Post by saint on Jun 14, 2010 4:54:15 GMT -5
I said I wouldn't post again about this, but I feel it's necessary as there's great misunderstanding arising. I'm not trying to own depression. Anything but. All I am talking about is the fact that being down for a few days or a short while is not, in the sense of true definition, DEPRESSION.
It is feeling low. Feeling low is a state. Your lover leaves you, and you feel low. If that low doesn't leave, and goes on to generate a specific vicious cycle of chemicals inside the body, then that person is affected by, and said to be suffering from, depression. It's like you get a cold. If the cold develops, you get flu. Beyond that, it becomes bronchitis, and from there, if you're really unlucky, pneumonia.
Exactly the same happens with getting low. If the body takes over and generates certain chemicals, which then create other chemicals, with in turn then causes the body to go into a certain mode (which is absolutely akin to apes or dogs when they play dead when their dominance is violently challenged within the pack) and get stuck in that mode, then you have depression. This is the chemical vicious cycle that is depression, and without medical intervention, more often than not this condition will not shift on its own, or without a radical change in daily living.
I went to a talk last night about physics and the subject of definition came up. Someone nailed exactly what we're talking about here by comparing two phrases and the confusion they cause: getting down, feeling blue, getting the funk was once referred to as melancholia. Melancholia was the original term created to define a temporary state of feeling low. Something that came and went, a state of the blues, of sadness that lingered for a few days. However, melancholia has, in recent times, been replaced by shifting the word depression to also include melancholia. In doing so, depression has been rendered a catch-all term for multiple states. And consequently, as this thread expertly illustrates, causes great confusion because people can't determine what exact state the other person is referring to.
What I've been saying all along, throughout all my posts on this subject, is that depression is not melancholia. They are two different things. I'm not trying to create an exclusive club, and I'm not trying to exclude others. What I am trying to outline and stick to, is the fact that people associate depression with being down for a few days. THIS IS NOT WHAT THE MEDICAL DEFINITION OF DEPRESSION IS; and the reason why I used myself as an example was not to somehow appear holier than thou, it was to back-up the fact that, in talking to doctors, therapists and other sufferers, I've heard the same thing said over and over. The condition of depression, and the stigma and confusion about it has been hampered by the fact that we (who use the English language) have (perhaps encouraged by its use in the media) slipped into a lazy habit of calling a low few days as depression. Therefore, when someone actually goes down with textbook depression, they are sometimes accused of wallowing or exaggerating their condition because people are lumping someone feeling blue in with a person that is becoming, or become, physiologically impaired. Too many experiences have become lumped together - which was what I sensed in MM's post (when it was suggested that people should"cry MM a river").
It's like a cold and flu, bronchitis or pneumonia: similar, but one is very different from the other. If you got a sniff, you wouldn't go around saying, "Ohhh, I've got bronchitis." However, it is common for folks to walk around going "Ohhh, I've got the flu" when in fact they just have a cold. Imagine if there was only one word for the above illnesses? Can you imagine going to the doctor and him/her saying, "You've got a clinical cold" It would be confusing, wouldn't it?
I use the above example because, bizarrely, in a move to define one state of depression from another, some people now add the word 'clinical'. This is clumsy because clinical depression is actually a particular stage of actual depression where strong, specific assistance has to be paid to the patient. I say clumsily because to use the term clinical depression as its been used in this post must, by definition, mean there is UNclinical depression.
And there is no such thing as UNclinical depression.
It is feeling low. Feeling low is a state. Your lover leaves you, and you feel low. If that low doesn't leave, and goes on to generate a specific vicious cycle of chemicals inside the body, then that person is affected by, and said to be suffering from, depression. It's like you get a cold. If the cold develops, you get flu. Beyond that, it becomes bronchitis, and from there, if you're really unlucky, pneumonia.
Exactly the same happens with getting low. If the body takes over and generates certain chemicals, which then create other chemicals, with in turn then causes the body to go into a certain mode (which is absolutely akin to apes or dogs when they play dead when their dominance is violently challenged within the pack) and get stuck in that mode, then you have depression. This is the chemical vicious cycle that is depression, and without medical intervention, more often than not this condition will not shift on its own, or without a radical change in daily living.
I went to a talk last night about physics and the subject of definition came up. Someone nailed exactly what we're talking about here by comparing two phrases and the confusion they cause: getting down, feeling blue, getting the funk was once referred to as melancholia. Melancholia was the original term created to define a temporary state of feeling low. Something that came and went, a state of the blues, of sadness that lingered for a few days. However, melancholia has, in recent times, been replaced by shifting the word depression to also include melancholia. In doing so, depression has been rendered a catch-all term for multiple states. And consequently, as this thread expertly illustrates, causes great confusion because people can't determine what exact state the other person is referring to.
What I've been saying all along, throughout all my posts on this subject, is that depression is not melancholia. They are two different things. I'm not trying to create an exclusive club, and I'm not trying to exclude others. What I am trying to outline and stick to, is the fact that people associate depression with being down for a few days. THIS IS NOT WHAT THE MEDICAL DEFINITION OF DEPRESSION IS; and the reason why I used myself as an example was not to somehow appear holier than thou, it was to back-up the fact that, in talking to doctors, therapists and other sufferers, I've heard the same thing said over and over. The condition of depression, and the stigma and confusion about it has been hampered by the fact that we (who use the English language) have (perhaps encouraged by its use in the media) slipped into a lazy habit of calling a low few days as depression. Therefore, when someone actually goes down with textbook depression, they are sometimes accused of wallowing or exaggerating their condition because people are lumping someone feeling blue in with a person that is becoming, or become, physiologically impaired. Too many experiences have become lumped together - which was what I sensed in MM's post (when it was suggested that people should"cry MM a river").
It's like a cold and flu, bronchitis or pneumonia: similar, but one is very different from the other. If you got a sniff, you wouldn't go around saying, "Ohhh, I've got bronchitis." However, it is common for folks to walk around going "Ohhh, I've got the flu" when in fact they just have a cold. Imagine if there was only one word for the above illnesses? Can you imagine going to the doctor and him/her saying, "You've got a clinical cold" It would be confusing, wouldn't it?
I use the above example because, bizarrely, in a move to define one state of depression from another, some people now add the word 'clinical'. This is clumsy because clinical depression is actually a particular stage of actual depression where strong, specific assistance has to be paid to the patient. I say clumsily because to use the term clinical depression as its been used in this post must, by definition, mean there is UNclinical depression.
And there is no such thing as UNclinical depression.