Depression Is a Cultural Meme — Not An Illness

The page of the American Psychiatric Association defines depression as:

Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.

The key word in this sentence is "negatively". In other words feeling "positively" is healthy!? This perception is not only unscientific but also goes contra with the basic tenets of human existence. Life sucks. Everything you see around you has to eat another thing in order to survive. Every single chirp you hear from a bird aims to trick a mate in order for it to get laid. Trying to find the positive in life is like asking someone be happy for losing a leg because now they are 20 pounds lighter. yey diet right? The entirety of existence is based on deception.

Feeling sad or losing interest in activities is also perfectly normal. In fact, given enough time on planet earth (let's call this value "n") you are bound mathematically to lose interest on every single thing that exists. The reason is simple. Once we become familiar with an activity (whether that is a video game, a craft or anything else in between) we become bored. Humans have brains that are designed to make them seek more and more. Unless you have some kind of memory wipe once in a while, you are bound to get bored and withdrawn from whatever you are doing. This is also why the feeble minds are always happier. They can get stuck on autopilot and be rather comfy for being simpletons. This is the same reason children are generally most naive and joly.

This brings us to the next chapter. We sometimes witness some people that are masters in what they do. They keep doing what they are doing non-stop becoming better and better at their craft. These people are rare and one might easily say that nature has gifted them with an obsessive ritualistic behaviour — much like the the behaviours some animals repeat over and over again becoming more and more efficient at it (check your cat for reference). We call these "fixed action patterns" . Again, this is not something to feel awe about but rather something that can produce results in the forms of expertise. This "function" is appreciated socially in our species for obvious reasons. The other thing it can do is numb the mind enough in order to keep you away from feeling sad over long periods of time. This is also why we see many scientists and masters being withdrawn from the praises of society. Their vice (or rather internal drug) is based on this repetition rather than social approval.

The American Psychiatric Association page also lists some symptoms of depression. Let't tear those another asshole as well:

"Feeling sad or having a depressed mood"

Who is the authority to say when sadness becomes an "illness"? But ofcourse the authority of social engineering with absolutely no scientific basis other than analysing DESIRED behaviours over a standard bell curve — Psychology. Whoever bitches and moans for being sad long enough qualifies as "depressed". Pop-pills and acquire a friend on pay-roll so you can "feel good" about yourself. Psychology is not only the substitute for religion. It also invents disorders much like a business invents problems to offer solutions.

"Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed"

See above

"Changes in appetite — weight loss or gain unrelated to dieting"

Food is a pleasure substance much like everything else. It can fit literally at any occasion whether you are sad or happy. You get the munchies after sex, at the movies or when you lost something and you are substituting that loss with other stimuli. That might be drugs, sex, food or anything else in between. In other words, we all fill the holes somehow when we lose something.

"Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much"

See above

"Loss of energy or increased fatigue"

More like "loss of interest".

"Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., hand-wringing or pacing) or slowed movements and speech (actions observable by others)"

Since you are being useless, the body fills the gaps with extra moves. Kids do the same when they are bored sitting on a chair, rocking their feet because mom told them to sit tight. Best case scenario, this "pacing" is rather the feeling of being bossed from life itself, surrendering. Instead of fighting and acting freely, you puss out and play with yourself. Literally.

"Feeling worthless or guilty"

Bingo — And this is the main point. The depressed person feels sad because they pretty much suck at something (or many things). Someone is doing it better than them. Usually depressed people are those who extensively compare themselves to others. They are highly insecure individuals. Remember. In our time and age most people are other people. Many people feel depressed because they have become a bad copy of someone else (or at best) they dedicated their lives on social memes that others have created for them. They are always trailing as parrots or bad copies. Then, when they do finally find themselves thinking about the "original" from which they copied from — then suddenly the mirror in their room becomes all too real.

"Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions"

When you find yourself being sad because you basically lost your copy-pasta character you cannot think for yourself. Your identity is literally borrowing from somewhere else. You cannot concentrate or make decisions because all your actions have been dependent or deriving not from within you but as proxy to an external stimuli. Your body strives to reset you back to reality and is saying to you "Stop being a copy of someone else. Utilize your genetic variation in order to shine. Stop copying and measuring yourself to others. Stop being a pathetic douchebag. You can't even stand being you".

"Thoughts of death or suicide"

And of course once you do realize that everything is pointless because you lost way too many times at the game of life you are taking out yourself from the equation. Nature effectively renders you obsolete in order for more suitable genes to take place. Evolution has crafted many mechanisms for propagating the fittest and most adaptable. Suicide is just another way.

For the sake of the argument, let's assume that some individuals do indeed go through some fucked up shit and become depressed. In fact, if we are rational on the subject, we will soon realize that every single human that lived just 100.000 years ago went through some serious "fucked up depressive shit", that they inherited generation after generation after generation. Considering the harhness and brutalities of daily life, we should all be highly dysfunctional thousands years ago. Yet, most of us seem to pull through even if they are "sad for an extended period of time". (aka depressed). Again, the argument of "depression" doesn't hold. When you live in an era where people get their hands chopped off regularly you do not get depressed for losing your hand.

Depression is not an illness. Depression is a meme word invented by a school of thought called "Psychology". There are no tests that prove you are depressed. There are no exams you can take. You can easily fake the behavior or worse, BELIEVE you are depressed and your plastic brain will even start producing patterns that resemble other "depressed" people. Viva la pseudo-science.

More and more people today are appearing as "depressed" because they hear about it. Most of them are grown- up children who deny to grow up and accept and harshness of life. I speak with such raw words because I have been through some pretty fucked up shit and I did feel sad for losing parts of my life. After that though I did not put the burden on society to clean up after me. I didn't have to "come out" like a "closet X" and become at attention whore for feelings.

People are going to judge you whether you are gay, depressed, bold, short or handicapped. Finding other desperate like you and forming self-help groupie thingies are not going to help you get through life. They are most likely going to make you more dysfunctional and attract you to people that believe your meme whether that is "depression" or the belief that "pumpkin" is a gender pronoun. At best you can utilize this meme politically and become a burden to everyone else because you feel like a fucking unique snowflake. Remember. Truth exists based on democracy. Convince enough people and anything goes.

This is how "depression" came to be a thing —when in fact— the old-timers had it right. When they realised that grief could not go for long they forced you to man up, suck it up and move on. Today instead of reinforcing to conquer the reality of life we succumb to it and desire others to hold our hand and sing kumbaya. We are hasty to label anything that we do not like a "trauma" and seek a "medicine" for it.

As for the "it is treatable" part, this does not imply that someone can treat it. When a dog can be a better "psychologist" for treating depression you can kiss your "science" part goodbye. When a theory cannot be falsified you can kiss the "science" part goodbye. And when science is out of the window what you have left is silly people believing made up things. Like I said above. A religion. Something to cope with the hardness of life.

If Depression was indeed an illness that affect the human body then we would see it across all civilisations, across history. We would observe it in the same patterns in non-western cultures such as in the tribes of Western Africa, Amazon, or the Northern Territory of Australia. But we don't. Depression Is a Disease of Civilization not of the human physiology. In much the same way, being possessed from the devil was a social meme back in the day when religion was culturally popular. Based on population one could easily categorize being possessed as an illness. As far as the "science" goes in regards to detecting and curing depression and the nature of being possessed, the methodology is identical. What changes is the narrative.

Would you take a medicine against cholesterol that has the chance to increase your cholesterol? When antidepressants kill hundreds of thousands of people every year and their side effects include "suicide behaviour" and "depression", sorry but you are being a moron for taking them. It sucks being sad. Suck it up and move on. A therapist brainwashing your into being a happily deluded autobot is not a solution. You are better off killing yourself. There is nothing wrong with suicide.