Dare to question

Wiki says that depression “is a feature of some psychiatric syndromes such as major depressive disorder, but it may also be a normal reaction to life events such as bereavement, a symptom of some bodily ailments or a side effect of some drugs and medical treatments.”

Other names for what people commonly associate with depression are ‘sadness’, ‘melancholia’ & ‘the blues’.

Which leads me to Beyond Blue (an Australian mental health charity). These people make a living out of getting money off the government to help people with ‘depression’. So they have to beat it up a little…they say “depression is more than just a low mood – it’s a serious illness”.

Which is it, a normal reaction to life events or a serious illness?

Depression has a purpose and that purpose is complex like all things human.

Some people on their way to serious mental illness are depressed but most people who are depressed at some stage never go onto have a mental illness.

There is no good excuse to start giving people the message that depression is bad and that if you feel depressed then you have a serious mental health problem.

All this does is further depress people and quite unnecessarily.

It’s not like you can apply OH&S rules to human emotions. You can hear the noddy level thinking “hey if we engineer out depression then people will never go on to get mental health issues.”

The complete abandonment of wisdom by those who stand to profit from logical extremism makes me depressed but I am not the one with the mental illness here.

However I am quite optimistic that if enough people read this or have similar thoughts, that the forces of evil will be overcome.