Paige Genest

“Depression is often framed as a sufferer having a cognitively distorted sense of “learned helplessness,” where the reality of some loss in the past becomes mistakenly perceived as an inevitable future. In this study, though, it was not that depressed individuals were cognitively distorted, underestimating their actual control. Instead they were accurate compared with everyone else’s overestimates. Findings like these support the view that in some circumstances, depressed individuals are not distortive but are “sadder but wiser.” As such, depression is the pathological loss of the capacity to rationalize away reality. And thus, perhaps, “we’re better off believing in it anyway.” Truth doesn’t always set you free; truth, mental health, and well-being have a complex relationship, something explored in an extensive literature on the psychology of stress.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will