Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl
the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects,
then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and
observations.
Today's article discusses mirror neurons and the effects of depression. Since many autistic people suffer from various forms of depression, and its sibling anxiety, this seemed particular appropriate to pass on.
In brief, snarky summary:
For people without depression: Good news! Depression isn't infectious! You can continue on with your daily life secure in the knowledge that socializing with depressed people will not hurt you in the long term. You should, however, keep in mind that this means depression is more than a low mood, and as such telling someone who is depressed to cheer up is entirely pointless. Be a listening ear and a supportive hand instead, knowing that you will walk away from this encounter and be just fine in a few hours.
For people with depression: Good news. Depression isn't infectious! You can go on with your daily life knowing that you can't permanently drag someone down with you. If you didn't already know, depression is a lot more than just being down, sad, or burnt out, and therefore, while your life is hard, you can be slightly less unhappy knowing that your existence can't make other people depressed. Not everyone understands this, so you may still have to put up with thoughtless people telling you to cheer up. Sorry about that. You can always link this article to them, though.
Snark aside, I was personally kind of pleased to find out I wasn't a permanent drag on my friends, family, and acquaintances while I was growing up, and prior to getting decent help and therapy. I suspect I'll never be the life of the party, of course. But I do have memories of ruining a couple peoples' good moods over time, and while it never actually occurred to me that I might depress people by existing, the thought is frankly horrifying. So it's nice to have it nipped in the bud.
That said, I suspect if I'd been asked whether depression was infection prior to reading this article, I'd probably have hazarded a negative answer. Depression, as the article tells us, is much much more than a long-lasting sadness or poor mood. Things like this prove that, but in all honesty, there are a lot of possible causes for depression. Mine seems to have been at least partially biologically based, though I'm sure my situation didn't help either. Being a square peg constantly being hammered into a round hole is painful and exhausting, after all. Still, adding vitamin D, magnesium, NAC, and the other supplement supports has been an important step in improving my mood climate.
I should probably explain what I mean by "mood climate." If you think of a person like a square mile of land, and imagine that mile of land somewhere in the world, you would need to also imagine the weather that rolls across it. Are they depressed? Then perhaps the area routinely gets a lot of thick clouds and rain. Anger management problems? Occasional thunderstorms. If they're cheerful and happy a lot, perhaps the area gets a lot of sunlight as a rule. If they're calm and laid-back, perhaps the area has gentle breezes sometimes. All these things are the area's weather climate. They're what you predict the weather off of. They're general rules of thumb.
This is distinct from a person's current mood, which is much more variable and can change from moment to moment. A person's current mood is somewhat dictated by their current situation. A normally calm person can be riled up and spitting mad about the current politics. So a field of grass, normally used to gentle breezes, might experience a thunderstorm. That's normal enough. Or a depressed person might have a really great day, and the sun shines brightly through thinned, or even dissipated clouds for a day. Everyone has mood shifts over the course of the day, that's quite normal.
Within this analogy, I suppose in high school I'd've probably been a land cast in perpetual grey. Sometimes the grey was brighter, and I could almost see beams of sunlight through the clouds. Sometimes the rain fell extra hard from clouds so grey they were nearly black. Thunderstorms occurred very frequently in middle school. Strong winds blew regularly, making the rain batter the ground.
These days I'm probably more of a partly cloudy area, some sunshine and some shadow. The wind is temperamental. It's usually around, and tends to blow at a slow pace, but sometimes circumstances change and it blows a lot harder. Sometimes rain falls, and thunderstorms happen, but they're less of a regular occurrence.
Today's article discusses mirror neurons and the effects of depression. Since many autistic people suffer from various forms of depression, and its sibling anxiety, this seemed particular appropriate to pass on.
In brief, snarky summary:
For people without depression: Good news! Depression isn't infectious! You can continue on with your daily life secure in the knowledge that socializing with depressed people will not hurt you in the long term. You should, however, keep in mind that this means depression is more than a low mood, and as such telling someone who is depressed to cheer up is entirely pointless. Be a listening ear and a supportive hand instead, knowing that you will walk away from this encounter and be just fine in a few hours.
For people with depression: Good news. Depression isn't infectious! You can go on with your daily life knowing that you can't permanently drag someone down with you. If you didn't already know, depression is a lot more than just being down, sad, or burnt out, and therefore, while your life is hard, you can be slightly less unhappy knowing that your existence can't make other people depressed. Not everyone understands this, so you may still have to put up with thoughtless people telling you to cheer up. Sorry about that. You can always link this article to them, though.
Snark aside, I was personally kind of pleased to find out I wasn't a permanent drag on my friends, family, and acquaintances while I was growing up, and prior to getting decent help and therapy. I suspect I'll never be the life of the party, of course. But I do have memories of ruining a couple peoples' good moods over time, and while it never actually occurred to me that I might depress people by existing, the thought is frankly horrifying. So it's nice to have it nipped in the bud.
That said, I suspect if I'd been asked whether depression was infection prior to reading this article, I'd probably have hazarded a negative answer. Depression, as the article tells us, is much much more than a long-lasting sadness or poor mood. Things like this prove that, but in all honesty, there are a lot of possible causes for depression. Mine seems to have been at least partially biologically based, though I'm sure my situation didn't help either. Being a square peg constantly being hammered into a round hole is painful and exhausting, after all. Still, adding vitamin D, magnesium, NAC, and the other supplement supports has been an important step in improving my mood climate.
I should probably explain what I mean by "mood climate." If you think of a person like a square mile of land, and imagine that mile of land somewhere in the world, you would need to also imagine the weather that rolls across it. Are they depressed? Then perhaps the area routinely gets a lot of thick clouds and rain. Anger management problems? Occasional thunderstorms. If they're cheerful and happy a lot, perhaps the area gets a lot of sunlight as a rule. If they're calm and laid-back, perhaps the area has gentle breezes sometimes. All these things are the area's weather climate. They're what you predict the weather off of. They're general rules of thumb.
This is distinct from a person's current mood, which is much more variable and can change from moment to moment. A person's current mood is somewhat dictated by their current situation. A normally calm person can be riled up and spitting mad about the current politics. So a field of grass, normally used to gentle breezes, might experience a thunderstorm. That's normal enough. Or a depressed person might have a really great day, and the sun shines brightly through thinned, or even dissipated clouds for a day. Everyone has mood shifts over the course of the day, that's quite normal.
Within this analogy, I suppose in high school I'd've probably been a land cast in perpetual grey. Sometimes the grey was brighter, and I could almost see beams of sunlight through the clouds. Sometimes the rain fell extra hard from clouds so grey they were nearly black. Thunderstorms occurred very frequently in middle school. Strong winds blew regularly, making the rain batter the ground.
These days I'm probably more of a partly cloudy area, some sunshine and some shadow. The wind is temperamental. It's usually around, and tends to blow at a slow pace, but sometimes circumstances change and it blows a lot harder. Sometimes rain falls, and thunderstorms happen, but they're less of a regular occurrence.
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