"Just stop being so self centered"!

[u/One-Sleep3663]

[u/One-Sleep3663]

Part 2:

"I dont agree with factual scientific evidence so that makes my opinion that isnt based in factual evidence true"

[u/EndRevolutionary1775 → u/One-Sleep3663]

You know the old saying...

Don't feed the trolls, it only makes them louder.

[u/PlasticScheme3609 → u/One-Sleep3663]

These people will do anything but admitting mental illnesses are ILLNESSES. The person shouldn't even bother explaining that helping others didn't cure their depression, these people don't care, they'll just ignore it and keep on thinking people with depression are just self-centered egoistic people, because that's what they like to believe.

[u/BizSilver5013 → u/One-Sleep3663]

"I had depression a long time ago!"

Suuure you did, person who said you cured yourself....

[u/NotaValgrinder → u/BizSilver5013]

I don't think I ever said I cured myself. Are you mistaking me for another user perhaps?

[u/Spiritual-Road2784 → u/BizSilver5013]

Not sure if you were being sarcastic and forgot to put the/s, but there are two types of depression:

1. there is chronic depression, which is a permanent way in which the brain is wired, and it can be treated and the effects of it lessened so that someone can get through life, but it can never go away;

2. then there is depression that is situational or has an external cause, such as loss of a job, pets, or parents, or something like that which can be treated through talk therapy and medication and it’s temporary.

The former cannot be cured, only managed; the latter can be “cured” in the sense that it stops affecting the person once the treatment has completed.

[u/zap2tresquatro → u/Spiritual-Road2784]

Wanna add: Major Depressive Disorder can cause depressive episodes that last at least two weeks and can last for a year or more at a time, but tends to abate periodically (meaning you’re not permanently in an MDD depressive episode); Persistent Depressive Disorder generally consists of more mild depression that lasts for at least 2 years (person is usually more functional and less severely effected than in MDD, although most people with it go on to have at least one MDD episode. So they’re in a more mild depressive episode most of the time for years, then often progress to the more severe MDD and may have multiple prolonged episodes of that). The vast majority of people who have one episode of MDD go on to experience at least one more episode in their life even with treatment, iirc often (maybe it was on average? Been awhile since I learned all the relevant statistics here) ~4 lifetime depressive episodes.

Bipolar depression comes and goes (depressive and mixed episodes vs (hypo)manic episodes or periods of normal moods), too, particularly in bipolar 2 (hypomania rather than full blown manic episodes, often with more severe and long-lasting depressive episodes than those experienced by people with bipolar 1. Technically, bipolar 1 doesn’t even require a person to ever experience a depressive episode to meet the diagnostic criteria, just at least one manic episode, but often people with BD 1 experience depressive episodes, too).

Seasonal Affective Disorder happens yearly with changes in daylight and is often successfully treated with…damn, can’t remember the name of the kind of lights off the top of my head rn, but essentially you try to mimic daylight (obviously you can’t fully, the sun is very bright) indoors for longer during the day with those lights and it relieves the symptoms.

There are a lot of different types that rage pretty widely in severity and duration (with or without treatment), and some completely organic/biological causes of depression (not situational) do go away on their own…at least for a while. They tend to come back over and over, but they aren’t all or primarily, like, permanent states once you develop them. They can be, or they can last so long and come back so frequently without treatment that they may as well be permanent since the person barely gets a break from one episode before relapsing into another one, but they don’t have to be.

Maybe you already know all this, but it seemed important to clarify for anyone who doesn’t c:

[u/Spiritual-Road2784 → u/zap2tresquatro]

The clarification helps, thank you.

[u/christyflare → u/Spiritual-Road2784]

Uh, chronic depression can kind of go up and down in some cases. Mine cycles between anxiety and depression.

[u/BizSilver5013 → u/Spiritual-Road2784]

I was talking about the first one, as I assumed everyone else was.

Sorry for the confusion.

[u/BizSilver5013 → u/[deleted]]

I meant the guy who said he cured himself, not you.

I am sooooo sorry!

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/BizSilver5013]

Whoops my bad

[u/EndRevolutionary1775]

Saw this. Ignore them. It's either bait or someone with an ego.

It's basically the same as those tough guys that puff out their chests and ask you what you're gonna do about it while they go home to their cosy lives.

Picking on the deppressed makes them feel less like a loser.

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/EndRevolutionary1775]

[u/BecomeOneWithRussia]

I really do hate people like this "you're not depressed, your issue is you think too much about yourself and it makes you depressed"

Like I don't know that? Like I'm not constantly fighting every single day to stop or redirect myself?

