Outlook and Perspective

[Anonymous No.5026675]

I was raised to think that, no matter how bad things are, they could be worse and even if it seems like its the end of the world it will all be okay eventually, and that struggles are very temporary in the grand scheme of things.

>for example
I lost my job, my car broke down, i got food poisoning, i got stung by a bee and im allergic, my friend got mad at me, im constipated, i broke my arm, i cant exercise for a whole month, cant get a girlfriend, foreveralone etc
>"but its all okay"

I dont believe in depression as a chronic illness, but i do believe that people can become very depressed, for many reasons. And i also believe that a depressed person can easily NOT be depressed if they try.

Now the question i ask is; Is it so wrong, or irrational to think that even if there is something going wrong in your life, to think positively, that "even though its bad, its still all good/going to be good eventually." And that bad things are just temporary and shouldnt change your perspective on even a single instance of a moment in your life?

Apparently, such positive thinking is characteristic of a mental illness. Would you agree?
In my case, i am a very rationale, realistic thinking person. but i always see the good, in even the bad. Optimism. Should optimism be a psychological disorder?

[Anonymous No.5026702]

What are you talking about?

First off all, depression and other psychological disorders are MEDICAL problems. They are caused by visible imbalances in the chemical pathways of our brain.

To be fair, alot of people don't understand this because its only been in the last 10-20 years that computer technology (like fMRIs) and new understandings of biochemistry (proteonomics) that the scientific/medical community has gotten on board. Meanwhile, psychology and its many opinion/philosophy based facets has been around much longer as is easier to digest to the layman. Just please be careful with your views in case you really hurt one of the many many many people who suffer from mental illness.

Now, obviously optimism is good. It really can always be worse. No matter how bad your life is, visiting an inner city HIV clinic will you whistling out the door. And if you happen to have HIV and be poor, I hate to say it but death really is an escape. No matter how bad things get there will always be an end. You'd be suprised how many of the terminally ill come to peaces with this.

That out of the way, youre question doesnt seem to make alot of sense.

Remember

Everything will be alright in the end. If it isn't alright, it isn't the end.

[Anonymous No.5026802]

>>5026675
While I agree that lot of what we as a society define as "normal" and "abnormal" can indeed be arbitrarily defined, I think it's a big step to take to say that depression does not exist and to suggest that optimism is just the opposite of depression(If that's what you were trying to say?). Optimism is not a mental disorder, unless you're referring to Mania, which is indeed a symptom of Bipolar disorder for example. Depression is a very real problem, just because you haven't experienced it does not mean it's made up.

tl;dr You don't have depression, congrats. Other people do have it however.

[Anonymous No.5026832]

>>5026702

>Everything will be alright in the end. If it isn't alright, it isn't the end.

>401 BC: Mithridates, a soldier who embarrassed his king, Artaxerxes II, by boasting of killing his rival, Cyrus the Younger, was executed by scaphism. The king's physician, Ctesias, reported that he survived the insect torture for 17 days

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths

[Anonymous No.5026841]

>>5026702

>visible imbalance

so there's a defined and visible balance then? i assume though, or else chemical imbalances makes zero sense.

[Anonymous No.5026848]

>>5026675

I don't agree with the pathologizing of idiosyncratic mental states that is so widespread in our culture that our science has even advanced to the point of being able to extirpate them. Depression is something far different from an illness, and there is no more sense in the average modern's understanding of it than there is in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

The question of whether optimism is an "illness" is linked to this: the identification of depression as illness, like that of dementia or schizophrenia, serves the purpose of justifying its "treatment". It serves to identify this mental state as something bad and deleterious that must be cured (i.e. destroyed). Reasoning behind such a justification is quite strong, for severely demented, schizophrenic, or depressed individuals can't exist on their own in capitalistic society and indeed in most types of complex society that humans have created. But severely optimistic individual can and does: it's not considered antisocial but prosocial, indeed virtuous, to never allow things to get you down. As for me, I think "but its all okay" is a perfectly fine thing to think, not because it's exactly true (when I break my arm or lose my job, I simply DON'T feel like it's okay, my body and mind revolt against what is occurring, I feel sick and in pain, stressed and in turmoil, no matter how much I consciously attempt to tell myself this too shall pass I can only hope to END the suffering and not prevent it from ever occurring) but because in the end, nothing really matters and you will be dirt in the ground, and the ground will be consumed by the sun, and the sun will turn into iron and fade out. And that's quite enough of a thought that one can go on living under its auspices.

[Anonymous No.5026852]

>>5026841

Of course there's no such balance. Read Foucault's "Madness and Civilization". Nobody knows what they want from a sane man, but they sure know what they don't want.

