I choose to write on a topic on my birthday that has attacked many of us including yours truly in some form or other . Its a silent killer and a topic which we choose to avoid because it does not have any external manifestation but is a deadly disease that eats into our roots and system .
Depression or melancholism in general is a symptom - the roots are far reaching in consequence . Each year millions of people succumb to depression either by killing themselves or by drug overdose of melancholism. Yet we choose not to talk about it as it is on paper not as dangerous as other forms of ailments like Cancer, Diabetes, Heart and kidney ailments etc . We as human beings like to brood over some form of bloodiness which Depression fail to attract ..
Lets now get down to the business of dissecting and analysing what depression is :
Since its a medical condition which is intangible but whose manifestations are tangible , Depression on the whole cannot be defined as a disease which will give us only black and white answers . The different forms of the same found in medical journals are only post research and not full proof symptoms like other diseases which have physical conditions.
What is depression then ? Depression is more than just the feeling of sadness - it is a medical condition where most people go through periods of persistent downheartedness for weeks , months may be years . The changing face of depression is sinister because earlier people thought it to be a health condition but they were grossly wrong : its a real medical condition with genuine causes and symptoms .
Clinically the following are broadly six types of depression :
1. Major Depression ( that which lasts for several days and if left untreated even for months)
2. Minor Depression ( single depressive incident in one's lifetime )
3.Atypical Depression ( subtype of major depression - sudden weight gain,changes in sleeping habits etc)
4.Dysthymia or Mild Depression ( Long lasting depression - symptoms are milder forms of major depression)
5. Seasonal Affective Disorder - (energy drain and mood swings in winter )
6.Melancholic Depression - ( subtype of clinical depression - mainly the inability to find pleasure in positive things, lack of mood reactivity)
But and it is a big but - am not a psychiatrist and not remotely one ...
What am trying to weave is the correlation between Depression and the complexity of modern times. There is no doubt in my mind that during our parents' time and grand fathers' time the word Depression was hardly spelt .
So what has depression got to do with changing society ? Its a variable matrix with socio economic scales in one hand and the changing society and its complexity in another .
For me depression stems from the pure fact of being unable to match upto expectations . As simple as that . Now the point is whether the expectations were realistic or not and it is here that i want to throw the hat in the towel .. My basic focal point of discussion today is whether the changing times from my parents and grandfathers and so on to the modern times is the root cause of the deadly change in nature of depression and hence its catastrophic effects .
Lets accept the fact that life in our times with advent of technology and easy access of other means of social networking has made it very very complicating .
A small example - a 17 year old teenager cannot live without his /her ipod, whats app , FB and kinky chats with GF/BF . Nothing wrong or right but in our times as well as even 10 years back this was hardly in vogue .
If we had the disadvantage of technology we also had the advantage of simplicity and a lot of privacy in life .
For me the start off point of depression is the fact that our private space which we call our " own time " is not there any more . A blunt truth but lets accept it . When we grew up we only had the old Graham Bell Telephone as a means of communication which means a girl or a boy will have to call once atleast to fix a time for his /her beau to step out . Today instant dates are fixed on whats app - you dont need to call even .
Now why am I harping so much on our times and their times ? Once again am not cynical in overtly criticizing this generation with the idea of turning out to be a poor Sport which am not - I repeat once again that this generation has many advantages which we didnt have .
The standalone difference when we grew up in 1980's and now is SIMPLICITY . Life has become very complex and hence depression has also become more complex and complex.
Depression first came into vogue in the 70's with the advent of Naxalism . The individual brilliance of the rank holders usurped by a theory or dogma gave birth to a movement which took away a lot of careers and lives - now seen as a great redundance gave birth to huge depression in middle class families where the only bread earner was the student whose parents dreamt that their son or daughter will shine in an US uni. That depression was an intellectual holocaust which drained a lot of brilliance in the upper middle class Bongs of 70's and also led to a huge vacuum in the system as those who survived left Bengal and India for ever . The vacuum in the educational scene which started in the 70's has actually ruined Bengal of what it could have been and what it is now .
Back to depression. Our times the most diffcult of the times - the 80's when Bengal and India were slowly clawing back to cognizance after a dull 70 which saw emergency and other stuff. The main story of depression in our times presumably was broken heart ( sic ). Failure in love was a stigma and trauma in our times . Cupid and its failure has ruined many a life in 80's in our times when we grew up.
Love although not my topic today has many fallacies - the pros and cons . Todays generation has one good thing they can move out of a relationship pretty fast . But during our times since the onset of social media and technology was not that dominating we could fret on broken relationships, had much more time and consequentially our state of mind definitely led us to being depressed.
