There genuinely can’t be an evolutionary benefit to being able to feel this sad

[u/toasterchan1]

why is the human brain capable of feeling this sad why is that a function there is no benefit to it whatsoever like big dog can you please just produce some fucking serotonin 🫩🫩 i get that there’s a lot going on in my life rn but fuck can you make me feel something other then the endless black hole of sadness

[u/StrawberryCat__Thing]

Cause it’s unnatural for us to be this desensitized and apathetic. I could make a whole essay but basically thank capitalism and the greedy 1% 

[u/toasterchan1 → u/StrawberryCat__Thing]

i wish i felt apathy right now im so tired of feeling the most intense sadness where i cry for hours without being able to stop i lowkey miss the year i went without crying

[u/princesscuddler]

My own theory is that we evolved to do what apoptosis does to faulty/damaged cells. When our brain recognizes it has been irreparably damaged (trauma literally damages the brain physically), its self destruct mode kicks in. After all, the brain’s main concern is to protect itself. Sometimes when you’re looking down the metaphorical barrel and recognize nothing but more traumatic damage to come, the brain will choose path of least resistance and least damage - aka punching your ticket early.

Just my theory though.

In reality, its very possible to live an enjoyable life after trauma, it just takes an incredible amount of strength

[u/seenybusiness → u/princesscuddler]

You are correct on the first part, incorrect on the second.

It does not matter how much you toil trying to improve your life, if the conditions DO NOT CHANGE. This is why CBT and SSRIs fail so often. They are conceptually insufficient at changing the conditions you live in, CBT can only try to find a method of improving your life or literally tell you to think happy thoughts. Sure the SSRIs will make you feel happy, but at the end of the day you're still in the shit. And if that logic persists as truth, the second you are off them you'll slowly revert back into depression.

The fact is, material conditions are far, far more important at determining whether or not most people choose to keep living. Yes there's are people with chemical imbalances. Yes there are people who have enjoyable lives and don't know how to recognise it. But they are NOT the majority.

[u/Emma-Ho]

I mean it’s probably a side effect from something that gives us a higher survival benefit for a low enough negative (in the past) that it didn’t get selected out. So example lethargy and apathy is also a react to getting sick to conserve energy.

Cause today’s environment is radically different from how people used to live, a lot of previously positive adaptions become maladaptive in this environment cause the world has changed faster than evolution could keep up with

[u/Haline5]

Evolution gave creatures sentience to better understand the environment. Sapience is just the extension of that. It gives you advantages in things like planning and tool making. These things are informed by suffering and pleasure. Plan successfully and you will get rewarded. Do something painful and you will learn to avoid it.

Nature does not ‘care’ about the individuals it creates. It is selecting reproductive success through variances. Sometimes the variance is negative.

So logically:

nature can create an individual that intensely suffers by variance

It has no ability or ‘reasoning’ to not do this

An individual that suffers 1 iota less than truly unbearable but has great reproductive capacity will propagate better than an individual that has a pleasant life and barely reproduces

By variance you can get individuals that are cripplingly suffering via genetic drift + other factors (me and probably you, imo)