this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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Mental Health

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[โ€“] Taiatari@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 1 week ago

It starts with whether you consider mental disorders, such as depression as an illness or not. In western literature we are moving away from the illness aspect, because of its linguistic implication.

Illnesses are often thought of as being curable and have a foundation in something that causes the illness, like a virus, bacteria or similar causes. Whereas depression causes are manifold, from the light levels during winter, over learned behaviour to the very system of society. Which is why we consider depression not to be an illness but a condition.

As an analogy, you would not classify bad eyesight as an illness but a condition, there is no cure but thereโ€™s treatment, glasses. In some cases the treatment can be lasers and surgery which fix the condition, but generally speaking the same goes for depression. You can treat it with different methods, some can remove the cause and others require constant treatment.