Depression - The belly of the beast

Depression - The belly of the beast

People commit suicide for various reasons. While I cannot help but be concerned and compassionate toward those who take their own lives and the people they leave behind, my greatest concern is for those who suffer from depression. The shocking statistic is that 80% of suicides are associated with clinical depression.

This is a number of such magnitude that more needs to be written and discussed about these most abhorrent conditions.

We have seen how depression forms in the mind. No one can truly understand depression unless they have suffered from it. Unless they have climbed into the animal's belly, their thoughts about the condition must necessarily be second-hand.

Look at most websites and you will see that they still talk about neurotransmitters, neoprinphrine, serotonin and other chemicals being out of sync. and therefore causes our depression. But we know otherwise, right?

Thanks to the brilliant work of Dr. Joe Griffin of the European Therapy Studies Institute, we now know that our thoughts and the way we allow them to jump around in our heads are the real cause.

That's what they callThe cycle of depression. The way it is written;

Depressive thinking styles. (All of this means getting upset over a real or imagined insult that may have happened yesterday or last year).

Emotionally arousing rumination. (Now the thought is fully embedded and we cannot shake it).

Overdream. (Remember, depressed people dream three times as much as people without depression).

Tiredness leading to exhaustion in the morning. (Self-explanatory).

They call it a “cycle” for a reason. Think of it like a roundabout that you can't get off. Round and round you go, round and round, the miserable thoughts grinding in your head, insoluble and in many cases meaningless.

In my opinion, psychiatrists are often put in an uncomfortable position. Generally, people go to them and ask for pills hoping that these will cure their condition. If the psychiatrist denies their demands, they tell him or her in no uncertain terms that they are the ones paying the bill and if they want pills, it is up to the doctor to give them pills.

Placebos can play an important role here.

“Take these,” says the psychiatrist, “and you will find that your symptoms will decrease.”

Psychiatrists generally have yet to learn the value of working on patients' minds. Another problem is that even they, unless they are depressed, don't really know what depression feels like.

They haven't climbed into the belly of the beast, so how can they know?

Inspired by Mike Bond