People don’t understand clinical depression. Even though there’s lots of information available about the subject, too many people insist on remaining ignorant about it. That’s fine. People can choose what they want to educate themselves about. I have people who know nothing about clinical depression yet talk about it as though they do. People like Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan knows nothing about clinical depression. He doesn’t let that stop him from talking about it on camera and into a microphone.
This is what I’m referring to:
To say someone can treat clinical depression by picking up a hobby, engaging in intense exercise, or adding struggle to their life is stupid.
One symptom of clinical depression is a loss of interest. How does a person pick up a hobby when they don’t care about anything? A person suffering from a bout of depression rarely gets pleasure from things. You can’t make clinical depression go away by swinging a kettlebell. You can’t make clinical depression go away by struggling more.
Of all the things said by Joe Rogan, the dumbest thing has to be his comments on struggle. Clinical depression is one of the worst kinds of struggle a person can face. People take their own lives because the struggle for depression wears them down. They get to where they believe the only way they will ever get relief from their struggle is by ceasing to exist.
Suicide is not killing yourself or causing harm to yourself. It’s making yourself cease to exist.
Does Joe Rogan think people suffering from clinical depression need more struggle? That’s like saying people with leukemia need tumors in their brains.
Clinical depression isn’t the same thing as feeling blue. It’s not like feeling down because things just aren’t going well in your life. One of the worst things about clinical depression is that it usually lacks clear causation. You feel severe depression for no real reason.
What annoys me the most about the above video is Joe Rogan admits he doesn’t understand depression yet still feels qualified to provide remedies to the problem. He should have stopped at admitting his own ignorance of depression and moved on to something he knows about.
You obviously only listened to one little bit of his podcast and took it out of context.
I listened to the whole episode. His words are his words. I’ve heard him say similar statements in other episodes. Not understanding clinical depression is part of his shtick.