Why I Light a Candle in the Darkness

>> Regarding medicating mental illness I would say it has its uses. <<

Medicating mental illness sometimes helps. Medicating mental injury helps less often, and sometimes makes matters worse. From what I've heard of modern mind science, not enough distinction is drawn between the two.

>>There's nothing that has me grinding my teeth in rage more than people saying "oh anti-depressants are just a crutch, you don't really need them, you need a bit of bracing fresh air and to talk to someone." However I do believe that throwing pills at the problem doesn't necessarily fix it either, as you've said. A judicious combination of the two can work wonders.<<

First, you have to identify whether the complaint is a problem requiring treatment or a natural response to life hitting the rocks. If someone feels depressed and their life is okay, that's likely to be a biochemical imbalance that needs chemical repair. If someone has recently lost a relative, or a job, or a home, or some other calamity -- of course they're going to feel horrible for a while. Wait a few weeks or months and see what happens; normally, they'll start to bounce back. (Close deaths take a about year to recover from, sometimes longer.) Only intervene sooner if 1) suicidal or other destructive tendencies appear, 2) the person wants someone to talk out issues with, and/or 3) other serious dysfunctions interfere with everyday life.

The kind of mental imbalance to worry about is not the kind that comes and goes based on life challenges -- but rather the kind that comes for no discernible reason, is all out of proportion to stimulus, and/or does not fade after the amount of time beyond which someone would ordinarily recover.

If you don't know the cause of the problem, your chances of fixing it are greatly reduced: Pills won't fix it if you've damaged your link to the divine; you need a priest/ess for that. Praying won't fix it if your upbringing gave you destructive mental processes; you need a shrink for that. Talking won't fix it if your biochemistry is off-kilter; you need pills for that. And if the problem has a combination of sources, which is not rare, then you need a combined approach. Given that the people who dispense pills, prayers, and talk therapy often aren't in touch with each other and don't check for anything beyond their own area of expertise, a lot of problems get misdiagnosed and mistreated. That's bad.

>>I'm wary to be too enthusiastic about hard times, because people are really suffering right now and the last thing I want to do is come out with trite little platitudes like that, but I do feel that here, anyway, things are mellowing a bit. I truly hope so.<<

Never underestimate inertia. As long as people can keep going in the same direction, most will. Only when they can no longer scrape by will they start looking for totally different options. The recession has forced people over the edge from "scraping by" to "not making it" so large numbers of them are realizing that systems are broken and need immediate repair or replacement.

They're not the same thing, but they're related negative emotions, often triggered by the same circumstances. One of the more dangerous kinds of chronic depression is the spiral-of-doom kind where any significant life setback tends to trigger a plummet from which the person does not recover normally. In between those times, they're okay; but when they're hit, they can't get up on their own. What starts as grief or disappointment or regret quickly grows into depression, and bystanders tend to be not very sympathetic about that. I've known several folks like this; it's a nasty handicap.

Indeed.

Not long ago, I read an article about a study which found that involuntary job loss creates a substantial permanent reduction in people's community involvement. They were less likely to join churches or clubs, to volunteer, to donate to charities, etc.