Medical Model

I'm a metaphysical naturalist. I believe that everything has a natural, physical cause. This impacts my thoughts about mental health. I believe that there are personality idiosyncrasies that may be inaccurately viewed as problematic because of our culture. I also believe that there may be learned or adaptive behavioral oddities that are caused by mistreatment or trauma or some other event that can become problematic for an individual--these result from how the brain develops and learns and thus controls our actions. But, as a whole, I am very brain-based. I believe that we will slowly uncover a series of medical, physical causes for most of what is in the DSM. I do think that we will find that some things that are currently listed as one condition will be seen to be a set of similar resulting symptoms from different causes. (Think of how many different conditions have "flu-like symptoms.")

I've talked about my depression many times here. My mother reports that I came out a deeply melancholy baby. It got worse after my father died. I have been fighting it over time, and I got to where I could manage it pretty well. But, it was all still there.

Was.

To say was is a slight exaggeration. I'm still melancholy and I think too deeply and I still catastrophize. But something magical has happened over the last year. As I've been treating my PCOS, my depression, that monster that waits to consume me without warning, is progressively resolving. I hesitate to suggest that I will ever truly be rid of it. But I am so profoundly better than I was a year ago, and, I dare say, better than I have ever been. I don't quite smile as readily as I did before my father died, but I do find myself accidentally smiling. It's a powerful thing. I also feel purposeful and confident and centered. I'm becoming able to identify what is wrong with my environment and those around me instead of why I'm a failure. I'm able to identify actions I can correct instead of why I'm worthless.

This is an ongoing struggle. I can't guarantee that I won't ever be unmanageable again. But I can't deny that there is significant research suggesting that treatment for PCOS improves existing depression in those patients. Considering that I have not been treating with pharmaceuticals for years now and have been untreated for my ADHD for two years. Coincident with my improvement, I've been decreasing the frequency of my talk-therapy appointments, so it isn't that.

I hope to be alive long enough to see the fruits of the growing union of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. I want to see the day that we actually know the causes of mental conditions and can actually predict who will respond to appropriate treatments--and to see those treatments developed. I long for the day when science based mechanisms will be the first course of action instead of the last. I know we'll get there. I just hope I'm around for it.