[Sran]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

Your post is insulting to anyone who has actually had this disease. You should think long and hard before sharing your opinions, since you are not a doctor or have ever suffered from this disease.

You are taking offence on the slightest of things without understanding what someone is trying to convey. Just because you suffered even while having loving family and friends doesn't mean its the norm. If you would have read my whole post which I doubt you didn't and the links in my post you would have gotten some sense of what I was saying. I haven't said nor insinuated that depression isn't a real problem or it is something not real.

I opined that in India people do take mental health seriously and unlike west people here do not have any issue associated with shame in divulging it. If there are less mental patients in India it is because society, family, dietary and genetic difference and that is the reason numbers of mental patients are low here. I also provided links. In west they also inflate or over diagnose due to money involved as has been the case, for eg: oxycontin issue, alzheimer.

My points and I quote

According to a new study published on 20th July,2022 (pdf: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0.pdf) suggests that depression is not likely caused by a chemical imbalance, and calls into question what antidepressant medications do. It claims that serotonin the most common and widely used antidepressant (commonly known as SSRI - Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) have nothing to do with depression and the treatments are of no use. The study refutes the "chemical imbalance theory".

We generally have a large pool of people to talk to which develops our minds in different ways. (just for reference- https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...istake/605536/)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2062493/ (Depression due to workplace stress)

https://academic.oup.com/gerontologi.../4/619/2631918

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7770142/ (Abundance of processed food correlates to depression, moreso among poor)

These are all things that are not much relevant to India. Poor people aren't eating processed food here.

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/sc...on-and-the-gut (our food is different than others) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...-inflammation/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/b...jor-depression

https://www.nature.com/articles/doi:...588-018-0090-3 (Genes may also play a role- maybe those genes are not found in abundance here)
https://www.irishcentral.com/news/tr...n-d-depression (We get plenty of Vit-D here)

Family:
https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/ge...l3nWredY8N7bL1

Loneliness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4225959/

Having friends help in mental health: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...20.570839/full

You are in your right to reject anything I wrote but I'll just say better conversational behaviour goes a long way.

Edit: I am out of this discussion because gatekeepers think that to have any meaningful debate one must have passed through the phase which is illogical. One can opine on anything without being in that position like we debate on movies without being in that fraternity, like we debate on economics without being one, we debate on politics without being politicians, we debate on povery without being one, etc.etc..

[mygodbole]

Friends, this conversation is getting a thoda bahut toxic.

I request (everyone can DISAGREE ):

Civility: Please, refrain from one-on-one dialogues (Good grief = dialogues, monologues, conversation; different strokes) on if one point of view differs from another point of view. I request, not so humbly, for all to adhere to Team-BHP guidelines. Thank you.

Can we state our opinion and refrain, specifically to responses to OUR opinion, from responding to specific instances? This is a friends forum, where we all try (Success/Failure ) to help.

Mental health is an 'individual' concern. Let us not make it a collective/generalisation.

I apologise if my thought process is wonky/off-on-a-tangent/idiotic. My char anna in this 'conversation'. Thank you for reading.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by androdev

It's easier to give 5mg of the drug so everyone can carry on with their lives instead of giving 2mg and spend all the time and effort in counselling and ensuring a better environment.

This is a good point and I think I can say something about this from personal experience. A few years ago, went through a period where I was feeling continuously down. Thought I'd go talk to a doctor about it, so made an appointment at a big hospital. Unfortunately, the doctor didn't even take five minutes to listen and I walked out of there in no time with a prescription for some antidepressants for the next 6 months. I didn't take them.

Now I'm not suggesting that people disregard doctor's advice, nor am I qualified to say what must be done in such cases, each case is bound to be different. But I think we should be aware of the tendency to just prescribe rather than treat the underlying condition.

[nickatnite]

More and more young people are suffering from mental problems, depression than were years ago. I'm thankful I'm not a young person growing up and trying to navigate all the anger, hate, selfishness, greed and depravity present in today's world. I'm thankful I didn't have cell phones and social media when I was a child. We played safely outside, used our imaginations, knew our neighbors and tried hard to be good citizens. People didn't hate one another based on politics or religion. It was a simpler time and a happier time.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by nickatnite

More and more young people are suffering from mental problems, depression than were years ago. I'm thankful I'm not a young person growing up and trying to navigate all the anger, hate, selfishness, greed and depravity present in today's world. I'm thankful I didn't have cell phones and social media when I was a child. We played safely outside, used our imaginations, knew our neighbors and tried hard to be good citizens. People didn't hate one another based on politics or religion. It was a simpler time and a happier time.

