Depression vs. Cancer: An Investigation

By Glenn Campbell (in Fayetteville, NC)

I saw this sign (above) at the Newark airport yesterday, and it pissed me off.

"You'd never say, 'It's just cancer, get over it.' So why do some say that about depression?"

I say cancer and depression are completely different. Furthermore, equating the two may be doing a great disservice to depression sufferers.

Cancer has very little to do with your attitude—at least after you already have it. It is a physical disease that is likely to kill most people without aggressive medical intervention. The implication here is that depression is also a disease you have no control over that requires outside medical intervention.

Depression, in fact, is all about attitude! Unlike cancer, only you can cure your own depression. Modern medicine is limited to two options: drugs and counseling. Every addict knows that drugs can make you happy, but the problem with all kinds of drugs—legal or otherwise—is they don't solve the underlying problem, whatever it may be, so you'll probably revert back to depression after you go off them. The claim that antidepressants are non-addictive is nonsense. If something makes you feel good, who wouldn't want to keep doing it?

The aim of counseling, on the other hand, is to change your attitude, to get you to take responsibility for controlling your own mood. This is essentially the opposite of the "Depression is something you have no control over" message.

In either case, someone is making a lot of money. Either it's the drug companies selling you their drugs or the medical establishment making big hourly rates on counseling. No one makes any money if you take control and solve the problem yourself.

Ultimately, the only way to cure depression is for the sufferer himself find some way to manage and assimilate it. Far more than cancer, your personal attitude and willingness to change have a huge impact on your depression. Yes, you must "Get over it" one way or another!

So who is sponsoring this sign? I suspect it is the drug industry, which has a big financial stake in making you think you have no control so they can sell you their patented antidepressants. Or maybe it is the people who make money from counseling. Unfortunately, it is hard to read the fine print on the ad in my photo, so I don't know for sure.

To find out more, I went to the website given, DepressionIsReal.org, and it doesn't exist! Click for yourself. "Domain Name Not Found." Change the suffix, however, and we do better: DepressionIsReal.com does exist. This seems to be the correct site, offering not-for-profit tips on depression. The site is professionally produced but says remarkably little: Just four articles of bland and useless advice ("Be sure to discuss your depression with your partner.") and links to Wikipedia and HeathGuide. You'd get a more useful and relevant information by simply Googling "depression".

Nowhere on this website does it say who the sponsor is. There's no foundation name or anything else. I could try to track down who owns the domain name, but why should I have to? Why the big mystery?

An observation: .ORG is suppose to refer to an non-commercial organization while .COM is a commercial one. This may or may not mean anything, but it is funny that someone would put all the effort into these signs and not even bother to register the website the sign is directing people to. It seems to me the main reason for the sign is not to direct people to any website but to perpetuate the message: "Depression = Cancer". The website just seems like a pro-forma requirement for the one person out of a thousand who will actually look it up.

This ad is probably an unpaid public service message, provided free by the ad company when signs are unsold. That doesn't prove it is "good" however. A lot of legally "nonprofit" organizations have dubious pedigrees, set up by people who have a lot to gain by spreading a certain message.

Depression is a part of life. Anyone who hasn't suffered from it hasn't lived. You feel depressed when things go wrong, and sometimes you feel depressed for no good reason. All of us must learn to deal with it. The only people who don't deal with it are those who don't accept it that it is their own problem, who insist that somebody else must solve it for them. These people are happy to seek out medical help because it helps them avoid making any changes in their own life.

This ad plays right into their hands. Depression is like cancer, so you don't have to face it yourself. Take it to qualified medical practitioner who will bill your insurance company.

Everybody makes money, but is the patient really cured?

Screen Story #25: "Shady Acres"

FADE IN:

In the sitting room of her home in rural England, a pleasant little old lady is being interviewed in a documentary. She is appealing for financial help from the public for her organization, "Shady Acres." This place is all about love, she says, and about caring for God's creatures who are unable to care for themselves.

As she speaks, a cat walks across the back of the sofa where she is sitting. The woman continues talking in general terms about the value of every living creature as well as about her own organizations desperate need for funds. As she speaks, we pull back to see another cat, and another, until we realize that the whole small room is packed with cats! The cats walk all over the lady until she loses her train of thought.

An off-screen interviewer points out that there more than 500 cats on her fenced-in property, and that the local government has declared the home in violation of a number of codes. Doesn't the woman realize the health danger she is creating and the stress she is putting the cats under?

The woman acknowledges that "Shady Acres" has problems, and that's why she is appealing for funds. She says that she has no options. Since every life is valuable -- even a little kitten's or a kitten still in the womb -- she can't bear to turn any feline away. She admits that she can't afford to feed the cats or spay or neuter them, but this doesn't justify the rejection of any innocent kitty who needs a place to say.

The woman says that she herself has known rejection, and it is a horrible feeling. She talks about the pain of being locked out and left in the cold -- referring to the kitties of course, but she may also be referring to herself.

The interviewer asks: Given the deplorable conditions inside the compound, wouldn't new cats be better left outside to fend for themselves?

No, no, the woman insists, leaving a cat outside would invite almost certain death. There are packs of raging dogs outside who will tear apart any unattended kitty they find. Rejecting a kitty or failing to pick it up when found wandering would be no better than a death sentence for the innocent feline.

In the middle of the interview, the woman stops, alerted to sounds outside. She looks out the window and gasps. She rushes outside the house, and we follow her.

Outside, the local animal control authorities have arrived in force, in an operation resembling a massive drug raid on a methamphetamine lab. Officers wearing hygienic facemasks and heavy gloves are seen netting and caging the animals. The cats take off in all directions! Health Department workers in hazmat suits are preparing to enter the house.

The woman races around the compound, frantically trying to stop the assault. She calls the officers "Nazi stormtroopers" and "kitty killers." Finally, a police officer firmly leads the woman away, removing her from the property for the duration of the operation.

Sometime later, we visit the woman again outside her home. She wanders stunned through her now-empty yard like a soldier visiting a battlefield where many comrades have died. She describes what happened here as a "Holocaust". She insists that all of the kitties are being gassed, and that the animal control officers now have "blood on their hands."

The interviewer repeats the statement of authorities who say they'll try to find homes for as many of the cats as possible. The woman replies that she doesn't believe it. All they have on their mind, she says, is genocide.

Then something alerts the woman. She goes to a porch, looks under it and find a litter of kittens that the officers overlooked. Her face brightens up, and she proudly shows us the kittens as she pulls them out.

She says this is a good sign, like a flower poking its head about the rubble after a volcanic explosions.

"There is always hope," she says, playing with her kittens.

FADE TO BLACK

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©Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. Photo source.
Also see my other screen stories at LoveStrangely.com