: Why is depression so crippling and how is it cured ?
In: Biology
I don’t know what aspect of depression you want explained (e.g. The neuroscience, the psychology, the medicine, the sociology, etc) but I can try to answer your question about just why it is so crippling (and I am talking about clinical depression, not teen sadness that is often colloquially referred to as depression). There is a philosophical concept that I find captures depression quite beautifully. Robert Hamerling said,
“*Man can certainly do as he wills, but he cannot want as he wills, because his wanting is determined by his motives […] to want something without ground or motive would be to want something without wanting it. The concept of wanting cannot be divorced from the concept of motive. Without a determining motive, the will is an empty faculty; only through the motive does it become active and real.*”
This concept has always fascinated me. A free man can do as he wants, but he can’t will what he wants. Depression in a way is the severe weakening of such motive. You simply no longer have a motive to want anything, and so you feel as if you cannot do anything and often times as if you do not exist. Think about it, there is nothing in the world you can without having a reason to do it. Whatever random thing you even do now would have the motivation of proving that I am wrong to yourself or to me. As you can see, this strikes at the core of our existence. Depression prohibits you from ever doing anything, because you can never want to. That is why it is so devastatingly crippling.
How is it cured? I am unaware of any true curative therapy. But there are things and meds that make it mildly more suffrable. We need to first understand it scientifically before we can begin to find a true cure.
Edit: English
It’s crippling because I feel worthless. Ever since I was about 15. I’ve struggled with everything related to stability and productivity. I have rarely been under any form of treatment for it. I struggle to move forward. I can’t keep a job. I oversleep my alarms after having ridiculous trouble getting to sleep. I equate intimacy with somebody condescending to touch me, because I feel unlovable. When there is no intimacy, it’s worse – I crave the same human contact I often dread. I’ve been to four different colleges and haven’t completed anything. I am emotionally fragile, highly sensitive, and generally intimidated by men. I mess things up all the time, forget things I was just told two minutes ago (like which turn Google wants me to take), I avoid making friends because I hate making plans I end up unable to keep, I overeat or don’t eat at all depending on the week. I’m always listening for others to confirm my low sense of self-worth. And when I am told I should get help, that the homeless can qualify for reduced-cost or free care, I’m just like… “who am I to take up time and resources that could be used to help somebody else? So many people have it worse – who am I to put myself forward and ask for help they can’t access?”
Often is a functional disorder of brain circuits. Those circuits control mood. Many factors can damage those circuits. Once the circuit is disregulated it can alter the concentration of one or more neurotransmitter like noradrenaline, dopamine or serotonin. We can’t really knows if a depressed patient lacks of which specific molecules and different damaged circuits can be involved. Therapy is based on psycotherapy (trying to self regulate those circuits) or drug therapy that can manage to induce brain to produce lacking neurotransmitter.
I don’t know much about why, but I do know that Depression isn’t “cured,” but managed–usually through meds and therapy.
Getting hit with mental illness isn’t the best thing that’s ever going to happen, but it isn’t a death sentence, either. But you are going to have to put some real work into your life in order to feel better. It’s a lot of one day at a time until you realize that things feel better. And, to the “cure,” even with close management Depression and other illnesses/conditions can spring up at any time, reminding you of the low times. That’s when management gets even more important, so you don’t slip even further back.
Other comments have good answers for what causes it and the basics of treating it, so let me do my best to explain how it feels, and to shed light on why it’s so crippling (probably best to give a slight trigger warning before continuing).
You know how when you wake up in the morning, you grumble at your alarm clock and get up? Now imagine you just got laid off from your job, so there’s no reason to get up on time. Now imagine it’s dark and rainy out so it’s not even a nice day. Now imagine that you worked out yesterday so your whole body just feels like jello. Now imagine when you try to think of a good reason to get out of bed, you just can’t think of anything. Now imagine you know you should get out of bed, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it – you can’t find the willpower (like after a super long and tiring day) and your body feels like it’s 4x heavier than it was so you need 4x more energy (than you don’t have).
That’s a little bit what it’s like to wake up depressed, and people with depression can feel like that constantly (every day, most days, or even just some random days).
Now imagine how difficult it was to get up, but now you’re trying to do the same thing with the same restrictions and difficulties in regards to trying to find a reason to live. Now imagine everything you do seems to be sub-par, and not only is your being alive not helpful but it’s actually hindering others.
That’s why it’s so dangerous.
It can also be extremely difficult to manage just because you feel alone, you don’t want to be a burden, and you don’t think that you’re somehow at a disadvantage, you think you’re actually just a worthless and horrible person.
When someone with depression makes a joke about it, it can sometimes be testing the waters to see if anyone cares. It can be a cry for help, shouting into the void with the faintest hope that the void will respond.
Sure there are people who say they’re depressed for attention, but – as my health teacher put it – if you’re wrong, would you rather be wrong and give an attention-seeker attention, or be wrong and put someone with severe depression in danger?
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