I’m realizing things I and others chalked up to “laziness” or “lack of motivation” along with other traits I just thought were fundamental to me or bad habits are probably indicators of ADHD and am beginning the process for an assessment. I had some inaccurate ideas about the condition and never even considered it as a cause of some of my issues till I stumbled on a podcast where others were discussing their experiences dealing with it which fit me to a “T”.
I always wondered how much was nature, and how much was nurture.
So if you come from a screwball family, do you either succumb to your environment/surroundings (victim), or get ornery enough to just not let them win (victor)?
I have found that sunlight, or better put, the lack of sunlight in the higher latitudes in the winter season affects me. I had mild depression in winter back home at latitude 50° N. Extended periods of cloudy weather, constant grey cloudy skies, also affect me. Just one more reason I love where I now; 35° N. I cannot imagine living further north.
I do have family members with more serious mental illness running back through a couple generations. For those the right meds have helped.
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. There website is informative to help understand the issues.
Depression actually has a lot to do with not being able to discern the “real” from the “not real”. That isn’t judgmental. It’s the truth. To say that someone who suffers from mental illness “doesn’t know the difference between the ”land of make believe” and reality.” might not be a “nice” way of saying it, but it’s still true. The medication your friends are taking probably is made to deal with this exact fact, in a physical way. Telling the truth about a “condition” isn’t the same as “stigmatizing” someone.
There is a lot of mental illness in my family, on my mom’s side. I don’t know how far back, but my mom’s mom was mentally ill, all of her children (my mom and her siblings) were all mentally ill, probably a lot of it from the insane abuse they suffered, but also some of it genetically. My three sisters and brother have all been diagnosed with various mental illnesses. I’ve never been diagnosed with any mental illness, thank God. But I know there are times when I have episodes of probably some form of depression.
I’m a very meta thinking person. I think about what I’m thinking about. When I go through “hard” times mentally/emotionally, I have to tell myself it’s not real. That doesn’t change how I feel in the moment, but it makes a difference in how I actually deal with it when it happens. I can usually maintain control of myself when I feel completely out of control inside. I can make good decisions even though I feel like I don’t want to. But I have to “make” this happen. I have to “choose” to remember and believe the truth, because, in that moment, truth doesn’t exist for me. It’s only a memory. I’m not a doctor, but I can imagine that people who aren’t advanced metacognitive like me can actually become completely detached from reality by depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, etc.
The medicine I was taking was blocking serotonine reabsorption.
I’ve seen cases of people who strongly denied reality. Not the case with most I’ve seen though. That’s my truth.
And I’ve seen some strong reality denial in healthy people as well.
I’m not a doctor, so this will involve a great deal of speculation on my part. My belief is that nature is the foundation that nurture builds upon. Nature defines the basic shape of the individual physically, mentally, and emotionally. Siblings brought up in the same home under the same nurture, can turn out vastly differently from each other. Sometimes siblings will grow up in an abusive family, and one or more of them will become insanely successful in life, while the others become incapable of even functioning in society. The opposite can also happen. The home could have been “perfect” and children can still turn out to have problems. That’s why it’s often said that parenting isn’t and shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach. People screw up their own children sometimes by trying too hard to be fair. Each child should be parented separately.
I’ve seen in my own family how nature and nurture interact to produce various results in people who should be genetically similar, and are raised together under the same nurture standard. It makes sense if you think about the millions of decisions we make in our lifetimes, and realize that no decision is ever completely black-and-white. There’s always some gradient. Nature and nurture both influence where you’ll be on the gradient of each decision, sometimes working together to push you toward one end of the scale, other times working against each other, so it’s difficult to be decisive at all. It’s amazing how nuanced our minds really are. That explains why small chemical changes in our bodies can create huge mental health swings too. Not only that, but the environment we continue to live in can continue to influence our mental state pretty dramatically.
I guess if we’re going to talk about it much more, we should stop and define what it is we’re talking about. I think there’s a difference between conscious and unconscious “reality denial”. I also believe there’s a physical condition (or maybe more than one) which can result in the mind becoming incapable of even understanding that there is such a thing as real vs not real. We tend to think in absolute limits sometimes that don’t exist. For example, the electromagnetic spectrum includes both light and sound waves, but we usually think of sound and light as being two distinctly different things. What about radio waves? Those are on the same spectrum, but we think of them being completely distinct from sound and light. What I was talking about when I said people can’t discern the difference between “real” and “not real” is basically the opposite of this effect. Imagine seeing a “spectrum” where normal people see a distinction of “real” and “not real”. That’s what I was talking about. The other, more conscious “reality denial” is a choice people make, and I’ve also seen people that I thought of as otherwise “normal” in their mental faculty, and even “very smart” by worldly standards make that awful choice.
Everyone is different when it comes to causes. For me it’s just chemical imbalance. I’ve had life going amazing and everything I wanted then depression hits me out of nowhere. It comes completly without cause or reason for me and it’s only medication that helps.
[was addressing DaveEF’s comment from the previous page, fwiw]
Wellp, a friend of mine who was diagnosed as bipolar / manic-depressive told me once that “depression” isn’t just feeling sad all the time (as I misunderstood it to be), but more like forgetting most of the positive things that happened to you, and remembering (if not dwelling on) the negative things instead.
So you might not remember the gorgeous chickie in the sausage-casing microdress waiting to cross the street at the light, but instead how long it took you to get home because of all the traffic.
That in itself is skewing reality, just/only seeing the glass-half-empty aspects of even a routine trip home from work.