I always have believed , believe and will believe that if you allow someone or something to intrude your private space then u cannot complain later that your privacy or "me time" is gone . We cannot deny the advent of technology and what all good it has done to our lives. Digital India as they say now and in general making things available at your finger makes you feel empowered but at the same time it takes away everything that once used to be behind the curtains.
Take for example - the "tag" and " check in " option in FB . These days we tag people and check in places to let the whole world know we are going where and with whom. It is plain exhibitionism. Letting the world know that I am a happening person is ok ( to each his own)( sometimes I tag people and check in places but keep it minimal) but it can work eitherways , as people will invariably check the profile and other than anything else your world which was your own till now is exposed to the entire world . Why do we need to tell the world what we are doing ?
Back to depression again. And this is related to Social Media and its unholy uprise definitely. Ever since whats app has complimented FB and the extinct Orkut and smart phones have replaced the heavy Nokia and I phone has replaced Blackberry and Samsung to an extent ( although I am still a big fav of Samsung ), complications have invariably hit our lives more so than ever.
The forms of depression now are more wide in nature - failure in career is fast becoming a huge area of depression , financial problems , family issues , depressed nature of one and lastly love . See how surprising it is that of all things love now takes a back seat in depression .Also is a pointer in our lives that matter of heart is no longer a prime factor of depression.
With privatisation coming into our lives courtesy Manmohan Singh in the 90's, the major significant change in our lives was an array of jobs appearing in the horizon which were hitherto unknown to us or our forefathers .
Suddenly a whole new world opened before us - ushered in a new era of hope and excitement - and a whole new generation woke up to take advantage of this . New MBA colleges were opened , and a whole new bunch of boys and gals started a new race - fast and furious to reach the top . Much like the 80's when the sole ambition after meeting a good looking women was to woo her and make her your own which invariably would be a talking point of town, this generation took on a new ambition that of securing a job that would afford them a sleek car, good perks , tremendous lifestyle including a jazzy flat or apartment and of course a trophy girl friend.
The equations suddenly changed . Boys and girls were no longer ready to fall in love - they now desperately wanted to secure a super life full of glamour which invariably would give them a super girl friend or a boy friend . And the competition brought in unhealthy ways to reach the top ( not my point of discussion here ) and consequentially the inevitability of the outcome - those who fell behind were depressed .
This brings me back to my discussion point enlisted above - the changing face of depression from 80's to the 00's. In a span of 20 years the word " Depression " changed from archaic matters of heart ( in a way pristine ) to more bloody cold warfare of modern day careers and the snake ladder that life is .
Failure to woo a girl was replaced by failure to climb the ladders - from assistant manager to a general manager - depression was much more materialistic rather than intangible . Every success or failure has a price to pay now.
People with similar academic backgrounds starting from same levels after few years find themsleves poles apart. Work nature and other factors which I choose not to describe find them slipping slowly . And mind you performances are not always the only factor that takes you upward. We all know that - but am not discussing that here .
The socio economic changes dealt a havoc blow amongst other things in depression. A whole new generation got depressed if they were not doing well in their careers . And a nasty foil to it was the over hyped social media. Pangs of frustration and joys of achievement all were flashed in FB , Twitter or Instagram. Not so long ago we found some one posting how she/he will die in her/his FB wall moments before he/she committed suicide . So much so for exhibitionism. Apart from the gruesome nature of death , the over intrusion of social media is now a no bar from anything in our lives .
So on one hand the changing nature of our complexities and on the other hand the changing nature of our social lives - depression now has a total remake - however gruesome it may be.
Middle class lives were no longer bothered by broken hearts - they were losing sleep over promotions which would guarantee more mullah , page 3 lifestyle and fat bank balances .
All this has got to do with one thing and that is too much intrusion of social media and social peer pressure . We never had FB and whats app , never tagged or checked in to show off to people what we did . Sometimes I feel absence of technology is a blessing in disguise - we got so much time for ourselves . Never did we have the chance to take a peek at others lives' - FB now at the press of a button tells us whose doing what in life, whose gone places, whose bought the next BMW , whose holidaying in Spain or Barbados, whose got the next apartment in Khandala and so on and so forth.
People were are and will be always hungry , ambitious and jealous. What we are doing now with help of this social media intrusion is to provide fodder to hungry cows . People will be misusing technology, for showing off is an inherent nature of ours - how many can resist the temptation of not posting their lives on FB or twitter or anywhere else ?
