{"id":3318,"date":"2016-03-30T17:16:17","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T17:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/?p=3318"},"modified":"2019-11-11T16:03:36","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T16:03:36","slug":"two_depressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthicine.org\/wordpress\/two_depressed\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you Too Depressed, or Two Depressed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TwoDepressed-3\"<\/a>\u00a0Is depression a disease, or is it several diseases? Is it possible to have two depressions?<\/p>\n

Is depression a curable disease or an incurable disease? Some of the time? \u00a0All of the time?<\/p>\n

Dr Kelly Brogan has written a revolutionary book about depression, A Mind of Your Own<\/a>, where she points out that depression is a symptom, not a disease. If you want to have a look, you can download chapter 1 here<\/a>.\u00a0She’s right, but there’s more.<\/p>\n

Depression is a disease, many diseases actually. They’re in the book, although the DSM – The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders uses the word disorder, not disease. Cure is not in the DSM for any mental disorder. A physician can diagnose a patient’s depression and prescribe a medicine to treat (but not cure) depression. Depression is treated with medicines, but with medicines, there are no cures. Dr Kelly Brogan tired of not curing<\/em> depression with medicines. She decided to cure depression, and she learned to cure depression.<\/p>\n

Depression is also a symptom. \u00a0It’s a symptom that can come and go. \u00a0Sometimes, I feel depressed. Sometimes, more depressed. Sometimes, I don’t feel depressed at all. Dr Brogan treats depression as a symptom. She treats depression by finding the present cause of the symptom, and addressing the cause. The causes of depression are absences of healthiness. Dr Brogan cures depression by addressing unhealthinesses.<\/p>\n

A Mind of Your Own\u00a0has many stories, anecdotes, about depression patients cured by Dr Brogan. \u00a0Take note: Every cure is a single patient, who has an illness, with a cause, and the illness is cured by addressing the cause. Every cure is an anecdote.\u00a0<\/em>Treatments can be ‘clinical studies’, but medical treatments for depression can’t cure, they can only treat symptoms.<\/em><\/p>\n

Most, perhaps all\u00a0of the patients Dr Brogan treats have two or more causes of their depression. They have two or more depressions.<\/p>\n

It is possible to be depressed, to be suffering from depression. \u00a0It is also possible to be more depressed, to be suffering from a more severe depression. \u00a0It is also possible to be suffering from two depressions. \u00a0What’s the difference?<\/p>\n

We know how to make someone depressed. There are many causes of depression, and we can control some of them, to make someone depressed. \u00a0Depression can\u00a0be caused by\u00a0loneliness, lack of community\u00a0support, recent stressful life experiences, marital or relationship problems,\u00a0financial strain,\u00a0trauma or abuse, alcohol or drug abuse, dietary deficiencies, dietary excesses, unemployment or underemployment, other health problems, chronic pain, and more<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Let’s pick one: dietary deficiencies. \u00a0If someone is suffering from a specific dietary deficiency, they will become depressed. Some dietary deficiencies don’t cause depression, some cause minor depression, and some can cause severe depression. A minor deficiency of amino acids\u00a0can\u00a0cause a minor depression. A more severe deficiency of amino acids can cause a more severe depression. But a deficiency of amino acids doesn’t cause ‘two depressions’. There is a single cure.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0recent stressful experience, the loss of your job, the loss of a parent, the loss of a child, can also cause depression. In medical-speak, in medical diagnosis, it’s the same disease, depression.<\/p>\n

From a cure perspective, they’re\u00a0two different illnesses, because they\u00a0have two different causes.<\/p>\n

One and one makes two. \u00a0If you are suffering from a deficiency of amino acids, and then you suffer the loss of your job, you might be suffering from two depressions. From the list of causes of depression, it’s easy to see that someone might be suffering from three, four or even more\u00a0depression illnesses.<\/p>\n

Our medical systems treat depression<\/em>.\u00a0 When you treat depression, it’s easy to mistake\u00a0a patient with three depressions as being more depressed<\/em>, to prescribe a stronger medicine<\/em>.\u00a0 But that person is not depressed more, they have more depressions.<\/p>\n

Kelly Brogan CURES<\/em> depression. Curing is different than treating depression. To\u00a0cure depression, you need to isolate the different depression illnesses the patient has and \u00a0to address their causes, to\u00a0cure them one at a time. Depression is only cured with health.<\/p>\n

Dr Brogan cures depressions with health. \u00a0She cures patients by addressing the causes of their depression, healthing her patients, making them healthier. When you address the causes of depression, you only can cure one depression at a time.<\/p>\n

Many of Dr Brogan’s depression cures take a long time. One of the examples she presents is Eva, who took a year to cure her depression. Eva was on\u00a0several\u00a0medications, that were treating multiple depressions. She was also taking medicines to treat\u00a0symptoms caused by other\u00a0medicines.<\/p>\n

Dr Brogan does not use the term multiple depressions<\/em>, but she curess multiple depressions, by addressing multiple causes. Eva is a clear example.\u00a0An illness, like a\u00a0depression, is the intersection\u00a0of a symptoms and a present cause. Each illness, each depression, can only be cured by addressing the cause. When a patient has multiple depressions, they aren’t cured until each cause is addressed.<\/p>\n

When we view\u00a0depression as multiple illnesses, possibly in the same patient at the same time, we can understand depression, and how to cure it. \u00a0This also prompts us to think differently about some of the other diseases named depression by our medical systems. \u00a0Is manic-depression one illness? Or could it be two illnesses, each fighting for control. Or maybe sometimes it’s one illness, and sometimes it’s two illnesses. \u00a0The only way to figure out a specific case, is to identify the causes, and address them, to cure each illness. \u00a0Treatments with drugs, that do not address causes, have no hope to cure – although they can sometimes get the patient through<\/em>\u00a0to a time when their body, mind, spirits, or communities find a cure.<\/p>\n

It is also important to understand that depression can be a sign of healthiness. If you are depressed because of loneliness, and you\u00a0take a drug to help<\/em> with your depression, you might actually be making yourself less healthy, pushing the depression symptoms downwards, but not working to cure it. Your depression is telling you to seek companionship, not drugs.<\/p>\n

There are medical techniques to diagnose depression. But there are no medical techniques to diagnose a depression cured<\/em>. \u00a0Curing depression can be hard, and it can be time consuming. It can be difficult to tell if you are cured.<\/p>\n

Dr Brogan’s not only tells us how to cure depression, she\u00a0gives us hope that every depression is curable, but not with medicines. We can only cure depression, we can only cure illnesses by making the patient healthier, by addressing the causes of each illness.<\/p>\n

to your health, tracy<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This post is written based on the concepts of cure documented in the book The Elements of Cure.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Tracy is also the author of two books about healthicine:<\/p>\n