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beneath
One Way Street
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how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds?
#9243062 - 11/14/08 09:30 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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???
i'm talking about before meds and weird shit like lobotomys.
I guess people used to live in communities that were more connected and would have support from family and friends more?
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RonaldFuckingPaul
Our Dear Leader
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9243097 - 11/14/08 09:38 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I personally believe depression and other mental illnesses and degenerative diseases are directly linked to all the fucking toxins in our environment. A big one for me was my mercury fillings, fluoride, among 10,000 other chemicals approximately. Back then there wasn't close to as many chems as today. My 2 cents
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krypto2000
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: RonaldFuckingPaul]
#9243120 - 11/14/08 09:45 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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How do animals deal w/depression? Do you think if you were depressed you'd just be stuck in that state if you didn't have access to medication? Medication for me, for any illness, is a last resort. They learned that magical cure alls don't really exist and grew some balls instead of loathing in their own self pity is my guess. Anti-depression medication is way overrated and over prescribed.
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WhiskeyClone
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9243139 - 11/14/08 09:50 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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They would just suffer and pray
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Mufungo
Coming at ya
Registered: 04/03/07
Posts: 2,743
Loc: Knowhere
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? *DELETED* [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#9245724 - 11/14/08 06:56 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Post deleted by MufungoReason for deletion: .
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ScavengerType
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: Mufungo]
#9246216 - 11/14/08 08:38 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I agree with the last 2 posters but don't forget that booze and (some)drugs did exist back then. If those things weren't hard enough for ya then there was also religion, I heard that stuff is the opiate of the masses.
-------------------- "Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war?" "The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God. Montesquieu said, "There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of God." And I begin to feel that’s true. The shareholder is the excuse for everything." - Author and former M6/M5 agent John le Carré on Democracy Now. Conquer's Club
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mofo
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9246827 - 11/14/08 10:34 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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lets not forget the original depression remedy; suicide
but also I think people accepted their mental quirks and abnormalities more in the olden days and integrated them into their personality. Also, there wasn't quite as clear a line where "normal" was back then. Nowadays, the media is more than happy to inform us of how we should be.
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paulie_walnuts1
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9247257 - 11/15/08 12:57 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Alcohol, beat wife and kids, or shotgun to mouth.
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Le_Canard
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9247333 - 11/15/08 01:31 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Joseph Smith dealt with his mental illness by founding the Mormons!
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krypto2000
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: Le_Canard]
#9247772 - 11/15/08 06:02 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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They also had to work much longer back then, often from sun rise to sunset. Most people are more happy when they are working than when in their leisure time, this doesn't surprise me. It's likely based on this fact alone that people in general were less depressed back then. And it's not like they had modern society to compare to and long for wishing to not work all day, that was normal and accepted as such.
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daytripper23
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: krypto2000]
#9248508 - 11/15/08 10:59 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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If you have read any books written before say 1920, you might notice that people did not treat the mind and body as quite so separate, even here in the west. Doctors might consider a literal "love-sickness" for instance. Madness might be a fever, and vice verse. Melencholy was thought to be caused by the spleen in alexander popes "the rape of lock". While a large aspect of this is dogma, I think there is some truth to this.
One western author who really tapped into this, one of my favorites, is Thomas Mann. If youre interested in a western mind body outlook, read his novel "magic mountain"
The mind-body is an important part of the existential literature that became popular in the middle of the 20th century as well. See john Paul Sartre's "nausea", dostoyevsky's "crime and punishment" for obvious examples, but it is a staple of existentialism to imply this connection. Today this sort pf connection is lost to society. The only connection now is the arguably no less dogmatic "chemical imbalance"- the disorder. The best example of what is lacking and imagined in this culture, is the complete rejection of mind-body tools such as pot, and other "hallucinogens" as schizophrenic in nature.
While society always rejected these tools, I believe it was for different reasons. People were not less crazy and depressed back then, but there was a less prominent line between normal and not. There was not necessarily less awareness, but being a little mad was treated more as a character quirk than a disorder. Some people were "clearly" not normal, but they did not think they knew specifically why. They seemed to have the same basis of normality, but it was less explicit. That's the dogma of our age.
Edited by daytripper23 (11/15/08 11:13 AM)
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aDoS
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Registered: 06/18/05
Posts: 7,590
Loc: land of the free
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9248971 - 11/15/08 12:26 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Probably poppy and cannabis. Humans have always had meds just not synthetic ones.
-------------------- "If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise." - Aldous Huxley GIVE ME OPIATES OR GIVE ME DEATH
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laughingdog
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9252328 - 11/15/08 10:11 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Besides "meds" artistic expression is helpful with many types of mental disturbance. This has always been so.
It has been said: "White folks get depressed black folks get the Blues"... and sometimes make great music.
Never-the-less one can be too depressed to create.
