Are depression, ADHD, bipolar, etc., real?

ClaySoul
Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:10:39 +0000

there is a difference between situational depression and clinical depression. situational depression is triggered by an event, and will usually go away in a short period of time. it can trigger the same chemical inbalances that occur in clinical depression and anti depressants can be of help. However, because it is situational, and not organic, you will be able to recover in a much different time frame.

clinical depression, bipolar, ADD, are organic chemical imbalances whose underlying cause (as in why it happens) is not fully understood. what we do know is that there are specific neurotransmitters – dopamine, saratonin, etc, and brain functioning, such as executive functioning, that do not function properly. there is a marked difference between the brain of a clinically depressed person and a “normal person”

yes, your body can create saratonin, etc in some cases. exercise. sex. regular sleep. This leads many to wrongly believe that depression can be “cured” on its own. But the problem is that it’s not always a simple lack of saratonin that’s the problem. That’s why we have SSRI’s – saratonin uptake inhibitors. In other words, the real problem is that the brain is sucking up the saratonin before it can be be properly used, and the pills block this process. It doesn’t matter how much saratonin is in your brain if you can’t use it. But it’s even more complicated still. Some depressed people respond better to atypical SSRI’s or tryciclics because the mechanics of what is causing their depression is different. Bipolar and Bipolar II people are a whole nother complicated story. And same with ADD. Schizophrenia. Narcolepsy. Schizo-effective disorder. Anxiety Disorder. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. You name it. They are real.

The fact that there is a division, definition wise, between “mental” illness and “physical” illness is a huge poverty. It leads to the stigmatizing and marginalizing of thousands of mentally ill people. Mental illness is physical illness. Simply because that illness manifests itself in the brain makes it no less valid. The brain is an organ like any other.