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this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Came here to say this..
If only they'd have thought of learning even the most basic facts about depression first, they could have saved themselves a lot of time and money.
But I suspect they were never looking to improve the lives of depressed people, but rather just to get on the latest buzzword-bandwagon that vilifies "ultra-processed foods" but never offers any viable alternative, let alone addresses the reasons why people consume, or even rely on it in the first place, and who benefits from making and selling it (because the answer is capitalism, and the capitalists funding these waste-of-resources hollow research projects wouldn't fund one that points the finger back at them).
This nonsense is just as much a distraction and a shifting of responsibility from systemic to personal as plastic bans and made up "carbon footprint" are.
As a person with Dysthymia, shit like this pisses me off to no end. I've dealt with depression most of my life and I've lived many different lifestyles, super healthy and fit, eating very healthy and the complete opposite of the spectrum, binge eating, super overweight, getting destroyed by diabetes, and the one constant has always been the depression. Articles like this, as you say, are just a distraction and putting the blame on the victim. They obviously have an agenda to attack process foods and artificial sweeteners and depression is not the reason they are attacking them.
yup, same.
And then this shit is not only unhelpful to us, but it also makes many people (including, sadly health and care professionals) think that if we only took as good a care of ourselves as they do (they tell themselves), we wouldn't be depressed (and, in a lot of their minds, a "drain" on them and/or society). It's all so fucked up, but none of it is accidental.
Oh man, I just had this conversation with my mom last weekend. The same "if you just stop X, then maybe you won't be so depressed". This time is was thinking about government and societal issues. I don't know how to get to understand that so much of what I "think" or "worry" about it just who I am and I can't stop, in the same way she can't just stop thinking about her children. It's just me and yeah, it is probably affecting my depression in some ways, but there's just some things I have to hurt.
That sucks, those conversations are so frustrating, and sadly I don't know how you get others to understand, there are so many layers of socialisation, indoctrination, propaganda that contribute to that kind of thinking (where unless we are a happy smiley worker cog selling our labour to produce profit for others without complaining, there's not only something wrong with us, but we're also harming the system they've been manipulated to defend), it's almost impressive how efficient the system is at keeping us down and divided.
It's such a sad realization. So much of our society, no matter where you live, is designed to do this. And we're constantly being manipulated. I have a degree in graphic design and I worked in advertising for a couple years out of college. It was the job I hated most, especially when it really hit me how much of it was just manipulating people in different ways. The most minor creative decision on any given project was made to catch the viewer in some way and it's depressing how prevalent this is in the world.
It really is so fucking bleak isn't it (I had a short stint in sales as my first proper job, and like you, I hated it but it opened my eyes to a lot)..
I guess the one positive in realising these things is that with it comes the realisation that the issues we face are deliberate and systemic, which hopefully leads to understanding that the solution then must also be systemic, and the more people realise that, the more chance we have at actually reaching the tipping point where enough of us band together to achieve it.
Lol, that's exactly what I was saying to my Mom about why I think about those things. Because I feel like if more people did, real change could be enacted. It's that important to me and why I deal with the hurt it brings me. I mean, that's the whole point of marches and protests; to bring awareness to those issues that need more people to be aware of.