What is Veeky Forums's opinion on mental conditions like chronic depression and anxiety...

What is Veeky Forums's opinion on mental conditions like chronic depression and anxiety? Are they caused by chemical imbalances in the brain or are they just a psychosomatic manifestation of a functioning ego?

Chemical imbalances reinforced by negative thinking cycles.

Sometimes one, sometimes the other, often a mix of both.

Serotonin deregulation for depression, and anxiety might be from your environnement, your life, hormonal imbalances, your food, lack of physical activity, there are a lot of factors for anxiety

> negative thinking cycles

You mean more chemicals?

> and anxiety might be from your environnement, your life, hormonal imbalances, your food, lack of physical activity, there are a lot of factors for anxiety

But all of the non-physical factors must manifest physically right? So its 100% physical, some of which has environmental causes?

I randomly got hit with really bad anxiety at the age of 24.

I have lots of debt, kissless virgin, average looks at absolute best, ugly at worst. Addicted to shemale porn and fapping. Have a family that expect I get married.

So yeah..... I was mentally sound until a night I randomly couldn't sleep at all . Had a panic attack I would never sleep again and thus began the irrational thoughts and anxiety.

Also got bad OCD where I can't stop thinking about "manual memes" like breathing, blinking , walking etc..... 24/7.


It's not like I asked for this but you might say I did it to myself partially with the debt and porn. I can not control my looks and a few other things out of my control.

So you might say it's a complicated combination of factors. I DO believe that once you get "stuck" in an anxious mindset it's very hard to get out of due to a chemical inbalance.

Fuck I hate life sometimes. Not really depressed but fuck this 24/7 manual breathing SHIT!

Too much stimulation and too little actual work.

More or less, sitting around doing little to nothing and eventually the brain will make up problems of its own.

Think about it, we haven't seen a mental health crises like this ever.

In these last 100 years life has gotten so much more advanced than it ever was. Before that people had many problems to deal with on a daily basis just to survive. They weren't thinking hmmm, what espisode of rick and mortgage will I watch today?

it's called being a little bitch

Slow down, I don't understand all your fancy science mumbo jumbo

its called chronic self-induced adult pedolacrimation

CSIAPL for short

I'm currently doing a PhD in psychology (admittedly not in the field of clinical psychology, although semi-related) and I hate this idea that depression is just a chemical imbalance, and that it's as random and unpredictable as any sort of physical ailment. I can understand why the idea caught on - even 20 years ago people suffering from depression would be told "it's all in your head, pull yourself together, etc" - but the new view that's taken over is no more scientific.

Firstly, the serotonin hypothesis (i.e. chemical imbalance) is a little bit outdated. Evidence from different types of brain scans (MRIs, fMRIs, PET, and TMS) shows that, when comparing people with depression against healthy controls, those with depression have larger and more active amygdalas (involved in emotional processing) and a smaller and less active prefrontal cortex (involved in cognitive control). The exact opposite pattern is found in Buddhist monks and meditation experts, who are thought to be the least depressed people. So it's now thought that the hormones are less important than the size and activity of certain brain structures, which are 'plastic' (i.e. constantly changing in response to experience).

(1/2)

Can that cute bully me :(

I'm less familiar with what the academic literature says at this point, but personally I view depression as a set of symptoms that may have a completely different cause from one person to the next. Even for the official diagnosis of depression only 5 out of 9 symptoms have to be present, so depression is often very different between individuals too. So I think it's entirely possible that some people develop depression entirely spontaneously (probably due to genetic susceptibility - evidence has shown a genetic component to depression), whereas others have developed depression because of the way they live their life and the sorts of views they hold. I think my depression, which I've had on and off for the last five years, is definitely more in the second camp, although I'm slowly finding a way to live my life in a more meaningful way and that's been helpful.

The problem with treating all depression as if it is just a chemical imbalance is that you reject psychotherapy and turn to pharmacotherapy instead. You go to big pharma and you buy their meds, and the chemical imbalance gets fixed without ever dealing with the root cause. Hence, you come off the meds and slip back into depression. Antidepressants aren't always bad - they can be potentially life-saving if someone is suicidal and too irrational to connect with any other form of therapy - but I think they're definitely overprescribed, particularly in America.

