Re: What a predicament!

Subject: Re: What a predicament!
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 15:52:56 -0800

Kevin Christy wrote:

Also, I am depressed right now, after months of unemployment and financial
hardship. To fight it, I have to count my blessings, stay focused on what's
important, and work through it.


Much of this discussion is probably due the fact that "depression" is used in at least two different ways.
First, there's clinical depression, which Tom Murrell distinguishes by capitalizing. In some cases, clincial depression may be due to a chemical balance,as John Posada says, but not always. Like any psychological condition, there's a thorough and detailed check list for its diagnois. Often associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, clinical depression is a condition that seriously affect a person's ability to work, or even to cope. It's not something that can be worked through.

Then there's depression in the ordinary sense of having low spirits or possible anxiety. While not pleasant, ordinary depression is far away from the clinical kind. It doesn't have a check list of symptoms, because it's used in a casual sort of way. It may drag a person down, but doesn't stop them from functioning. In many cases, a person can snap out of it by making an extra effort.

Nobody who has ever experienced or seen clinical depression will ever mistake it for ordinary depression. It's like the difference between a blast furnace and a lit candle.

Then, just to make matters more complicated, Dpressions and PTSD is a trendy diagnosis these days, the way that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was a few years ago. Sometimes, it seems that anyone who's having a bad day goes around claiming to be suffering these conditions. Many of them are just ordinarily depressed, but that doesn't mean that some people aren't genuinely diagnosed with the clinical conditions.

The fact that Anonymous is on leave suggests that he or she was diagnosed as having clinical depression somewhere along the line (on the other hand, a month's leave isn't much, so maybe not - it's hard to be sure). If so, then Anonymous isn't going to be able to pull out of it.

Strangely, however, getting away from the job may not be the best solution. Unless Anonymous has another job to go to, the anxiety of unemployment could contribute to the condition. Moreover, somebody who's clinically depressed may be better off having a routine, even a hated one. Becoming unemployed could make Anonymous less functional, since it usually means having less of a routine.

By contrast, if Anonymous simply has everyday depression, then getting away from the source of it may be all that's needed.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177

"For they marry and go, as the world rolls back,
They marry and vanish and die
But their spirit shall live on the outside track
As long as they years go by."
-Henry Lawson, "The Outside Track"




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RE: What a predicament!: From: Kevin Christy

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