Tag Archives: depression

Define: Depression

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Happy Monday amigos,

I want to go out on a limb with today’s post and tackle the topic of De-press-she-own. I will be simplifying the hell out of depression. I will probably piss some people off. I will probably leave some things out. I will probably not be right on some claims… but that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong. I will be focusing on depression’s possible cause… because depression… is a symptom… a result… of something greater… of something underneath it all.

via Pub Med…

Depression may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods.

True clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or longer.

The exact cause of depression is not known. Many researchers believe it is caused by chemical changes in the brain. This may be due to a problem with your genes, or triggered by certain stressful events. More likely, it’s a combination of both. Some types of depression run in families. But depression can also occur if you have no family history of the illness. Anyone can develop depression, even kids.

via WebMD…

Most people have felt sad or depressed at times. Feeling depressed can be a normal reaction to loss, life’s struggles, or an injured self-esteem.

But when feelings of intense sadness — including feeling helpless, hopeless, and worthless — last for many days to weeks and keep you from functioning normally, your depression may be something more than sadness. It may very well be clinical depression — a treatable medical condition.

According to the DSM-IV, a manual used to diagnose mental disorders, depression occurs when you have at least five of the following symptoms at the same time:

  • A depressed mood during most of the day, particularly in the morning
  • Fatigue or loss of energy almost every day
  • Feelings of worthlessness or guilt almost every day
  • Impaired concentration, indecisiveness
  • Insomnia (an inability to sleep) or hypersomnia (excessive sleeping) almost every day
  • Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activities nearly every day
  • Recurring thoughts of death or suicide (not just fearing death)
  • A sense of restlessness or being slowed down
  • Significant weight loss or weight gain

A key sign of depression is either depressed mood or loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. For a diagnosis of depression, these signs should be present most of the day either daily or nearly daily for at least two weeks. In addition, the depressive symptoms need to cause clinically significant distress or impairment. They cannot be due to the direct effects of a substance, for example, a drug or medication. Nor can they be the result of a medical condition such as hypothyroidism. Finally, symptoms that occur within two months of the loss of a loved one are not considered to be clinical depression.

Ok. Let’s see here. Apparently for “true clinical depression,” one must have a “mood disorder.” I have come across a lot of selfish assholes in my time on this earth and I would certainly throw them into the mix of a “mood disorder,” but does that make them depressed? Well, it’s possible. We tend to correlate “sad, blue, unhappy, and miserable” to people who are depressed, but what about the assholes, the bastards, the pricks of this world that simply manifest their sadness in a different manner? According to these definitions, an asshole is just an asshole but a very, very sad person is labeled and put on medication. And why do we have to label it as a “mood disorder”? Why the labels? That just promotes seclusion and finger-pointing. Just because someone is sad, angry, or annoyed all of the time doesn’t mean they have a “disorder.” They have real-life problems and either manifest it differently than others, have a different way of handling it than others, cannot come to terms with their situation, or are completely unaware of their situation.

“The exact cause of depression is not known.” That’s the medical community’s excuse for, “Here, this medication should help.” Drugs make money. And doctor’s make money by writing prescriptions. I really do not believe that “anti-depressants” are necessary (have you SEEN the side effects on these tranquilizers?!). This is not medical advice and I am not telling anyone to stop taking their medication if they are prescribed such. This is my opinion. So, what causes depression? I can think of two generalized possibilities… 1) Traumas, shames, blames, comparisons, boundaries, expectations, let-downs, hard-times, abuse, illness, failure, pressure, stress… you know, all of the mental and emotional experiences throughout one’s lifetime that could manifest into a “disorder;” i.e., a person’s thoughts have been affected by something(s) throughout their lifetime and they are still dealing with that experience (because thoughts never die… only people do). 2) Another route could be the physical aspect of life: malnourished diet, over exercise or exertion, poor digestion, leaky-gut syndrome, constipation/slow bowel-transit time or elimination, gut bacteria imbalance or parasite/bacterial infection, vitamin or mineral deficiencies, blood-sugar mishandling, hormone imbalance, stress hormone responses, or poor/improper sleeping patterns.