Its quite intrinsic of us to be jealous and feel sad when we see others doing well - Bongs are again a special character on this . ( Me being a bong is saying this ). So when we use social media to tell the whole world about our growth and progress its not a wonder that people who are not doing well will sink to severe depression. Although its unfair to do so but we cant help , can we?
The pressure of social media has been such in our lives that whether we want it or not we are getting entangled in it and the nature of our depression is getting complex and more severe .... Previously doing well in life was limited to goodie boys in school who came first . But now with a lot of other factors coming in , the coveted CEO position can be of any one - whoever is smart enough to play the dice well. And in that Social Media plays its part well. Psychiatrists say that by viewing some ones FB or twitter accounts we get an idea of the person that he /she is . And hows that possible - only because we are allowing our lives to get exposed in social media. Rather we are playing into the hands of truant media .
Depression will stay for sure for there are demented human minds which will lurk in the dark to find answers beyond realm of positivity - people will commit suicide for reason or rather lack of reason - there will be negative people around and people who are subjected to negativity - all of these will be there for sure but lets not complicate and aggrevate our lives which are burdened already with so much unholy intrusion of what we now call is the misuse of social media. Too much of anything is bad and when its social media it definitely poses more problem than the naked eye can see for human mind is far more complex than we can even think in our wildest dreams and lets not empower the menace of depression already hanging large in our lives with so much of exhibitionism and overdose of media intrusion.
Guys are you ready to reduce stress and anxiety in lives by protecting your lives or do u love washing dirty linen in public ?
Depression or melancholism in general is a symptom - the roots are far reaching in consequence . Each year millions of people succumb to depression either by killing themselves or by drug overdose of melancholism. Yet we choose not to talk about it as it is on paper not as dangerous as other forms of ailments like Cancer, Diabetes, Heart and kidney ailments etc . We as human beings like to brood over some form of bloodiness which Depression fail to attract ..
Lets now get down to the business of dissecting and analysing what depression is :
Since its a medical condition which is intangible but whose manifestations are tangible , Depression on the whole cannot be defined as a disease which will give us only black and white answers . The different forms of the same found in medical journals are only post research and not full proof symptoms like other diseases which have physical conditions.
What is depression then ? Depression is more than just the feeling of sadness - it is a medical condition where most people go through periods of persistent downheartedness for weeks , months may be years . The changing face of depression is sinister because earlier people thought it to be a health condition but they were grossly wrong : its a real medical condition with genuine causes and symptoms .
Clinically the following are broadly six types of depression :
1. Major Depression ( that which lasts for several days and if left untreated even for months)
2. Minor Depression ( single depressive incident in one's lifetime )
3.Atypical Depression ( subtype of major depression - sudden weight gain,changes in sleeping habits etc)
4.Dysthymia or Mild Depression ( Long lasting depression - symptoms are milder forms of major depression)
5. Seasonal Affective Disorder - (energy drain and mood swings in winter )
6.Melancholic Depression - ( subtype of clinical depression - mainly the inability to find pleasure in positive things, lack of mood reactivity)
But and it is a big but - am not a psychiatrist and not remotely one ...
What am trying to weave is the correlation between Depression and the complexity of modern times. There is no doubt in my mind that during our parents' time and grand fathers' time the word Depression was hardly spelt .
So what has depression got to do with changing society ? Its a variable matrix with socio economic scales in one hand and the changing society and its complexity in another .
For me depression stems from the pure fact of being unable to match upto expectations . As simple as that . Now the point is whether the expectations were realistic or not and it is here that i want to throw the hat in the towel .. My basic focal point of discussion today is whether the changing times from my parents and grandfathers and so on to the modern times is the root cause of the deadly change in nature of depression and hence its catastrophic effects .
Lets accept the fact that life in our times with advent of technology and easy access of other means of social networking has made it very very complicating .
A small example - a 17 year old teenager cannot live without his /her ipod, whats app , FB and kinky chats with GF/BF . Nothing wrong or right but in our times as well as even 10 years back this was hardly in vogue .
If we had the disadvantage of technology we also had the advantage of simplicity and a lot of privacy in life .
For me the start off point of depression is the fact that our private space which we call our " own time " is not there any more . A blunt truth but lets accept it . When we grew up we only had the old Graham Bell Telephone as a means of communication which means a girl or a boy will have to call once atleast to fix a time for his /her beau to step out . Today instant dates are fixed on whats app - you dont need to call even .
Now why am I harping so much on our times and their times ? Once again am not cynical in overtly criticizing this generation with the idea of turning out to be a poor Sport which am not - I repeat once again that this generation has many advantages which we didnt have .
