Discussion Does isolation causes depression or depression causes isolation?

[_Minsk]

For me its a clear depression causes isolation but i have heard often that people say its the other way around. When i look back, i see how each health issue made me more isolated since i just didn't feel like wanting to spend as much time with happy people anymore (especially when i felt suicidal), it would have felt off and i couldn't connect, i also didn't want to drag anyone down by me being present. Do you feel like d causes i or i causes d?

 

[Snake of Eden]

It can be both. In vicious cycle. But you can be surrounded by people and still be depressed or feeling lonely.

 

[bed]

Goes both ways i'd say. We are social creatures after all.

 

[SuicidallyCurious]

One odd thing in life : People who appear happy often aren't. Like really

 

[cambrai33]

Depression definately wants you to isolate from others but I also believe that isolation feeds the depression and makes it worse.

All that said I totally get no wanting to interact with another soul, it's a hard circle to get out of but I think making tiny steps out of isolation can help. Today I found a cat cafe nearby and with a dream boat snoozing on my lap I felt comfortable talking to the owner. Tomorrow I'm off to see that moggie again

 

[eternalmelancholy]

Not sure but isolation makes depression even worse. I was homeschooled and basically left home alone for years. I never managed to recover from that. I found it impossible to relate to other people who grew up normal. So I started self isolating as a result. I am just sick of living by this point.

 

[D&D]

I often asked myself that and researched about it too. I now believe that, just like everything else, our early environment, what we have absorbed growing up, highly influences how we we socialize. If we grow up isolated, with little to no chance to observe/absorb how healthy, mutually full filling relationships are formed and, even more importantly, maintained - we have very little chance forming such relationships. As a result we often experience early rejections from peers. Each leaves a scar. Little by little we found harder and harder to try, and in turn become little bit more isolated. Eventually, we start to feel like misfits and loners ... the terms 'depression' enters. A popular 'umbrella' word used to describe what, in most cases, is deep, profound sadness. As a response to hurt. Unless the cycle is somehow broken, it becomes, as others said above, a self-feeding cycle.

 

[eternalmelancholy]

I often asked myself that and researched about it too. I now believe that, just like everything else, our early environment, what we have absorbed growing up, highly influences how we we socialize. If we grow up isolated, with little to no chance to observe/absorb how healthy, mutually full filling relationships are formed and, even more importantly, maintained - we have very little chance forming such relationships.

I never realized how fucked up my childhood was until years later. It takes a long time to process all the trauma. I have finally accepted that it just wasn't in the cards for me. I don't think there is any shame in being realistic. Not all lives are worth living.

 

[LonelyBrazilian]

I think this can be a cycle, a catch 22 situation.

 

[KTbear]

For me, it is both.

 

[SparkleWater]

chicken and the egg

 

[Samsara]

The relationship is often bi-directional.

 

[ARW3N]

This is a tricky question to answer because it sounds like the nature-nurture debate. The only thing I do know about depression is that psychiatrists and therapists rarely take into account environmental factors when treating depression. Sociologists have been arguing for ages how living in the modern industrialised world can cause an acute sense of dislocation and loss.