The parent commenter describes seasonal Winter depression. If the problem was brain chemistry, wouldn't it be with them from birth until treatment? Who has Seasonal Type 1 Diabetes, or Seasonal Dwarfism, or Seasonal Missing-an-Eye-From-Birth? Depression generally isn't something children have from birth, it's something adults get temporarily.

A few HN submissions recently are in the style "thinking about doing the thing is not doing the thing. Planning the thing is not doing the thing. <etc etc>. Only doing the thing is doing the thing". Comparing a brain to a large software project with bugs hiding in it, in that vein giving the computer 11 hours of 'sleep' each night is not debugging the code; overclocking or undervolting the CPU is not debugging the code; installing the latest updates and patches is not debugging the code. 'knowing there is nothing to worry about' is not debugging the code. Only debugging the code is debugging the code. Reading a badly explained idea on an internet comment and dismissing it with a mocking "thanks I'm cured" isn't debugging the code. Saying "I've tried everything" isn't debugging the code.

A more specific example, if you are going on a rollercoaster and you are experiencing physical and mental symptoms of worry - nervous, anxious, angry at the person pushing you to ride, twitching and trying to back away, eyes looking around searching for an exit, coming up with excuses to do something else instead, nervous shaking, dread tightness in the chest, affected breathing, perspiring, gritted teeth, etc. etc. then washing over all that with "I know there is nothing to worry about so this must be a problem of brain chemistry" seems a clearly incorrect conclusion.

Such a person clearly has a worry. Quite likely one that's out of proportion (e.g. "rollercoasters kill thousands of people every day!"). Possibly one that's completely incorrect (e.g. "going more than 10mph makes people's insides fall out!"). Quite likely a less clear and less obvious one - which could be anything, e.g. they saw a documentary about a rollercoaster which behaded a child and that's their only thought about rollercoasters; they saw a show about fighter pilots pulling high-G maneouvres and passing out and think that will happen to them on a big rollercoaster; they see the rollercoaster track and support flexing and don't understand that a some flexibility doesn't mean weakness; they went to a theme park as a child and older children bullied them into riding a scary ride and they wet themselves and figuratively died of shame and buried the memory; they were pushed into learning to drive at 15 by their wicked stepfather and this is pattern matching to the same kind of experience; etc. etc.

Saying "there is nothing to worry about, rollercoasters are safe enough and you know it, so your brain chemistry must be broken" isn't debugging the problem. It isn't even explaining the problem. Why would broken brain chemistry particularly affect them at a theme park, or in Winter, and not the rest of the time? How was this broken chemistry identified and measured and quantified and that hypothesis proven?

Likewise, just because the parent poster has tried sleeping and exercising and taking Vitamin D, doesn't address that humans evolved in Africa, connected to oceans and trees and tribal living, and not commuting to a fluourescent lit beige box filled with strangers writing JavaScript while being bombarded with news items about wars and genocides and stories of how everyone else is having a wonderful Christmas, earning more money than you, with a cost of living crises always on their mind, etc.

> "Good enough chemistry enables cognitive treatments."

Drugs can force people to carry on with a life that's making them miserable when they have no other available options to find out why and fix it. That isn't evidence that "there is no root cause"(!). Any more than turning it off and on again can let you get on with your job, but that doesn't show there's no root cause for a program locking up.

> "then you deduce that the black cloud is produced within."

And you have a lifetime of your prior experiences affecting your mood. When you remember that your aunt hit you when you swore at the dinner table, or you saw someone slip on ice and fall over and break their wrist, or watever, every life learning experience is "the mood is produced within".

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Noaidi 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> If the problem was brain chemistry, wouldn't it be with them from birth until treatment

Ha, of course it can be! Our brain chemistry is not stable through our life! Many children are born with epilepsy, but some people develop it later in life. epilepsy, like all neurological disorders are nature AND nurture, genes AND the environment.

Using your roller coaster analogy, there very well may be genes that control; how much fear someone experiences when riding a roller coaster. The problem society has is telling people that they all should be able to not have feear riding a roller coaster and if youa re too afraid to ride a roller coaster you should take xanax.

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jodrellblank 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> "Our brain chemistry is not stable through our life!"

Citation requested. Because, y'know, it's not like your leg muscles suddenly don't work from age 40-50 and then start working again and we say it's because of unstable "leg chemistry". It's not like your stomach, liver, kidneys, <organs> suddenly stop working after you lose your job or your life partner and we say it's both inexplicable and because of a deficit of "body chemicals" and nod agreement with each other that "body chemistry isn't stable" through a lifetime.

These are just unsatisfyingly crappy non-explanations.

