zorn said:
Why? Let's say you're in physical pain because you got horrible second-degree burns. Now, if you take morphine, your pain will be lessened... even though you still have the burns. So what you're saying is just wrong.
Thats very different actually. A more meaningful analogy would be to say that if you work a job where you have to run allo the time, but you have fucked up ankles- get a new job. Depression, if situational, changes with the situation. If its purely chemical, then chemicals are required. In the case of burns- these things don't tend to 'flare up' in certain situations- if your burnt, your burnt. However, if you were actively burning yourself, I dunno a chef over a deepfyer, then removing yourself from that envirnment would help.
I think some of the first advice any doctor or psychologist would give is to get out of a bad situation if you can. But many people can't get out of bad situations. If you need income (or healthcare) and don't have any other good job options, you might not be able to leave your job. If you have young kids, you might not be able to get out of a relationship. If such a situation is making you miserable, taking antidepressants won't fix the situation, but they may make you less miserable in it.
They may, or they may lead to a whole host of other problems. Its not a gamble I wish to take anymore personally; I also truly believe that if you want something; a new job, career, life- you can get it, regardless. It takes some objective though to really know what you want...
Think of it like this: what does it mean to say a bad situation is causing you to be depressed? It means you wouldn't be depressed if you weren't in that situation, but there's more to it than that. Lots of people in bad situations aren't depressed. How easy it is for bad things to depress you, that's determined by your brain chemistry. What antidepressants do (or try to do) is change your brain chemistry so bad things don't make you quite as unhappy.
In my experiece, antidepressants attenuate EVERY emotion to the point tht nothing makes you unhappy or happy. But, for some, that is required and I don't judge that....but as to 'how easy is it to become depressed'- anyone can. If you want to, you can become as depressed or as happy as you choose. That is why some people can experiecne pleasure as pain or pain as pleasure...there is no 'normal', though the quest for this state is becoming increasingly so.
There's nothing wrong with that. Nor is there any virtue in being miserable when you don't have to be. So why in the world would anyone oppose medication because "it's the easy way out" or say "if you don't need medication, don't take any"? If you've got a bad toothache, taking painkillers for it is both unnecessary and the "easy way out"; but that's no argument for just suffering from it. Why should depression be any different?
Physical pain is different from mental pain, barely. But enough to differenitate massively. You see, I can control my mind, whether I believe it or not- its a fact. I think my thoughts, they do not think themselves. However, as I have no choice but to think, in some ways my freedom is curtailed- but because I can think about as many or as little things as I want, freedoms balance is restored.
Or put it this way; I can alleviate mental sufferring though willpower a lot easier then physical pain. Burns damage the nerves, and thus cause physical pain, to which our body responds automatically, after billions of years of honing....however, mental sufferring is something new and unheard of prior to a million years ago or so, and we have a lot more flexiblity when dealing with it.