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horsefacts
@horsefacts.eth
This was very good. It rings true to my own experience with depression. Summary: 1) There is a lot of overlap in the symptoms of mental disorders that we label distinct: depression, ADHD, OCD, anxiety, bipolar, etc. Mental disorders are often comorbid with each other (if you have one you are more likely to have others). And drugs meant for one disorder often work on others. For example, antidepressants are often prescribed for anxiety, bipolar, and schizophrenia, not just depression. DSM haters know this one: psychiatry applies the medical gaze to taxonomize symptoms into “illnesses,” even though the symptoms are complex phenomena of mind not body, and the underlying physical illness is often not observable or understood. I was reminded here of Thomas Szasz, who famously said mental illness is a “myth” without an explanation of physical disease. Well, what if there *is* a coherent physical explanation?
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horsefacts
@horsefacts.eth
2) Mental disorders are comorbid with metabolic dysfunction. If you have heart disease or diabetes, you’re likely to get depressed. If you’re depressed you might get heart disease or diabetes. Who cares about the direction of causality here!? Both are bad! “Metabolic syndrome” has become a good explanation for obesity, diabetes, and CVD. We should take its associations with mental symptoms seriously, too.

 3) If we frame mental disorders as metabolic dysfunction of the brain, there are pretty good explanations for why existing treatments work via metabolic pathways. And things that improve metabolic health (exercise, diet, sleep, avoiding drugs, reducing stress) all probably improve mental health. Almost banal, but true!
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@lovejoy
i am no scientist, but 3 is mostly what i like to believe in, and it works
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@horsefacts.eth
Yeah, and it sucks! You're telling me I have to exercise every day for the rest of my life instead of just taking a pill?!
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@lovejoy
😆 but also yeah, antidepressant pills became very popular here about 3-4 years ago along with mental disorders having a romantic vibe to it, and ppl still like to get attention to themselves this way — “see, i have this condition, so i really can't change or do anything about it” (but feel and function totally fine when find it comfortable). tbh pisses me off, i'm very reluctant to my own life but getting an excuse like this is.. meh. i know it's really easy to get to the doctor and get a paper saying you have a depression or sth having a real clinical condition and trying to get out of it is a totally different thing.
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@lovejoy
and “depression” in common mind it's often about encountering those questions that have no answers to them - the “meaning of life” or just starting to think how your mind works.. at some point i found a very smart friend of mine going crazy and depressed, trying to find the cause in illnesses, he'd visit a lot of different doctors.. we had a LOT of conversations, and then he'd say — “we talked about this stuff, and i thought that i was the first person on the planet feeling those things, but turns out kierkegaard wrote about them 100 years ago” 😝
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borst
@borst.eth
crazy
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