>Are they caused by chemical imbalances in the brain or are they just a psychosomatic manifestation of a functioning ego
False dichotomy.

@Anonymous08/06/17(Sun)20:16:18No.9090274
it is clearly caused by nothing more than a chemical imbalance

THANK YOU user for saying this.

I'm so fucking tired of the current "it's a disease so you have to take meds!" mantra. It's absolutely ignorant since it assumes that we actually know what is going on in a depressed brain.

No problem, I think we need to hear it more. I'm not sure if it's being pushed by big pharma or by well-intentioned mental health professionals or both, but it's an all too prevalent viewpoint and I'm pretty sure it has a negative impact on actually seeking effective treatment.

makes you more creative, not that any of these Veeky Forumsborgs care

Can severe anxiety and depression really cause erectile dysfunction? And when that stops, how long does it take for the dysfunction to be undone?

I faced some severe anxiety a while back just after I turned 30 last year. I found I couldn't get hard a lot of the time even when looking at stuff that would normally stimulate me. Once I stopped being so stressed and worried the erections slowly came back but they're weak. I am quite unhealthy though. Could it be just being obese that's stopping me getting hard again?

you seem to know what you're talking about, I've had an idea about my own depression I want to run by you.
Depression makes you prone to "surrendering" as opposed to "fighting" - as in ignore your problems, procrastinate work, succumb to impulses, etc - and it becomes stronger each time you give in to it. So the solution that cuts closest to the root of the problem would be learning to discipline yourself.

I've tried to do this myself, but so far I've only managed in short bursts, never consistently.

Inflammation in the brain caused by allergy/intolerance/poor diet/poor exercise

I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder, used to take sertraline(Zoloft).

While it can be said that I was feeling slightly 'better' after it, it didn't seem to address the actual underlying problem at all.

And, same shit about the 'negative thinking cycles'. Learning how to break them helps keep anxiety in check but not depression. You can't really get rid of some thoughts.

And I think that these mental conditions were always there, however, not so prevalent as nowadays.

Also iirc recently serotonin was found NOT to be the main factor.
Yeah with 0 inflammatory symptoms top kek.

That's actually a pretty good insight, because it's very common to the 'learned helplessness' theory of depression, which has a fair amount of academic clout. When an individual is exposed to pain/suffering and cannot do anything to stop it, he learns to avoid even trying to stop the pain in the future (even in new scenarios where fighting against it would be effective). I can't remember exactly what types of therapy grew out of learned helplessness theory, but it might be worth you reading a few chapters or articles on it to find out, as it seems like it's very relevant for you.

That sounds like a very accurate depiction of what's happened to my mind.
Thanks man, I'll definitely start reading about it.

>science board
>"what is your opinion..."
These fucking guys

It's psychobabble, what did you expect?

Are there any chances the overall state of the digestive system contributes to brain imbalances?

I have bipolar disorder and mania is much, much worse than depression.

Do you mean in terms of nutrition and things like that? Honestly, I have incredibly limited understanding of biology/physiology (literally high-school tier, even though I have an MSc and am going for PhD), so I can't say for sure. That said, I'm pretty sure there's studies to show that changing to a healthier diet reduces depressive symptoms. Whether that's to do with some direct effect on brain chemistry, some indirect effect whereby successful completion of an important goal engenders feelings of self-efficacy, or some combination of the two, I don't know for sure.

not the guy, but yes, that's a good guess

Obesity is linked with increased global inflammation, and depression is linked with brain inflammation. Not to say that obesity causes depression, but it could amplify its effects, at least by this causal chain

>You can't really get rid of some thoughts.

What thoughts can't you get rid of? The point of breaking the negative cycle is acknowledging the bs of the negative thought and reducing the rate of negative thoughts through the analysis.

>dichotomy
feelsbadman, cant feel good, only bad or awesome