And quick attempts to assume that Doctors, Neuroscientists, Psychiatrists, Psychologists must have a better detailed knowledge of brain chemistry and I'm just falling for nonsense seems to find that they actually don't, and they don't agree that "brain chemistry" is a good explanation, and it can't be measured in a patient, and the idea isn't strongly supported by evidence, and even the mechanism of action of "drugs which correct brain chemistry" isn't agreed on, and when given to people to "correct brain chemistry" it often doesn't make the problem that was blamed on brain chemistry go away.

> "there very well may be genes that control; how much fear someone experiences when riding a roller coaster."

I will lump "genetics" in as another pet-hate unsatisfyingly crappy non-explanation that people tag onto whatever they want so they can stop thinking about it further. There probably are many genes which affect how much fat bodies store, or burn, or food cravings, or what constitutes hunger, or production of various leptins and grehlins and insulins and stomach acids, but that doesn't mean "I'm obese because of my genetics" is any kind of explanation at all. Or "I have this personality because my parents and grandparents had it, it's genetic" is an explanation. Downe's Syndrome is a good use for genetics as an explanation. "I have a macro-scale set of vaguely related behaviours, symptoms and body effects and no clear cause, it's my genetics" isn't.

Even if you have sequenced your genome, and have some specific gene that is associated with extra fat storage, genes can be turned on and off through a lifetime by behaviours and environment. Having a gene from birth doesn't mean it's being expressed and is therefore causing a specific problem, or that the problem can't go away and can't be fixed. ( https://www.cdc.gov/genomics-and-health/epigenetics/index.ht... )

> "The problem society has is telling people that they all should be able to not have feear riding a roller coaster and if you are too afraid to ride a roller coaster you should take xanax."

I agree with this. Society likes assuming everyone is the same. Imagine if we collectively noticed that Adrenaline gives people "a burst of strength" and decided that daily exercise, individual strength training plans, gym visits, were all too much bother and that ageing adults were suffering from "an imbalance of Adrenaline" and when they struggle to carry their massive haul of groceries in from their car they should carry an auto-injector of Adrenaline to help their chemical deficiency.

	▲	Noaidi 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Citation requested. Because, y'know, it's not like your leg muscles suddenly don't work from age 40-50 and then start working again and we say it's because of unstable "leg chemistry". Ohhh, leg chemistry, good choice! You know that leg "chemistry" is control by neurotransmitter release, yes? So you must have never heard of Familial Periodic Paralysis then. Let me tell you what happens with that, because it happened to me while taking Seroquel. Familial Periodic Paralysis is also called Hyperkalemic periodic paralysis and is due to mutations in the gene that encodes the alpha-subunit of the skeletal muscle sodium channel (SCN4A). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1338/ "The paralytic attacks are characterized by decreased muscle tone (flaccidity) more marked proximally than distally with normal to decreased deep tendon reflexes. The episodes develop over minutes to hours and last several minutes to several days with spontaneous recovery. Some individuals have only one episode in a lifetime; more commonly, crises occur repeatedly: daily, weekly, monthly, or less often. The major triggering factors are cessation of effort following strenuous exercise and carbohydrate-rich evening meals. " Look at that! Their muscles stopped and stared working again! And yes, this happened to me while taking seroquel because it lowered my potassium so much it affected my nervous system. Any good psychiatrist will tell you that they have no idea what is going on. But that does not mean neurotransmitters cannot be changed and that they do not effect behavior. > I will lump "genetics" in as another pet-hate unsatisfyingly crappy non-explanation that people tag onto whatever they want so they can stop thinking about it further. As someone who, as an armature geneticist, helped design a genetic study for Stanford, can I say that I put more energy into thinking about these things over the last 45 years than you can even imagine? >Or "I have this personality because my parents and grandparents had it, it's genetic" is an explanation. I have my hair color, height, skin color, all the physical traits from my parents, so why do you think the brain is not physical as well? Or or adrenal system? The brain is effected by genetics, this is true as has been shown clearly as a risk for schizophrenia. I have no idea why people think our mood, which is dictated by our thoughts which are created and sensed by our brain, which is a physical organ, does not have anything to do with genetics and neurotransmitters. and then you go on to talk about epigenetics, like that matters by genes don't? Do you know that genes control the epigentic response? Genes like DNMT1? So people with differences in DNMT1 will have different epigenetic responses? > I agree with this. Society likes assuming everyone is the same. So how are we different? nature AND nurture. Genes AND environment. I agree the solution to these problems are wrong, but your solution are just as bad as the ones your are prescribing. Listen, there are times when our neurtranmitters are supposed to be different, like when we are in pain or when some one dies. But some people, like me, have these changes regardless of the situation and we can like them to other environmental factors like diet, sunlight, weather, etc. I could tell you whey and why I think am so sensitive to the world but I doubt you would listen, because no one listens, because everyone knows.