Can Being an Individual Put You at Incresed Risk for Depression?

 (culture) + (biology) = (depression)?

I just read a fascinating article about the complicated role a person's culture plays in their likelihood to be depressed.

I can tell you as one who lives as an iconoclast that such a life comes at great expense. There is a great cost for not conforming to group rules, and it makes sense that when a person is ostracized that she would be more likely to be depressed, anxious, or both.

Take a look at the article and tell me what you think. 

Happy Wednesday!

Unsubscribing

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" goes the old adage. That was what I had in my head when I decided to subscribe to the NARTH newsletter a year or so ago.

For those of you who don't know, NARTH is the organization that tells sad parents and unhappy sexual minorities that they can change their sexuality if they try hard. It's silly. It's anti-scientific. And it's ethically wrong to tell people this, as a mountain of scientific data is proving time and again that sexuality is DNA-based, not a choice.

But every time one of their updates would appear in my in-box--a conference, one more workbook on how to teach boys to catch balls or change their own oil, another DVD for distraught parents--I would throw it away without reading it. Because not only is are these beliefs bullshit but they do damage to people as well.

These people and their propaganda make their victims feel that parts of their make up that is fixed is not. And that causes depression and anxiety in mild cases and self-hatred and suicide in the extreme.

So I just unsubscribed. A friendly pop-up box said:

We are sorry to see you go!

Please take a moment to tell us why you chose to unsubscribe.

I thought for a moment and wrote:

Because you are opportunists who cash in on other people's misery.