Now, we’re all familiar with the first, mental/emotional, approach and I don’t think I’m too out of left field on the second, physical, approach. We produce a good amount of hormones within our digestive system. If I recall it’s around 60%+ of the hormones are born and raised in our small intestine, which is also the main site for nutrient absorption and the home of millions of digestive bacteria (that have minds and manipulations of their own). And, around 90%+ of our Serotonin (5-HTP) is made there, too. You know, that stuff that apparently makes us “feel good” and all sleepy-like. The thing about Serotonin (and SSRI’s) is that it’s not the problem… it’s the symptom. If a person has an imbalanced Serotonin count, why the hell do we think… “Ok, let’s provide them a platform for more Serotonin and all will be well!”? IT’S A SYMPTOM, peoples. And Serotonin doesn’t work alone. NONE of the hormones in our body work alone nor does anything produced by, ingested in, or applied to our body; it’s a system of systems! That’s like prescribing

I poked enough at PubMed. Now, WebMD’s take… to requote…

For a diagnosis of depression, these signs should be present most of the day either daily or nearly daily for at least two weeks. In addition, the depressive symptoms need to cause clinically significant distress or impairment. They cannot be due to the direct effects of a substance, for example, a drug or medication. Nor can they be the result of a medical condition such as hypothyroidism. Finally, symptoms that occur within two months of the loss of a loved one are not considered to be clinical depression.

MUST BE DAILY or DAILY for AT LEAST two weeks to be clinically “sad.” [Symptoms] cannot be due to the direct effects of a substance… so then my food theory is out of the question? And that other medical drugs can’t fuck you up, either? NOR CAN THEY BE A RESULT OF A MEDICAL CONDITION SUCH AS HYPOTHYROIDISM... Um, do you not understand how the body and mind work together? Do you not think that perhaps ezcema… a skin-disorder “medical condition”… can’t affect a kid’s ability to be happy and healthy while walking down the middle school hallways with funky looking arms that could possibly lead to verbal abuse by ignorant kids? Finally, symptoms that occur within two months of the loss of a lvoed one are not considered to be clinical depression. HEY, you… the one who just lost their loved one… you’re not sad… you’re making that shit up… so suck it up because medical science says there’s nothing wrong with you! Oh, you cry all the time, your bowel movements are off, you’ve lost a significant amount of weight, you have no appetite, you’ve gone into reclusion, and you sleep all of the time? You’re fine… trust me.

If you are dealing with depression, please, please, please get it in your head that there is nothing “wrong” with you. No, it’s not a “chemical imbalance”! I freaking HATE that dumb-ass reasoning. Yes, people’s “chemicals” may be “abnormal” but it’s a symptom. I can sit in front of the TV to watch 9/11 videos all day and I can guarantee you that my “brain chemicals” would follow a path towards “clinical depression.” No, you don’t have to fit a molded standard to be “sad.” No, you aren’t alone. Yes, you are normal. Yes, you are allowed to be sad.

My approach to depression: Learn everything about you, your life, who you are, why you are, how you get here, why you got here, and all of the factors that make you… you: Your past, your family, your friends, your diet, your lifestyle, your sleeping patterns, your bowel patterns, and so on. I shit you not, a person can be “depressed” simply by being chronically dehydrated. WHY would the body work properly if it cannot get what it needs to operate? And all of those past experiences people tend to bury because it’s not acceptable by society to be sad? Yeah, those can last a life-time and manifest in countless ways until peace is made between you and your scars.

I had a chat with an old friend the other weekend where he told me how sick, sad, and unhappy he used to be because he really hated his job. He switched jobs to one he likes and boom – he doesn’t get sick anymore, he sleeps through the night, and he has a reason to smile every day. How about them apples??

So, yeah. That’s my take. I’ve scapegoated two “credible” medical sources because a simple google search lists those two first and people like to believe everything that they hear from “experts”… especially since it’s been impaled into our brains for decades. I want to put it out there that there are other explanations, other perspectives, and, perhaps, better answers than the 21st century cycle of there’s-something-wrong-with-you-medication-heals-all.

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TWLOHA’s MOVE Conference Reflection

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A happy monday fellow healthians,

This weekend I attended To Write Love On Her Arms‘ MOVE Conference. It was a two-day informative lecture/conversation amongst two speakers, two coordinators, and about 40 attendees which touched on heavy/personal topics such as Addiction, Depression, Anxiety, Self-Injury, Eating Disorders, and Suicide. I participated in the conference in support of a friend. She had come to me about a month ago that she eagerly wanted to attend and, since we have shared many conversations in the past regarding our perspectives of personal healing and growth, she pretty much said you’re coming and I won’t take “no” for an answer. She didn’t have to twist my arm at all really because I had an idea of what I was getting myself into with my familiarity with TWLOHA’s mission; having “worked” with the organization in the past as a musician and through the friendships I was able to build from sharing an awareness of health. But my awareness only went so far when it came to these topics because I had yet to be thrown into a room with real people who have dealt with and are still dealing with real problems. I found myself being smacked in the face with a reality I have only read about and have reflected generalized philosophies upon. I knew I was in for a treat the moment we began going around the room stating our name, story, and purpose.

