If you don't have feelings of depression or anxiety you're not paying attention.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Or you're super well off and also don't give a shift about everyone else
Well off people have this too, it's just that they have the resources to deal with it more appropriately. Let's not dehumanize people and instead focus on the real issue, which is available care and treatment for everyone who needs it
Or living a bubble (that hasn't burst yet)
Existence itself is already pure horror.
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It kinda drive me nuts how mental health is always a check at a primary care now. Not because I don’t think it’s important. It is. And I’m glad those not in treatment are asked. But for those of us IN treatment. Fuck. After my primary arm chair therapized me for an hour contradicting what my psychologist said, I just started lying.
"your 3 month rotation in psych back in med school really paying dividends now, here in internal medicine, eh?"
OK but where I live there is no treatment, unless you're rich
If you don't then you're either not paying attention or something is wrong with you. The correct response to the state of the world is depression and anxiety
One of the more depressing bits or research related to this. When estimating, "normal" people are excessively optimistic (aka rose tinted glasses). Depressed people were a lot more accurate in their estimates.
It turns out we need those blinkers to not tear ourselves to pieces over the state of things.
The assholes and monsters in power depends on those blinders to get away with their shit. The fact that the Orange Jackass got elected again is all the proof you need of that.
Being depressed and being anxious are not the same thing as the medical conditions known colloquially as "depression" and "anxiety".
Equivocating the two is part of the reason mental health treatment is stigmatized, and is what causes dangerously-dismissive statements like "he can't have depression, he has a good life".
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The correct response is anger. Depression and anxiety are the socially acceptable responses left when we're conditioned to avoid anger at every turn.
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My doctor assures me that the answers don't matter and he only asks for insurance purposes.
From his perspective, that makes a kind of sense. He can probably bill an extra fixed fee for a particular service code if he asks the questions. And the insurance company is willing to pay because they think I'd they get stuff treated earlier with cheaper methods, they save money in the long run.
Is that how it works?
That only makes sense if you disregard the uninsured.
You also don’t always want to be honest at the doctors. If you change the appointment from preventative to diagnostic by asking the wrong question, suddenly it can go from zero dollars to $200 depending on your plan.
Ask me how I know. Unfortunately, it’s not really a place I feel like I can be honest.
It's BS that physicals are preventative and free but they're the only appointments where they do blood work that isn't free. Insurance typically covers physicals entirely because they're preventative. Why the lab work that is part of that preventative assessment isn't free is beyond me.
That and what the person you're replying to about choosing your words carefully is insane. I was speaking with a rep from my insurance trying to figure out what I need to do for the free annual physical checkup stuff and they were telling me how I should speak to the doctor to avoid getting charged a consultation fee (i.e. don't ask questions, avoid answering if they ask something about your current health, emphasize that you're only there for your annual physicals, etc.). And if you don't have a PCP, you probably have to pay for the visit either way as a "first-time patient" just to get the doctor's orders for your labs. It's bonkers navigating the system.
How the fuck are you supposed to have a physical without answering questions?
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This is based on my experience in the United States with employer-based group health insurance. Obamacare aka the Affordable Care Act required those types of insurers to cover more mental health services. As a result, they are keenly interested in funneling people into outpatient services instead of impatient, which is probably a good thing in the abstract.
Many of these employer-insurance people are on PPO-style plans, which are supposed to have big networks where you can see roughly any doctor you want, and don't need a referral to go to a specialist. Those types of plans don't have a lot of levers to influence the behavior of their insured clients to good health outcomes.
So that's where the "depression questionnaire" comes in. The insurer can pay the primary care physician 15 or 30 dollars to ask a short series of easy questions to screen for a common behavioral health disorder that drives claims. Somebody published a paper that says that this short series of questions is effective at detecting depression (or whatever). Therefore, if we give everyone these questions, and get a few more people into outpatient therapy options than before, we're both saving money and improving public health outcomes, right?
