Article re: treatment of depression

[pegkerr]

Happiness: Enough Already
The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.

I am trying to figure out why this article upsets me so much. I guess because several members of my family (including me) are on medication for mood disorders. I read this as insinuating that perhaps we are just a little too eager to forego a truly authentic life in exchange for a surcease of the pain of depression. Well, actually, the article is talking about the pain of sadness, which it seems to conflate with depression.

Am I over-reacting? Your reactions?

Comments

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I understand --and totally identify with-- the almost kneejerk reaction to the idea that there's something wrong with wanting to be happy. As someone who has dealt with depression and with depressed friends and family members, I tend to look at the examples they're always listing of famous people who did amazing things while being depressed, and I wonder what more they could have done if they'd been alive in a time they could have been treated, or maybe just how much better they could have felt. I mean, I wrote more when I was a little unhappy. But that doesn't mean I want to be less happy--if that's the trade off I have to make, then I think it's worth it. I think that there is a value in sadness BUT that this sadness is just occasional sadness--the sort that everyone across the books can have--a bad day at work, bad news, feeling under the weather, etc. Not depression.

One of the hardest things one of my medicated friends has had to deal with is the idea that it's okay--even as someone who's on anti-depressants--to feel sad. That it's okay, that it doesn't mean your meds need fixed, or that you'll never be happy again. And i remember when I moved to Boston, and came out of a serious bout of situational depression, that I had those scary scary days too, where I was sad and I had to convince myself that it was okay.

I think what the article is saying is just that people who don't need them, shouldn't be on antidepressants. What this 'backlash' seems to be is a) the idea that being sad is a bad thing and b) against the idea that taking pills solves the problems. Which is okay for chemical issues, such as my friend has, but may not be as much help for things like situational depression where the best help is changing the situation. The examples they're giving are things that you'd probably consider as 'natural' sadnesses--I think it's fine to be depressed and mope after a breakup. I think there is a line which can be crossed where said broken-up person would benefit from something to help them get better, but I don't disagree with the saddness, just with the magnitude of the sadness.