I went into the conference thinking that the participants would be those who are dealing with the issues, those who are seeking answers for themselves, those who are in search of aha-moments to get themselves on a better track towards healing. I didn’t read up on the conference beforehand so I had some assumptions going into it and, while that general mindset held some truth, I didn’t expect that I would be in a room with people just like me… young professionals who have gone through their own tough times reality and have now come out on the other end with the approach of I’m going to use what I have learned in my worst-of-the-worst to help others in their paths towards happiness. And the most inspiring part? Everyone was real. Everyone had real stories, real obstacles, real battles, real experiences, real emotions, and everyone was dealing with their own reality all-the-while learning more about the realities of others for one common goal: to help. It was rather humbling to be in a room with therapists, with counselors, with speakers, with help-line workers, with undergrads, with graduate students, with mothers, with adults… with all different walks of life in one room who have been through it and who just get it. That is actually one of the main purposes of the conference – to find someone that just gets it – amongst the slightly more obvious reasons like raising awareness of such hush-hush topics, educating the educators, inspiring the inspired, comforting the disturbed, and disturbing the comforted. To find someone who you can relate to is such a milestone in the world of healing because we have all gone through our own shit and you damn-well know that it certainly helps to speak to someone who understands and relates through their own trials to what you are going through. We all have different experiences, but we def-def-definitely share the same feelings of hurt, pain, shame, or unhappiness (as well as happiness, ease, comfort, or success).

It is my understanding that these symptoms umbrella under and manifest as a result of a greater cause. To extremely over simplify that greater cause, I chalk it up to unhappiness. This mental state can be caused by many factors and we all manifest its symptoms in various ways, but I do believe that the foundation exists as a lack of happiness with self and the experiences of self, i.e. what you understand to be your reality through your own [influenced] filter system (thoughts, beliefs, conditionings, perceptions, habits, knowledge, ignorance, diet, digestion, stressors, sleep patterns, priorities, et cetera).

Yet, the conference didn’t really hint on any sort of generalization. There were times in the conversation where we saw commonalities for treatments or fine lines between diagnostics, but it still resorted back to this is this and that is that. It focused on each symptom as its own entity and that one must “treat” each realm accordingly. An addiction counselor should not treat a self-injury patient because, from what I gathered, they are not the same. I ask why? If we’re approaching this holistically, the body’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health fall under one cyclic/complimentary umbrella so why can’t our symptoms? It just doesn’t make sense to me. For example, self-injury is mainly the act of inflicting pain or cutting one’s skin, but how is cigarette smoking not a form of self-injury, as well? Both involve an awareness of the action and its consequences, both inflict pain in exchange for euphoria and a quick-fix result only to come back again because the thrill wasn’t enough and the underlying cause/relief structure still exists. Also, each are forms of addiction and, perhaps, can be a result of depression, too. Of course, I was in a room with trained professionals whose experiences on paper far exceed mine so perhaps I do not have much room to speak, but I do not think that limits my platform to question the approach or to raise an awareness of more foundational-based ways to do things.

I really found this intriguing because this is the habit of our society. We like to label things… every-things. And, in the medical/health field, people can lose their identities or any mindset of who they are because their names can be replaced or associated with a specific disease, disorder, or mental state. This replacement can come from the doctor’s vocabulary/perspective or can even be adapted by the patient. The nice guy named Bob becomes a Drug Addict. Why the heck is Bob a drug addict in the first place? Some sort of shit in Bob’s life culminated, made him freak, and he turned to drugs. Can labeling Bob as an addict make him more unhappy? Why can’t we just say that Bob is unhappy and retrace the steps to where/why Bob became unhappy? He’s still the nice guy he’s always been, but people may not identify him as the nice guy anymore because we label. And when we label, we segregate by default. And when we segregate by default, we impose stigma by default. And stigma is an imposed reality which we seldom take the time to step back from to look at the bigger picture – what truly matters in a universal reality. It’d be nice to look at things objectively rather than subjectively. Then again everyone tends to have their opinion and we all know the saying about opinions… It’d also be nice to get away from labels but I don’t think it’ll ever happen. Really, we just want to belong. Even if it means we belong to a negative connotation, at least we belong to something.

One final thing I’d like to note is a shared story from one of the speakers. The speaker’s father did not allow the use of Neosporin within their household. If you are not familiar with Neosporin, it is a healing agent that can be applied to small cuts or scrapes to speed up the healing process and to prevent the formation of “ugly” scars. The father wasn’t a doctor, but he knew a thing or two about the healing process. Neospiron is promoted as a quick-healer and offers a good-as-new look. That’s cool and all, but while the skin on the outside may be “healed,” the wound underneath remains open and prone to infection because the body is not meant to heal as such a rapid pace. Hey, at least it looks good and my date tonight won’t think I’m a zombie freak, right? When we give the body time to heal on its own time at its own pace in its own natural environment, the wounds mend accordingly. The same can be said about our emotional and mental states. We can take all of the medication we want, we can try all of the quick-fix protocols we come across, but they will never truly heal until the underlying cause is addressed and fixed naturally through being honest with self, yielding compassion for self, having patience with self, and, thus, gaining a greater awareness of self.