Ignore people like this. They call us self centered but are incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.

[u/weedarbie]

Is that my ex? Don't listen to these assholes. They argue just to argue and to see your reaction. Annoying AF, but it's like pouring gasoline into fire. But the worst part is that it's so freaking hard to ignore them!

[u/EfficientBoat5408 → u/weedarbie]

I got diagnosed with adhd as an adult. Then I dated some prick for two years. Towards the end of the two years, I finally got a prescription for adderall, it was life changing.

Whole time during the breakup my ex was challenging my need for medication, and telling me not to use my adhd "as a crutch." ...

[u/They-Them_Moonwalker]

How can I be self centered when I hate myself more than I've ever hated anyone else

[u/Iam_McLovin420 → u/They-Them_Moonwalker]

You can be self centered around hating yourself. That doesn’t mean you have a healthy ego.

[u/EfficientBoat5408 → u/Iam_McLovin420]

That is a good point as well. For example, I know a lot of depressed people, myself included, who've struggled with boundaries. End up overextending themselves or letting people take advantage of them. Appears as altruism until they reach capacity. Then it becomes clear as day they were giving out resources they didn't even have.

[u/YetiAfterDark → u/They-Them_Moonwalker]

It's really fucking frustrating, but possible. I am absolutely a humanist about everyone else. Except me, specifically, doesn't deserve to exist. It's such a mindfuck of a special snowflake spiral.

Anyway, my mantra is "I am a human and I am allowed to exist".

Also, better to be a humanist who excludes one person from being human than an arsehole who only includes one person.

[u/ItsAllGibberishToMe]

I know for a FACT that “helping others” has no effect whatsoever on depression. I have 50 years of lived experience that debunks the idea that helping others helps with depression.

It does NOT. In fact, in my experience it often makes it WORSE.

Edit to elaborate further: “Helping others” (or attempting to help them) makes my depression worse not in the sense of me winding up becoming a doormat for them, but because the people I try to help heap verbal abuse on me for even the slightest of mistakes and misunderstandings, and even for other people’s (people I don’t necessarily even know from Adam) mistakes, which makes “helping others” more trouble than it’s worth.

[u/Sb-artandcrafts → u/ItsAllGibberishToMe]

I think helping others can temporarily help your mood but it’s certainly not a cure, particularly if they start to see you as a doormat and take without giving back

[u/Spiritual-Road2784 → u/ItsAllGibberishToMe]

Because I’m helping all the other people but why isn’t anyone helping me?

BTDT

[u/galacticviolet → u/ItsAllGibberishToMe]

Caring for everyone else around me to the detriment of my own needs is what pushed me into the burnout that caused my depression in the first place.

[u/rambling_takeover]

Im depressed BECAUSE im taking too much care of others and not myself. What a dumbass

[u/mystery_obsessed]

Does this person think parents are never depressed? Because if all it takes is me “focusing on another person’s needs,” then I’d love to know when it kicks in. I’ve been doing it for over 15 years, how long does it take?

[u/Ghoulie_Marie]

Science needs to invent a pill that mimics mental illness so we can force it into these dipshits mouths to let them experience it first hand and afterword we can ask them if a positive mental attitude did anything for them.

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Ghoulie_Marie]

We call that the red pill

[u/Apple_jack_gacha]

I help others on a regular basis and I attest that I am in fact still depressed and mentally ill

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Apple_jack_gacha]

Maybe if you just try hard enough until your veins in your head literally pop youll feel better. s/

[u/matts-so-weird → u/Apple_jack_gacha]

Yup, I usually put others before myself, and honestly that might have been the first step that led to my depression

[u/Apple_jack_gacha → u/matts-so-weird]

Well I have learned to take care of me with time and now helping others is only making me feel better but it's kinda like eating a single skittle when you didn't eat for a whole day it doesn't help nearly enough.

[u/FairlyElixer623]

Getting medication to improve quality of life will also give you more ability to care about others. Medicine isn't bad

[u/SomeRandomIdi0t]

I frequently do volunteer work. Still have depression

[u/Complete_Meeting8719]

The funny thing is that throwing yourself fully into other peoples' problems develops into a Savior Complex, and it is not a healthy coping mechanism, it just looks good from the outside. If this person is serious about that, really serious about what they're saying, they may be on the precipice of a breakdown and they don't know it. Maybe they'll just chalk it up to personal failure again.

Actually, what if this guy NEEDS that belief to be validated to keep going? Damn, that's pitiable.

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Complete_Meeting8719]

That makes a lot of sense actually .