Yes, it's literally a pointless cash-grab that they can bill to insurance.
Last time I was at my primary care, I was handed a survey as part of my pre-appointment paperwork. I started filling it out before I read the fine print at the end: It was optional. It would be billed to my insurance, and "most patients'" insurance covered the charge. I refused to complete it. Just one more tiny outrage as part of the massive scam that is the American medical system.
You know the saying: ignorance is bliss. There’s a lot of perfectly content people out there, barely more conscious than a house plant.
Ever heard the phrase "Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair; it gives you something to do but gets you nowhere.”?
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Because they can afford the good drugs. 🤌🏼
The absence of anxiety and depression is only for the most privileged under capitalism.
For everyone else their presence is a tool of our enslavement.
...that doctor is lying...
...money seems to alleviate the hippocratic oath...
doctors are so far up their own asses on stuff like this it blows me away. And then they wonder why people aren't open with them
Ok, so let's say someone is clinically depressed and says "oh everyone is depressed" and the doctor shrugs, says "sure" and moves on. That's not good.
Saying "no" may seem tone deaf, but it's the way to keep the conversation open to get the person to share a bit more nuance than "everything sucks for everyone". Sure chances are that it's nothing, but they want to at least try to get out nuance.
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If someone isn't worried about the state of things, they're mentally disconnected from the world around them, and/or have wealth to not worry about it.
Well it's actually true, most people feel generally okay. On social media it looks like everybody in the world is hopelessly depressed, because hopelessly depressed people post relentlessly about how hopeless and depressing the world is. Overall it's actually not. And it won't help to click Reply right now and angrily spew a list of reasons why I'm wrong, and give your proof that everybody else should be as depressed as you are or there must be something wrong with them. People generally focus on the things in their lives that they can control, to avoid being paralyzed with inaction. That doesn't mean they don't care about the world, it just means they understand that hopelessness and depression don't help.
Hopelessly depressed people do have a much stronger case for the world in general being hopeless and depressing than they have in a hundred years or so, though.
I’m going in for a yearly check up next week to try to get depression meds. I’ve never thought I had depression before (besides seasonal), but I’m not motivated to do a lot of things like cleaning or exercising. I’ve already been on ADHD meds for years, and that did the trick until maybe this last year or two. I’m super positive and optimistic, but I just want to feel like a little more drive in my work and home life. I feel stuck and lazy most of the time. Fingers crossed that I can get on some kinda anti depressants, because I saw the change my wife had when she started them.
2021, still mid covid
US citizen. Stand-up Commendiene in LA.
The elections were spinning up.
Meanwhile her doctor has a completely stable job making enough money to live comfortably with little worry about their livelihood which was right at that moment, worst case, too in-demand.
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...stop, just stop, wait for it and just stop...
I don’t get anxiety. The fuck you’re scared of? You just wake up and be scared? Of what?
I just don’t get it.
I get it that you’re scared when driving a car, because everyone sucks at driving except me.
But how could one be anxious all the time? Could one please explain like I‘m mentally handicapped?
It's a low level scared. Like being a sentry in watch through the night. You're used to it. It's not like the alarms are blaring and you don't know where the problem is, but there is always that nagging feeling that something is going to happen to break the safety any second.
You go to work. The boss makes sure you feel like you are barely scraping by on your performance. You are coming in early to make sure you clock in at the exact second requested. God forbid a traffic jam causes you to be a minute late. You give your best all day at work and go home a zombie at night, but hey you kept your job and health insurance another day. Sure hope the car doesn't break. You can't afford a repair bill right now. Speaking of bills, you just heard that your rent will be increasing in a few months. It's basically extortion at this point, but you can't afford anywhere else either. Where will you get extra money in a few months? Oh well. That's a problem for a few months from now. Maybe you can be an Uber driver or something. Well, not with your worn down car. Maybe instacart deliveries.
It's basically like that. Everyone is on the edge wondering what mild breeze will be the one that pushes them over.
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