MacRaven - Dave Haxton's Weblog

Mon, 02 Jan 2006

Something stuck me yesterday while I was watching football that is certainly relevant here.

Are you a little depressed following the hustle and bustle of the holidays? Used to be considered fairly normal, now you've got SAD. Feel a bit queasy after that pepperoni pizza and six taco's? Used to be called heartburn, but today it's GERD, and you're a candidate for a purple pill. Twenty years ago if you were a guy who worked 80 hours a week in a high stress job and didn't feel like making whoopee with the sweetie it was called "overwork", but today, it's "erectile dysfunction", and you have a choice of pills that'll give you continuous woody from Friday night to Monday morning.

And I won't even get into Prozac, Paxil and the other "happy pills", for when you're just feeling out of sorts with no particular cause or reason.

Is this progress?

Laudator Temporis Acti recently mentioned an ancient Roman festival in honor of the goddess Angeronia:

On the twelfth day before the Kalends of January there is a rest day in honor of the goddess Angeronia, to whom the pontiffs offer sacrifice in the temple of Volupia. According to Verrius Flaccus, this goddess is called Angeronia because, duly propitiated, she banishes anxiety (angores) and mental distress. Masurius adds that an image of this goddess, with the mouth bound up and sealed, is placed on the altar of Volupia, because all who conceal their pain and care find, thanks to their endurance, great joy (voluptas) at last.

Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.7-8 (tr. Percival Vaughan Davies)

Boy oh boy, have traditions like this ever gone the way of the dodo! Forget the "stiff upper lip": it seems that unless our lips are flapping we must be hiding something, and consequentially sick, mentally or physically! This seems to be a peculiar failure of Modern Times, especially in the West. We are incapable of ceasing our nearly continual whining - and we have a pill to go with each whine. Anything resembling stoicism is now considered as "repression", and unless we let it all hang out, preferably on national TV, we're just not healthy.

And in this sense, I think the pill pushers are right on: we've never been sicker, and they're the main symptom.

Scientists are working on a method to enable doctors to identify disease even before symptoms appear.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

/Home | 5 writebacks | permanent link

On 1/2/2006 13:26:44
Kathryn wrote

As one who experienced chronic depression for a couple decades and who then studied it academically, I'd like to assert that there is such a thing as seasonal affective disorder, and it isn't related to post-holiday letdown. Some people are exquisitely sensitive to light and the winter months (especially in extreme northern climes) are difficult. I think the best treatment for SAD is light therapy (exposure to an intense light source for a period of time daily), not medication. I resisted taking medication for my depression for years because I held the believe that I wasn't "sick enough" to merit medication. Once I did begin taking drugs, the change was remarkable. My life changed for the better in a dramatic way and it has remained so. I feel I can credit the medication for the improvement since I lived with major depression for so many years and tried therapy (which helped but not as tangibly) and exercise and diet and all sorts of things. The depressive episodes just worsened. There is research indicating that depression has a physical basis and, left untreated, results in deterioration of one's body. A book published last year provides a review of that research: Against Depression, by Peter Kramer. What bothers me about the opinion you hold is that you imply that taking a medication, particularly if for a mental problem, is shameful and a failure of will. I lived and labored under this viewpoint for so many years, and it kept me from asking for and receiving treatment much sooner. By the way, the medication I'm prescribed is Prozac and Wellbutrin. I have attempted to "go off" the medication and found that my symptoms worsen; that is, the depression returns. This has further confirmed for me that there is a physical basis for my illness that drugs do treat, just as medication treats high blood pressure, cholesterol problems, diabetes, and glaucoma.

On 1/2/2006 13:54:22
Dave H wrote

Misunderstood

Hi Kathryn: Well, I'm still not sure about SAD, but let's leave that for later ... nonetheless, you raise some interesting points that I feel were not clarified properly in my original post. I was implying no "shame" on anyone here: what I was saying is that it's a cultural "in thing" to be depressed/impotent/SAD/etc. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that sometimes the shame runs the other way: why aren't you taking something if you're sad? What's wrong with you??? You should be happy and ebullient all the time, doncha know! Nor am I saying there's no such thing as clinical depression, or even impotence. Of course there are, and for those suffering them they are exquisitely troubling and debilitating ailments. What I am saying is that too often these diagnosis' are made as a matter of course: not feeling well? Take a pill! It is common nowadays for these treatments to be prescribed not by psychiatrists or even suggest by qualified therapists, but by the family MD, often as a result of patient inquiries from TV advertising. A lot of the folks I personally know who are on these types of meds have never sought therapy or even counseling - the solution is automatically in the pill. No doubt in some cases there is a physical basis for some depressions - but certainly not in all cases. Treating simply sadness with heavy duty psychoactive drugs will only mask the real problem, allowing it to fester and grow, and causing a needless dependence on drugs. This also has the net effect of cheapening the real cases of acute clinical depression that are out there, and lumping them together with cases whose treatment should be simple "Shut up and get over it!". This can lead to social shame, no doubt, as more and more obvious cases of normal human emotions are treated like diseases. Frankly, in these cases, such social shaming may be the only thing that will rescue us from a drug induced oblivion ... Worse, I've had friends who succumbed to the idea that happiness was somehow a birthright that should be handed to them in a pill bottle, and when it didn't quite work the way they were told it should, they offed themselves. So, all in all, I'll stand by my proffered opinions in the original post with this caveat: of course there are real cases that require the real intervention of a real medical doctor and/or therapist. And we shouldn't seek to deny those suffering from them the help they need by simply pushing pills on everybody who's had a bad hair day. Be well, Dave H.

On 1/2/2006 23:26:55
Steven wrote

I couldn't agree more with your take. I've recently been arguing the same points on various forums. Here's a link to a great article published in the LA Times about "Psychiatry's Sick Compulsion": <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-psych1jan01,0,5416877.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions">link</a>.

On 1/3/2006 07:36:24
Arwin wrote

The trend is deeply ingrained.

Dave is absolutely right here. Why anyone with a little technical savy can create or post to a blog nowadays. These blogs contain all sorts of whining and complaining for physical, mental, social or political conditions.

On 1/3/2006 07:44:58
Dave H wrote

Blog Whining...

True, true- but but here at MacRaven, being a dairy kinda guy, I serve cheese with the whine! Be well, Dave H.

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