This utopia still exists in smaller villages across India and many parts of the world. But are we willing to make the sacrifice to make changes in our life?

[jsriram]

This post is from a spiritual viewpoint and those who do not believe in the spiritual path may skip it. As per our Indian Vedic scriptures and also scriptures across different religions, the first thing to know is that I am not this body but the spirit soul or Atma or Rooh (you may call it by any name). My body and all things associated with my body are perishable (family, friends, wealth, home, property, etc, etc).

The day I am born, the countdown timer for my death starts ticking. Everything which I am experiencing (including my own body) is changing at every moment and it will be destroyed or cease to exist eventually. And I, the soul, am trying to find happiness in this bodily identification and so my quest for happiness will be futile and end in defeat. The more I am engrossed in bodily identification the more I will feel depressed since no one has found nor anyone can find happiness in this world (bodily identification).

This is confirmed by the creator of this world (samsar) in the Bhagavad-Gita where Sri Krishna says that this world is dukhalayam (place of misery) and ashashvatam (not everlasting). Sometimes, the doctor may prescribe me a sedative to overcome my depression. Why? So, that atleast for a few hours I can forget my world which I have created for myself and in which I am helplessly trapped like my family, job, business, startup, new venture etc which are meant to provide me happiness. It is everybody's experience that one feels very refreshed and rejuvenated after a good night's sleep. Why? Because during that time the mind is kind of still and not conjuring so many different possibilities of so-called enjoyment.

During mediation also, we try to still our minds into not thinking or try to become an observer of our thoughts. The mind is constantly dwelling on sense objects to derive happiness but in the process becomes depressed. The mind is desiring and advising me that if I can get a very nice villa, then I can be happy. Then it may desire, if I get a very nice SUV/Mercedes/BMW then I will be happy. Suppose, it is fulfilled then it may desire that if I get a beautiful wife with whom I can go on long drives in my car then I will be happy. If this wish is also fulfilled, then I will desire that now if I have beautiful healthy, intelligent children then my family will be complete and I will be happy. Even after getting all this (which is very rare) still the mind will be unsatisfied/unhappy.

After a while, the children are grown up then my mind will try to derive pleasure by comparing my children's accomplishments against my peers' children like my son got admission into IIT, IIM, or that my child did MS/MBA from some top university in US/Europe. Then the mind will desire that children should get settled and get very beautiful and accomplished spouses. And when even this desire gets fulfilled then again the same desire which I had earlier for my own children gets transformed into desiring healthy, beautiful, intelligent grandchildren and ad-infinitum. And while working very hard towards fulfilling all these uncountable, infinite desires, the time for me to leave my body aka DEATH comes. And then with a heavy heart and with thousands of unfulfilled desires I am forced to give up my beautiful family, house, wealth, property, car which I so assiduously cultivated during my life. While we may explore many ways of overcoming depression like medical advise, counselling, support of family and friends, etc but all these are stopgap measures and will not help in tackling or correcting the root cause of depression. Only a spiritual approach can really satisfy my mind and lead me to a happy, peaceful life.

I am sorry if due to my writing style some may find the post condescending. I myself am learning the hard way through life's lesson and just wanted to share my perspective.

[tchsvy]

For One: Admit and accept that it’s happening. Awareness is everything. We put ourselves under so much pressure to feel good. It’s okay to feel bad. It might be something you’re good at! Communicate it. DO NOT KEEP IT SECRET. Own it. Like a hat or jacket. Your feelings are real.

Two: try to remind yourself, over and over, that feelings are real but they aren’t reality. Example: you can feel like life means nothing. True feeling. Important feeling. TRUE that you feel it, BUT...whether life has meaning? Not up to us. Facts and feelings: equal but different

The most important thing I can say to you is please don’t deal with it alone. There is an incredible, miraculous magic to pushing your feelings out. Even writing “I want to die” on a piece of paper and burning it will feel better than thinking about it alone. Output is magical

Dark thoughts will echo off the walls of your skull, they will distort and magnify. When you open your mouth (or an anonymous journal or blog or sketch pad), these thoughts go out. They’ll be back but you gotta get em OUT. Vent them. Tap them. I know you don’t want to but try it.

