Are we more depressed because we're getting smarter?

[hirley0]

No its because of the connection speed v typing rate v ? bad o{R}ders

now i REMember  Sniffing the Garlick smells

[outoftheloop]

Depression is not a phenomenon, limited to humans. Some primates experience it as well. Chimps (or apes? not sure) experience depression under the following circumstances:
Chimp is in mating season, wants to shag other female chimps. Chimp not alpha enough though, so it gets beaten by other chimps. The chimp keeps on going though cos it's a fucking chimp in heat and it fucking wants to shag them female chimps. The other chimps keep on beating it down though. At that point the chimp starts getting depressed. It lays on the ground, does fuckall and most importantly withdraws from further attempts at beating down the alphas. Thus depression is a sort of a preventive mechanism. If the chimp didn't get depressed it would just continue attempting to get to the females (cos it's a chimp in heat!) and the beatings that it would take from the alpha chimps would eventually harm/fracture/kill it. Depression allows it to recover.

So an interesting hypothesis you can build out of that is that the high levels of depression within our society come from our bodies telling us to stop trying to play games where we are constantly getting beaten down by others.

I can personally testify to that. I had problems of getting quite depressed, starting when I was about 15. It got pretty intense and the first term of uni last year had me laying in my room and listening to sad music a lot of the time. It wasn't clinical depression. It was more of a habit of putting myself down, because of others putting me down and because of still being infected with many dangerous memes. It wasn't until I abandoned all of the games that I was supposed to be playing and started playing my own game that I solved that problem. Unless there's something seriously wrong with your brain chemistry, nothing should be able to make you depressed so long as you are playing the games that you decide to play and playing them well.

Kind Regards,
Out of-the Loop

Sorry

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Depression is not a phenomenon, limited to humans. Some primates experience it as well. Chimps (or apes? not sure) experience depression under the following circumstances:
Chimp is in mating season, wants to shag other female chimps. Chimp not alpha enough though, so it gets beaten by other chimps. The chimp keeps on going though cos it's a fucking chimp in heat and it fucking wants to shag them female chimps. The other chimps keep on beating it down though. At that point the chimp starts getting depressed. It lays on the ground, does fuckall and most importantly withdraws from further attempts at beating down the alphas. Thus depression is a sort of a preventive mechanism. If the chimp didn't get depressed it would just continue attempting to get to the females (cos it's a chimp in heat!) and the beatings that it would take from the alpha chimps would eventually harm/fracture/kill it. Depression allows it to recover.

So an interesting hypothesis you can build out of that is that the high levels of depression within our society come from our bodies telling us to stop trying to play games where we are constantly getting beaten down by others.

I can personally testify to that. I had problems of getting quite depressed, starting when I was about 15. It got pretty intense and the first term of uni last year had me laying in my room and listening to sad music a lot of the time. It wasn't clinical depression. It was more of a habit of putting myself down, because of others putting me down and because of still being infected with many dangerous memes. It wasn't until I abandoned all of the games that I was supposed to be playing and started playing my own game that I solved that problem. Unless there's something seriously wrong with your brain chemistry, nothing should be able to make you depressed so long as you are playing the games that you decide to play and playing them well.

So I think you're part right (social hierarchical pressures are heavy contributors to depression) and part wrong (playing your own game ensures you can avoid it, combined with assumption that brain chemistry is independent of environmental influences). But it's been a hell of a week and my power just came back on, I'll elaborate later if you're interested.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

^ i'd be interested if what you have to say about this. As a psych student, i'm curious what you think about this from a  biology standpoint.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

^ i'd be interested if what you have to say about this. As a psych student, i'm curious what you think about this from a  biology standpoint.

My second major is psych, because I'm focusing on neurobiology, so I tend to straddle those perspectives.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Although I will certainly say outright that I approach most if not all psychological issues from a neurobiological viewpoint... however, there are levels of permutation in terms of cause and effect in the player/environment interaction.

[outoftheloop]

Can you elaborate on that?

The way I've been seeing it, based on study of myself:

I used to end up depressed a lot. I had a weird dream involving Eris and chocolate some time ago. Weird shit happened afterwords, made some dice-decisions and ended up in a situation that sent me into something like a six-month long lucid psychosis. As in, I had become utterly psychotic, but to a large extent I was aware that I was psychotic. It was as if the psychosis was a drug that I was on, but I was still aware that I was on a drug, so I managed to sort of make use of it. I tried not to believe things, but it was very very very hard, so at all times I was suspecting things very very strongly. Anyways during these six months my mood would swing massively, but I would really allow myself to get immersed in every up and down to the fullest (I would go manic while I was up and when I would start to feel down I wouldn't fight it, instead letting it escalate until I was crying). Eventually I reached a point when both states were pretty much meaningless. The circumstances of my life weren't changing, but the way I was thinking about them was. And the way I was thinking about them was to a large extent the way that I had been taught to think about them (this is what I mean by playing your own game). And ever since I broke out of the psychosis I haven't had any problem with getting depressed. Sure, sometimes I will feel physically the same way as I would when I used to feel depressed. But now I know that while I might feel that feeling my thoughts do not need to correspond to it.

