Venting I'm beginning to doubt the idea of depression as a mental illness

[loz]

Hey y'all. I'm pretty new to the forum, so sorry if this is in the wrong place or has the wrong prefix.

Anyway, at least in my case, the line has been blurred so heavily between mental illness and personality. I'm not sure, however, if it is actually my depression that has ingrained itself in my personality, or vice versa. Even if something is diagnosable and treatable, it isn't necessarily an illness or disorder. I mean, being conscious is identifiable (diagnosable), and it can be treated with anesthesia, but that doesn't make it an illness.

But anyway, I feel that regardless of my mental state I would be suicidal. This leads me to believe that it is a core belief of mine, and thus part of my personality. I feel that my current state is unclouded, and while I still seek treatment, I wonder weather a "mentally healthy" version of me would just be blissfully ignorant of reality. Either way, I would be fine will blissful ignorance if it was achievable, which is why I spend so much time on drugs.

I also wonder weather I am truly depressed or just manipulative. While I've suffered plenty from my state of mind, I've certainly reaped rewards as well. For example, I once got suspended from school because of weed distribution. Coincidentally, I was going through a severe bout of depression at the time. Because of that, I feel my punishment from my parents was damn near nonexistent. I remember vividly my mother saying to my father while discussing my suspension, "...but let's focus on the more important thing. He is feeling miserable." Could my subconscious decision-making just be concluding that it is beneficial for me to feel like shit?

I'm not sure if I am talking out of my ass, but what do y'all think? Is depression/suicidality (I know they aren't the same thing) truley a mental illness, is it just an inescapable mindset, or is it a part of a personality that can be suppressed by treatment in some places?

 

[Johnnythefox]

This may or may not help answer your question, I came across this a long time ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/25/healthandwellbeing.features1

 

[TiredHorse]

I've heard introversion used to be regarded as something "treatable", too.

Given that depression has been show to be a heritable trait, I would argue it isn't something that can be treated so much as that society likes to imagine it can be mitigated through medical or pseudomedical intervention, like amputating the extra fingers of children born with six on each hand. Without that medical intervention --or perhaps despite it-- some of us still learn to make our way through the world. And some of us eventually make our way to the bus stop.

 

[Rose]

Yes, it can be.
My depression makes me mentally ill (along with a plethora of other things) by significantly inhibiting my ability to be happy. My brain, to put it extremely simple, has never been able to produce or sustain much of the chemicals I need to be happy. Antidepressants can fix this! Yay!
That's a mental illness. When it is bringing down my brain's ability to act as it should be able to, it's a mental illness. When it can be fixed long-term by just making intended biological functions... function, it's a mental illness.

Give me antidepressants, however, and I'll still be "depressed". I'll be miserable, and still want to die. My brain will just have the ability now to be happy for more than five minutes if happiness is applicable.
Happiness is not applicable with my mindset, or with my life & situation. With or without this chemical deficiency, I am defeated. I'm done. The world makes me sick, so does humanity, and so do I.
A mentally healthy version of me isn't happy, it is just capable of being so without that crumbling away, or into a less appealing emotion quickly.

There's a lot of factors here. Not everyone who is depressed has a chemical deficiency, and some people have multiple things piling up.
Personally, I have a personality & way of thinking and viewing the world that completely fucks me up. I've had a bad life, and I'm in a bad living situation. I also have problems with my brain.
These are separate. They all contribute to suicidal thinking. One is "easily" fixed, the others range from incredibly hard to impossible to fix.
(I have been on antidepressants before by the way, barely helped at all. This won't be the case for all people, though)

A fun thought, they all have a tendency to feed into eachother. Even the unfixable ones.

I'd never be okay with the idea of a blissful ignorance drug, but that's only because I'm not ignorant. The idea of contributing to all the pain in the world (even without realising) is terrifying. I prefer nonexistence.
Of course, the moment said drug would kick in, I'd have no complaints, it's just current, serious & cynical Rose talking.
I do take recreational drugs to help me get through my days, though. Hope this all made sense.

 

[bigj75]

Majority of the time depression is caused by a shit life. Not a mental illness.

You may lean towards introversion but if your life improved in every way you would of course become less introverted as a consequence. Same with depression and mental illness. It's rare that the cause of depression for people to be a random brain abnormalitie (mental illness), its possible but very rare on average.

 

[Rose]

Majority of the time depression is caused by a shit life. Not a mental illness.

You may lean towards introversion but if your life improved in every way you would of course become less introverted as a consequence. Same with depression and mental illness. It's rare that the cause of depression for people to be a random brain abnormalitie (mental illness), its possible but very rare on average.

It's actually not that rare at all for chemical issues to be a factor, though I do agree it's rare for them to be a sole cause for severe depression. Those in good situations are more likely to bounce back after being treated, after all. They're also more likely to be treated properly in the first place.

