diamond_rabbit
18th November 2005, 05:12
Originally posted by Zingu+Nov 17 2005, 07:07 PM--> (Zingu @ Nov 17 2005, 07:07 PM)
Fist of
[email protected] 18 2005, 01:00 AM
Depression is a tool used by capitalism to get us down. Doctors who diagnose depression are giving people an artificial excuse to why they are so sad. The real reason they feel like shit is because capitalism and how it degrades society and the environment. Depression would not exist in a truly communistic society.
I wouldn't be so fast to say that; I'm genetically predisposed to have Bipolar Disorder, that can be "triggered" so to speak by any special event. Bipolar Disorder is impossible to control, you just get depressed and have mood swings for no reason at all.
bipolar--when we go through periods of depression, it is totally natural for our bodies and psyches to react in an opposite way as we come out of it. some people experience this in more intense ways than others.
Its not that simple, Bipolar depression is alot different from unipolar depression, we basically go through a game of snakes and ladders you cannot win.
You can experience hypomania, which is a feeling of extreme euphoria and nirvana (Which I experinced for 2 days straight), followed by a massive crash into suicidal depression and psychotic episodes of halluncinations, racing thoughts and voices in my head.
Trust me, its not that mellow, I was on the verge of commiting suicide several times.
Bipolar people, like me, we have a chemical imbalance in our brain which causes our mental illness, its not something that society does with us.[/b]
well, there are different etiological theories of "manic", "hypomanic", and "depressive" episodes, or bipolar type "mood disorders". i certainly don't want to discount your personal experience in anyway, but i am coming from a very different perspective in conceptualizing people's problems in living and emotional crises. this is not to discount the pain and suffering that people experience. i know that is very real.
i agree that the equation is not so simple as capitalism = depression. people living under similar oppressive conditions react in very different ways. however, i do think that our emotional responses and ways of coping with stressful events are formed throughout our development. sometimes these responses can be become painful and feel out of control. but i do think that it is possible for people to develop emotional processing skills and ways of coping that work for them in the context of their lives, although this involves a lot of self-reflection and hard work.
i seriously question etiological theories of 'mental illness' that point to genetic predisposition and chemical imbalances. the research providing evidence for these theories is highly questionable. it makes sense that people who grow up in the same families or environments would develop similar emotional processing skills, since these are learned. we also know that the chemistry in our brains and bodies change under different conditions. when something happens that makes us sad, our chemistry changes. when something happens that makes us excited, our chemistry changes. also, we do not know if somebody has a chemical imbalance when they are diagnosed with a 'mental illness'--there is no medical test to assess this--but we do know that the drugs psychiatrists give to people to correct these chemical imbalances can cause permanent brain damage. in other words, many psychiatric drugs cause permanent chemical imbalances in the brain. this really messes up neurological studies done to gather evidence for biological theories of 'mental illness', since people who are diagnosed are put on drugs and the brain chemistry is analyzed after they are dead. obviously their brains have been damaged by the drugs.
i wouldn't have such a problem with the 'mental illness' metaphor if I hadn't witnessed the oppression caused by psychiatric conceptualizations of people's emotional and behavioural difficulties. but the fact is that the medical model applied to people's problems in living makes it far to easy to dismiss or ignore people histories of hurt and trauma caused by all sorts of factors (conditions caused by captalism included). the systemic response now is to put people on drugs, because it is easy and 'cost efficient'---although there is growing public concern about this, given that studies on anti-depressants are showing that some people experience increased suicidality or aggressiveness when they go on these drugs. and other kinds of psychiatric drugs, like neuroleptics, can cause permanent disability among other difficulties. conceptualizing emtional crises and problems in living as 'mental illness' individualizes and pathologizes people's responses to internal dynamics and dynamics in the world around them---which in my view are not actually discrete from one another. it is not hard to see how the psychiatric response works in favour of oppressive systems in society, by individualizing people's problems. this conceptualization also encourages a disconnect between events and conditions shaping our lives and our emotional responses. the way our psyches work is very complex, so i am not suggesting that we can clearly see the connection between conditions and responses, but exploring this is critical for many people to find some peace in themselves.
also, when people are seen as inherently out of control emotionally, as 'mentally ill' due to some organic disease, where does that leave them for hope of healing? i have heard so often from psychiatric survivors that what they needed when they were in crisis was supportive places where they could experience, process, and reflect on their scary out of control emotions in a supportive environment, with caring people to witness their process. i have people in my life who have been diagnosed with various kinds of 'mental illness'.... some of these people have found much needed support and worked through some of their past histories and have made really significant changes in their lives and ways of coping and being in the world.