i don’t personally consider depressive episodes a disease to be cured, no, at least not in the western-medicine sense. i struggled (still struggle, but less so) with depression for a number of years, and definitely would have preferred to have it ‘cured’ but i think the general definitions of what we’re talking about are probably relevant.
my feeling is that people in healthy, functional cultures were/are probably much less likely to have long-term, recurring depression. i’ve also read a good bit of information on how differently other cultures respond to depression & other mental health concerns. ‘medicine’ can be defined in a wide variety of ways.
as an example - i had an abusive, alcoholic father growing up. i stood up to him as a child, protected my mother to the best of my ability, and when i hit adolescence, started encouraging her to leave him. we worked through the process together, got ourselves & my younger brother out of the house when i was 16. over the course of the next decade i spent about 2 years total in 2 different abusive relationships before figuring out how Not to get into them. i knew the whole time that parts of me had been harmed from the way i was treated, and did everything i could figure out to try to heal. i moved onto my own bit of land & homesteaded, saved up to give myself an entire year of not having to work for money, sleeping as much as i wanted, doing what i wanted with my time. the more time i had to myself, in quiet, away from the chaos of cities & jobs, the more shadows came dredging up from my past to be dealt with.
i spent a year from 2016-2017 living in the alaskan interior, 60 miles from the nearest village, with no roads. my partner and i built a cabin, hunted our food, and simply lived. towards the end of winter, after almost a year of real natural quiet, and calm, and very little human interaction except with people i trusted, and meaningful work to do, one of my biggest triggers disappeared. i used to have panic attacks when people raised their voices (not necessarily just At me in Anger, but also Around me and with lots of Feeling). i’d sweat, shake, my mouth would go dry, and my brain wouldn’t function properly - i couldn’t even keep the presence of mind to ask the person to stop, to say that i was freaking out, to say that i needed help. and that - all of a sudden, after a decade and a half of intense personal work - just went away.
i’m not an expert, and i can’t speak to the experiences of people in other cultures. but for me, suffering from basically ptsd and general depression, the biggest changes that have helped are living more in accordance with my values (which happens to mean more rural, with lots of quiet, way less social stress, meaningful land-based work, and plenty of sleep & healthy food), and eating little to no sugar. one pint of ice cream can make me want to die the next day, it affects my mood so drastically. if i’m already in a low place, consistent use of sugar can be really dangerous for me.
so… i guess to answer your first question: define ‘disease’, and define ‘cure’. does it feel like an illness to be locked in depression? sometimes, yes. sometimes i can’t tell that i’m ill or that that’s what’s going on. other times it just feels like everyone else must be keeping their hands plastered over their eyes if they’re not as miserable as i am. and i know that given the state of our world right now, that’s not really a strange assessment. does it need to be cured? i don’t think it’s necessarily that simple, nor do i think it’s something that is completely cut and dry. but yes, i’d prefer not to suffer from it. i don’t want to be drugged into acceptance and complacency, though. i want the freedom to choose what form of support i want & to live my life the way i see fit. i want the option to let the feelings flow through me, to be able to listen to what they might be telling me, & to have help if it becomes too much to handle alone. i want to know that i’ll come out safe on the other side.
the bottom line in my opinion is that our current culture asks insanely too much of us as humans. there’s only so much grief, fear, or guilt that we can handle at once. all this technology that didn’t exist a few decades ago has had a massive impact on our lives. it’s natural for our bodies & minds to be freaking out right now. if western medicine is able to help - great. if not - there are and always have been other options, and we need to be fighting to strengthen them for those who choose not to use modern drugs or who cannot.
