Different Slants

Comment by Bob Katzman

August 1, 2008 @ 11:53 pm

Rick,
Based on the number of people who have spoken to me about my Depression story, and the small number of written responses to it (leading me to think that depressed people haven’t sufficient motivation to write about their thoughts, and I would know about that)I am wondering if a depressed state is the norm and not the exception.

The same way that the pre-Sixties or so obits that referred to “dementia” as a cause of an older person’s death are now almost always called Alzheimers and doctors wonder why there’s so much of it. I think “normal” is a moving target.

My life is wonderously better since I gathered up the courage to take the prescribed depression medication I walked around with for six months.

So, maybe modern people in industrialized societies are prone to have it, and need to routinely take medication to restore the seratonin imbalance, the same way millions now take half an aspirin to prevent blood clots that can cause heart attacks.

Just a guess, but based on a wave of people whom I don’t know confessing their own emotional depression experiences to me, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Perhaps when a new and scientifically enlightened political administration takes over in January, America’s present medieval approach to science and research will learn all kinds of new things. Just thinking about that cheers me up!

Bob Katzman

Comment by Gela Altman

August 2, 2008 @ 8:27 am

Bob,
‘About one in 10 Americans suffers some form of depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Women experience depression twice as often as men. Depression has devastating effects on a person’s relationships with family and friends, on the ability to do productive work, and, of course, on the ability to enjoy life. With so many people suffering, you would think a simple definition of “depression” would be easy, but it’s not. Depression has many meanings among doctors, mental-health professionals and people on the street. Why are there so many definitions? One reason for this is that there are many varieties of depression’.
The above information is a quote from the Harvard.edu website.
At present there are many studies on depression being conducted by Yale University, Harvard University, NIMH and countless professionals who write about their specific studies on depression in professional Journals. Scientific information is slow to evolve and slower to be applied to practice.
I seriously doubt that research on depression will be a new administration’s priorities. What the scientific community is looking for is not redundancy in research but new information by enlightened individuals, and that is already happening as I write this commentary.
However, your point is well taken. Keep writing.
Gela

Comment by Don Larson

August 2, 2008 @ 9:37 am

Bob said,

“Perhaps when a new and scientifically enlightened political administration takes over in January, America’s present medieval approach to science and research will learn all kinds of new things. Just thinking about that cheers me up!”

Although I’m not affected by depression at this time of my life, I can say that there may be a new surge of depression depending on which political administration takes over in January. It’s been that way for many of the last 40 years of political changeovers and I don’t expect much to change along that trend this time.

Don

Comment by Jacqueline

August 8, 2008 @ 2:57 pm

I can say from personal experience that living with depression is not easy. Nothing about it feels normal at anytime.

If we do end up with a more scientifically enlightened government in the coming years,
I doubt much will change. No one cares about real human issues unless there is money being thrown at it left and right.

I don’t mean the studies and research, that’s cool. I mean money for the treatment of the condition for regular people like you and I.