Things your dumb friends post on facebook - Page 148

I've always noticed that depression and similar mental health issues, i.e. fibromyalgia, are highly correlated with people that are being supported without the need to work. People with full time jobs tend to be too busy to suffer from many of these ailments. If I was doing research I would do a study where full time employment was the independent variable in different domains. For instance, not just looking at rates of depression in those wastrels supported by others, but does depression tend to alleviate if they become gainfully employed on a full time basis? Does losing one's sugar daddy tend to alleviate depression? Etc.

Having too much free time definitely worsens depression. I doubt it causes it.

 

Quite a few studies have been done looking at employment and depression

 

Unemployment doesn't lead to depression but exacerbates it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC28602/

 

Getting jobs but sucking at them:

http://www.neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=89391&RelatedWidgetArticles=true

 

The receiving of welfare (though not all other forms of social support) leads to an aggravation of depression symptoms:

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/1/163.full.pdf

(though oddly enough, women receiving entitlement benefits suffered less severe symptoms of depression than those gainfully employed)

 

And this is just a good overview of the literature:
http://www.geocities.ws/lazaridous/unemploymentANDmentalhealth.pdf

Cruised a few of these but not quite what I'm talking about. Thanks for the links though.

One of my cousins falls into that category. 22, never had a job, never went to college, lives at home with her mom and does craft projects. It's upsetting to watch, she's draining her mom dry and really is detached from reality. Never had to make any hard choices, never had to contribute, never had to do anything she didn't want or under less than ideal circumstances. Not coincidentally she's convinced she has fibromyalgia, after getting negative tests for Crohn's and rheumatoid arthritis.

One of those directly answers your question: depression is alleviated if you are successfully gainfully employed. Unfortunately, a high rate of those suffering from depression end up losing or leaving your job. However, those that do manage to achieve success in their jobs experience an increased alleviation of symptoms (though causality isn't established)

And I threw in that second to last one as I figured it would appeal to your right wing sensibilities, not because it addressed your questions (though it does perhaps indirectly)

First time the diagnosis of fibromyalgia really registered on me was in my first grad degree. It was a small program so many of us became friends. One person was in her early 30s, parents had supported her both here and abroad her entire life, never had a job. She did not graduate with us as she just didn't have the time to complete her terminal project and three classes per semester in two years. Poor dear. Most of us were working full time, including several practicising physicians. She claimed a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, was really into meditating, and being a vegetarian. Unless there was tasty smelling meat around.

I could be wrong but none of them seemed to create their exposure group from people that were trust fund babies or parent supported adults? As to my right wing sensibilities, I am a large proponent of an MGI. IMO, part of the welfare issue in regards to this topic, is that adults are getting treated like children with the government being their surrogate parents. And MGI means they have to make adult decisions about allocation vs. the paternal treatment many/most US benefits come with (the study was with US benefits). As an example, Section 8 housing provides a voucher paid directly to the landlord for (usually) 70% of the rent. In my world households/people would be given a cash transfer and they could decide how to allocate it.

Ahhhh....I see what you mean. I thought you were using parental support as an example to refer to a more expansive issue.

 

That's of course a very tough issue. In many cases, it's sink or swim. And that's a very hard decision for a family to make. I'm normally a huge proponent of the idea that a well designed study can measure almost anything...but my gut tells me that that might be beyond the expertise of sociologists.
 

Clinical depression does not necessarily have anything to do with your social situation or status. As I said before it's really got everything to do with chemical imbalances. I personally know someone who excels within his field of work (law) but suffered a deep depression last year without anything really changing in his immediate environment. After medicating for 6 months his serotonin levels are now back up and he's fully functional. Trying to pin down depression as something that only lazy hippies are suffering from is an over simplification to say the least.

All that fancy talk about chemicals and what not has me confused. Btw, the preferred nomenclature is "major depressive disorder" or "MDD.."

Fibromyalgia is a fake disease. People who claim to suffer from it are malingerers and I loathe them. I am not a doctor but I took some biology classes in college so I am qualified to speak on this matter.

Lolz

Oh I don't dispute you there. Fibromyalgia, allergy to electricity etc etc are all "diseases" that only seem to affect hypochondriacs.

Chemical imbalances are certainly a part of it...how large a part probably varies from person to person. SSRI's have helped me a lot in the past and I have a rather long family history of clinical depression/other stuff, so I imagine it plays a big role in my struggles.

 

The odd thing is that I've become less sympathetic sometimes rather than more. Intellectually, I am of course more so (if empathy can be intellectualized). But I've done rather well in initially combating severe depression and now obviating it; it's made me a stronger and more aggressive person....and I get frustrated when others aren't as able to do so (other members of my family). Totally unfair of me, but as I said, it isn't an intellectual reaction. I almost feel it is akin to a certain class of Republicans who say: I pulled myself up, why can't you?

 

 

There is a correlation between intelligence and depression. There is also a correlation between intelligence and wealth. I imagine that this makes pinning down "does depression lead to poor work performance...or no work" or "does poor work performance...or no work...lead to depression" rather difficult. From personal experience, a lot of successful people I know struggle with it.

 

The other difficulty (alright....another difficulty) is that it goes underdiagnosed among the poor and is probably overdiagnosed among the wealthy.

 

All of this is besides piob's point...and I think we can all agree that a lot of people just need to grow the fuck up

I recently read it might be genetic as families will become "clusters" of the disease. It did not say anything about if these were families of trust fund babies or over coddling parents though.

This bodes well for me never being depressed nor having to worry about what to do with excess cash.