Instagram, gyms and mental illness

supermouse wrote: »

This is a brilliant video - thanks very much for sharing!

+1000 SM. I've long been of the admittedly layman's opinion that the rise of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety can be compared in a roundabout way to the rise of type two diabetes. Like depression and anxiety some people are more genetically predisposed to diabetes, but the environment, diet, exercise triggers it in them and causes it in many more people who aren't genetically predisposed to the condition.

I would see the depression and anxiety conditions in a similar way. Our environment is causing it more and more and in more people. In more healthy environments both diabeties and depression and anxiety are significantly lower in those populations. As yer man points out in the video, our society is a machine that is near designed to cause unhappiness. And worse it's getting.

The problem being that therapies for depression and anxiety tend to paper over the cracks for many, particularly those not genetically predisposed to it. The standard take these SSRIs' with a sideorder of Xanax and come back in a month to readjust your dose is clearly not working to the degree promised and expected. The western rates of depression and anxiety and self harm reflect this. Which is the major outlier when it comes to medical therapies of any kind. When antibiotics came along dying from simple infections pretty much went away and the vast majority reached adulthood, where they didn't before. Vaccines had a similar effect. Yet antidepressants have not had this effect. Neither has "talking more about mental illnesses". Awareness hasn't particularly helped, some would argue it has increased the copycat effect and the comparison effect.

Of the people I've personally known on the current regimen they seem to get an initial recovery, but fast forward a couple of years and they're still on the up and down treadmill. Folks writing blogs and the like on the matter show very similar stories(like the chap in the video when he was younger). By not addressing the environment I would compare it to taking insulin while still eating a crappy sugar laden diet and sitting on a couch. It'll stave off some symptoms, but the condition is still there and usually progressing. Talk therapy tries to address the background more, but IMHO is coming at it from the slightly wrong direction and is woefully out of date with regard to the current environment.

I am not saying drug therapies aren't important. Not at all. They are lifesavers for many. To stretch the diabetes analogy further those folks are like those born with diabetes that would happen regardless of the environment, but those who come down with type two, which I would contend is the majority they're at best a stopgap measure and one that is increasingly less effective(studies are showing the the SSRI class of medications have become less effective over time).

TL;DR? If your life is otherwise good. You have a wide social circle, a career that engages you, are educated and respected to the level of your abilities and have a stable environment and you're still depressed/anxious, then yep meds are a good plan. If however you're life is otherwise shite. You have no social outlet, no career that engages you, are not educated and not respected to the level of your abilities and have an unstable environment, they're about as much use as a bandaid on a bullet wound. It might stem some of the flow, but you need to fix the bullet wound.

One part of this "bullet wound" would certainly be aspects of instgram and social media in general. A lot of trout pouts cover up the lack of genuine smiles.

Charles Ingles wrote: »

Humanity is on its last legs

To be fair they're better than if they had bingo wings and beer bellies at the same age. If folks were to apply a similar level of dedication to also working out the muscle between the ears we'd be golden. The original renaissance man(and woman) idea. And to be fair some do.