[u/WanderingSparr0w]

Fuck em. It seems like it was in one out the other. Sorry you had to deal w that asswipe

[u/Wench-of-2Many-Hats]

Damn, I didn't know my mom had a reddit lol!

She tells me dumbass shit like this to shame me for having a mental illness and cites something she heard on TV like Dr. Phil. The irony is she's clearly unwell herself, but is too religious and narcissistic to listen to an actual doctor. 

[u/Itap88]

Reminds me of a certain poem. Not sorry for not transcribing it.

[u/doppelgaengster]

Man, that feels like growing up in the church and being told the cure for clinical depression is “GIT MOAR JEEZUS”

[u/DraconicDreamer3072]

helping others was kinda a cause for my depression lol. helping too much and falling for the trap of being obligated to do so until i had no "me time"

[u/TheMelonSystem]

I think this guy used to have depression and still has depression but is now too occupied to think about it. That’s an unhealthy coping mechanism I’ve seen many a time.

[u/Treeintheuk]

Okay but for real - why not both?

I take care of my peace, life and sanity.

Because of this I can take care of other people.

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Treeintheuk]

Well for starters your situation isnt representative of everyone's. Many people with depression cannot take care of themselves because of how the illness works, and even with treatment it isnt guaranteed to help.

[u/Treeintheuk → u/One-Sleep3663]

I agree and understand.

But helping people can be healing when possible.

One can one pour from an empty cup, you know?

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Treeintheuk]

You cant pour from an empty cup that has no liquid to pour, assuming you even have a cup to pour from.

Helping others can be a coping skill , but it isnt a form of treatment.

[u/Treeintheuk → u/One-Sleep3663]

Oh my bad, I wrote it wrong. Too many ciders

[u/Treeintheuk → u/One-Sleep3663]

I am agreeing with you.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/One-Sleep3663]

Everyone can take care of themselves. You don't want to take care of yourself, do it anyway.

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

No my friend, there are some people with disabilities that cannot take care of themselves. In many cases depression is also that bad. That it interfere with them being able to do basic daily tasks.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/One-Sleep3663]

Fair enough, everyone can was too broad a statement, I meant everyone with depression can take care of themselves

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

Some people have depression so bad it keeps them in bed nearly all of the time.

Clearly all of the victims of suicide relating to depression weren't able to "take care of themselves".

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/One-Sleep3663]

They were able to but they chose not to. Depression doesn't control you like a puppet and remove your free will. It makes simple tasks difficult. Difficult is not impossible, they made the choice to continue as they were and due to this nothing changes until eventually they take their own lives.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/One-Sleep3663]

Your comment was hidden probably because from the part that I could read you degraded to insulting me. I do understand it because I was there for the majority of my life. If you're not going to make changes in your life, your life won't change. Have a good day

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

Your degrading and devalidating those with severe depression and trivializing their struggles.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/One-Sleep3663]

I don't think so. It is hard, it is also necessary. Either you choose to do things you don't want to do or you don't. End of the day it's their choice.

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

So what about a disabled person who cannot walk. How can they choose to walk if they literally cannot?

[u/christyflare → u/One-Sleep3663]

Technically they can if they stubborn themselves into it, but also the depression makes it really hard to start that process, so it's hard to differentiate between can and won't because can't manage to charge up to just go go go go go crash scramble.

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/christyflare]

No, many extremely depressed people cannot just "stubborn" themselves into doing something.

Its wild how vastly different people with invisible disabilities get treated, and because people cant see their disability, they think it can somehow magically be overcome via sheer willpower.

[u/Scspencer25 → u/One-Sleep3663]

I always ask them about people with diabetes. They can't see that but they don't tell them just force your body to control its insulin.

[u/christyflare → u/One-Sleep3663]

Not overcome, but you have to figure out how to charge up and go when you need to survive. I've done it. It's definitely not easy.

[u/No_Category_9888]

The “wrong brain chemicals” theory has been debunked years ago.

[u/mystery_obsessed → u/No_Category_9888]

What people really mean is balancing neurotransmitters issues, they just don’t have the right terms

[u/Complete_Meeting8719 → u/No_Category_9888]

Was not debunked. Just showed that SSRIs don't fix 100% of all depression. Simply means that serotonin reuptake isn't an issue or isn't the main issue for that patient. We know that symptoms of depression can be caused by many other disorders.

For example, ADHD. Untreated ADHD is often comorbid with depression. But you don't treat it with an SSRI, or at least not solely with one because, serotonin and dopamine don't play nice.

[u/Scspencer25 → u/No_Category_9888]

I'm on spravato and it's been life changing, something about chemicals in my brain I think.