[Anonymous No.5026945]

>>5026675
Do you have emotions? Can you control them one hundred percent? What is the worst that ever happened to you? I have the feeling that you lack experience of tragedies that can occur to one in life.

[Anonymous No.5026950]

>>5026675
>i also believe that a depressed person can easily NOT be depressed if they try.
I do not have nor have I ever had clinical depression. Now that that's out of the way you're a fucking moron and that hot opinion of yours is dangerous to a person who suffers from clinical depression. Huff a kilo of powdered diamond and die you motherfucking son of a five-cunted bitch.

[Anonymous No.5026959]

>hurr what are chemicals
>neurosciwhat?

Yeah OP you wasted a whole lotta time posting about something you could have just looked up on Wikipedia. Back to drawing board for original and world-altering philosophies, I'm afraid. :/

[Anonymous No.5027070]

>>5026675
>i also believe that a depressed person can easily NOT be depressed if they try

are you serious? you telling people who are depressed that they should try not being depressed?

[Anonymous No.5027077]

>>5026950

Someone come and weigh this man's serotonin immediately, I think he has a mental illness.

[Warren Piece !u5xDkB7uDc No.5027143]

>>5026675
>I was raised to think that, no matter how bad things are, they could be worse and even if it seems like its the end of the world it will all be okay eventually,

I almost didn't post because I got side tracked into thinking about how Cormac McCarthy said the same kind of thing about how you'd never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from. But aside from that homespun wisdom, I feel like you're just naive and haven't really been shit on by life at all.

I mean really, if you'd actually had any kind of experience with the real world or whatever you'd feel that way until you had a day of calamity that left you completely messed up for the rest of your life. Like say its your 9th birthday and your dad is going to take you to Disneyland. You're hearing about how you're going to Disneyland everyday for a week beforehand and finally it's the big day and then your Mother turns out to be having an affair and your Dad figures it out on your very special day.

You try to make sense of what's happening, but your Dad is screaming, crying, begging for answers, and all you hear your mother, your dear sweet mother that brought you into this world say is the word "divorce" and you know your whole world is falling apart, suddenly your father has a hunting rifle in his mouth and his barefoot is dangling over the trigger guard and all he wants is for your mother to tell him he loves him, and you're so scared you run and hide in your room.

All you hear is a bang and a scream, your mother is wailing, and you're stilling sitting there, thinking about disneyland.

OP, no offense, but you're a very sheltered person who has never seen more than your bedroom in terms of understanding the world. Depression isn't a day at bandcamp, Depression is being gangraped at bandcamp and being told you have to live with it, and having kids like you say things like "Positive mental attitude" and think peppy smiles and pastle sweater vests can save us all from the coming darkness.

I forget my point, but you're a faggot, and I hope your brain decides to shit inside you for the rest of your life, just so you can experience the living toilet of being depressed.

[Anonymous No.5027148]

>>5026675
>Apparently, such positive thinking is characteristic of a mental illness.

Mental illness is diametrically opposed to positive thinking.

[Anonymous No.5027156]

>>5027143
>the real world
useless trip

[Warren Piece !u5xDkB7uDc No.5027186]

>>5027156
That's some deep analytical thinking there in your retort. Well played. I feel like I've learned something about myself and about the deep mystery of the human condition. I now know what it's like to be the first person to come across a prophet coming down from the holy mountain. You sir, you have enlightened my life and illuminated my thoughts and way of thinking. I'm going to build a shrine in your honor. It will consist of discarded sex toys and corroded batteries and I will build it in the shape of the logo of the real world from MTV. Then I'll cover it in piss and ink and call it modern art.

I want you to know I'm drinking my coffee and thinking of you. Thinking of putting my hand on your thigh and telling you that you can kiss me anywhere you like.

[Anonymous No.5027226]

>>5027186

i want you to map your consciousness onto my abstract being and question your location within a transcendent framework

[Anonymous No.5027330]

>>5026702
>"They are caused by visible imbalances in the chemical pathways of our brain"
>confusing correlation and causation
I know very well that I can depress myself... with music. I also know that I can get out of depression by simply not listening to said depressing music, or listening other type of music
once again, common sense says cognitive "sciences" are mostly bullshit

[Anonymous No.5027364]

>>5026802
Mania is the baseline of a bipolar person. I solved my problems with depression when I realised that nothing I did when manic was damaging. Depression can be solved just how this person has described it, by changing your perspective. The imbalances in the brain are subject to change. I was diagnosed with bipolar by the way.

[Anonymous No.5027366]

>>5027330
btw, I don't mean it can't be caused by imbalances (who knows if, I don't know, food itself is a factor?), what I mean is, I don't think you can generalize like that

[Anonymous No.5027367]

>>5027364
>Mania is the baseline of a bipolar person

It's not the same for everyone, but we all know it's typical for one to place their neurosis patterns on others.

