h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi again Benjamin

What you are talking is not depression. Often people say they are feeling they are feeling depressed, when they are feeling sad or low but it is not really depression.

When you are depressed is mind numbingly difficult to get through even basic tasks or not possible.

At its most severe people commit suicide.

Depression can't just be overcome by going out and doing something socially useful.

Some people can overcome it by pro-actively changing or focusing on their lifestyle,exercise, reducing alcohol intake or doing activities that increase self esteem and confidence and provide a sense of purpose. But there is no 'just' in that.

For others, it is either more severe, or they find more difficult and it will require medication or talking therapy, and possibly also adjustments in lifestyle.

External pressures have a factor to play in depression, such as long periods of stress and insecurity, a traumatic life event or losing your job.

Given the economic and social pressures that there are currently, these are likely to influence rates of depression, I'll punt on an increase in people suffering and that would be a sign of the times.

It is important to define depression as the mental illness that it is and like all mental illnesses these were not understood historically and remain misunderstood today

Peanut

All good points, Peanut. I've been subject to this, and at its worst, it's crippling.

I know too Dmitri

I've articulated myself poorly. I don't mean to suggest that you can simply walk off depression. However the activity/inactivity axis can play a part in depression and have a role to play in preventing people sinking into in or helping them overcome it. I suspect it is simplistic to talk of mental illnesses in terms of physical but I am not proposing a 'cure' simply a way of removing one of the significant factors involved in the development of depression.

Sure, Ben. I thought that's what you meant.

Although you can't easily 'shake off' clinical depression - and though it may not be purely physical, those of us who've had it can attest to its chemical components - it really does help if other people get you involved in things in a non-threatening way.

My experience, which is second hand, is that you ignore either the physical or the chemical components at your peril. Everyone knows about the drugs available and of course the business of getting the right medication for each individual. I suspect every case is different in terms of what the right responses are, and maybe depression can't always be cured in the way a physical illness can, but kept a bay, perhaps, and given as little to feed on as possible.

I just want to say something ... depression is not always clinical depression. Depression just means having a low mood, and can be very mild. It's not necessarily a psychiatric disorder. Clinical depression is a specific thing, and there are other psychiatric conditions which feature depression as one of their aspects.

I would say depression as a mood can definitely be countered in many ways; there are also factors in the lives of people that can trigger major clinical depression. There are things that we can do to make ourselves and each other happier and more satisfied and that kan help keep us on an even keel. There are ways in which to prevent serious mental illness. There are ways to 'treat' mild or even full-blown mental illness as well, short of/in addition to drug treatment.

Ben, I'm sorry that was a lecture, not one you needed. I found it little difficult to detangle your trains of thought.

You are right that activities can have a role to play in prevention. Sometimes I have been able to see things coming and been in a place where I can do that. Other times it sneaks up and suddenly boom, you are floored.

Also certainly they have a role to play in recovery

So many factors come into play, the severity, how much you as an individual have in reserve, the support networks you have and experience, for some people it might be a one off, for others for other it can be a reoccuring thing.

I know, preaching to the converted

One last thing, I am going mention just for a little moan.

Flipping hormones can be right evil little blighters

I didn't need it as a lecture peanut. It was a fair point and raises the complex issue of the confusion over what we mean by 'depression'. I'm also painfully aware that people like me who have to deal with the fallout of depression still don't really know what it's like behind the glass screen.

I do really know you didn't it need as a lecture and am aware I that I should have been more sensitive to that at the time of posting.

I know that my points are fair but I still think I could have tried harder to detangle where *you* coming from with respect to that one particular article.

Context Peanut!

For that I am sorry.

I'm not sure how much I subscribe to the idea of not really knowing because you haven't experienced something , empathy, understanding, listening, that ability to really put yourself in someone elses shoes goes a long way. I think you do that.

And supporting and caring for someone has it own demands, I know those also and have a huge respect for that and for individuals like you, who provide that support as part of a loving and caring relationship.

I hope that I have expressed the above paragraph right, I'm conscious of the fact that niether you, nor Raven, would want your relationship defined as one of 'carer and caree'

Peanut

I think you're being too hard on yourself Peanut. I raise sensitive issues most weeks and I accept that people will disagree with me. I'm very happy that people are responding and discussing, your input has always been welcome and thoughtful in this column. You are, for instance, quite right that it is a battle for us to avoid the marriage degenerating into a carer/caree state, a problem which I am sure is common to many carers in relationships.

Thank you for that

I have some appreciation of how difficult that be, my Mum and step-Dad found it very difficult to keep their relationship on track. It takes a lot of work sometimes but they are on an even keel at the moment.

Yes - a complicated situation indeed.

When I was unemployed, I did a couple of days' formal volunteering in addition to informal volunteering and other day to day things as well as my weekly trip to the jobcentre and all the time I spent on job applications, but the sheer grind of rejection after rejection in jobhunting was still enough to threaten my mental health.

At the point where I had almost given up hope of ever being employable for actual money, I actually received an acceptance, so that boosted me away from my inner darkness. I am more aware of my own mental health now, though, as even being in a job is no guarantee of keeping the inner darkness at bay...

I am often reminded of the total irrationality of inner darkness. And the curiosity with which it can, momentarily, be vanquished. That's probably the most confusing part. Oh, she's happy now. No, wait....