A memetic auto-immune disorder?

[nancylebov]

What's so weird to me about depressive self-hatred is that here you have a person who doesn't have energy to do useful and/or pleasant things [1], but there's both a lot of energy going into thinking about how awful they are and a lack of the "ouch that hurts don't do it!" reflex.

About the ouch! reflex: It took a lot of therapy to get to the point where I can fairly reliably realize that there's a me getting hurt instead of just identifying with the attacking voice.

As for guilt and depression, does anyone have information about how depression plays out in non-Christian cultures?

One other angle on culture: I think there's pressure in America to be busy, happy, and social all the time. This could add to depression, both by defining people who are don't fit the ideal as depressed, and by setting up people who are a little depressed to think they're deeply defective, which knocks them down farther.

I have a notion that people have a "that action sounds good or bad to me" slider in their minds. It's probably physiological. If the slider is stuck on the sounds bad side, you get the inert sort of depression. If it's stuck on the sounds good side, you get hypomania or mania.

Heading off into tentative hypothesis land, there might be two sliders, one for action, and the other for thought. If just the thought part is activated on the sounds bad side, then a lot in your head automatically seems bad to you, though you might be able to take reliable action. If the sounds good is too active, then you might get racing thoughts, hyperfocus, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Anyway, it's conceivable to me that depression is an overamplification of the necessary ability to choose not to do things.

[1] There are other sorts of depression. Some people have a strong sense of duty and do the useful stuff, but are miserable and possibly suicidal (see Good Mood by Julian Simon), some people can do the low effort pleasant things but not the useful things, and I think obsessing about how awful other people are rather than how awful you are is something like the depressive pattern, but probably less self-destructive, especially in the short run.

Comments

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

In my case, it's pretty clear that I needed/need to do the cognitive/emotional work you mention but I also needed/need medication-- On medication, I can handle normal stresses of life (even an above-average stressful job), feeling my emotions and carrying on; without it, even with the cognitive work, many ordinary things are too much to process and I can get into a depressive loop because I really cannot cope as well.

I think minor depression can respond to many things major depression can't, including cognitive and emotional work alone.

Depression seems to me a total bodymind issue, with many, many ways to make it better--or worse--many cybernetic and many physiological. For instance, I've found a light-box very helpful for Fall depression, but this year I didn't seem to need it, possibly because of changes in my nutrition and/or having taken up yoga.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Sometimes things can't be changed from where you are, and you need chemical help to get to the stage where any kind of cognitive/emotional work can begin.

And sometimes (as in the other comment) the effect is entirely chemical.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

And sometimes the chemicals are needed to supply an ongoing basis for the cognitive and emotional work.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the place where they are, though, is defined by their brain chemistry.

I feel like the sort of basic position where you're coming from is that if people with Depression would just get themselves out of something that "caused" their Depression, they'd be okay. Which is, from what I can tell about Depression versus depression, inaccurate as well as having a bit of a BOOTSTRAPS! reek to it.

[andrewducker]

I'm not at all sure where you're getting that from. I'm certainly saying that there are a variety of approaches to dealing with depression, from the purely chemical to the purely emotional/supportive, but I'm not in any way saying that people who have depression should "just snap out of it" or anything like that.