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Originally Posted by Discombobulated
It can be such a mixed bag coping with depression even if family care and are around, as you describe, people have their own preconceptions such as believing depression is a choice.
I’m unsure too what the man in the video meant by not being depressed if you can function well, What about high functioning depression? People can do all sorts of things, run businesses, raise families all the while not being fully emotionally present because they’re struggling with depression.
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It was a lady, and my impression was that she was a mental health professional. She said specifically that "high functioning depression" is a non-medical term that has become popular with lay persons, but has no formally defined meaning. She said that psychiatrists do not recognize this term, or what it is supposed to mean.
She said the closest accepted, approved diagnosis was "persistant depressive disorder." That is a recent addition to the latest edition of the DSM. I was often diagnosed with "dysthymia." She said that term was thrown out by the new DSM.
All of this that she presented seemed off base to me. Certainly there are people with seriously troubled minds who perform responsible jobs. People have come home from work, where they seemed to be okay, and then killed themselves. If that's not depression, then I don't know what other name it should be given. I've actually known some individuals who ended their own lives. None of them sat around in a catatonic state beforehand. They were all going about their normal daily activities, until they weren't. We've seen famous cases that made the news, where the individual had a high profile, responsible job. Suddenly, they were gone.
As a consumer of psych services for many years, I've heard a lot of ideas that didn't impress me as being rooted in reality. Some ideas are fads that come into vogue and then peter out. I'm happy for anyone who finds anything that helps them. But I don't automatically buy into any theory, no matter how popular.