I was "lucky" enough to get bad genes & parents that were subject to said genes as well. Their mental illnesses (and other issues) were major contributing factors to my childhood & even life now being absolutely horrible.

It's also extremely possible to develop the mental illness form of depression from being in a shitty situation, alongside various other issues, which of course will likely make the situation even worse.

Of course, as I said before, there are many beasts that go by this name. I don't think blanket statements like this can be made about depression as a whole, as it's such a broad idea.

 

[loz]

Yes, it can be.
My depression makes me mentally ill (along with a plethora of other things) by significantly inhibiting my ability to be happy. My brain, to put it extremely simple, has never been able to produce or sustain much of the chemicals I need to be happy. Antidepressants can fix this! Yay!
That's a mental illness. When it is bringing down my brain's ability to act as it should be able to, it's a mental illness. When it can be fixed long-term by just making intended biological functions... function, it's a mental illness.

Give me antidepressants, however, and I'll still be "depressed". I'll be miserable, and still want to die. My brain will just have the ability now to be happy for more than five minutes if happiness is applicable.
Happiness is not applicable with my mindset, or with my life & situation. With or without this chemical deficiency, I am defeated. I'm done. The world makes me sick, so does humanity, and so do I.
A mentally healthy version of me isn't happy, it is just capable of being so without that crumbling away, or into a less appealing emotion quickly.

There's a lot of factors here. Not everyone who is depressed has a chemical deficiency, and some people have multiple things piling up.
Personally, I have a personality & way of thinking and viewing the world that completely fucks me up. I've had a bad life, and I'm in a bad living situation. I also have problems with my brain.
These are separate. They all contribute to suicidal thinking. One is "easily" fixed, the others range from incredibly hard to impossible to fix.
(I have been on antidepressants before by the way, barely helped at all. This won't be the case for all people, though)

A fun thought, they all have a tendency to feed into eachother. Even the unfixable ones.

I'd never be okay with the idea of a blissful ignorance drug, but that's only because I'm not ignorant. The idea of contributing to all the pain in the world (even without realising) is terrifying. I prefer nonexistence.
Of course, the moment said drug would kick in, I'd have no complaints, it's just current, serious & cynical Rose talking.
I do take recreational drugs to help me get through my days, though. Hope this all made sense.

I appreciate your input. That makes me understand some people's experience, but of course I'm a special unique snowflake and I doubt that it is the case for me. It makes me wonder,however, if I'm in a state of "treated depression" that you referred to. I could just have a chemical abnormality fixed, but my personality is so beyond fucked up that I'm still shitty, which kind of comes back to my idea at the beginning of the thread; I'm not doubting that depression exists, more I'm just doubting weather it exists for me.

Majority of the time depression is caused by a shit life. Not a mental illness.

You may lean towards introversion but if your life improved in every way you would of course become less introverted as a consequence. Same with depression and mental illness. It's rare that the cause of depression for people to be a random brain abnormalitie (mental illness), its possible but very rare on average.

What confuses me is that my life has been mostly fine except for typical bullying and being born gay. I was raised in an upper-middle-class household with a good family. I feel that the only negative things that have happened to me have been my own doing (e.g. drugs, legal trouble, fucking up social situations, etc) or just my perception of reality itself. I spend hours on end crying for no reason at all. That would put me in the "mental illness" category, no? The problem comes when I am extremely resistant to any form of treatment, even to the extreme of medically induced seizures to raise serotonin and dopamine levels. Additionally, I've been depressed for so long. All of these add up to me thinking it is more of a personality issue than a chemical one. (Although I guess our personality is just made of chemicals)

 

[worldexploder]

This may or may not help answer your question, I came across this a long time ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/25/healthandwellbeing.features1

I had a feeling this article was going to be about depressive realism. The theory makes a lot of sense. Neurotic people do tend be more on the realistic side of things as opposed to those shiny happy people shoving god and life down our throats.

In my opinion, optimism makes absolutly zero sense. We all know were we are heading. What is there to look forward to?

 

[Rose]

@worldexploder You're right, and that's terrifying. Evolution got us to the point where we're just smart enough to need to be delusional to be happy. Yet we're still instinctual animals to the point where, as a species, we fail to look at things objectively & actually go about solving problems.
Objectivity is great, as an idea, but honestly it tears so many people apart. I adopted it because my shitty life forced me to, it haunts me whenever I think about the state of the world. We weren't "designed" to be objective, even though we're now capable of it. It's a horrible catch-22.

@loz
The way I see it, I'm the same person either way, but having chemical deficiencies in my brain certainly helped me get to the point where I am who I am. I've been depressed for enough of my life that it sort of feels like a massive part of who I am now. I'm also resistant to treatment.
Negative things are still negative things, even if they're your own doing in some way or another. They will impact you. In extreme cases they can cause trauma, just like anything else.
You put it right in that personality and chemicals are the same. It's often hard to understand ourselves with that perspective, but a mental illness is a personality trait if you look at it in a certain way.