Example: When you are coming down of a drug (mdma for example) your serotonin is pretty drained. The effect of the comedown is often purely a feeling of being depressed. Normally this will affect your thoughts and make you see things as generally darker and sadder than you would normally. However if you get into the habit of identifying these thought patterns you can sort of break yourself out of them (i.e I'm coming down. It ain't that grim actually).

I guess from here on you'd need to have a precise deffinition of what depression means:
is depression sadness?
or
is depression that feeling of fatigue and laziness?

My favorite way of illustrating this point is the "Avocado and The Book about It" analogy. So you have the avocado, which is the meaty substance of life (so all the neurochemical processes in your brain etc.). The Book about It would be all of the language that you use to interpret that and the way you use that language. Sadness would belong to The Book, while the fatigue and laziness would be direct effects of something being wrong with the avocado. Based on my experience you can become better and better at writing whatever you want in The Book (weather you can actually write whatever you want is a different question though. I would guess not, since that would imply some hardcore mind/body dualism and a state of totally free will). As for changing the Avocado, I am still not sure how to do that. Or at least can't give a general answer. I have began to learn how to influence my avocado though.

If you wanna be all buddha-hippie/smartass about it you might ask: Well doesn't the notion of something being wrong with the avocado belong to the Book? how can anything be wrong with the avocado then? In case you insist on getting an answer to that question, I insist that you are no fun.

[hooplala]

Depression is not a phenomenon, limited to humans. Some primates experience it as well. Chimps (or apes? not sure) experience depression under the following circumstances:
Chimp is in mating season, wants to shag other female chimps. Chimp not alpha enough though, so it gets beaten by other chimps. The chimp keeps on going though cos it's a fucking chimp in heat and it fucking wants to shag them female chimps. The other chimps keep on beating it down though. At that point the chimp starts getting depressed. It lays on the ground, does fuckall and most importantly withdraws from further attempts at beating down the alphas. Thus depression is a sort of a preventive mechanism. If the chimp didn't get depressed it would just continue attempting to get to the females (cos it's a chimp in heat!) and the beatings that it would take from the alpha chimps would eventually harm/fracture/kill it. Depression allows it to recover.

So an interesting hypothesis you can build out of that is that the high levels of depression within our society come from our bodies telling us to stop trying to play games where we are constantly getting beaten down by others.

I can personally testify to that. I had problems of getting quite depressed, starting when I was about 15. It got pretty intense and the first term of uni last year had me laying in my room and listening to sad music a lot of the time. It wasn't clinical depression. It was more of a habit of putting myself down, because of others putting me down and because of still being infected with many dangerous memes. It wasn't until I abandoned all of the games that I was supposed to be playing and started playing my own game that I solved that problem. Unless there's something seriously wrong with your brain chemistry, nothing should be able to make you depressed so long as you are playing the games that you decide to play and playing them well.

Kind Regards,
Out of-the Loop

Sorry

Chimp gets friendzoned... chimp puts on a trilby, begins to talk about ponies, and how much of a gentleman he is. Chimp joins Tumblr, proceeds to trash female chimp passive aggressively.

[LMNO]

Dammit, now I want to see a chimp in a Trilby.

[Meunster]

Dammit, now I want to see a chimp in a Trilby.

That'd be fedorable.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Basically all I'm saying is that mental illness is complicated and that there is an interplay of the biology you're saddled with, your environment, and how you choose to interact with both. I don't think that you can simply "think your way out of mental illness", but I do think that many mental illnesses can be treated/improved via behavioral change.

[Demolition Squid]

I watched a documentary on Spike Milligan this evening, and that was very interesting. He suffered from depression (as did his father - but his father took the very British attitude of 'whatever you do don't tell anybody' that was common at that time). Because of his celebrity status, he was afforded far more leeway than he would have otherwise got - and could put various coping strategies into place.

It was interesting hearing the people in his life describe it. Barring any unusual stresses, his cycle was very regular, and the people he worked with and his family learned what to expect - they couldn't do anything to stop it, but everyone knew it was coming, and when it would likely be over. He also described ECT as being like having his emotions shaken up - he came out crying, but it was a relief to be able to cry again. That the fits seemed to come around on a very predictable basis and with a recurring pattern does seem like a good indication of a physical process rather than a purely emotional one, to me. But... I took one year of basic psychology ages ago. I am far from an expert, but I was reminded of Nigel's post as I watched it!

It was also a sad fact that it sounded like his illness was worsened by poor understanding and care. It first came on in WW2 after a mortar attack, and he had superior officers visit him in the hospital and call him a coward - which he resented because he fought all across Africa before that, and later on in life one of the nurses at his mental hospital regularly used to berate him as selfish because he 'had it so good' compared to many other people. It is disappointing those attitudes are still held by some people.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Wow, that is sad. Especially because one of the defining factors of mental illness is that it's NOT a reasonable response to the environment.

[Ⅎuᴉzz]

Personally, I think we're getting more depressed because we know we're getting dumber.

[Doktor Howl]

Wow, that is sad. Especially because one of the defining factors of mental illness is that it's NOT a reasonable response to the environment.

That fact makes me feel better about how my issues have gone.

There isn't much that isn't a reasonable response in my life.