I've sense learned a bit more about depression as a metabolic disease, and how profound the differences in causes of depression can be from one person to the next. Metabolic is too general to be a holy grail. Diet and exercise certainly, therapy and examining trauma provide some understanding toward healing, but do not, in my experience, do much to alleviate symptoms. Ketamine and psilocybin provide some effect on symptoms and even more understanding. I've recently taken a definitive step in healing that is only a definitive step for some people with particular causes of depression/anxiety. And they're gone. Both gone. I keep waiting for them to creep back in, but 2 months in, I haven't found any sign of them.

I'll write about that, but want to ensure I can set it properly in context of the larger healing journey. Because of the nuance, the path to any truly healing step is as important as the final step, and trying just the last step in someone else's process is probably not going to lead to optimal results.

Anyway, metabolic, yes, in part, but the downstream effects on neurotransmitters, the baseline levels of neurotransmitters (and which networks those levels affect most), specific roots of trauma and more factors make it so that "diet and exercise" or therapy or psychedelics alone won't be a magic bullet for most. Particularly, the rise of online therapy services (and hims/hers/mind bloom) present only one facet of healing that can be detrimental if not part of a balanced treatment plan. There are many well-meaning therapists, but unfortunately, few of them understand the neuroscience well enough to put treatment plans together on their own and can use their hammer when a screwdriver is needed. The fragmentation of mental health services in general make it difficult to find healing.

Hmm. I guess I started writing the next post here.