Depression, among other things, is very commonly something people (myself included) take to be a "major part" of themselves. I can't imagine myself without depression. I wouldn't be me. My personality has been molded by it over my entire life, so I have no idea of how I'd be like if it wasn't, other than from an outsider's point of view. I don't know what it would be like to be that person. Not really. Just like how I can only guess at how anybody else I know feels & thinks & perceives the world.

I don't know if depression is thanks to some weird plot from my subconscious, but I do know that I'm consciously in pain. I go to sleep crying a lot of the time, in genuine pain, and that's a lot more real to me from that potential manipulation of my subconscious.

Additionally, you said the line between mental illness and personality has been blurred, but I'm wondering if there's ever been a line at all. I know there hasn't been one for me, though society had tried to create one.

It's ultimately up to you to figure out, or decide. Honestly, questioning this stuff is bordering on philosophy (and existential crisis in some cases :P)
There's no solid answers, only you will ever truly experience what it's like to be you.

note: jeez get me tired and I start sounding crazy
sorry about that >.<

 

[worldexploder]

@worldexploder You're right, and that's terrifying. Evolution got us to the point where we're just smart enough to need to be delusional to be happy. Yet we're still instinctual animals to the point where, as a species, we fail to look at things objectively & actually go about solving problems.
Objectivity is great, as an idea, but honestly it tears so many people apart. I adopted it because my shitty life forced me to, it haunts me whenever I think about the state of the world. We weren't "designed" to be objective, even though we're now capable of it. It's a horrible catch-22.

@loz
The way I see it, I'm the same person either way, but having chemical deficiencies in my brain certainly helped me get to the point where I am who I am. I've been depressed for enough of my life that it sort of feels like a massive part of who I am now. I'm also resistant to treatment.
Negative things are still negative things, even if they're your own doing in some way or another. They will impact you. In extreme cases they can cause trauma, just like anything else.
You put it right in that personality and chemicals are the same. It's often hard to understand ourselves with that perspective, but a mental illness is a personality trait if you look at it in a certain way.

Depression, among other things, is very commonly something people (myself included) take to be a "major part" of themselves. I can't imagine myself without depression. I wouldn't be me. My personality has been molded by it over my entire life, so I have no idea of how I'd be like if it wasn't, other than from an outsider's point of view. I don't know what it would be like to be that person. Not really. Just like how I can only guess at how anybody else I know feels & thinks & perceives the world.

I don't know if depression is thanks to some weird plot from my subconscious, but I do know that I'm consciously in pain. I go to sleep crying a lot of the time, in genuine pain, and that's a lot more real to me from that potential manipulation of my subconscious.

Additionally, you said the line between mental illness and personality has been blurred, but I'm wondering if there's ever been a line at all. I know there hasn't been one for me, though society had tried to create one.

It's ultimately up to you to figure out, or decide. Honestly, questioning this stuff is bordering on philosophy (and existential crisis in some cases :P)
There's no solid answers, only you will ever truly experience what it's like to be you.

note: jeez get me tired and I start sounding crazy
sorry about that >.<

Very well said! I can totally relate. I face objective truths head on and it does have an emotionally crippling effect - especially at first. Like you, I was forced to wake up from all these fairy tales people told me throughout my life because things just didn't add up.

 

[bigj75]

It's actually not that rare at all for chemical issues to be a factor, though I do agree it's rare for them to be a sole cause for severe depression. Those in good situations are more likely to bounce back after being treated, after all. They're also more likely to be treated properly in the first place.

I was "lucky" enough to get bad genes & parents that were subject to said genes as well. Their mental illnesses (and other issues) were major contributing factors to my childhood & even life now being absolutely horrible.

It's also extremely possible to develop the mental illness form of depression from being in a shitty situation, alongside various other issues, which of course will likely make the situation even worse.

Of course, as I said before, there are many beasts that go by this name. I don't think blanket statements like this can be made about depression as a whole, as it's such a broad idea.

Chemical issues tend to be created from unfortunate circumstances (shit quality life).

 

[TAW122]

Majority of the time depression is caused by a shit life. Not a mental illness.

You may lean towards introversion but if your life improved in every way you would of course become less introverted as a consequence. Same with depression and mental illness. It's rare that the cause of depression for people to be a random brain abnormalitie (mental illness), its possible but very rare on average.

^ This.