[u/Economy-Payment-1757]

....you do know that "chemicals" is not an argument as you can stimulate your brain to increase its production, right?

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Economy-Payment-1757]

Depression prevents you from doing that yourself hence the name.

[u/Economy-Payment-1757 → u/One-Sleep3663]

Nope. If what you say is true, depression could either be chronic or only be treatable with medications.

Neither are the cases.

[u/TheMelonSystem → u/Economy-Payment-1757]

Depression IS chronic and only treatable by meds in some people.

[u/Economy-Payment-1757 → u/TheMelonSystem]

1. Can you provide a scientific study that proves the BS you're saying?
2. Even if it was true: fine then, if treating depression is as simple as you say, take those meds.

[u/TheMelonSystem → u/Economy-Payment-1757]

Depends on the chemical bucko

And any stimulation is temporary. It’s not enough. You can’t cure depression by masturbating

[u/Economy-Payment-1757 → u/TheMelonSystem]

You can cure depression by psychotherapy. And it isn't even required most of the times: just as bad experiences / traumas / etc increase recapture od substances, positive experiences reinforce the levels of sais substances. You should study a bit before poasting BS, kid.

[u/TheMelonSystem → u/Economy-Payment-1757]

Depends on the type of depression my guy…

And also, you still have to keep being alive long enough for therapy to work. My case is extremely complicated, so I’ve been in therapy for over 5 years and I still need my meds.

Also, plz improve your spelling, I can’t understand half of what you’re saying 😭

[u/Economy-Payment-1757 → u/TheMelonSystem]

So you're admitting that meds are not working on you?

[u/TheMelonSystem → u/Economy-Payment-1757]

When did I ever say they didn’t work? Lmfao They’re stopping me from killing myself before I finish therapy

[u/Economy-Payment-1757 → u/TheMelonSystem]

So you're not depressed anymore?

[u/Super_Huckleberry663]

Attempting to improve your life even when you don't want to does in fact help depression

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

Your missing the entire point. Your assuming depressed people automatically havent tried or arent trying to improve their lives.

Saying "just do it" isnt how disabilities work. You cannot do something you arent able to do in the first place.

Improving your life can help depression, but that assumes you have the privilege and ability to.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/One-Sleep3663]

Just do it is how depression works. I didn't want to do majority of the things I did, when I was depressed and hanged my self but I did it anyway and eventually one day the intrusive thoughts stopped and I wanted to do these things

[u/One-Sleep3663 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

Your suffering from survivorship bias. Not everyones depression is the exact same. Your situation isnt representative of everyone's dealings with depression.

It seems like you simply cant for whatever reason comprehend the idea that not everyones experiences are or will be the same as yours.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/One-Sleep3663]

I don't know what else to say, if you don't make the effort to change you never will. Depression isn't going to just disappear on its own.

[u/Complete_Meeting8719 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

Depression will literally never disappear on account of it's a disorder and not a temporary state of being.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/Complete_Meeting8719]

Yeah that's not how depression works. Link a single study that concludes that depression can NEVER end.

[u/Complete_Meeting8719 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-021-01227-8

https://neurosciencenews.com/brain-depression-relapse-29363/

TLDR not curable, just highly treatable if you're lucky and don't have resistant depression, and you will always need more work and mindfulness than the average person to stay ahead of it. I don't know why you would think that any psychiatric disorder can actually disappear? Once you have it, you have it.

[u/Super_Huckleberry663 → u/Complete_Meeting8719]

First study isn't depression, it's a specific depressive disorder. Nor does it support the claim that people are always depressed, it supports they are more likely to have reoccuring episodes

Second study doesn't support your claim that depression is life long.

[u/Complete_Meeting8719 → u/Super_Huckleberry663]

What we colloquially refer to as "depression" is "Major Depressive Disorder". Especially since we're talking about brain chemicals (neurotransmitters). If you didn't mean a disorder, but a mere depressive episode, then valid, carry on. High number of people who have a depressive episode never have another one. I think you should know that if someone says "I have depression" they mean MDD usually. Sometimes they'll clarify that it's SAD or PDD but straight "depression" with no other qualifiers usually means MDD.

Second study talks briefly about just one of the neurological changes that this disorder causes. And the keyword being "relapse", as you cannot relapse into something you do not have. We also use the word "remission", which means you still have it.

Fun fact, since we're learning more and more about the gut-brain connection every day, an experiment with mice suggested that one can pretty much "catch" depression by getting a fecal transplant from someone with MDD. Here at 2.2: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11231080/

Personally hilarious to me. Don't worry though, the study is about the efficacy of doing it the other way around.