The standalone difference when we grew up in 1980's and now is SIMPLICITY . Life has become very complex and hence depression has also become more complex and complex.
Depression first came into vogue in the 70's with the advent of Naxalism . The individual brilliance of the rank holders usurped by a theory or dogma gave birth to a movement which took away a lot of careers and lives - now seen as a great redundance gave birth to huge depression in middle class families where the only bread earner was the student whose parents dreamt that their son or daughter will shine in an US uni. That depression was an intellectual holocaust which drained a lot of brilliance in the upper middle class Bongs of 70's and also led to a huge vacuum in the system as those who survived left Bengal and India for ever . The vacuum in the educational scene which started in the 70's has actually ruined Bengal of what it could have been and what it is now .
Back to depression. Our times the most diffcult of the times - the 80's when Bengal and India were slowly clawing back to cognizance after a dull 70 which saw emergency and other stuff. The main story of depression in our times presumably was broken heart ( sic ). Failure in love was a stigma and trauma in our times . Cupid and its failure has ruined many a life in 80's in our times when we grew up.
Love although not my topic today has many fallacies - the pros and cons . Todays generation has one good thing they can move out of a relationship pretty fast . But during our times since the onset of social media and technology was not that dominating we could fret on broken relationships, had much more time and consequentially our state of mind definitely led us to being depressed.
Depression arising out of love affected our generation in a manner which people not even remotely related to the affected could understand. The no of fags going up , may be drinking depending on your socio economic condition and of course the love letters . Our times were marked with love letters - how stupid and juvenile it may seem now in this age of whats app and Mac , and I sometimes break into a silent muse - but friends in our times invariably chose literature to express love or the lack of it . Cant recall how many instances where have seen friends sending letters through others to express or get back the love .
Love or the lack of it depressed my generation much more than anything else - factors could be various - from the obvious : the girl's family coming to know and prohibiting her to meet the boy , to the girl switching alliance to some one else ( a trend which started around that time ) , to the girl getting married off , socio economic conditions and sundry . And this applied the other way round also.
Love unlike today was quite homogenous in our times and was pure and a failure in that invariably depressed the person in question - girl or a boy and the manifestation could be as varied from remorse and sadness ranging for days to a more violent outburst like taking one's own life. Suicide was a form which not many attempted in our times ( in a sharp contrast now ) as a manifestation of a broken heart.
With Social Media and its (ill) effects not there, the very basic fact of losing some one close gave birth to huge melancholism . Being with some one and sharing an entire life and then suddenly that person going away for a host of factors, middle class Bongs could cling only to one thing - depression.
The change in the forms of depression invariably made its way in the late 90's and into the 2000 when along with many other things consumerism and infusion of excess social media started entering our lives slowly . And that for me is a huge debate .
With Social Media and its (ill) effects not there, the very basic fact of losing some one close gave birth to huge melancholism . Being with some one and sharing an entire life and then suddenly that person going away for a host of factors, middle class Bongs could cling only to one thing - depression.
The change in the forms of depression invariably made its way in the late 90's and into the 2000 when along with many other things consumerism and infusion of excess social media started entering our lives slowly . And that for me is a huge debate .
I always have believed , believe and will believe that if you allow someone or something to intrude your private space then u cannot complain later that your privacy or "me time" is gone . We cannot deny the advent of technology and what all good it has done to our lives. Digital India as they say now and in general making things available at your finger makes you feel empowered but at the same time it takes away everything that once used to be behind the curtains.
Take for example - the "tag" and " check in " option in FB . These days we tag people and check in places to let the whole world know we are going where and with whom. It is plain exhibitionism. Letting the world know that I am a happening person is ok ( to each his own)( sometimes I tag people and check in places but keep it minimal) but it can work eitherways , as people will invariably check the profile and other than anything else your world which was your own till now is exposed to the entire world . Why do we need to tell the world what we are doing ?
Back to depression again. And this is related to Social Media and its unholy uprise definitely. Ever since whats app has complimented FB and the extinct Orkut and smart phones have replaced the heavy Nokia and I phone has replaced Blackberry and Samsung to an extent ( although I am still a big fav of Samsung ), complications have invariably hit our lives more so than ever.
The forms of depression now are more wide in nature - failure in career is fast becoming a huge area of depression , financial problems , family issues , depressed nature of one and lastly love . See how surprising it is that of all things love now takes a back seat in depression .Also is a pointer in our lives that matter of heart is no longer a prime factor of depression.
