Usually I write about politics on this blog but I wanted to do something a little different this time. I wanted to talk about something that makes many people uncomfortable, Depression. I am sure many people have had friends or family who have suffered from depression, but still do not fully understand the phenomena. I admit I do not fully understand it either but as someone who was diagnosed with depression I feel qualified to talk about it. In the following paragraphs I will talk mainly about my own experiences but I will also draw from some of my friends experiences. Thankfully I have largely gotten over depression in my own life but I know there are others who are not as fortunate so I hope my experiences and observations will be helpful to others.
Recently it seems there has been a massive increase in depression diagnoses. I have two theories which are not mutually exclusive as to why depression has become so common recently. One reason depression has become so common recently is technology and society have evolved and changed at a rate much faster than our brains have. What I mean by this is that until relatively recently (circa end of WWII) there was a much higher chance of death and there was usually some sort of external threat (Ex. disease, invaders, famine, societal collapse, etcetera etcetera.) usually these threats would be only vaguely understood. My theory is that people need some sort of external threat or some sort of problem to be happy in life, and when there are not any external threats or problems people create or notice problems in their life. The other theory is leisure time and work. Now we have more leisure time than any other time in history except for maybe pre-agricultural times. People now have so much leisure time they struggle to fill it all with meaningful activities and become depressed. The other part to this theory is work. People now struggle to find meaning and happiness in their work because many people work in offices and cannot see how their work effects others. This may explain why there has been an increase in depression diagnoses, but there are other explanations as for why people get depressed.
I have noticed approximately four main reasons as to why people get depressed. Those reasons are as follows:
I. One thinks there is something fundamentally wrong with themselves
II. One is deeply unhappy with their current life situation
III. One has suffered from some sort of major trauma
IV. One thinks society is deeply unfair or unjust and feels helpless about it
These are the four main reasons one becomes depressed, their are of course other reasons but these in my opinion these are the four most common. Oftentimes people who are depressed are not just depressed because of one of these reasons but multiple. The reason I was depressed was because of mainly I and II. There are different ways to deal with each reason.
Reason One people get depressed is relatively hard to deal with because most people do not want to admit something is wrong themselves. Even if one does not want to admit it, one still knows it is true that there is something wrong with themselves. This thought is difficult to deal with because even if one goes to therapy the therapy will not help unless one is willing to admit what they think is wrong with themselves. Oftentimes people (me included) find it difficult to admit that there is something wrong with themselves and would rather blame other things for their problems. Dealing with something being fundamentally wrong with oneself requires hours of meditation, talking and actions to improve to fix.
Reason Two people get depressed is that one is unhappy with one's current life situation. This is difficult to deal with because sometimes why someone is unhappy with their situation is almost completely out of their control. Although even when it is in one's control it can still be extremely hard to actually change what it is that makes one unhappy. Sometimes people who are depressed will either consciously or unconsciously self sabotage. If one does start a cycle of self sabotage either consciously or unconsciously it is extremely hard to break the cycle. For example if one is depressed because they feel like they don't have friends this may lead them to taking actions that are counter-productive in the long run. In example of this is a depressed individual may feel like they do not have friends at school and are not liked by people their age. A short term solution to this is to quit after school activities and stop going to classes. This seems beneficial in the short term because the individual no longer has to deal with others that they perceive to dislike themselves. But this is negative in the long term.
Reason three people get depressed is that they have suffered from some sort of trauma examples include, rape, PTSD, survivor's guilt. I have no experience with this so I cannot pretend to understand this. But I would imagine that this would be extremely hard to deal with in ways that the others are not. I do not wish to dwell on this because I don't want to get anything wrong or offend someone who has suffered from one of those afflictions.
Reason four people get depressed is that they think the way society is set up is unfair/unjust and there is little to nothing they can do to change it. This realization is extremely dangerous for multiple reasons. Reason one is because it is true. Reason two is that this realization can often lead to people committing horrendous acts such as shooting up schools and killing innocents. That realization can lead to a twisted logic that makes shooting up schools seem desirable. The logic goes as follows, the whole system is corrupt and unfair and causes me to suffer, so I should make others suffer as much as I do so they will know how pointless everything is. When you look at the notes left behind by people like the Batman movie shooter, and those who did Columbine you get very similar sentiment to that.
In my opinion the main way in which a depressed mind is different from a mind that is not depressed is that the depressed mind is hyper aware of the negative. To me it is similar to Narcissism where instead of thinking oneself is great and having a massive Ego it is the opposite where they are overly negative in one's perception of oneself. If properly managed it can actually be a positive thing, but oftentimes it is not properly managed and those thoughts lead to people being trapped in a cycle of depressing thoughts. Once trapped in a depressive cycle it is extremely difficult to escape. The oftentimes seemingly impossible escape from depression often leads people to suicide. Suicide happens when a depressed individual believes that the only way to end their suffering is their death. Many people try and blame suicide on the people close to the individual who committed suicide. But the truth is those people can only be blamed if they were bullying, harassing and telling the person to kill themselves. In most other cases the person who commits suicide bears the blame for they made a conscious decision full well knowing what the results of that decision would be. That is not to say people should resent those who kill themselves, but those close to someone that has killed themselves 90% of the time bear zero blame for the decision that was made.
