[derefr]

For some people, these diseases (depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, intermittent explosive disorder, etc.) are lifelong maladies present from birth; where even if the disease only “showed up” later on, it is known from the person’s genetics/neuroanatomy/etc. that it was inevitable for this person to get them, eventually, regardless of environment or lifestyle.

Such cases are no more adaptive than Cystic Fibrosis is adaptive. They’re malfunctions.

[j4nt4b]

I would hesitate before calling these conditions "lifelong maladies present from birth". It's much more accurate to call them predispositions that may or may not manifest. And even so, the degree of manifestation may depend on the degree of trauma, addiction, or other challenges the person happens to face in life. This variation is what makes me doubt any clean division into adaptive/maladaptive cases. Not everyone so predisposed is triggered into these mental reactions through their life experiences, and not everyone who is so diagnosed is a lost cause, and furthermore, those who can manage their conditions may take offence at being called "malfunctioning" when they did in fact "adapt".

[derefr]

> those who can manage their conditions may take offence at being called "malfunctioning" when they did in fact "adapt".

People don't malfunction; bodies do. People are (cybernetic) systems, composed of a mind and a body; but people's bodies specifically, when taken on their own—including their brains, when taken on their own as organs!—are just complex machines, that can have organic diseases. (In the case of the brain, we call these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_brain_syndrome s.)

If your computer spontaneously powers off whenever you open hit your keyboard's "A" key, that's a malfunction. Computers, as machines, aren't supposed to do that. If you avoid ever hitting the "A" key, you might have worked around the problem, but the problem itself is still present—the computer, considered as a standalone machine rather than a cybernetic operator-machine system, is still malfunctioning.

If you have an SNP in the gene DDC, causing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromatic_L-amino_acid_decarbox..., that is a malfunction (or manufacturing defect) in your brain-as-machine. You — the mind-body system — might learn to adapt to/work around this malfunction; but that doesn't mean the brain-as-machine isn't continuing to malfunction. A working system can be constructed from unreliable components.

> who is so diagnosed is a lost cause

Who said anything about being a lost cause? For something to be maladaptive, it simply has to reduce inclusive genetic fitness, such that people with the condition reproduce less than people without the condition. That says nothing about whether you can live your life with the condition.

Whatever part of the human brain thinks getting a vasectomy is a good idea, is extremely maladaptive! But that's not to say that we don't prefer things that way. :)