With privatisation coming into our lives courtesy Manmohan Singh in the 90's, the major significant change in our lives was an array of jobs appearing in the horizon which were hitherto unknown to us or our forefathers .
Suddenly a whole new world opened before us - ushered in a new era of hope and excitement - and a whole new generation woke up to take advantage of this . New MBA colleges were opened , and a whole new bunch of boys and gals started a new race - fast and furious to reach the top . Much like the 80's when the sole ambition after meeting a good looking women was to woo her and make her your own which invariably would be a talking point of town, this generation took on a new ambition that of securing a job that would afford them a sleek car, good perks , tremendous lifestyle including a jazzy flat or apartment and of course a trophy girl friend.
The equations suddenly changed . Boys and girls were no longer ready to fall in love - they now desperately wanted to secure a super life full of glamour which invariably would give them a super girl friend or a boy friend . And the competition brought in unhealthy ways to reach the top ( not my point of discussion here ) and consequentially the inevitability of the outcome - those who fell behind were depressed .
This brings me back to my discussion point enlisted above - the changing face of depression from 80's to the 00's. In a span of 20 years the word " Depression " changed from archaic matters of heart ( in a way pristine ) to more bloody cold warfare of modern day careers and the snake ladder that life is .
Failure to woo a girl was replaced by failure to climb the ladders - from assistant manager to a general manager - depression was much more materialistic rather than intangible . Every success or failure has a price to pay now.
People with similar academic backgrounds starting from same levels after few years find themsleves poles apart. Work nature and other factors which I choose not to describe find them slipping slowly . And mind you performances are not always the only factor that takes you upward. We all know that - but am not discussing that here .
The socio economic changes dealt a havoc blow amongst other things in depression. A whole new generation got depressed if they were not doing well in their careers . And a nasty foil to it was the over hyped social media. Pangs of frustration and joys of achievement all were flashed in FB , Twitter or Instagram. Not so long ago we found some one posting how she/he will die in her/his FB wall moments before he/she committed suicide . So much so for exhibitionism. Apart from the gruesome nature of death , the over intrusion of social media is now a no bar from anything in our lives .
So on one hand the changing nature of our complexities and on the other hand the changing nature of our social lives - depression now has a total remake - however gruesome it may be.
Middle class lives were no longer bothered by broken hearts - they were losing sleep over promotions which would guarantee more mullah , page 3 lifestyle and fat bank balances .
All this has got to do with one thing and that is too much intrusion of social media and social peer pressure . We never had FB and whats app , never tagged or checked in to show off to people what we did . Sometimes I feel absence of technology is a blessing in disguise - we got so much time for ourselves . Never did we have the chance to take a peek at others lives' - FB now at the press of a button tells us whose doing what in life, whose gone places, whose bought the next BMW , whose holidaying in Spain or Barbados, whose got the next apartment in Khandala and so on and so forth.
People were are and will be always hungry , ambitious and jealous. What we are doing now with help of this social media intrusion is to provide fodder to hungry cows . People will be misusing technology, for showing off is an inherent nature of ours - how many can resist the temptation of not posting their lives on FB or twitter or anywhere else ?
Its quite intrinsic of us to be jealous and feel sad when we see others doing well - Bongs are again a special character on this . ( Me being a bong is saying this ). So when we use social media to tell the whole world about our growth and progress its not a wonder that people who are not doing well will sink to severe depression. Although its unfair to do so but we cant help , can we?
The pressure of social media has been such in our lives that whether we want it or not we are getting entangled in it and the nature of our depression is getting complex and more severe .... Previously doing well in life was limited to goodie boys in school who came first . But now with a lot of other factors coming in , the coveted CEO position can be of any one - whoever is smart enough to play the dice well. And in that Social Media plays its part well. Psychiatrists say that by viewing some ones FB or twitter accounts we get an idea of the person that he /she is . And hows that possible - only because we are allowing our lives to get exposed in social media. Rather we are playing into the hands of truant media .
Depression will stay for sure for there are demented human minds which will lurk in the dark to find answers beyond realm of positivity - people will commit suicide for reason or rather lack of reason - there will be negative people around and people who are subjected to negativity - all of these will be there for sure but lets not complicate and aggrevate our lives which are burdened already with so much unholy intrusion of what we now call is the misuse of social media. Too much of anything is bad and when its social media it definitely poses more problem than the naked eye can see for human mind is far more complex than we can even think in our wildest dreams and lets not empower the menace of depression already hanging large in our lives with so much of exhibitionism and overdose of media intrusion.
Guys are you ready to reduce stress and anxiety in lives by protecting your lives or do u love washing dirty linen in public ?
Good one
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