Is Depression "Real"?

I'm interested to know what others think about this . Do you think Depression is an actual mental "sickness"? Instead of a deep sadness that's hard to come out of? Is it something that one can overcome with self realization,spirituality or just will power Do you think it would actually be treatable by medication?

Before the before everything : Your title question is kind of pointless , see my first quote as why .

Before everything: i've been depressive for 5 years now so that's where i take my answers from .



It is officialy one , nothing to debate anouth this .



Of course you "can" , but that doesn't mean that you will . Alone it's almost impossible to go through it , the best way to cure it is to talk to a psychiatrist abouth your problem .



Not alone , medication helps , it will give artificial happiness to your brain but you need to change what is causing the depression . For that therapies is the best way to settle it .




Can you at least inform yourself on the subject before posting in SD ?

Let me explain what depression is since you don't know :

Every animals "hunt" then "eat" and they enjoy eating .

Beign sad doesn't change anything to the formula of happiness , you still hunt and when you get to eat youll be back to normal .

When someone is in a burnout , they don't want to chase anymore but they will still enjoy when they get to eat .

When you suffer from depression , you don't want to chase and even if someone offers you to eat , you won't enjoy it . Your formula is right for a sad person , not a depressive .

Isn't depression due to a lack of dopamine?
That would make it a legitimate condition/mental disorder, wouldn't it?

[color=#2e1a6b]I'm taking care of my great aunt right now who just had depression. In her case, the depression came suddenly, right after she had surgery on her leg. We suspect that some post-surgery medications caused it. She went back to her old self again after about 10 days.

No major events happened that would cause my aunt to lose happiness, and nothing happened 10 days later that would cause her to get it back. This leads me to believe that depression can be caused by something other than the absence of happiness.

Dude, depression has very real clinical basis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder#Biological



You don't think those drugs just work magic, do you?

Serotonin levels can be measured. Unfortunately, this usually involves an autopsy of the brain. This was how they started developing drugs for depression in the first place -- they looked at slices of the brain under a microcope and chucked some of it a test tube and whoops, it looks all fucked up. People who are severely depressed and it seems no amount of happy thoughts help have really, really low levels of serotonin. What can we do to make it less fucked up?

http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/serotonin



So, rather than wait for the patient to die and cutting open their brain, doctors have to use other ways of diagnosing it -- symptoms. It isn't perfect, though.



Can you add serotonin in your brain with willpower?

In a roundabout way, there _are_ methods of increasing serotonin. Pscyhotherapy and exercise werks, but not always.

For people with genuine imbalances of brain chemistry, no amount of positive thinking will help.



While depression is over-diagnosed, it EXISTS in the same way diabetes exists.

Everybody suffers from depression of varying amounts, that's where illegal drugs come into play. To fill the gap, so to speak. Oh! Look at that, my 200th post!

As established above depression is a measurable, demonstrable and curable affliction of the mind which is well established as a legitimate spectrum disorder.

To put some discussion into this:
Wherein lies the separation of disorder and personality?
Since all personality stems from the brain, could certain elements which are now considered to simply be features of individuality actually be some form of illness?
Let's take an example that I would imagine to be considerably close-to-home for a number of fakku posters; a deficiency of social cognition.
For some people being awkward or shy causes as much pain to them as, say, ADD would to someone who wishes to stay focused- and for many it is something that simply cannot be done away with through practice or training.

Does this make awkwardness a legitimate sickness that should be recognized?
Either way there are already pharmaceutical cures.

How about aggression? Or idiocy?
If any elements of personality became defined as sickness is it morally, ethically, legally or logically right to cure them?

The thing about depression is that it affects a person's personality or the ability to have happiness and changes it. Depending on the level of depression a person can be emotionless, filled with rage, or are hopeless and see no point in living or trying. No one is forcing anyone to cure them, it is up to the person with depression to cure what they are going through to prevent depression from affecting their lives and an action of suicide.

