Sharon Begley of Newsweek writes:
Happiness has had a tough time of it lately. The backlash against the seemingly endless stream of books about the subject (Amazon returned 426,789 titles when I used that search term, including one that calls happiness “life’s most important skill”) had already set in last year.
At the time, I pointed out that “among people with late-stage illnesses, those with the greatest sense of well-being were more likely to die in any given period of time than the mildly content were. Being ‘up’ all the time can cause you to play down very real threats,” and channeled the arguments of scholars who lamented the medicalization of the normal human emotion of sadness.
full article at Newsweek
Haha well i never thought i would see that.
I just hope people are clear on the massive difference between depression and “being sad for a while”.
Sadness is healthy, regular bouts of irrational depression is not.
It was true for me. A cripling postnatal depression turned me from intolerant control freak to being so laid back I’m almost horizontal. Having always wanted to do things for myself I was forced to acept all help available. Now I couldn’t be happier. You could say the depresson is the best thing that could have happenedto me.
well now i don’t feel so bad about wallowing in my own melancholy
I guess that some of this is about expectations. I remember being struck by a comment supposedly made in a note by Katherine Ward who committed suicide (and was photographed doing so which made it very newsworthy) by jumping from a London hotel.
The Sun quotes the note as including the line, “that she was not as happy with life as she had been.”
That doesn’t actually say that she was unhappy, just that she wasn’t necessarily overly happy. Perhaps a symptom of a world where we are pushed to be happy?
I don’t know the full contents of any notes she left, so it could put a different perspective on it
Depression + anxiety ensue when there is no seeming resolution to a problem, so you are trapped in this problematic cycle, a prison cell – left to wallow at your position.
Solution – find a solution to the problem, then everything is OK. Nature might be the fix i guess.
Hm, it lacks a few things here and there, this hypothesis, as far as I am concerned. It is their body .. that feeling … if we don’t boost it, via the mind, It’s the thing that drove people quite long, without knowing that it drove them through life. People will need to drive theirselves so around their 40′s, as they are indeed on top of that depression by that time. They will need a new way of depression inside to stay a bit healthy, otherwise the whole body will screw up. But in the end, people can not prevend the body from collapsing .. it rules therefor (we are not the ones that decide).. and eventually will be all that is left.
I agree with Darren: sadness is a normal human emotion, depression is NOT, and because people don’t distinguish between them correctly it means that people with depression are expected to just “get over it”. Depression can be extremely debilitating, and because people think of it as just being sad it means that sufferers of depression often don’t get the help and support they need from those around them.
I guess that some of this is about expectations. I remember being struck by a comment supposedly made in a note by Katherine Ward who committed suicide (and was photographed doing so which made it very newsworthy) by jumping from a London hotel.
The Sun quotes the note as including the line, “that she was not as happy with life as she had been.”
That doesn’t actually say that she was unhappy, just that she wasn’t necessarily overly happy. Perhaps a symptom of a world where we are pushed to be happy?
I don’t know the full contents of any notes she left, so it could put a different perspective on it
Sorry, forgot to add great post! Can’t wait to see your next post!
Sooo… I may yet live forever?
And before anyone thinks I’m playing down the very real condition of ‘clinical depression’… I have had it (may still).
It’s good that the condition is becoming more widely recognised as an actual illness. Many people use the term ‘depressed’ without truly realising what it is.
I think that too many people still don’t consider it a real problem, these people have obviously had the very good fortune to never suffer from it. These people also probably can not decifer between actual depression and as Darren above put it rather well.. “being sad for a while”.
Pax, amor et concordia.
x
Can’t believe the authors missed the most obvious reason that depression has evolutionary survival value…our ever happy, uber upbeat ancestors (think your local barista in a loin cloth), were at high risk of a fatal stone to head injury courtesy of the more melancholic and morose members of the tribe.
I don’t like to be up or down too often. I’m content to be inbetween. There is a balance to everything. I have seen terrible things happens to people who lose their balance.
My advice is don’t dwell on anything for too long and don’t act like a jester just to please others. They won’t respect you for it.
We have emotions for a reason. We need to trust them. x
I have been depressed more than once. The I distinguish between being sad and being depressed is the feeling. If I’m sad or unhappy I can often pinpoint an event that is the cause. I can also cry when sad.
If I’m depressed, I cannot seem to cry which makes me feel better when I’m sad. I cannot see a way out at all, and if i look back I cannot pinpoint what has recently changed to make me depressed. It just goes after a while which is lucky for me I guess. Glad I don’t need to take tablets for it.
I’m another person who can testify, being sad is not the same as being depressed. Even being so sad or stressed that you can’t cope and go into mellancholia isn’t the same as depression.
I had nothing to be sad about at all, but the depression itself just turns everything in on itself. I couldn’t enjoy company, music, films or games anymore, and the more I tried the more anxious I got. Depression is not going to benefit humans from an evolutionary stand point what so ever. With any other illness you’re still equiped to see the bright side. With depression it’s just constantly fighting a sinking feeling with nothing to relieve yourself.
I was down the other day, so reading this makes me happy, because being down was a good thing! But that means I am happy, and that’s not necessarily good. Man, I feel down.
Hey, I’m down, brilliant! No wait, happy. Aw no.
THANKS FOR THE MOODSWINGS, DB BLOG!
@ JayKay:
Ahhh… I can see why we appeared to get along quite well now. Your chosen professions were/are kind of what I’d like to do.
Hard to keep it up (or even get started) though when all you really have is yourself.
@ ScreamingGreenConure:
Have you been on holiday or something recently?
I thought there was a lack of light-hearted jesting on here, obvious why now
one word: CRAP!
@Mr Woolf: I’ve been neglecting my duties, haven’t I? Well don’t worry, here I am to vomit my special brand of magical sunshine over every topic I stumble into. Hooray!
what a load of bull!!
several people have pointed out that sadness and “clinical” depression are not the same thing at all. But also, people should know that anti-depressants don’t make you incapable of sadness, nor artificially happy – they make you feel normal again and able to feel happy or sad whenever is appropriate, so the idea of medication making us unable to feel human emotions is a mistake. Depression can however be a force for good and a wake-up call to realising that your life is not making you happy and that something needs to change.