Venting Why is depression not considered a terminal illness?

[Thanksforeverything]

By definition, a terminal illness is meant to be something that's not curable. Depression might not severely impact a person like ALS for example, but it definitely doesn't have a cure. Therapy and antidepressants are only good for regulating some of the symptoms but the underlying disease remains until death. Saying therapy and antidepressants are meant to be treatments, is the same as saying hospice is meant to be treatment for a cancer patient. Severe depression saps a human being out of everything until they're an empty husk of their former selves waiting for inevitable death. And yet, we treat this disease as something that doesn't make you eligible for medically assisted death until you prove that you've experienced what being a guinea pig in a lab feels like.

Depression has no cure. There are stop gaps, but they're temporary. So when is society going to actually see it for what it is?

 

[WhatPowerIs]

I wish society saw it for what it was too.

 

[divinemistress36]

It's truly a cruel disease. Being a guinea pig in a lab is exactly spot on. I've been on so many meds, Ketamine, tms, neurofeedback, stem cells, craniosacral therapy, and electrocuted my brain with electroshock treatment which gave me a lot of permanent memory loss and cognitive issues on top of a stroke I had in my medulla. The treatments are often horrific with little results

 

[meowmix]

in my experience, therapy and meds don't even help. i'm more suicidal than i was before i took meds. i've been on multiple kinds of antideps and antipsychs but im still like this. only difference is, i have the energy to wake up. thats it.

 

[FutureHanger]

Because depressed people can still work and the higher ups only want people to do that, they don't care about how you feel as if they did society itself wouldn't be so depressing so as long as you can still be a good functioning slave your feelings are irrelevant

 

[Forever Sleep]

Ultimately, because I suppose it isn't exactly 'terminal'. It likely won't kill you but you'll live a shitty quality of life. Plus, you have to get psychatrists/therapists to agree that it isn't treatable and I suppose it depends on how compassionate they are and how willing to admit defeat.

Plus, psychological science/medicine in my opinion seems so far behind physical medicine. What physical illness is diagnosed entirely from a patient describing their symptoms? We'd be in an awful mess if doctors only used that to diagnose. Imagine diving straight into surgery without X-rays, blood tests etc! Imagine prescribing drugs without knowing what the person was suffering from! It would be ludicrous! Someone with heartburn might find themselves on an operating table with their chest ripped open. Someone with Thyroid disease might be mistaken to have diabetes and be given insulin. Why on earth do we even accept being given mind altering drugs after listing a few symptoms?!!

Put it this way- you couldn't go to an assisted suicide clinic and insist that your physical pain level on that chart they get you to point at at the GP's is level 10 and you insist to be put down. They'd want to see evidence from a few doctors as to what it actually was you had and what they'd tried to treat it. I feel like there are just better guidelines and a better standard of knowledge when it comes to physical health. That certain conditions are beyond our current level of medical help.

I don't get why they aren't doing more to ascertain this for mental illness. Maybe they are. Maybe I'm being unfair. To me though, it still seems in the wishy washy, experimental stage which seems inexcusable to me considering how prevalent mental illness is now.

It's like a YouTube video I saw the other day. A Ted talk about brain scans. It seems a 'no brainer' to me that mental illness resides in the brain so- why not study the organ that is causing the problem?!! That's what other medical students do- right? Cardiology students don't just spend their time reading through patients transcripts reading about how they describe their symptoms. They study the heart! So- it puzzles me as to why it seemed like therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists seemed disinterested in this amazing guys work:



Like yeah- it's complicated. Maybe it won't be as simple to read as an x-ray. But- shouldn't you be doing more to investigate this?!! If there truly are problems in the brain that can't be cured at the moment- shouldn't you be finding that out? So that your patients can be given the same chance of peace that people with incurable physical illness get.

The cynical part of me feels like some of these people are worried this research will contradict their own 'expertise.' Maybe even make them redundant but surely- an accurate diagnosis is crucial in providing the right treatment. Why not embrace and further fund research that aids in that? I would have thought studies of the brain itself must be crucial to this.

