You already know that I used to be depressed, right? If that’s a surprise to you, read that first. I haven’t read it since I first wrote it, so I don’t know how I feel about it. I’m sure it’s ok though.
The reason I say that is because I’ve been kind of doubtful for the past month or so since we got into the psychological disorders section of my psychology class. The “worst case scenario” they describe for depression is being absolutely incapable of functioning normally. Not getting out of bed for weeks, stuff like that. “Heaven forbid, you might even become suicidal” quipped my professor. Given that I always managed to scrape by, I guess that means my depression wasn’t really that bad.
That is, if you accept the “it could be worse, so it’s not that bad” form of logic. It’s probably better to place depression (I’m sure the analogy would work for other problems, too) on a sort of exponential scale similar to the Richter scale used for earthquakes. A 2.0 earthquake is 10 x 10, while a 4.0 earthquake is 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 - a lot more than twice as bad. Being unable to get out of bed is a totally different level of magnitude than having a life devoid of joy and happiness, but I don’t think that changes things. It’s way worse, but the latter is still bad.
The other thing I kind of want to rail against is what my professor said about becoming suicidal being the end of the line for depression. That’s really not the case. Again with a math analogy, because they’re super easy, becoming suicidal is probably more like the area of a rectangle. Being depressed for a long time (length) is just as bad as being extremely depressed (width). A rectangle that’s 10 x 4 has as much area as one that’s 4 x 10. Claiming that only people who are as depressed as you can be will become suicidal is just false.
So, in sum, I’d still say that I was depressed and that it sucked a lot. It feels pretty distant to me, now, so it’s easy to say it wasn’t so bad - but only if I forget what it felt like at the time.
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Now here’s where this post becomes relevant: my brother is incredibly similar to me. All of the reasons I became depressed, all the despair I had in my little ten year old mind, are just as relevant for him as they were for me. I know this sounds stupid, but it’s hard being a smart kid, especially when being smart doesn’t mean you’ll succeed. He’s as smart as I ever was, probably smarter when it comes to math and science. But he isn’t getting the grades I did, which is just unfair. He wants to be an eccentric math professor, and I can totally see him being that eccentric math professor, but the universities aren’t going to see it that way when they look at his marks.
Making matters worse is the fact that my parents expect everything out of him that they expected of me, and he’d naturally have as much trouble dealing with that as I did. It’s hard being perfect all the time, you know? But I escaped that by taking those expectations into myself - my parents would probably accept 80’s at university, but I want the 90’s for myself. And I get them, with enough effort. Or with very little effort (usually) in junior high and most of high school.
Except he isn’t getting those grades all the time. My dad gives him a really, really hard time for that. My mom is better with it, but she still pushes him.
Plus we moved away from all his friends. He’s got a couple here, but I don’t think there’s anyone he’s really close to. Certainly nothing like what I had at his age, which was an immense help to me.
In short, my brother is depressed.
My mom brought it up with our doctor (or some doctor, at any rate) and they said “we’ll get you to a psychologist in a month or so.” Ok, great. Give him someone to talk to and work through his problems. Then they said “in the meantime, have him take these antidepressants.”
You can probably guess I have a problem with that. You don’t just give people treatment without any sort of diagnosis! If someone walks in and says “I have a heart condition,” you don’t give them pills and send them off for a month. Pills are meant to solve physiological (chemical, biological, etc.) problems, and they do that by making physiological changes. Changes in your physiology, especially in brain chemistry, screw with your body until it can adjust. That’s why medication has side effects. You know why antidepressants sometimes say “may cause suicidal thoughts”? Because they mess with your neurotransmitters (like hormones, but in the brain), and if the problem isn’t related to neurotransmitters, you’ll be creating symptoms that were never there.
Long story short, on average, people tend to become more suicidal in the first few weeks of taking antidepressants. He’s been on them now for about two weeks, with some pretty bad side effects (incredibly dizzy, slept all day on sunday) but I don’t think he was suicidal to the point of actually hurting himself. What if he had been? What if he never got to see that psychologist in a month, because he didn’t adjust well to the pills and couldn’t take any more?
Even aside from all of that, there’s the simple fact that psychological disorders are caused by more than just neurotransmitter problems. There are social issues (family life, friends, etc.), cognitive issues (bad thought habits > depression > bad thought habits), pre-existing conditions to consider (personality disorders, general physical problems) and plenty of other things that contribute. Antidepressants aren’t going to help someone with an inferiority complex, or an abusive partner, or a bad habit of blaming themselves and being pessimistic. That is why a psychologist studies for many years to make a diagnosis and (hopefully) take all the possibilities into account before beginning the appropriate treatment. And that’s without even getting into the possibility that there’s a vicious circle going on (negative thoughts > low serotonin levels?), leading to treatment of symptoms instead of the underlying cause.
Anyway, people are sometimes bad at their jobs and make irresponsible choices.