Durro wrote:Yes, you have some very valid points there Gallstones and thanks for pointing out some of the differences between clinical depression and manic depression. Their treatment and prognosis are often quite different.

My personal concern for people with manic depression are twofold - firstly, as you said, the symptoms are sometimes transitory (or even neglibible with effective treatment) and therefore I would hope that someone wouldn't decide to euthanize when a large percentage of their life could conceivably be spent in a functional state. I doubt that many advocates for medically supervised euthanasia would consider manic depression as reasonable grounds for assisted suicide. And secondly, I'd hope that the decision to euthanize themselves or suicide doesn't occur when they are in a depressive state.

Gallstones wrote:In regards to manic depression, suicide most often occurs during transition stages between depression and mania.

Nicko wrote:

Gallstones wrote:In regards to manic depression, suicide most often occurs during transition stages between depression and mania.

Exactly. The "dager zone" of irrational suicide is fairly small. It requires a conjunction (sorry to put it this way Gallstones) between hating one's life and having enough motivation to take action.

Regardless, the decision to end one's life can be rational (although Durro's points are very relevant). Depression itself can be rational. I posted part 1 of Whose Life Is It Anyway? for a reason. In the play (not sure if the scene is in the film) the assertion is made that the guy played by Richard Dreyfuss is "rationally depressed". In other words, it is a rational outcome of his inability to perform any of the activities that would give his life meaning for him to feel bad about this fact. The point of the story is that, even given the best mental state possible, Dreyfuss' character would still find his existence as a quadraplegic meaningless and futile.

epepke wrote:

Gallstones wrote:The phenomenon also applies to clinical depression when treatment is starting to have affect and the person is starting to feel better.

This is a commonly held belief. I question it. I present an alternative explanation.

This phenomenon has mostly been observed in teenage boys. Now, SSRIs can be useful. However, they take a long time to work, and it's often a crap shoot to find the right medication.

There is another thing that SSRIs often do, and they do it a lot more quickly than they have an effect on depression. They often produce anorgasmia and sometimes impotence.

So, you take a teenage boy, who is depressed, and probably his only pleasure in life is whacking off. Then you give him drugs that make that impossible, and act all surprised when their suicidal ideation and suicide itself goes up.

However, people are uncomfortable with the idea that whacking off is a lot of fun, let alone that it may constitute some solace for teenage boys. So there needs to be an alternate explanation that makes people smug and happy.

epepke wrote:

Gallstones wrote:And teenage boys are hardly representative of the whole of suicides.

They are, however, the group that originally instigated the warnings for suicides based on SSRIs.

epepke wrote:

Anorgasmia will be present in teenage girls and adult women---more females are diagnoses with depression than males--and adult males taking SSRIs too. Do teenage girls, adult women and adult men value the solace of masturbation less than teenage boys do--significantly to the point that it pushes teenage boys over the edge but not the others?

As far as I have been able to tell, SSRIs do not have nearly as much in the way of "sexual side-effects" on females as they do on males.

Gallstones wrote:I want a new and better world. And there is none.

Durro wrote:Gallstones, I wasn't trying to describe you and certainly wasn't trying to compare pathologies. I was responding to a point you made with my thoughts about it. I suspect that you're interpreting my comments in a way they're not intended, as I was addressing your post content, not you personally.

Gallstones wrote:

Durro wrote:Gallstones, I wasn't trying to describe you and certainly wasn't trying to compare pathologies. I was responding to a point you made with my thoughts about it. I suspect that you're interpreting my comments in a way they're not intended, as I was addressing your post content, not you personally.

But there are other states of being, other ways of being.
Some people just deviate and others are deviants. And there can be an impasse too great to be bridged; a distance too great for understanding to cross.