Alright here is my theory on depression and how "fake" it really is.

Most important thing is eating fruits on a daily basis.
( Just wanna get that out of my chest )

Here are the 3 important things:
1. Thoughts
2. Actions
3. Results

To become happy one must think positive.

Here are a list of things you can think of that will get you happy:
1. To trust your abilities
2. To know there is never something you can't achieve.
( Meaning what others can do, you can do as well )
3. To accept your weakness and dedicate on building that mental strength.
4. To accept the fact that things do take time and effort.
5. Never say never, trying is always the first step of doing it.

Here are a list of actions that can lead to a positive lifestyle:
1. Always do your work. (Don't think of others because they don't think about you)
2. If there are potential problems then get out of the way quickly before it hits you.
3. If you come across a problem then never try to be the offender but be the calm defender. ( gotta let your enemies know you are a peaceful guy )
4. If there are things to be done then get it done quickly. ( That way you won't have any thoughts on it later on.
5. If you believe in your abilities to go through this then do it.

Here is the results:
By paying attention to these things then you won't have to be in a state of depression nor come across it.

It all comes down to it, will you be happy or sad.

I can tell you this, ain't nobody gonna help you out the way you wanna be helped. That is why you gotta fight for your happiness by thinking positive.

So here is a simpler way of explaining it:
Positive thoughts leads to positive actions which leads to a positive lifestyle.

Get it?

Ok now get out there and be positive, I am sure you'll get a good sexual lifestyle going with those steps I wrote down.


A fine example of being positive:
Nikon is getting married because he thinks positive, does positive and his wife marries him because one of those reasons are because HE IS POSITIVE!

Edit
Thanks for the minus rep ... didn't know that everything I wrote was useless.

This, has got to be one of the most useful tips anybody can write down and follow.

I agree with Dollci so I will be replying the same message.

I don't think depression is a mental illness. I've been though it many times for long periods of times and i don't think pills help out

There is no way depression is a disease or can be caught. It's all psychological.

Depression is biological; every emotion and thought that exists in your head is the result of chemical reactions within the neurotransmitters in your brain.



I've read about it during my course on the nervous system, I can't really recall what the exact reasons for various forms of depressions were, but if you're interested I can fetch my book and look it up. Do note that this is purely biological and chemical, though.

Can you guys read what others write before posting your "i don't think depression is a illness" while the guy above you just exlained that it is one ?

Anyway ...



This, has got to be one of the less useful tips anybody can write down and follow.

/facepalm

Seriously , your trick to be happy in life is to be positive ? Watchout we got a genius over here !.. ¬¬

If it was that simple , don't you think everyone would already be happy ?

It is not a trick .... these are useful tips to get around.

It all depends on the person how they wanna lead their lives.

And I never assumed I was a genius.

No it's not usefull tips >< Eveyone already knows what you just said , all you did is state the obvious , the problem is that you can't just say "i'll be positive" and be positive , that's not how the brain works . ESPECIALLY for depressed people ...

There are two different types of depression. One is an actual sickness which can be solved by medicine to replace whats is missing on your body, or fixing the underlying disease causing it.

The other is only psychological. Not an actual "disease", since it is not solved by drugs or caused by a defect/infection. It can only be solved by the person with it, and drugs may help or not, but this is where a psychologist can be important in solving the issue.

Let me answer your question with a question: Do you think a broken heart is real? or is it just an expression to describe a deep pain someone cant come out of?



And if you were wondering yes I was being a smart ass! of courses depression is real you big dumb dumb. look up the word depression than look at how you described it.

All types of illness are legitimate. Illness is illness, and people need to recognize this.

Whether depression is biological or not, depression should be treated as one, imagine all of a sudden despising everything around you for reason you don't entirely understand, you hate your friends for no reason other than you do, yes if this isn't the sign of a healthy productive member of society I don't know what is.

It is terrible.