In any case being aware that one is depressed, means the issue has been identified and so one can begin to deal with it. Rituals such as funerals provide people time to grieve.
Travel is perhaps another timeless treatment.
I have heard that expressing repressed anger sometimes is key.
We live in an overmedicated society don't you think?
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Jufin
Registered: 03/31/08
Posts: 5,116
Loc: Australia
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: laughingdog]
#9253337 - 11/16/08 02:33 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I think that these "mental illnesses" such as depression have arose because: 1. We are no longer fighting to survive we get bored, and boredom can lead to feeling depressed 2. The ever tightening rule system forced upon us since birth is depressing, sub-consciously or not 3. The "proper" way of living and behaving is getting more and more specific and ridiculous, for example "if you don't act like a tough egotistical fuckwit then you're nothing", especially in specific social groups.
Hopefully that made sense
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Plasmid
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#9253694 - 11/16/08 06:12 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
WhiskeyClone said: They would just suffer and pray
I second that.
They'd probably also just use whatever was available to them, like alcohol.
Quote:
Jufin said:
think that these "mental illnesses" such as depression have arose . . .
When do you think mental illness arose?
My criticisms of your argument: 1 We do still fight to survive. 2. We are far more free in the modern world than we would have been for the last few thousand years (since the dawn of civilization). Especially in the medieval periods, societies were obsessed with keeping order. Punishments were severe and society was far more tightly regimented than nowadays. Prior to civilization, though social rules would not have been as complex and demanding, the struggle for survival would have been much harsher. People would have had to learn much harsher social rules prior to the modern age. 3. This seems related to what you said in #2 and I think you're totally wrong. Compare the "proper" way to live now with early colonial America or Victorian England. The world is much more open to "alternative" lifestyles. I just don't know how you can even say that the paths for taking a "proper" lifestyle are tightening.
What you said made sense, but only if you accept (IMO) some of your points which are just wrong. Making sense is a bare-minimum.
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WhiskeyClone
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: krypto2000]
#9253944 - 11/16/08 08:51 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
krypto2000 said: They also had to work much longer back then, often from sun rise to sunset. Most people are more happy when they are working than when in their leisure time, this doesn't surprise me. It's likely based on this fact alone that people in general were less depressed back then. And it's not like they had modern society to compare to and long for wishing to not work all day, that was normal and accepted as such.
I think it's often boredom and too much thinking that causes depression. When you are engaged in your purpose all day (surviving and providing for your family) you are probably much less likely to be depressed. When you don't know what to do with yourself, it's easy to feel bad about your life.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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laughingdog
Stranger
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9254190 - 11/16/08 10:15 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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"how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? i'm talking about before meds and weird shit like lobotomys."
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as regards Lobotomy:
"Lobotomies were used mainly in the 1930s to 1950s to treat a wide range of severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, clinical depression, and various anxiety disorders, as well as people who were considered a nuisance by demonstrating behavior characterized as, for example, "moodiness" or "youthful defiance". The patient's informed consent in the modern sense was not obtained. After the introduction of the antipsychotic Chlorpromazine (Thorazine), lobotomies fell out of common use[1] and the procedure has since been characterized "as one of the most barbaric mistakes ever perpetrated by mainstream medicine".[2]
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
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Even now there are many alternatives to medication. I would even say medication is a last ( or temporary ) resort. According to Burns Cognitive Therapy is documented to be more effective in some cases. And in many cases one can do it oneself.
Here is a link to his book:
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated by David D. Burns
one can read reviews and an overview here
http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-Therapy-Revised-Updated/dp/0380810336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226854701&sr=1-1
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Before Cognitive Therapy, and other "western" therapies there was meditation. But it is definitely not necessarily a quick fix.
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ChiefGreenLeaf
Registered: 01/11/07
Posts: 1,596
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: beneath]
#9256353 - 11/16/08 06:39 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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i agree with reeferaddict. not until a couple hundred years before the industrial revolution was depression widespread. our society and culture was much healthier back then, for all our levels of being. we weren't really killing our planet(part of our eternal self) back then. not to mention there wasn't all this fucking electromagnetic pollution with cellphones, wi-fi, TVs, ect.
all thats not to say depression didnt exist until then. it just wasn't nearly as widespread and severe.
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Jufin
Registered: 03/31/08
Posts: 5,116
Loc: Australia
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? [Re: Plasmid]
#9256400 - 11/16/08 06:46 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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...
No flaming
Edited by WhiskeyClone (11/16/08 07:34 PM)
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Mufungo
Coming at ya
Registered: 04/03/07
Posts: 2,743
Loc: Knowhere
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Re: how did people deal with depression(and other mental illnes) before we had meds? *DELETED* [Re: ChiefGreenLeaf]
#9256556 - 11/16/08 07:17 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Post deleted by MufungoReason for deletion: .
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