View Single Post
Old 01-25-2010, 02:44 PM
  # 34 (permalink)  
ClayTheScribe
Member
 
ClayTheScribe's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Colorado
Posts: 664
Originally Posted by Eroica View Post
Depression is not a disease. It's not like all scientists have a consenus that it is a disease. You can't diagnose someone as depressed until you witness their behavior and hear what they have to say. But if it was a real disease, there would be some biological marker-like a pink spot in the brain that all depressed people have. But that is not true. We have no idea if someone is depressed or not until they tell us. There are no tests to run for it.

Depression is a natural reaction to our surroundings. An extreme example would be Holocaust survivors. We would expect them to be depressed. Its absolutely ludicrous to say that they're suffering from a disease. Anyone would be depressed in those circumstamces.

Who decides when someone is "too" depressed? "Too" anxious? Don't people understand these are value judgments-the psychiatrist in essence has taken the role of the priest in the 21st century-telling us how to live.

Can I say I'm chronically lazy and be considered "diseased"? lol Then I can call into work and say, I'm sory, can't come in today, I'm suffering from procrastinz ( a disease characterized by laziness and procrastination).
And I suppose it's just coincidence that 6 people on one side of my family have experienced major depression, or are still experiencing it? No, it's a disease and you would see that if you watched the lecture. They have located genes that indicate the propensity for depression. Look into epigenetics if you don't believe me. Depression is one of the reasons I doubt I will have kids because I don't want to take the chance that I pass it on to them. I know other families in which depression runs in the family, and it's not a learned thing like alcoholism, though I wouldn't doubt that's a genetic disease too.

Depression is marked by certain symptoms that persist past the normal extent they do in non-depressed people. I had a good childhood, there's no reason that when I'm 13 out of nowhere I start to have thoughts of suicide and hurting myself. Depression is a disease when people are depressed despite otherwise good circumstances. And comparing depression to chronic laziness is just anti-intellectual and wrong. Laziness is a choice made to not act or do anything, depression is not a choice, and if you suffered from it, you'd know what I was talking about.
ClayTheScribe is offline