 

[mortuarymary]

Because it won't kill you.

In reality it will kill you, but you have to perform the deed yourself.

 

[Abyssal]

The lucky ones get out. Us? We will die like cattle.

 

[ctbcat]

Depression is such a curse. The world takes from us what we don't have

 

[dinosavr]

Actually, I've heard it being called a terminal disease. 15% of those who suffer from depression will die because of it.

And by the way, I'm not sure terminal means incurable. Same thing with cancer. It's terminal but you can also recover and live a healthy life. It all depends on how late it's been diagnosed, what kind of treatment is used, etc.

 

[Aim]

Idk, but if I can guess; lack of knowledge and hard to prove.

 

[Unattainable666]

Great question. It's always pissed me off when people say they have cancer or some other disease people are all over them wanting to help and all that crap. Then you tell someone you have severe depression and it's as if you have the plague - the assholes of the world run the other way as quick as they can. How many people young, middle age, and older die each year from depression? One person who dies from suicide is one too many. There is not much help for those of us who suffer from this disease.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

Terminal illnesses are something the patient is expected to die from. Most people with depression live normal lifespans.

I see long term depression more like a chronic illness. No real cure, just treatments with varying degrees of success.

 

[Silent Raindrops]

Because depressed people can still work and the higher ups only want people to do that, they don't care about how you feel as if they did society itself wouldn't be so depressing so as long as you can still be a good functioning slave your feelings are irrelevant

This is spot on. If you are capable of working, they don't care. The government wants that tax money, and they don't care how they get it.

Your depression + your death = less money for the government

Sad, isn't it?

 

[stilhavinightmares]

It's truly a cruel disease. Being a guinea pig in a lab is exactly spot on. I've been on so many meds, Ketamine, tms, neurofeedback, stem cells, craniosacral therapy, and electrocuted my brain with electroshock treatment which gave me a lot of permanent memory loss and cognitive issues on top of a stroke I had in my medulla. The treatments are often horrific with little results

Stem cells? If you don't mind, please explain?

 

[divinemistress36]

Stem cells? If you don't mind, please explain?

Umbilical stem cells injection.

 

[stilhavinightmares]

Umbilical stem cells injection.

For your mental health? Also, ouch

 

[UKscotty]

I guess because most people recover.

Don't something like 20% of people have depression at least once in life, but only like 0.01% of people kill themselves.

I think its only terminal for those of us too broken and cannot be fixed.

 

[JRE75]

As some mention, there is a percentage of people with depression who do respond to available medicine and therapies and are cured or maintain a relatively healthy life. On the other hand, there is a smaller percentage of depressives who do not respond to treatment (refractory depression) and it is effectively a terminal illness with no cure that will lead to death, probably via suicide.
In my case I have already exhausted traditional antidepressants (they left me impotent), Deep TMS therapy and now I am trying Ketamine / psycholocybin, which I will give, if I resist, a couple of months of opportunity.
Once that possibility is exhausted, my SN kit awaits. I can't tolerate a subhuman life with depression.

 

[Linda]

By definition, a terminal illness is meant to be something that's not curable. Depression might not severely impact a person like ALS for example, but it definitely doesn't have a cure. Therapy and antidepressants are only good for regulating some of the symptoms but the underlying disease remains until death. Saying therapy and antidepressants are meant to be treatments, is the same as saying hospice is meant to be treatment for a cancer patient. Severe depression saps a human being out of everything until they're an empty husk of their former selves waiting for inevitable death. And yet, we treat this disease as something that doesn't make you eligible for medically assisted death until you prove that you've experienced what being a guinea pig in a lab feels like.

Depression has no cure. There are stop gaps, but they're temporary. So when is society going to actually see it for what it is?

I think the phrase is usually used to mean more than just uncurable. I think it usually means "uncurable and it will kill you in the fairly near future". Depression, by itself, doesn't kill you - though it might be better if it did.