PDA

View Full Version : Depression rates highest in history



Jacklinger
01-11-2010, 08:20 PM
I've read a few statistics that are, well, depressing. Depression is at its highest rate ever, even higher than during the Great Depression. Personally I feel ashamed that my grandfather could survive crippling poverty, fight in WW2, and never got depressed, but I have trouble with loneliness?

The articles suggest that the causes of this hyper depression rates are things you probably already suspect: body image, social anxiety, being bullied, and becomining isolated.

Somewhere in 1843 there's a guy my age living in a shack in the manufacturing disctrict of a town. He has a chair, a cot, a bread box full of tac, a jug of beer, eating a carrot, exhausted from his 14 hour shift, and staring out his window. He will never taste a cake or pastry because he's paid in pennies. Nor will he enjoy the embrace of a woman unless it's a cheap prostitute. He will eventually get pneumonia and die at age 39. And I'm more depressed than him?! Where did they get the strength? Was it religion? Or just some fanatic, irational love of even the most decrepit life that compelled even the miserable to fight for every second of existence, and not just exist, but even find some happiness in it before the day was done.

Where can I get a carrot and a cheap prostitute at this hour? Or should I go to church? .... both? Where did that amazing reslilience come from? Why are we losing it now? How do we get some of it back?

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

A UK child factory worker circa 1845.

I'd like to think it's not necessary to live in hell just so we can imagine heaven.

Vision Thing
01-13-2010, 05:42 PM
We live only according to what we know. In the example you gave, the only thing that that man knows is hardship, therefore he would consider that normal. As you have not lived through the same circumstances as he, you consider he has gone through far worse. It is a little bit more complex than that of course, but it does have a lot to do with personal context.

Don't get too down on yourself, Jack. We all have our concerns, our insecurities and our failures. You don't need to categorise them, because by doing so you're subtly belittling yourself and trivialising your problems.

7dj83r8f78t4alf8