Depression's Evolutionary Roots: Scientific American

Depression's Evolutionary Roots: Scientific American:

"When one considers all the evidence, depression seems less like a disorder where the brain is operating in a haphazard way, or malfunctioning. Instead, depression seems more like the vertebrate eye—an intricate, highly organized piece of machinery that performs a specific function."

The latest in the depression-must-mean-something meme.
I wish I could believe it. I wish that the periods of depression, when nothing moves and all is dull, were leading to better insights about life's problems, mine or the greater good. My experience has been, however, is that I'm not capable of much thought during those times. I don't, as the article suggests, ruminate on topics that require deep and sustained concentration. No, my time is usually spent staring at the opposite wall, my focus about six inches before I reach the wall, so nothing is clear and less is important.

"Laboratory experiments indicate that depressed people are better at solving social dilemmas by better analysis of the costs and benefits of the different options that they might take."

Maybe, and I'm not being too snarky here, we ought to move into laboratories. What I've seen out here, in my life and the lives of nearly all people with severe depression, is that depression wrecks relationships and drives people into repeated episodes of bad and/or self-destructive behavior, often in an effort to find relief from depression.
I commend the article's author for trying to identify something good that can come out of depression. I don't rule it out. I just know that I don't want to go back there, no matter how my analytical skills might improve.

Several more clips about insomnia

• The No Wake Zone
  "There’s accumulating scientific and historical evidence that human beings, like many of our mammalian cousins, weren’t meant to follow what we consider a “normal” wake-sleep pattern of two strictly segregated blocks of time—16 uninterrupted hours awake, 8 uninterrupted hours asleep."
  
• Sleep Patterns In Children And Teenagers Could Indicate Risk For Depression
  "adolescents with a familial risk for depression but without a depression diagnosis experienced shorter REM latency, meaning they reached the REM stage more quickly. Those adolescents were more likely to develop depression by the end of the five-year study period than those who reached REM sleep later in the cycle."
  
• Bedfellows: Insomnia and Depression | Psychology Today
  But it may be that insomnia is more than just a symptom of depression. It may in fact unleash the mood disorder. If sleep researcher Michael Perlis, Ph.D., is right, insomnia may be an early harbinger of depression. His longitudinal studies show that it appears to precede episodes of depression by about five weeks.
  


• Gene May Determine How Much Sleep You Need : NPR
  "A team of researchers has found a genetic mutation that appears to allow some people to get by on less sleep than others. The team found the unusual mutation in a mother and daughter pair who appear to sleep less."
  

Why You Should Hate the Idea of Applying for Disability Beneifts

Why You Should Hate the Idea of Applying for Disability Beneifts: "In my view, clients who hate the concept of disability are my best clients."

Online Insomnia Programs Promising, Studies Show

Online Insomnia Programs Promising, Studies Show – NYTimes.com « jumpstarting a life with a little spark to the head

Mentally Ill Offenders Strain Juvenile System - NYTimes.com

Mentally Ill Offenders Strain Juvenile System - NYTimes.com: "one challenge in dealing with large numbers of psychologically ill youths is determining who is “mad versus bad.”"

For science

Yesterday I met with a team from UMass Medical School that is researching treatment-resistant depression (TRD). I have applied to be a participant in a registry of patients with TRD whose progress (or lack of) will be compared against people receiving Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) therapy. I won't be receiving VNS therapy or any other treatments; I'd be part of the control group. As a result, there's little risk and a good chance to be a part of some important research. More about the registry here: http://www.trdregistry.org/.
The meeting yesterday lasted nearly two hours, covering my history of depression and the various treatments that I've tried, noting how well each treatment worked. It was a bit odd to try to define each 'episode' of depression. The last three years, for example, can be chunked into several episodes, based on the treatments that we've tried. I also see it as one long episode that hasn't ended. (Even though I'm doing pretty well much of the time, there's no doubt that I'm still dealing with depression as a regular part of my daily life.)
In addition, the renewed and detailed discussion about my depression history was wearing. I'd had awakened from a bad dream yesterday morning, a dream about misjudging my abilities and overestimating how much people wanted to hear about what I thought about everything, and so went to the interview feeling off my game. I found myself tearing up a few times as I recounted various parts of my life, but those feelings passed quickly and the rest of the day was pretty much ok.
Within a couple of weeks, I should find out if I've been accepted into the study. If so, I'll have interviews every three months for a couple of years and twice-yearly interviews for a few more, totaling 14 over five years.
I could not have predicted, five years ago, that this is how my life would be and so I'm doing even going to toss out a wild guess about what things will be like five years hence. I'll just keep showing up.