Grrrrrr....

Okay, I realize I'm getting way too worked up over a stupid puff piece. But this is just, well, fucking stupid.

Feeling Blue, Say 'I Do'

If that headline isn't enough to make you ill...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lonely? Feeling low? Try taking a walk -- down the aisle. Getting married enhances mental health, especially if you're depressed, according to a new U.S. study.

The benefits of marriage for the depressed are particularly dramatic, a finding that surprised the professor-student team behind the study.

Perhaps I'm reading a little too much into this, but suggesting that a depressed person look to marriage as some sort of anti-depressant seems rather irresponsible. Not to mention the fact that a divorce is one of the major causes of depression, as well as marital stress. Anyway.

The benefits of marriage for the depressed are particularly dramatic, a finding that surprised the professor-student team behind the study.

"We actually found the opposite of what we expected," said Adrianne Frech, a PhD sociology student at Ohio State University who conducted the study with Kristi Williams, an assistant professor of sociology.

Heh.

The researchers used a 3,066 person sample that measured symptoms of depression -- such as an inability to sleep, or persistent sadness -- in the same people both before and after their first marriage.

They found that depressed people experienced a much more extreme decrease in the incidence of those symptoms.

"Depressed people may be just especially in need of the intimacy, the emotional closeness and the social support that marriage can provide ... if you start out happy, you don't have as far to go," Williams said.

Well, duh.

On the other hand, if you're not depressed, marriage could have the opposite effect, Frech said.

People who were happy before getting married and end up in a marriage plagued by distance or conflict -- qualities associated with a depressed spouse -- might be better off single.

"It seems right to say that people who are not depressed are at risk, that if they marry a depressed person this could be a bad deal for them," Frech said.

Exactly. Which is why suggesting that you should just say "I do!" if you're "feeling blue," is ridiculous. Depression is a bit more complex than that.

Again, I'm probably getting way too worked up over a puff piece.

Anyway, need I mention that, with depression being such a problem in the LGBT community... and with marriage supposedly helping with depression...

Well, you see where I'm going with this.

(I'm getting cross-posted in the morning...)