. it suggests an intellectual coping mechanism that rationalizes a problem to negate its impact. ironically this is contrary to the ‘analytical’ approach to breaking down problems advocated in the article because it is synthetic reasoning. i personally believe both methods yield valuable results.

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Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:01:50 +0000

[...] Here’s an article that calls into question the theory prestented in the original article: Could Depression Be Nature�s Way of Saying, �Think!�? Excellent point and great [...]

By: Dee

Dee — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:37:57 +0000

And cancer is nature’s way of saying, “Die”.

Since when does depression make you think? Have those two guys actually ever had depression?

By: Depression not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation (article) - SocialPhobiaWorld.com

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:55:14 +0000

[...] Here’s an article that calls into question the theory prestented in the original article: Could Depression Be Nature�s Way of Saying, �Think!�? [...]