The Best Thing About Depression
>> Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Being depressive is not all doom and gloom. There is a bright side to it and it basically explains why writers (afflicted with depression) seem to be successful at their craft.
In a survey led by the neuroscientist Nancy Andreasen, 30 writers from the Iowa Writers' Workshop were interviewed about their mental history. Eighty percent of the writers met the formal diagnostic criteria for some form of depression. A similar theme emerged from biographical studies of British writers and artists by Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, who found that successful individuals were eight times as likely as people in the general population to suffer from major depressive illness.
Article: The Evolutionary Reason for Depression
This helps me understand myself better. I've always been a thinker and I guess, thinking is what I do best, though at times; I've been advised not to think too much. Yet, through my ruminations; I've learnt to comprehend my universe better.
In this article and the in the article it referenced - Depression Upside [The New York Times]; it suggests that depression may be a good thing after all. This goes against all that we believe about depression. Depression and sadness are all part of our personalities as human beings and thus, have their place in our development as individuals.
So the point is, to make the best of what you are and this involves using our sadness and depression to become the best we are.
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