After I published my blog post "Don't 'Label' People with Depression", I was criticized by many friends.

All the criticisms can be summed up in one question: I am not right to oppose the investigation of the cause of Sun Zhongxu's death. Sun Zhongxu suffers from depression, which is related to his living state, and there are obvious social factors. Sun Zhongxu's death is a rebellion against social reality. Asking about the cause of Sun Zhongxu's death is not to criticize his character and question his vulnerability, but to criticize society.

I understand the kindness and intentions of these friends. Of course, I am also aware of the embarrassment of Sun Zhongxu's survival as a translator and his anguish as a thinker in the face of today's social reality.

But I still think that when we express a point of view, we still need rigorous logic, and there must be a scientific and rational one-to-one correspondence between cause and effect.

It is on this issue that Sun Zhongxu's death lacks a direct correspondence with his situation, thoughts, emotions, will, perseverance, etc. (Of course, I do not deny the existence of various social factors and personality factors, but they do not directly correspond)

I would like to make the following point clear here: depression is not an "intellectual psychopathy" as some people believe. The opposite of depression is not "unhappiness", but "loss of vitality". The reason is that the hormonal and chemical reactions dominated by the brain are out of control.

Specifically, it is a deficiency of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. The latter can be simply understood as stimulants. The lack of this neurotransmitter means a lack of stimuli, and thus a lack of sufficient motivation and energy for life, resulting in the phenomenon of "psychomotor blockade" in medicine.

In this situation, patients find it difficult to do anything. Eating, walking, bathing, talking, etc., the ordinary things of ordinary people are all difficult for them, and they require great perseverance.

Let's talk about the problem of the depressed community.

I oppose the judgment that depression is an "intellectual disease". Most of this judgment comes from taking it for granted, out of one's own incomplete observation of social reality.

My point is that people at the bottom are more likely to suffer from depression than intellectuals. This can be verified at the level of empirical observations. According to my investigation, the reception records of many psychiatric hospitals prove that more than half of the rural residents come to the hospital for treatment.

Stanford Professor Robe

t Sapolsky used to specialize in the problem of pressure mechanisms. When he studied baboons in Africa, he found that the animal was hierarchical, with the high-level baboons having everything, and the low-level baboons being miserable, underfed, and bullied. He found that stress hormone levels in these baboons were closely related to their health status. The lower the baboon, the more stressed, the more likely it is to suffer from high blood pressure, stomach ulcers, and mental restlessness. This shows that the pressure of life at the bottom will become physiological pressure, and finally transmitted to the spiritual level. Since baboons are primates, it can be a model for studying stress in humans.

The organism's response to environmental stress is roughly as follows: when stress is felt, a small circuit in the hypothalamus region of the brain releases stress hormones, putting the body in a state of high alertness, mobilizing life potential in a short period of time, and preparing for various crises. When the crisis passes, the stress response automatically shuts down and you can recuperate. But if the crisis is persistent, and the stress response system is turned on for a long time and cannot be turned off, just like the baboon at the bottom, the crisis will evolve into chronic stress, and the long-term physical function will be impaired, and the mood will tend to be problematic.

So, Robe

T Sapolsky argues that stress does not directly cause any single disease, and that chronic stress is more terrifying.

And of all the stress, the most painful is the feeling of powerlessness – you can't change your situation, you don't have the capacity to deal with the future, you don't know when the pain will end – which may be why the poor are more depressed.

Nobel laureate humanitarian economist Amartya Sen has long been concerned with the underclass, specializing in poverty. Poverty is not just a matter of livelihood, he argues, but also a loss of freedom and a crisis of spirituality. I think that this point of view and Robe

t Sapolsky's argument is the same.

In conclusion, depression is by no means depressed or self-defeating caused by painful thoughts. It has deep physiological and biological roots that are as true as any other disease.

Of all the stress, the most painful is the feeling of powerlessness – you can't change your situation, you don't have the capacity to deal with the future, and you don't know when the pain will end.