What Are The Main Causes Of Depression?
Before treating bipolar disorder, it’s helpful to find out its root cause. Because often just identifying the main cause of any disorder is a big step towards figuring out how to address it.
Genetics
In 2006, a team scientists from around the world – led by Rockefeller University researchers – found a “depression gene” and named it “p11.” They found that this gene plays a role in serotonin transmission in your brain. Serotonin is the primary neurotransmitter in your brain, you will be prone to depression if your serotonin levels are not right.
But just because your p11 gene is faulty doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be depressed; it simply means you’re more susceptible to depression. This is because depression is a complex disease intertwined with psychological causes as well as physical:
An example would be someone (whose p11 gene is faulty) that does not get depressed until the death of his or her wife or husband. Now, something like this will get anyone depressed, but the difference is this person stays unusually depressed and doesn’t recover; they’re not in mourning but really depressed for many months on end. (These are the people who would probably respond best to a drug like “Prozac” or any other Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor type of anti-depression medication.)
It’s important to note that “Prozac” or any other anti-depression medication would not bring back the loved one. This is why it is important to treat depression on at least two fronts: Address the physical part of depression with medication and the mental part with therapy such as cognitive therapy with a trained therapist.
But is there another option to treating depression? Yes there is – and for those that can manage it – it’s called “self help.” Like following a step-by-step plan on overcoming and curing depression (which you’ll find out how to do this later…)
Anxiety From Stressful Event(s)
As in the above example, sometimes a single stressful event can cause someone to get depression (even though their serotonin levels may be normal). And a series of stressful things can cause you to be clinically depressed…
When I was just 16, I was so depressed that I tried to kill myself by driving my car as fast as it would go into trees lining a two-lane highway. (You will not believe I survived when you read my story.) But my suicide attempt was the culmination of a couple years of stress that included flunking school, getting in trouble with the law, girlfriend breaking up with me, and wrecking my car.
Miraculously surviving my suicide attempt was a turning point in my life if there ever was one. I started looking for natural cures for depression because, for one thing, there was no such thing as depression medication like “Zoloft,” and I just knew it was up to me to figure out how to outsmart depression. This was something that–at least in my case–could not be solved in a pill, no matter how “high-tech” the medical technology.
It’s Rarely Just One Stressful Event
Using divorce as an example – even though divorce describes a single event, the divorcee goes thru multiple stressful events at the same time:
- Loss of companionship
- Financial security gives way to financial worry.
- Loss of a better standard of living… The house and car is downsized.
- Interaction with your own kids now becomes a privilege, not a right.
- Having to move when you aren’t ready. (Moving is, of course, stressful by itself.)
…You get the idea.
Taught To ‘Enjoy’ Depression
I know this sounds weird, but some people actually enjoy being depressed. Well, not exactly, but they really ‘get into’ the drama of emotional events. For these people, getting depressed is the equivalent of being extremely happy about something positive, only it’s the opposite; they feel the significance of the negative event justifies long-term sadness.
When in reality, they are embracing depression for two reasons: It enables them to escape daily responsibilities and it gets them the personal attention they crave from caretakers and friends (who would otherwise basically ignore them).
There’s one theory that holds they are “taught” to act this way at an early age:
If your parents habitually left you alone to play, figuring “…she’s happy, leave her alone,” and paid attention to you only if you cried, they unknowingly taught you a life lesson: You will get personal attention only if you are in distress.