Memory Loss

If being depressed isn't enough with the lousy attitude, lack of desire to act, and complete disinterest in doing just about anything, a lot of victims have to deal with memory loss as well. It came to my attention just last night that a lot of people aren't aware of this complication from depression; perhaps they're just forgetting? What a sick and twisted thing to have happen . . . a symptom that prevents itself from being noticed!

I found a study on depression and anxiety for starters, so I was quickly able to confirm that there has been research in this area. It's interesting that the study found that while anxiety alone does not have an effect on memory, it can significantly compound with depression. It suggests that other studies that did not control for anxiety levels were frustrating to analyze.

I then discovered that there is a newsletter devoted to memory loss, and they had a wonderful article specifically addressing memory loss and depression a few years back. Salient points include:

• Memory loss, like motivation and focus, are likely affected by the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain.
• The mind filters memory to match mood; depressed people are much more likely to remember times when they're sad than they are to recall happy experiences. "It also reinforces the person's drab and negative view of life, fueling the depression."
• Long term memories are not actually being lost so much as they are never forming at all due to the lack of focus and attention.
  
• Treatment of the depression alleviates the memory problems.
  

I'm able to wrap my mind around the memory loss more comfortably now. Essentially, depression victims aren't able to pay enough attention to form as many memories, and the depression filters those so that the ones that reinforce the disease come more easily to mind. It's one more way that this disease becomes invisible, comfortable, and usual in the mind of its victims.

Goal for today: write down a good thing as soon as it happens. Many treatments suggest some sort of journal; if you want to make this part of one then by all means go ahead. If not in a journal, put it someplace you will see it, like on your refrigerator. You're experiencing happiness despite your depression, and you deserve to know about it.

Tasteful Research Opens Doors

Scientists have discovered that, not only do depression and anxiety have a measurable effect upon the sense of taste, it is even possible to determine which chemicals are most out of balance by how taste has been diminished. This is exciting for a couple of reasons.

This is the first research I have seen that shows physical evidence of anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Anything that reinforces the physical nature of depression is very important. Research that demonstrates the physical symptoms of this disease go a long way towards dispelling the myth that it is "in your head." That phrase makes it sound like depression victims make a decision to suffer, which is not true. Ironically, the very nature of the disease does cause those selfsame victims to make a decision to continue suffering, but this doesn't occur until the will is compromised. Scientific research can demonstrate the physical nature of this disease, although I am of the belief that it will never discover a physical organism, a "depression virus," if you will. The root is not in the body, although much of the damage ends up there.

Diagnosis by taste-test is really just a fancy way of suggesting that we should listen to what our bodies are telling us. We are given a plethora of clues about our health, day in and day out, and either we ignore them or we just don't understand what they mean. Now we have an additional level of understanding, and another tool to use in the evaluation of our health. Another piece of the puzzle is slipped into place as diminished taste is coupled with diminished appetite in some people. We have been given one more solid tool to use to to sweep away the miasma; something corporeal with which to document a disease that prides itself on being as vaporous and insubstantial as a hunting vampire.