Kinda like the nightly news. No one wants to hear about all the planes that didn’t crash that day, or all the houses that didn’t burn to the ground, or all the people who were not stabbed, shot, run-over, hit by meteors, and so on. So just watching the news can give you that depressing outlook of the world. Being depressed, or in the depressive phase of bipolar, is kinda like that, only 24/7 (at least as it was explained to me; someone correct me with a clinical definition if so inclined).
Years ago I purchased a 4000k 50W led work light. Sometimes in the depths of Winter around here where one does not see the sun months on end more or less, I turn it on and light up our whole living room. I love it, my wife loves it and it works when we need it. We don't use it often, but when the dreary weathers keeps hanging around for too long, the light really lifts our spirits in a big way.
I think it can be either. Or both.
Some people survive a tragic childhood and become a well adjusted adult. Others carry much baggage with them, in different sizes, shapes, and weights.
My father had a lousy upbringing and a totally neurotic family. He turned out quite alright. But he had his phases and we lost touch for some years before getting back in touch again. Sadly, I’ve had some struggles with his predilection to believing in conspiracy theories. He thinks 911 was an inside job. He thinks planes are creating chem trails. He thought Sandy Hook was a mock-up with crisis actors. I would show him convincing debunk content… and he’d sort of nod an “OK, I see.” But he was only doing it to assuage the tension. He’d continue believing. Meanwhile, his sister went real paranoia crazy. And SHE would believe some insane self-created conspiracies. Even though he saw that and acknowledged it, he couldn’t let go of believing his own set of conspiracies. And I reminded him of that… the genetic predisposition.
I don’t press him on these issues any longer, but I made it clear to him I won’t discuss them. I sometimes think of John Nash with his hallucinations of people around him, telling him things…
Yep, I hear that…
I won’t even get into the can of assorted nuts in my so-called family…
Odd story… on wunderground.com in the photos forum, someone posted a pic of a plane way high up, titled “chemtrails”. Showed it to someone who was kindasortamaybe into “conspiracy” stuff.
“Yeah, plain ol’ contrails, not chemtrails… so what?”
“Sure, but look more closely. Contrails (condensation trails) come from the engines. These are coming out from between the engines.” (Ie, ’twas a 4-engine jet, and the trails were coming from between the #1 and #2 engines on the port side, and #3 and #4 on the starboard side.)
[eyes go wiiiiiiide open] :laughing:
That was a good movie.
I’m not sure if it’s worth going deeper. The point was: no, depression may come together with poor sense of reality but that’s often not the case. In the (not statistically significant) group of people that I remember from the hospital few had some serious reality denial. Therefore simplifications that explain depression by saying that depression is caused by poor sense of reality just seem counterproductive to me.
But to clarify what I meant: unconcious.
A few links to some of the research that’s worth a glance:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=depressed+people+more+realistic+accurate%3F
While certanily not a broad sweeping cure all and/or prevenative, in some cases “depression” can be caused by a poor diet.
For instance, take the elements magnesium & iodine. Deficiencies in either of these in the body can cause depression.
Magnesium is needed for over 300 biochemical reactions in the body. Many of these relate to ‘brain chemistry’. If someone has a chronic magnesium deficiency things just are not working as they should be.
Iodine, is another element that is a part of many biochemical actions in our bodies, some also related to ‘brain chemistry’. Yet in many parts of the world iodine defiency is a problem. Most of us receive our iodine through consumption of Iodized salt. Yet many of us have dramatically cut our salt consumption. And do we really trust the Salt companies to iodize salt properly in the first place?? Studies have shown that many do not. Also Kosher & Sea Salt contain little to no iodine.
These mineral deficiencies are just two examples of many. So in ’some’ cases, replacing a crappy diet with a proper diet can drastically help with; if not cure depression. Proper use of vitamin & mineral suppliments may also, if the cause of the depression was vitamin and/or mineral deficiencies.
Exercise of some type can also be very benericial.
AGAIN, LET ME SAY: The above is NOT a sweeping cure all or preventative for depression or mental illness. It is but, in most cases; a piece of the puzzle.
In some cases a huge piece, while in others but a tiny piece; of the puzzle.
Of course, as has been stated by many already; there are also medications that can help with depression & other types of mental illness, if indicated.
In my experience finding the right medication that works for a given individual may take a bit of trial & error. The first one tried may be exactly what the individual needs or it may take 2, 3, 4, tries or more. If it does take a few tries, don’t despair…… your healthcare professional will find what works for you.
Also, if you don’t seem to be getting the relief you need from your regular Doctor, strongly consider seeing a Dr. of Psychiatry. They have had specefic training in the use of Psychiatric drugs & understands them much better than many general doctors. He or she will be much more up on what is indicated for depressions or types of mental illness.
well…the facts about chemicals-magnesium and iodine pushed me to know more about it…and looks like,i need them:)
no fruits in my life…just sweeties…and sugar is not very good i heard in large amounts…thanks for that!!
Your welcome vresto…. 
. It has been & is helping me, I hope it helps you.
As far as sugar goes, I cut that down drastically a few years ago. Not completely mind you, but dramatically. I rarely drink what we call Cokes (carbonated beverages/sodas)… probably less than 5 a year. I use honey a lot as a sweetner too.
Oh yeah, the artificial sweetner Aspartame is not good. Some people’s bodies cannot tolerate it & it can cause them to go ‘bonkers’ somewhat. I’ve just about quite using any artificial sweetners personally.
Anyway, good luck my friend!!
Oh yeah, you can do Google searches & read a bunch more about vitamin & mineral defiencies too. 
Maybe this can help some people, it is just a plant but has many benefits > St John’s wort
wiki: Hypericum perforatum - Wikipedia
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