About that parallel you're drawing...

[firecat]

I have seen multiple posts about depression recently that compare it to diabetes and say something like "You wouldn't expect a diabetic to go without their insulin, right? Well you shouldn't expect a depressed person to 'just cheer up.'"

Here's the thing. There is lots of shaming of diabetics for being on meds or insulin. A lot of people think diabetes is a "lifestyle disease" and that one can choose whether to have it and how to treat it. There is probably considerable overlap between people with that view and the ones who think depression is a bad mood or a selfish play for attention.

I appreciate the attempt to educate people about depression and I'm not criticizing any particular person or post, but I'm thinking some other comparison would probably work better to get the point across that depression is a very difficult condition to manage.

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

What comparisons would you suggest? My diabetic friend's doctor got him to accept Buproprion as a permanent daily need, by saying that just as his body will never make all of the insulin he needs, it also will never make all of the [whatever] that Buproprion supplies. But that each of these drugs can turn a disruptive illness into a routinely manageable one.

[firecat]

Yeah, I'm not saying no one should ever make the comparison in any circumstances, but depending on the audience, it might not be as effective as one would assume.

And I don't have anything to suggest in its place; over on the Dreamwidth version of this post people have been saying that every disease gets blamed on the person who has it, and/or on their parents, because that's what the culture is like right now.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

It definitely depends on the audience!

Lately I've been hanging out around some charming Utilitarians, so what comes to my mind on such questions is, among each audience, who would be helped and how much, vs who would be hurt, and how much.

Looking at worst cases, if comparison with depression makes a diabetic refuse insulin, soon he will end up in the hospital, and have plenty more chances to be pursuaded. But if a depressed person refuses to take anti-depressives, he may fall into such drastic action that he has no more chances.