Do you consider depression to be a more rampant issue of modern times? (Have you ever experienced this phenomenon?) If so, how long was it till you felt better?
I think the people who say depression levels haven't changed are perhaps out of touch in this regard. I think there are way too many depressed people for this to be normal/natural; I think it makes sense given how pathological society is; I think whatever direction society is going in that's diverged from the state of nature, it's been going further and further in that direction ever since; and I've heard of more and more people being depressed over my lifetime.
I have suffered from clinical depression between when I was 13 up to when I was 25. I periodically still experience minor episodes, but I am better now.
I do not know whether depression is more common today or whether it is just better conceptualized and spotted. I think depression is a common dysfunction that occurs for natural reasons and is probably nothing special to our time, nor to our species.
The illness is as old as humankind I suppose. Though what we often refer to by that term is not an illness but a temoprary state of our soul that doesn't stay longer than a day. I had deep sad times in my life that lasted much longer than that and I consider it still not an illness since I knew people who were seriously more ill than me suffering from a deep depression with their body also affected severely. One girl lost the ability to walk due to depression. I've been a nurse for some time. So I consider myself lucky that my sad times did leave some marks and scars but nothing permanent. The source of my sadness almost always is the fact that I feel so different from most people and need the company of my own kind so much but there is only now and then a person who understands. So basically my depressions are solitude sadnesses.
Um, I don't know that it's a modern phenomenon, I think if a teenager went to his dad in 1913 and talked about depression he'd probably get cursed out and/or smacked, so I'm guessing people generally kept it to themselves - plus there was no emo tumblr page to vent on either.... Yes, depression is a daily/hourly/millisecondly struggle for me and there is no 'better', it's survival mode - getting through the bad few hours/days and gearing up for the next ones
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