I learned a lot from the conference and I’m very glad I was given the opportunity to go. If you are not familiar with To Write Love On Her Arms, please check out their website, blog, and calendar to verse yourself in the awareness and the hope that they spread.

Thanks for stopping by, folks.

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Stress: This shit is real

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Danny Roddy‘s most recent blog, Becoming Stressproof Part II: The symptoms of stress (Bad sex, worse digestion, and shitty depression), is awesome. I am in love with this post for two reasons: 1) I have experienced everything he discusses due to an elevated state of stress hormones that involved my internal environment (digestion, elimination) and my external environment (work, relationship, family) – from low sex drive to extremely poor digestion to yo-yo weight gain and weight loss to unexplained anxiety to bouts of depression to a low immune system to extreme fatigue – and 2) Stress is something not to be overlooked or written off as just a daily part of mental life that defines a person on “how they can handle it”… it’s very real on a hormonal level which can directly correlate to mental and emotional stress and uncontrollable personality shifts.

Around 60-80% of our hormones are produced within the intestinal tract, specifically the small intestine, which also houses the intestinal bacteria and is the main site for nutrient absorption. Consider this: if you have an gut imbalance (by “gut” I am referring to all of the digestion and elimination organs) and the body cannot properly digest, absorb, assimilate, or eliminate due to the imbalance… don’t you think it’s possible (keeping in mind that hormones are being produced/regulated/limited within the imbalanced environment) for that imbalance to translate into mental and emotional shifts, i.e. an imbalance in personality, mood, thoughts, ideas, stress-coping-ability and overall non-physical health?

I think personality “disorders” (depression, anxiety, anger, stressed, tension, impatience, nervousness, timidness, scared, suicidal, etc.), metabolic disorders (diabetes, insulin resistance, hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, etc.), digestive disorders (lactose intolerance, food allergy, food intolerance, etc.) are symptoms to a greater cause and, for the sake of this post, many are caused by a stress-hormone response that can very-well begin and end with an awareness of what up-regulates or down-regulates a stress hormone reaction.

Roddy highlights Bad Sex, Worse Digestion, and Shitty Depression as three [of the many] consequences of elevated stress hormones. The body’s sex drive will cease to exist in a state of stress (high estrogen, high serotonin, high adrenaline, high cortisol) mainly because procreation is absolutely last on the list when the body finds itself in survival mode (stress, lack of calories, lack of carbohydrates, digestive disturbances, over-exercise, etc.). If you’re running from a lion it’s almost unfathomable to get it up… now transpose that high-stress state the body experiences when running for its life into every day life and no sex for you. Worse Digestion can translate into a few things: loss of appetite (because who thinks of food when they’re stressed or sad), irregular hormone output (hinting on what I mentioned earlier), and a low immune system from stress to allow bacteria, fungi, pathogens, and parasites into the digestive tract, thus causing a whole new set of problems (yet still a symptom to a greater cause). And, last but not lease, Depression will surely result because of all of these imbalances – happiness is hard to come by if you’re constipated, dehydrated, malnourished, and cannot get aroused no matter how much your significant other dances naked around you.

The body is a system of systems. If you system is out-of-order, chances are the other systems will follow suit. Your digestion, your detoxification, your elimination, your muscles, your bones, your emotions, your intelligence, your personality, your happiness… are all systems. If you have a low sex drive, have poor digestion, and are depressed… take a look at your systems and the other symptoms that may be present within your body and mind to find its true cause.

Take some time to read Roddy’s blog (along with everything else on his website) to gain some more insight.

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Define: Addiction

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  • Addiction is a form of control, but what leads to that control?
  • Addiction is a symptom to an underlying cause, so we must define our true pain that we are suppressing or escaping.
  • On the outside, addiction involves reflective escapes – food, drugs, alcohol, sex, anger, depression, exercise, etc.
  • Deep down, addiction involves an escape from self – self-shame, self-sabotage, a lack of self-responsibility, a lack of self-awareness, and, ultimately, a lack of self-love.
  • We can overcome addiction when we become aware of what we are escaping and take responsibility for our actions.
  • We can overcome addiction when we see the value in what releasing that addiction can bring.
  • We can overcome addiction when we stop running away from ourselves, others, and our self-made problems, boundaries, expectations, boarders, shames, pains, or walls.
  • Addiction is an external attempt to find internal love.

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