What causes depression?
Why is Depression at all time high in society today ? Is it because of a fast-paced and hectic lifestyle these days? So many stressful situations to deal with ? expectations, deadlines and responsibilities? Failure, not meeting goals. Perhaps some, or all of these factors are involved. Let’s look at what causes depression in the first place.
So what causes depression ? Depression is not caused by the society we live in or because of some life circumstance. Depression is caused by a loss of control of the mind. External situations or events don’t actually cause depression. The mind causes depression.
When we talk about what causes depression we have to consider many factors. Such as family history. If one of your parents had depression it greatly increases your chances of developing depression. But it doesn’t mean you will. As children we are very impressionable, and our parents become the blueprint for many of our own attitudes, experiences, reactions and emotions later in life. But we can change our experience of life regardless of our upbringing, or experiences in childhood.
When we look at what causes depression we have to look at a persons ability to cope with stressful events eg. loss of job, loss of relationship, death of parent. Some of us will deal with these things or even find positives in them or see them as an opportunity for growth. While others may have a tendency toward focusing on the negative, getting pulled into a negative view and get stuck there.
Depression is mainly about Loss. When we ‘lose’ something in our lives the tendency is to go into a Victim state and feel sorry for oneself. If we do this for extended periods of time without getting any help depression can often be the outcome. Depressing thoughts create the state of mind we know as depression.
We all experience depressing moments from time to time. eg. the moment we hear we didn’t land that job, hearing that our best friend isn’t able to make it to our party, finding we don’t have the money to cover the bills this month etc.
Is it possible to overcome Depression ?
It is definitely possible to overcome depression in a natural way (without using medication.) I can speak about this because many years ago I was diagnosed with depression, and overcame that state via hard work and dedication to changing the mental and emotional state I’d found myself in. Now I help others overcome depression, as I did. I gained qualifications in clinical hypnotherapy and psychotherapy to assist in this. Those qualifications help but it is my lived experience of overcoming depression that is most beneficial in helping me help others overcome depression.
How to overcome Depression ?
As mentioned earlier the answer to What causes depression can be found by looking closely at the ‘thought behavior’ of the person suffering the condition. Why does one person have depression when another person can go through very similar life experiences and not fall to depression ? It is because of the ability to overcome life circumstances. The answer lies in the human mind. We could say that a person who has depression has an ‘unwell’ or ‘unhealthy’ mind, or unhealthy thought patterns.
I recall a client who came in for depression. She was 67 years old and had depression for 12 years. I quickly discovered what caused it, 12 years prior to her visit her husband had passed away. She didn’t get any help at the time, and didn’t know how to cope, she was unable to properly process the loss and move on (emotionally) from that event. As a result she developed depression. And subsequently her children stopped visiting her because of how negative and depressing she had become to be around. This exacerbates the condition and she had become more depressed because now she’d lost her children and grandchildren as well. It took a number of sessions to help her start to move out of that place. She now looks back on the time with her husband as a gift and sees the positives in her life, her children are starting to visit again, and she sees the whole episode as a learning experience that she has grown from.
So what causes depression ? an ongoing focus on a negative perspective, a focus on Loss, a ‘poor me’ attitude.
We have to be ready to ‘give up’ depression, and all it’s payoffs (people feel sorry for us, we get sympathy, people worry about us, we give up work, we eat more sugar, we dig ourselves into a hole so deep we can’t find our way out.
If you think you have depression my advice is to find a good psychotherapist who can take you into your deeper world finding the cause and help you deal with the trauma, and change your mind and open you up to a new way of looking at the world and the problem.
If you’d like to book a session with myself I have an office in Geelong, Victoria, I also offer skype sessions for those who can’t make it into the office. I’d be happy to speak with you if you’d like to know more. Hope this article has shed some light on the issue for you.
