The Book :depression is a choice

I just found this forum, I use the Psych Tracker site more. I have to comment on the book Depression Is a Choice. Who ever wrote it is a nut. We don't choose to be depressed. We also can't choose our genes. No one chooses to be miserable, unhappy and scared all the time.
Yeah we can learn to change our thoughts, and reshape our beliefs, but only with help and\or drugs. This kind of help is hard to get, you have to be poor enough or have insurance. When you can't get out of bed its hard to hold a job to keep insurance.
I wonder what the authors history is with depression. Does he\she have it, or is this just an "expert" on mental illness.

Note to Guest,

It seems that you disagree with me, but I agree with most of what you said.

Sometimes, one needs some sort of help with mental illness. Maybe some people need medication for a while. Some of us will kill ourselves without drastic measures like heavy medication.

However, I feel that far too many people want to just pop a pill and go on with their lives. Sometimes, for some people a few pills will fix them up completely. However, there are many like myself who suffer terrible side effects from pills--I gained over 100 pounds with my meds--that's not good for physical or mental health.

The ultimate answer is some heavy soul searching. We need to face our demons--our fears, our rage. We also need to come to a point where we accept ourselves and other people. People, including ourselves, usually do the best they can. We are not born with much wisdom. We make a lot of mistakes and bad decisions. We can't deny this. We also can't just cover over these bad feelings with some sort of drug. Of course what I'm talking about is getting us all past our mental illness and into mainstream life. Some might perfer to be drugged up to facing the ups and downs of life. I did not want to face life for a long time.

Then, we must all take action to build a different life--a better life. We must look inside to see what we really want out of life. Once finding out where we want to go, we must come up with a plan. Now this plan will outline work that we have to do. This is where we may encounter more problems. Until I became willing to pay the price for my dreams, I went no where. No matter who you are, you do have to make effort to reach goals. If you depend on society to give you a life--you will not get much.

I'm sure what I'm saying is upsetting. I speak from the point of view that we all, even crazy people like me, can have full lives. I say this based on my experience and on what I've seen in others.
Jim S

I don't disagree withyour point of view. Your right, we have to do the work to over come depression. I just disagree that anyone makes a choice to be depressed or have any other mental illness. I went along for 30 yrs just making it. Getting my GP to give me an antidepressant. Untill it finally broke me several years ago, I functioned. I raised 2 kids, had 4 marriages and 3 divorces, and a personality that people either liked or hated me at once. I knew I had a bandaid(the meds) on my illness so my rages were no longer scary to those around me. I thought this was life and the best I could get. It wasn't untill I started losing my memory that it was decided that I had major depression and anxiety.
My point is I didn't chose the depression it was there and I didn't know enough to look for help. I feel any nut that thinks this is a choice is---well I'll stop before I use four letter words.

If depression was a choice would it be good? Then you could choose not to have it. You right now don’t have enough information to say it is not. Even if you don’t know how you choose to be, think about it, weren’t there times when you regretted something? Because you saw latter how you could have made better choice? So why didn’t I/you choose better? It’s simply because we didn’t look for better choice. If you could simply ask your self question before doing something “is it good or bad for me” you would see the choice. You could see that it’s bad for you and steel continue/choose it, or you could choose better. For example: Is it good for me to think about negative past? No it not=choice. What would be good for me to think about? Is it good for me to do this? Yes/no =choice. Etc. When you think and do what is good, you will feel good. It is hard for everyone to do what it is good. But good things cost good price, you get what you put into it.

Furthermore, depression is not mental illness. The people who say it is have NO evidence to back up their theory. People say it is mental illness because they can make profit from pills which designed for their theory. Depression is an emotion, simple as that. If you call depression mental illness you might as well call happiness mental illness. Depression comes as result of what you think and do. (Remembering and writing bad past experiences causes depression) When you don’t choose control emotion they control you. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if at some point person would loose total control= go crazy etc.

If you choose to get mad or any other emotion as result of your thoughts,- that is your choice.

You are overlooking the facts that Depression is a mental illness. The brain does not function properly. Through out history its been written about people suffering from depression. Usually it was described as melencolia. The psych drs have codes for depression. Social Security even recognizes it as a mental illness.
If you think that thinking positive is a easy and just a choice then I feel for you. When you are so far down that even moving out of bed is a major accomplishment in a day, taking a shower is pushed to tomorrow-again, and doing anything is not possible because you can't think what to do, is done through choice I hope you never have to live through it. Yes now with meds and therapy I am learning to reframe my thinking but I couldn't even see I needed to for many years.

Does anybody else want to say anything about it?

You are entitled to your opinion and I am to mine. Thought, I may add your belief limits you, and mine helps me. Why do you defend side that does you no good? Through learning about it I don’t think it is mental disease. Just because lots of people named it mental disease doesn’t prove it is. I look at results in contrast of what I want. People on your side dependent and unhappy with side effects. On my side people actually could get out of depression and start living.{Now how could that even be possible if it was mental disease? I can bring up lots of interesting facts, but the thing is, if you want to be on pills you will be on pills.

I do believe you get horrible consequences for not controlling it. Like I said if you don’t control depression it controls you. I even believe that you can get to the point where won’t be able to control your thoughts (go crazy), and that you could even die. (You saw results in your life.) I do believe that you brain change, that depressed person have chemical imbalance; I think you can change all that if you get out of your sheet. I mean how can anyone expect to feel good while thinking sheet? Emotions are reflection of what you are thinking, and if person depressed they choosing bad thoughts. If you been there for a while of course it would be hard for you; you got used to it and it became your habit and getting out is hard as getting out from addiction. Obviously in life of every person there are good memories, but depressed person picks out of bad and good memories bad ones and they pay for it.

I never said it was easy; in fact I said it was hard. And that is precisely why people don’t want to do it. You can compare this with obesity. Everybody know how to get out of it-exercise and eat healthy, but instead people drink pills and do operation. Drastic measures for simple things just like with depression. It treated as disease. Imagine if it was thought as disease, no one even would try work on cause (as in depression).

remember folks this is a book, not an opinion, it should have been put in the antipsych forum, and I appologize.

You are the first person that I have been able to talk to, argue with, share thoughts about depression. The "normal" world doesn't want to talk about this at all, unless they think they can fix it. I hope we can talk more, you have been good for me. It may have started about a book but its so good to just disagree with everyone thinking I'm being "crazy"

if this topic is beneficial to you by talking about the subject depression is a choice, then good, but if an arguement of antipsych issues come up here, outside the antipsych forum, then I'll have to lock the thread or move it antipsych.