Depression

Depression

By

Leonard Zwelling

Depression, in my experience, is a chronic disease than can be managed with psychotherapy and psychoactive drugs. I understand this disease for the simple reason that I have been dealing with it for over 20 years now. I am dealing with it again for a number of reasons.

Because of the severe neurogenic pain that derives from my degenerative spinal disease that itself is probably due to a career of distance running, my meds were switched from Prozac to Cymbalta. That latter drug has the combined benefits of fighting both depression and neurogenic pain and appears to be quite effective. Like all such drugs, they need to be adjusted by the patient on the fly based on both efficacy and side effects. It’s not fun, but it is necessary.

As I once again wrestle with this process of pharmacologic titration, I’ve begun to wonder whether a lot of my current depression is not organic, but situational. Can you remember a worse last five or so years? I cannot, at least since Vietnam and Watergate.

First, there was Covid. I am still confused about where it came from although I think the Wuhan Institute of Virology is likely. The American response needs to be rehashed for the next time (and there will be a next time). Did the masks help? How good were the vaccines? How damaging were the school shutdowns? Now that we all are zooming, is this a good thing and what has happened to the commercial real estate market?

We have a presidential election between two relatively unpopular individuals, neither of whom the majority of Americans think is the solution to our national problems—immigration, economic uncertainty, the threat of artificial intelligence, and reproductive rights.

Two wars are being waged across the Atlantic. No one seems to have a plan to end either of them, although if Trump wins, he will “solve” the one in Ukraine. That will only happen if he capitulates to Putin and ceases arms shipments to Ukraine. That’s called appeasement.

A large segment of the country thinks that immigration is the downfall of the nation. In fact, that work force is vitally important to our future as so much of the economy is based on the service sector in which these immigrants tend to work. Without these people, your houses will not get built, your lawn will not get mowed, your trash will not be picked-up, and nothing will be delivered after you order it on Amazon. And this does not include the elite immigrants in science and the arts that contribute to the country as soon as they get here.

The state of academics also has me down. The elite universities have been taken over by the extreme left and have created institutions of monolithic thinking where conservative points of view, let alone pro-Israel points of view, cannot be expressed. And what about the emergence of more and more anti-Semitism?

I have been coming to the opinion that there is plenty in the zeitgeist about which to be depressed. There seems to be no leaders with answers to the problems or else they do not have the courage to fix them. In fact, that may be the appeal of Donald Trump. He says he can fix anything. War, immigration, the economy—none of these things are beyond his capacity to repair. And people believe this. Perhaps that is the most depressing thing of all. Really smart people I know actually will vote for Trump thinking that he will be better for them (possible if he reduces their taxes), despite being terrible for the future of the country and the rule of law.

Yes, I’m still fooling with my meds and thus should not be surprised that some the symptoms of depression plague me. At least, I can intellectualize what these are. By contrast, this world we live in is a depressing place. I won’t be surprised if many who have never been victims of this awful disease, succumb to it now.

Prozac in the water?