A New Kind of Medicine

Suicide is a horrifying phenomena. The ability for pain and sadness to so cripple a person that they are driven to end all they know of existence, to obliterate everything, to slaughter every day you would have lived in the future, and all that you would have done. And depression, the vehicle suicide rides on, is equally frightening. How do you stop an epidemic that only grows with the addition of luxury and wealth?

The statistics:
Depression grows by 25% a year.
10% of Americans 18 and up are effected by depression.
Some studies show antidepressants positively effecting less than a third of subjects.

It seems to me depression is a matter of control. Our instinct tells us to fight and survive. The problem is, the modern society we live in has removed this need entirely. We flounder hopelessly in a world in which our own survival is not in our control. It is mandatory. So we exercise our authority the only place we can, over the very lungs in our bodies.

Suicide is a matter of power. We all want power, but so much of the time we are powerless. Powerless to fulfill our cravings for Love, for passion and pleasure, for social acceptance. We find ourselves day in and day out living a life shown to us on glowing screens. And what is worse is we realize it. We are painfully aware of exactly how monotonous, how empty our own lives are because we have so much time on our hands that should be spent surviving !!

This is why antidepressants fail so often. They provide another means of dependence. They are one more area out of the user's control. One cannot control their own chemical imbalances, or chemical dependencies. I don't admonish the drug, I only acknowledge its failures. What we need is a way to give purpose to the depressed. Yes it is a matter of biological needs, but more so the battle is fought in the psyche.

Maybe all depressed people should be dropped in a forest somewhere and forced to survive. Or thrown out on their own with no financial support. Maybe they should be given a quest and an objective, with no help but the help they find on their own. This would cure their depression. This would give them something to live for!