DEPRESSION

It seems to me that psychology has long overlooked the "Gorilla in the Living Room," the fundamental mental disorder on which so many other disorders rest.

Haw! That's (above) a caricature Mike did of me, showing me in one of my cheery moods, oblivious to anything depressing. Haw! Maybe he's right. For all I know, I might have a mountain of psychological disorders, but I don't think Depression is one of them. Even so I can't help but feel sorry for the people who do have it, a sympathy made deeper by a reading of William Styron's book on the subject, "Darkness Visible."

I think the image most people have of a depressive is that of a lethargic person (above) who spends hours looking wistfully out the window at grey, overcast skies. I don't think that's always correct. My own belief is that depressives are sometimes the most active people you know, the people who are least likely to waste time staring out of windows.

It's true that they're all vulnerable to funks of frightening intensity, but it's also true that lots of them have developed strategies to deflect those funks....I mean, apart from the medication they take. Those strategies frequently include alcohol or drugs...

...but they also might include hypochondria, hoarding, workaholism, over-achievement or sex obsession.

Even crime, even philanthropy!  What all these strategies have in common is that they allow the sufferer to get out of his own problems and focus on something outside of himself.

I find this fascinating, especially the workaholic part (above). I used to regard workaholics as possible candidates for what's called "Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior Disorder, but now I'm not so sure. If a person deliberately cultivates compulsion just to deflect depression, is he really clinically compulsive? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he simply has a compulsive "problem?" Surely the stronger term "disorder" should be reserved for the the depression he's trying to avoid.

Okay, I've probably bored everybody to death with all this fuss about naming things. I'll end with this thought: if lesser disorders are dropped from the official list...if vulnerability to depression is recognized as being far and away the central problem...

...the "Gorilla in the Living Room"...

....then psychiatry and treatment is simplified. Whatever drug lessens the frequency of depression will lessen lots of other problems too. In fact, in a general way, I think that's already known to be the case.

My own guess is that if depression were easier to recognize, we'd discover that 1/2  or more of all people have it. Something that widespread might have come about because it's benign or useful in some way. Maybe the deflection strategies it engenders are an essential part of creative thinking or getting things done. Who knows?