I found this on twitter and these suggestions helped me a great deal when I was feeling down. Just sharing this here.

[dragracer567]

Legendary cricket player Kapil Dev has said that words like ‘pressure’ and ‘depression’ are American words that ostensively shouldn’t affect Indians. This is in relation to pressure faced by players these days, especially with IPL.

"I had a passion to play. That was the difference. I would change the subject slightly. I hear a lot on TV these days. People say 'there's pressure, we play IPL, there's a lot of pressure'. I only say one thing, 'don't play'. What is this pressure? If you are passionate, there shouldn't be any pressure," he said in the program.

"These 'American words' have come, be it pressure or depression. I don't understand this. I am a farmer. That's where I have come from. We played for enjoyment and where there's enjoyment, there can't be pressure," he further said.

Needless to say, it is attitudes like these that has made India one of the countries with the worse mental health in the world!

[airguitar]

Why are celebrities opening up about depression in the last few years? Surely they are not trying to do the world a favour by laying bare their lowest moments? Is there more to this than meets the eye? Is there some economics around this for them? ( and I don't mean anything negative there - I have myself and so have some of my family members been through the D phase at various points - it's just that I don't trust celebrities that much and so this question )

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by airguitar

Why are celebrities opening up about depression in the last few years? Surely they are not trying to do the world a favour by laying bare their lowest moments? Is there more to this than meets the eye? Is there some economics around this for them? ( and I don't mean anything negative there - I have myself and so have some of my family members been through the D phase at various points - it's just that I don't trust celebrities that much and so this question )

I think it's become more acceptable in India to talk about mental health, especially in the upwardly mobile, English speaking classes. When I was much younger, depression was talked of as a figment of the imagination, or a 'Western' disease. Now we're acknowledging that it's real, which is a big step towards making improvements. This makes me wonder if China has had a similar trajectory.

[libranof1987]

This link contains a list of crowd-sourced mental health professionals (psychologists / psychiatrists) curated by iCALL (which is run by TISS). From what I understand, this list was created so that there is first hand experience, and also familiarity/comfort in discussing specific topics (LGBTQ for instance).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...zfilc/htmlview

[vedirah]

Originally Posted by am1m

But I think we should be aware of the tendency to just prescribe rather than treat the underlying condition.

What makes you think medicines aren't prescribed to treat the underlying condition? Just curious. I'm sure your doctor is more qualified than you are in these matters. However, the decision to heed to their advise is entirely upon you.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by vedirah

What makes you think medicines aren't prescribed to treat the underlying condition?

Well, because like I posted

Originally Posted by am1m

Unfortunately, the doctor didn't even take five minutes to listen and I walked out of there in no time with a prescription for some antidepressants for the next 6 months.

And I mean literally 5 minutes. I'm not a doctor, but wouldn't it take more than 5 minutes to diagnose an underlying condition, especially one that is not physical?

Happy to have this impression corrected by you or any other medically qualified person, if this is indeed a standard practice to treat depression.

Originally Posted by vedirah

I'm sure your doctor is more qualified than you are in these matters.

Oh absolutely. I'm not anti-medication at all, have a couple of docs in the family (not psychiatrists though).

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by am1m

And I mean literally 5 minutes. I'm not a doctor, but wouldn't it take more than 5 minutes to diagnose an underlying condition, especially one that is not physical?

You seem to have got a bad apple. Mine spent nearly an hour talking to me and walking me through some processes. I am happy to recommend their contact - possibly helpful since you are in BLR. Feel free to PM me if you want.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

Mine spent nearly an hour talking to me and walking me through some processes. I am happy to recommend their contact - possibly helpful since you are in BLR. Feel free to PM me if you want.

Hey, thanks so much. This was some time ago and I did reach out to another professional who, like you have described went through the understanding process which took some time before making any recommendations.

My post was just in response to an earlier post that also spoke about the possible tendency by some doctors to prescribe anti-depressants without going in too deep about possible causes of the issue, my experience seemed to support that.