[dogscoff]

AIDS, well, the scourge of the third world, people die by it every day, this is a true plague, but a plague of the third world.

Depression is the plague of the first world.

This I agree with. I should have said it first time around, and for that I'm sorry.

but when people say it's a worse plague than AIDS, well, think about this: How many people die as a result of depression (suicide, carelessness, etc.) every year? And how many people die of AIDS every year?

QED.

From a little limited googling of Uk statistics, suicide appears to be at least as prolific a killer as AIDS. However it there seems to be quite a bit of difficults for organisations to compile statistics on suicide (which kind of emphasises the points I make later). Here are some links to get you started:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nscl.asp?ID=7441
http://www.avert.org/statindx.htm

Even without statistics though, my point is that there is a hell of a lot of research and awareness about AIDS. (In the 1st world) You can get yourself tested for AIDS quickly and cheaply pretty much anywhere in the 1st world without any hassle. If you're diagnosed, there are all kinds of treatments available which may still not offer a cure, but nowadays can make life entirely livable for a long time. What's more, the disease is easily preventable by abstaining from certain risky activities. Huge education campaigns to educate people, dispel myths, combat stigma and prevent the spread of AIDS have been very successful, so most AIDS sufferers will be not only receiving support but actively doing their best to avoid passing the infection on within a short time of contracting the disease. As a result the number of sufferers in the western world is relatively low. Furthermore, with the amount of cash going into research a cure is bound be discovered sooner or later.

Depression, on the other hand, often goes years undiagnosed. When it is diagnosed sufferers are often treated unsympathetically by friends, family and even medical professionals. There is a very real stigma and a massive amount of ignorance surrounding depression. What's more, many of those doctors who do recognise the seriousness of the problem think they can just push a few pills down the patient's neck and say it's cured- but as stated in previous posts treating only the symptoms is counter-productive. And although it may be only a small minority depression sufferers who die of suicide, many many more suffer for years, their relationships, families and jobs may be ruined. While depression is (arguably) curable, it does everything it can to protect itself: Sufferers withdraw from the world, they push away those people who would help them and often feel too tired and hopeless to take any positive steps toward getting better.

My main beef with depression though, is that it is not a virus or a bacteria that can be physically attacked and overwhelemd. Unlike with AIDS, where the causes (unsafe sex, drug abuse) are recognised as unhealthy and are discouraged, the causes of depression are an integral part of the society we live in. Contemporary western society is constantly making more and more unreasonable demands of its population. Many people can't stay financially afloat on a 40 hour week any more. Most families need both parents as wage-earners just to keep the bill-collectors of their backs. Young men and women are forever assaulted by bombarded and unobtainable expectations of glamour, cool and wealth. Thanks to advertising, economics and media, without even knowing it most people in the 1st world today are living under a weight of pressure that their great-grandparents could only have imagined, and this isn't even widely recognised as a problem. Wages are falling. Taxes are rising. Services are failing. Wealth and power are gravitating ever further away from the larger part of the population. Humans beings are increasingly seen as commodities within economic systems, their needs and rights nothing more than obstacles to be broken down or bypassed. And yet as ignorance and apathy reach epidemic proportions most people don't even bother to vote any more, and all the time we're being told that this is the shining new future that previous generations dreamed of. Society and community are crumbling, caught in a vicious circle of apathy and self-loathing and feelings of powerlessness, victimisation and misrepresentation. You could argue that Western Culture itself is depressive, if you wanted to get particularly poetic about it. That's why more and more people are getting depressed, and that's why the 21st century will see depression on an unprecedented level. The scary thing though, is that will take nothing short of a social revolution to reverse the trend. If it isn't already, depression will be the plague of the 21st century (in the first world).


</rant>