Is depression a big con?

Very interesting video from Joe Rogan’s podcast. Worth twenty minutes of your life.

Almost impossible not to wonder if the anti-depressants industry is a huge con.

Key points.

Depression is measured on the Hamilton scale. There are 51 points on the scale. At the happiest point, you’re in ecstasy. At your lowest, you’re acutely suicidal. According to Johann Hari, just getting a good nights sleep moves you six points toward ecstasy. Getting a shit night’s sleep takes you six points down the scale.

Anti-depressants, on average, make people 1.8 points happier. While that’s going to be incredibly useful for people at the acutely suicidal end of the scale, it does beg the question as to whether these things are being massively over prescribed.

The story about the introduction of chemical anti-depressants in Cambodia is excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/aujaQoAD-TM

Stop watching this shit mate

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The drugs side of it is a big con but more needs to be done to help people that are depressed.

the things that helps me are

Beer

Sex

Football (most of the time)

If we could get these on prescription happy days.

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Course it’s a big con Pap, there’s £’ooo,000’s involved.

Medicalise something, push a drug or “cure”, sit back and watch the money roll in.

Criminal.

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Mine seems pretty real from time to time.

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Luckily you can afford to go private eh?

:lou_wink_2:

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The video makes the excellent point that depression doesn’t come from nowhere, one of the reasons I recommended the story about the introduction of chemical anti-depressants in Cambodia.

The point is that most depression comes from somewhere, and the cynic in me marvels at the potential racket going on. Make people’s lives shit so they go around sad all the time, then sell them drugs which probably have no more than a placebo effect in the vast majority of cases.

There is a source to the pain. Anti-depressants are undoubtedly decisive in some cases, but in many cases, I suspect they could be the equivalent of paracetamol. Doing fuck all to fix the real problem; just helping you to feel it less.

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I’ve certainly seen cases where they have been prescribed somewhat inappropriately, or without really addressing the cause. I can think of many examples but one in particular stands out, I was treating a 13 year old girl a few years back for knee pain, one of her medications was an anti-depressant, this bothered me due to her being so young so I delved a bit deeper by talking to the mother; ‘she doesn’t like school’ was the reason I was given, ‘Is she being bullied? Is she struggling with her studies? Is your relationship with her ok?’ is my follow up enquiry, ‘no she just doesn’t like it so her Dr prescribed them’.

It’s fair to say I didn’t have all the facts in this particular case, but I hoped that her GP was not just dishing them out as a stopgap or that there was a valid reason that wasn’t being disclosed to me. But if not liking school is really a good enough reason then about 80% of me and my friends should have been on them at some point, and on the other hand do anti depressants help you like stuff you normally don’t? Would I like Saints losing if I was on some good quality citolopram?

So yes in my experience I think they are over-prescribed, and in some cases the actual causes of depression/low mood are not properly addressed.

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I’ve suffered from depression since I was 16-17. There’s no maths scale for happiness, or Harrison Scale sorry. I hope you’re joking.

Also I used to read Johann Hari in the Independant. He’s now unemployable after ripping off other writers

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Tbf I don’t disagree that people can get depressed - ffs, take bereavement - that has a major effect on you. A divorce or loss of a job, likewise.

Good Mental health in the workplace is part and parcel of what I do for clients (not hippy dippy shit) - the medicalisation and drug pushing I mentioned in earlier post is a scandal and incredibly unhelpful…

Also there’s a lot of bollocks regarding Dopamine.

Not in the purest sense of happiness, but these scales allow mental health professionals some kind of quantifiable data and if used correctly can be used to spot trends/patterns in people’s behaviour and trigger warnings if someone is on the decline, even if the person themself doesn’t realise it. That’s my understanding of it anyway.

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But no it’s not a big con. It’s something i’m fighting against.

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There’s a lot of bollocks being talked, mainly on the internet, where every medical problem invariably turns out to be terminal cancer…

Don’t know your situation, so won’t comment on it unless you’d like to elaborate further.

I’m not joking. It’s not just people that have been diagnosed as depressed that are depressed. I think everyone is on that scale at some point.

I’ve got close friends and family that have been “clinically depressed” at some point in their lives. Having witnessed what was going on in their lives at the time, I know that there were other factors at play.

No-one really argues with the proposition that there would be less thieves if there were less poverty, so I don’t really see why it would be a “joke” to suggest that having less problems might make you less sad. I am not trivialisng your experience; I know nowt about it.

That said, I don’t think that any one anecdotal account has the power to shut down broad discussion.

I’ve known people to hide depression for all of their lives and one day they simply have enough, they’ve had enough of the battle, some of these people and its really true you’d never know, money? Depression doesn’t care, houses? Depression doesn’t care, beautiful wife children, ditto.

Some people are born differently and thats is all there is too it, its a crippling thing and something that you can not explain, there are so many different types so the discussion its infinite.

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And its something I hope you conquer or manage.

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Just stop posting videos saying depression is a con

I don’t think Pap is disrespecting anyone struggling with mental ill health, probably more big pharma and those looking to make a profit. Look at ADHD - was never a problem until it got discovered and chemical coshes were found to control it. Too many vested interests looking to protect their livelihoods and shareholder value to really and honestly care about those genuinely affected.

I may be wrong of course…

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Maybe you ought to watch the video.

That’s not what it says at all.