[Anonymous No.5027374]

>>5027366
For brain facts, you should consult a doctor.

[Anonymous No.5027433]

>>5027330
>>5027366

For what it's worth I agree with you completely. I suffered with 'mental illness' for the majority of my life. Science really has done nothing to help the problem, in fact I think it makes it worse.

The existence of depression, to me, points to a fundamental flaw in modern society.

[Anonymous No.5027562]

>>5027433
>The existence of depression, to me, points to a fundamental flaw in modern society.
yea your existence in it.

[Anonymous No.5027601]

>>5027143
The edge is real

[Anonymous No.5028057]

>>5026848
>nothing really matters and you will be dirt in the ground
>such fatalism

why do people reduce life to its ultimate end? There is so much more to a persons death, than just the end. and then heat death, its laughable that so many hold this fatalistic view. "nothing in life matters because we all blow up in a supernova and then the universe gets torn apart".

[Anonymous No.5028092]

>>5026675
>And i also believe that a depressed person can easily NOT be depressed if they try.

[Anonymous No.5028209]

>>5026675
>And I also believe that a depressed person can easily NOT be depressed if they tried.

You can believe whatever you want buddy.

[Anonymous No.5028242]

>>5026675
Well, it is.

That is, Mania is a disorder. A heightened level of mood and energy inappropriate to the situation and accompanied by an inability to make accurate decisions and an increase in risky behavior.

"Optimism" isn't a disorder, but then, neither is "Pessimism". Those words describe attitudinal orientations or, at best, patterns of cognition. Mental health diagnoses are based on patterns of behavior and mood.

[Anonymous No.5028261]

>>5027143
>You can't have it bad because other people had it worse

Never heard that one before.

[Anonymous No.5028445]

>>5027330
>I know very well that I can depress myself... with music
That's not clinical depression.

[Anonymous No.5028989]

OP here

some of you might say that i dont have depression, and its true, i dont. i am Not clinically depressed. However, in my life i do have things that could, and in recent months have caused depression, but because of my outlook on life, i dont allow it.

i was adopted into a family when i was born. my parents got divorced when i was 3. ive never really had a stable male role model until i was 14. my father was still around but not enough to show me how to be a man. i was raised by my sister and mom equally. I saw porn for the first time at 8, shortly after i was molested by my best male friend. i was previously molested multiple times by another male, and female too. my step father was a pussy, to put it plainly. he didnt do much for me, but show me how to get bossed around by a woman. i moved around so much that i never had a stable education, and cant really do much academically, particularly in math. i never graduated highschool because of it. i did homeschooling, but that didnt turn out because of a move to a different state. ive got a porn addiction and im unable to have a normal relationship due to my sexual experiences, and i have some serious hypochondria and paranoia about anything sexual as well. ive got a few gastro diseases that are problematic, but not too much of a hassle thanks to me not being an idiot.

first world problems right? my problems are no more or less than anyone elses, in how we experience them. but in all of it, it cant and wont change my perspective on life. its depressing in some cases, how things branch out and cause and effect, but it wont change. there is no point in lingering on or lamenting any of it.would it be easy to be sad and depressed about it? yes. is it going to produce anything of value? no.

im seeing a psychologist, and she thinks that my happy go lucky attitude is a "problem", and if things are bad, "you cant lie to yourself. you need to admit its not good, and just let it be bad".

Id be lying to myself for certain if i said it WAS bad, because it could be so much worse. id be lying to myself if i said "im not okay with this."

I am content in my dismay.

thats all.

[Anonymous No.5030336]

>>5028057

I like how you say it's laughable but fail to adduce anything to show that it is not a reasonable view to hold, while also ignoring that the guy you're responding to is doing the exact opposite of reducing life to its end.

[Anonymous No.5030379]

>>5026832
> 206 BC: One ancient account of the death of Chrysippus, the 3rd century BC Greek Stoic philosopher, tells that he died of laughter after he saw a donkey eating his figs; he told a slave to give the donkey neat wine to drink to wash them down with, and then, '...having laughed too much, he died' (Diogenes Laertius 7.185)
I almost died laughing reading this

[Anonymous No.5030394]

>people not believing in depression in the same way as the tooth fairy

I don't get it..

[Anonymous No.5030422]

>>5030336
not him but what it's imagining the perspective of life 'in the end', while not realising that you're the one right now here doing the imagining in your mind

because a world beyond human existence 'sun blowing up' etc could only ever be imagine by a human whereas in the world beyond human existence there could be no human perspective as nobody is alive to do it. "A world beyond humans" could only ever be an idea in a world of humans.

tl;dr you're a retarded faggot who doesn't even know he's thinking