Depression. Life Pain Relief - No Prescription

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

It will be about depression, the masks under which it hides, and people's attempts to cope with it.

Few numbers.

By 2020, WHO predicts that depression will become the most common disease in the world, overtaking cardiovascular diseases, cancer and tuberculosis.

Over the past 20 years, depression has become younger, and we have to talk about childhood depression, starting at the age of five.

40% of patients seeking medical treatment for a somatic illness come with somatized depression.

I will make a reservation right away that the scope of the medical approach to solving psychological problems is too narrow. Doctors can only offer their time, attention, and symptomatic treatment that does not eliminate the cause. A tactful hint that psychotherapy can help you is often perceived as an insult and a desire to get rid of.

Why can depression act like a bodily illness?

Depression is accompanied by violations of biochemical processes that hit three fronts at once - the limbic system, the thalamus and the hypothalamus. And on which front the fighting is most pronounced, the complaints and where the person will go for help depend.

1. Psychological and emotional front. The most recognizable and artistically described. Bad mood, melancholy, apathy, a feeling of worthlessness, the futility of all attempts to change something, the idea of guilt or sinfulness, the future is drawn in dark colors, suicidal intentions may be present. Relatives and friends may notice such changes in a person's mood and behavior, however, due to apathy and decreased mental activity, rarely anyone turns to a psychotherapist or psychiatrist for help. There is no desire, no strength.
2. Somatic front. The most active, numerous and denying psychological help. Against the background of depression, the disease develops. The search for the right doctors and the treatment of the disease become the goal, and the polyclinic becomes the place of deployment. Not finding the appropriate treatment and support in a medical facility, but it cannot be there, because treatment of a psychological problem by relieving symptoms is a dead-end path, patients turn to "alternative medicine" for help, go to oriental practices. Insomnia, VSD, increased anxiety, cardiovascular diseases, organic disorders in the work of internal organs, the endocrine system and the musculoskeletal system - depression can be hidden under these masks.
3. Pain syndromes without identified violations in the work of internal organs. Often in the chest, heart, and abdomen. These patients hear from a doctor: cardiologist, gastroenterologist, neurologist that “no pathology has been identified. You are not my patient”and after that, they go for help to“alternative medicine”, to magicians, sorcerers, shamans and cosmoenergetics.

Why is depression now epidemic? Why, having escaped from the era of infectious diseases and violent deaths, have we entered the era of illness and death associated with consumerism and personal choice?

At the heart of depression is a mismatch between lifestyle and our natural program. The habitat of modern humans is very different from where and how our ancestors - hunter-gatherers lived, and where the genome was formed. And the stronger this gap, the more pronounced the "disease of civilization".

All too quickly, technological progress has reshaped our reality. Only 200 years have passed since the industrial revolution began, and genetic adaptations take time.

The same thing happens with animals. Once in an unnatural environment, they start to get sick, their behavior changes, they stop multiplying, and as a result, many die.

We were not designed for a sedentary indoor lifestyle, social isolation, activity outside daylight hours, lack of adequate sleep, fast and affordable food. This is confirmed by the fact that people in more traditional societies with a tribal structure are less susceptible to various psychological disorders. Where there is an emotional connection, family support and a lifestyle synchronized with natural biorhythms, there is less depression.

We, residents of big cities, have a natural mechanism Need - Action - Satisfaction / Dissatisfaction was shattered. Here and the needs are not so strong, and not their own, and the impulse to action can easily fade away, and the result often does not reach the "ideal". But the developed human brain has found the ability to deceive nature and get pleasure in an artificial way, or rather in two ways.

Satisfaction is based on the release of endorphins, which can be released by two different chains of biochemical reactions. One has serotonin and the other has norepinephrine, which is why the ways to cope with depression and get a state of contentment and euphoria are so dramatically different. Next, I will list both classic and newfangled attempts to cope with depression on their own. Markers of potential depression for mental health professionals.

The first is serotonin

Getting pleasure from eating, muscle relaxation and various stimulating substances. Gourmand, gluttony, alcohol festivals, "Sex, drugs and rock and roll" are also from here. The degree of severity, as you understand, can be very different. From completely innocent one-time actions to chronic diseases.

The second option is norepinephrine

And getting pleasure through excitement, risk, overcoming obstacles and pain. To the rather traditional ones: gambling, fights, dashing car driving, extreme types of varieties, there were added rigid branches of healthy lifestyles, dry fasting, colon hydrotherapy, phytoyashki, parkour, base jumping, hooking, risky selfies. A special place, perhaps, can be given to the culture of pain tolerance - hanging, scarring, sexual games with severe pain, deliberate refusal of pain relief during treatment. And in general, the topic of self-punishment in different ways. Only, if earlier it was chains and dry fasting, now there are unpleasant procedures for cleansing the body and climbing Everest without oxygen.

Ways to cope with life's difficulties are developing along with technology, however, in fact, they are indicators that internal resources are no longer enough and help is needed. Do you also need help because, as a result of such artificial stimulation, the biochemical processes in the brain irreversibly change? To get satisfaction, you have to press more and more on the "pedal" of pleasure.

And it is clear that there is no turning back. Trying to stop progress, not to enjoy the benefits of civilization, to resist changes, to return to nature is the same as acknowledging your own non-adaptability. Getting satisfaction out of life artificially is not an option either. The resource of the "pedal" is limited, and you yourself remember what happened to the rat, which had an electrode implanted in the pleasure center. Only death could stop her.

But there is an opportunity to use the mechanisms laid down in us by nature and adapt to the new reality with the least loss.

Unpleasant feelings, inevitable losses, difficult tasks, unanswered questions, search for meaning, farewell to illusions, disappointments, fear of uncertainty are an integral part of our existence and growing up. The time and energy that will be spent on escape from depression makes it impossible to process it and take a different look at yourself, at the world and your place in it. There is no magic land, magician-miracle worker, healing elixir. We'll have to face fear, grief, and what is so carefully hidden inside. And so we are arranged, that when we understand where and why we are going, that we need to be patient a little, but here to overcome, and there is a reliable shoulder nearby - it becomes easier.

Do not be afraid to turn to specialists for psychological support or help. An experienced guide is very much needed along this path.

There are many myths surrounding the work of psychotherapists and psychiatrists. Here is the conspiracy theory about the fictional problem of depression, and the greed of pharmacological companies, and the use of forbidden suggestions, and "once you go and that's it - you hit", and "I don't want a pill - I'll be like a vegetable", and "they'll be locked up in the hospital." However, when there is someone next to you who understands what is happening, helps you understand this and is ready to calmly be there and support - the path becomes easier.