What Causes 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
There was a famous study done in 2006 by an international team of scientists, led by Rockefeller University researchers, that identified a gene called “p11.” This “depression gene” plays a role in controlling the neurotransmitter “serotonin” in your brain. If this gene is not working right, you may have a serotonin deficiency and thus be prone to depression.
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.)
However, anti-depression medication will not bring back a deceased loved one, which was the event (a.k.a. the “precipitating event”) that got the depression started. And this is why it’s important to treat depression with therapy such as cognitive therapy, in addition to taking medicine.
What’s another option to deal with this type of depression? Self help. Reading a step-by-step plan on overcoming depression. (More later…)
Traumatic Or Stressful Event
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…
I was so depressed at one time that I tried to kill myself by driving over 130 mph into a bunch of trees. (The fact that it was a “bunch of trees” instead of just one big tree is one reason I’m here with you now.) But when you read my story you will nevertheless be astounded I survived. I was only 16.
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 Usually Multiple Stressors Over Time
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
- Your plan of saving money together and buying something nice with your combined money vanishes into thin air.
- Loss of a higher standard of living: The nice car is replaced by a crappy one, nice home replaced by a fleabag apartment.
- Daily contact with your kids is no more.
- Moving even though you didn’t want to move.
…You get the idea.
Taught To ‘Enjoy’ Depression
It sounds counter-intuitive, but for some people depression feels ‘right’ to them…sort of. They thrive on the drama of big emotional events. It’s like they thrive off the negativity like most other people thrive of being extremely happy. They feel that the importance of an event justifies being sad for a long time, so they do their best to be what they consider ‘appropriately sad.’
The reasons for this ‘depression response’ are two-fold: It protects them from having to deal with responsibilities of everyday life, and/or it gets them attention they wouldn’t otherwise get from people around them.
Psychologists tell us one theory is that they are “taught” this behavior as toddlers:
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.