It is really sad that most people are so deluded and revel in the fact that depression is always a mental illness, a disease, irrationality, and some checmical inbalance bullshit. I hear it so many times that I'm so fucking sick of it that I'd just want to strangle a pro-life motherfucker (not that I would want to get violent since I'm not violent by nature). Sure, there are people who are "truly" depressed even with good life circumstances such as an successful career, a successful family, finances, social life, etc., but they are not the norm nor do they represent the majority of "depressed" people. I believe that depression is often the result of shitty life circumstances that one doesn't have the ability to change (though pro-lifers like to say "well you can change that if you want to!" or other bullshit lines like that, but that's another topic altogether).

 

[Misanthrope]

Hello Ioz, I am sorry to hear you are suffering so much.

Mental illness is a complicated issue in the first place just because that term encompasses so much and is applied so broadly, and has different applied meaning across disciplines. It generally has nothing to do with illness in a clinical sense. Mental illness is not classified in the same way a disease is for example. Diseases are far more quantifiable whereas mental illness is not so much. It may just be the science is not there yet, but it is certainly working on it.

I have more trust in the neurosciences through than psychiatry, which I feel lacks in robust empiricism and has started to medicalise all human experience into disorders, even applying arbitrary time limits to things like the process of grief. Profit motive and societal pressure is certainly a factor behind what makes it into these manuals. Using those same guidelines you could probably profile your cat as co-dependent. Got a dog that does not want a bath, oppositional defiant disorder… This level of creep is pretty disturbing to me, especially if it leads to the drugging of children with developing minds, that might be angry and defiant for good reasons; that won't even be explored. As well as those drugs being so new there are no long-term effect studies on adults let alone children. The stupidity of the world we inhabit drives me insane sometimes!

Anyway, I digress. Something is considered a mental illness if it causes disorder in your thinking or behaviour which has negative outcomes on your life in some way. There is generally no such thing as chemical imbalance tests for the average person though. Mainly because current science doesn't conclusively know and there are issues with how the 'chemical imbalance hypothesis' was even arrived at. There are some interesting markers and patterns being discovered and explored though. The hereditary angle is also an interesting one.

However saying that a lot of medicine does not know things conclusively and just attempts to do the best it can with what understanding it has, and what has proven some efficacy in reducing or curing symptoms. All medicine though has inherent risks.

Psychiatric medication is no exception, so research whatever it is you intend to put in your body. Look for independent studies on its efficacy in treating depression and how well it did at beating placebo. But also make damn sure whatever professional you see rules out potential physical issues. It is astounding to me how often this step is missed. Leading to people who simply have thyroid problems going through the gauntlet of mind-altering drugs and entirely avoidable side effects.

At some point, a broader and encompassing view of mental illness being made up of a mix of biological, environmental, and psychological factors have been lost to the medical model dominating how care is approached. Which has no real interest in if you have experienced years of abuse or pain. It can feel very dismissive of your experiences as a human being. This mindset also takes away any need to look at society and the toxic environments it perpetuates.

is it just an inescapable mindset,

Not necessarily, there is plenty of evidence of people escaping a depressive mindset and going on to have improved quality of life outcomes over the long term. Those who have the most success often engage in cognitive-based therapy and medication combined. But the human experience is variable so there is no guarantee of success either. One form of therapy may work for one person, and that same therapy might just feel insulting to another. Sadly some people have exhausted all the options and have still not found a tolerable outcome. It though is a bit like playing the lottery, the more you play the more you increase your odds of winning the quality of life you may want for yourself. If you don't play at all, then you don't really have much of a chance in the first place.

or is it a part of a personality that can be suppressed by treatment in some places?

Personality is somewhat malleable, there are ways to reshape it but it is a hard thing to do simply because by default we are creatures of habit, and find comfort in those habits, however damaging they may actually be. It is partly where therapy comes in to examine that sort of thing. For some even if they are coming out of depression the sensation of entering an unfamiliar and alien state of recovery can be unsettling enough to want to return to depression just out of a need for that prior familiarity. It is kind of amazing what our self-sabotaging minds can put us through.

It would be nice if there was a more empathetic approach that respected our individual experiences and how we respond to life's absurdities and challenges. However, I suspect it wouldn't be considered a cost-effective approach and would also require taking a hard look at our society.

I can only wish you all the best at playing the lottery, I hope you can gain the quality of life you want in the end.

 

[longingforrelease]

This may or may not help answer your question, I came across this a long time ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/25/healthandwellbeing.features1

thanks for sharing that. rather convincing

 

[Letmego. Please]

I can't help but wonder how my would have been if........
At some point when i was 13 & depressed (way before the internet, more dinosaur era) my brain became aware of suicide as a way to escape the terrible pain i felt. Life has been both good & bad to me since but one constant possibly always driving me back to the same place has been that knowledge i somehow acquired at 13 from i do not know where, i wonder if that has trapped me to always return & no i don't regard that part of me as a mental illness, more now a part of my personality, just don't say its disordered, cause i don't like that..