Link Blog
For example, when a person is experiencing low levels of energy and motivation, loss of interest and pleasure, or fatigue, these are considered to be symptoms of the category of depression.
In the predominant biomedical system, these are seen as related to a person’s biology—fixed and predetermined.
However, when this kind of state is explored within the wider context of a person’s life, elements of a subjective sense of loss or a situation that is felt to be unbearable, deep down, are usually found. Perhaps the person has not been able to reverse this situation.
When we look at mental distress from that perspective, loss of motivation and low levels of energy can also be a way in which the organism removes itself from the situation that it does not know how to handle anymore. The subconscious seeks to protect itself, and if it has exhausted all “rational” options, it can resort to other means.
This is a very different perspective from the position that sees this state as a malfunction, an inherent characteristic of an organism that is fixed.
Yet more than 18 months into the pandemic, personality change — which was recently singled out as one of the most disruptive Long Covid symptoms in a survey of those who’ve experienced it — hasn’t become a topic of widespread discussion. Perhaps that’s because, for those living with it, Long Covid has itself been one massive mindfuck, as they’ve faced varying degrees of disbelief and gaslighting from medical professionals, as well as families and friends.
Their research found patients who had COVID-19 were 60% more likely to suffer from mental health problems than those who were not infected. When hospitalized, the likelihood jumped to 86%.
When asked why Al-Aly said there is no exact cause yet but research shows SARS-Co-V-2 can enter and affect the brain.
"COVID-19 can enter the brain and can also lead to alterations in brain chemistry and brain architecture," he said, adding "that may affect mood centers and affect centers in the brain — like the amygdala and other areas — that are responsible for us feeling good and feeling content and feeling happy."
A medication prescribed for Parkinson’s and other diseases can transform a patient’s personality, unleashing heroic bouts of creativity or a torrent of shocking, even criminal behavior
The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.
I’ll often say something like the way Zoloft works, is, it increases the level of serotonin in your brain (or synapses, neurons) and, presumably, the reason you’re depressed or anxious is that you have some sort of a deficiency. And I say that [chuckles] not because I really believe it, because I know the evidence really isn’t there for us to understand the mechanism—I think I say that because patients want to know something. And they want to know that we as physicians have some basic understanding of what we’re doing when we’re prescribing medications. They certainly don’t want to know that a psychiatrist essentially has no idea how these medications work
