Discussion What do you think is the cause of depression?

[whatishope]

I've been wondering a lot about depression recently, and what it is. I personally don't think the current medical theories are correct. I don't doubt the measured effects (like chemical imbalance in the brain, lack of energy, lack of motivation etc), but these are all effects, not causes. Similarly, I don't believe any single event can be the cause of depression, since many people go through traumatic events without developing depression.

To me, depression goes deeper and requires more. I am basing this on my experience, so it is obviously biased. I think to get to depression, a person must experience repeated failure or difficulty, and all corrective attempts must also fail. If this happens over a long enough period of time, depression sets in. This is because of a logical conclusion the brain makes: that all efforts failed, and there is no point in putting in further effort. I have noticed this pattern in reading other people's stories as well.

In my case, I was most depressed during the pandemic. I was already in a pretty bad mental state, and the lockdown made sure all my efforts were fruitless. In this period, I had days when I didn't get out of bed at all. Since then, slowly, I have become more functional, but, fundamentally, my depression is still with me. I still feel like there is no future for me, and I feel hopeless and powerless to change anything.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

 

[Darkover]

For me, depression was caused by not being able to get a girlfriend, and then realizing we are in fact nothing forever."

Depression, in this case, arises from two intertwined wounds:

Together, these create a double blow:

One from the world of human intimacy, where you feel denied something essential.

One from the cosmos itself, which offers no consolation or promise of meaning.

In such a state, depression becomes not a "disorder," but a natural, even logical, response to a reality that feels cruel, lonely, and hollow.

 

[cowboypants]

Depression I think it could stem from many reasons like personal failure, societal failure, parental failure etc

 

[Forever Sleep]

I've also thought about this a lot and find psychiatry very dissatisfactory- both in explanation, diagnosis and treatment.

Plus, I wonder about other illnesses like bipolar that share the depressive element but also have a manic phase. Why do people sometimes manifest those symptoms, whilst others tend to have low mood all the time?

I would actually be inclined to agree with your analysis when it comes to mild to moderate depression. Which I think, at most is what I've had/ possible have although, I'm not convinced. I can actually function. It's more that I don't want to! I was diagnosed with it years ago.

But yes- it makes sense to me that it can become a kind of learned behaviour/ response to experiencing a sequence of bad things or failures. So, we kind of get stuck in a rut.

I also think there can be reluctance to let go of our pessimism/ cynicism. Say we have tried to make ourselves happy or more positive but when we do, we eventually fail and the crash feels even worse? So again- I think we can learn that the effort isn't worth it.

I would hazzard a guess that prolonged low mood maybe can start to alter the way the brain works. We are creatures of habit. We learn via repetition. I wonder if the negative thinking pathways in our brain can become so well trodden, that it becomes our default way of perceiving.

LIke I said though- the curious thing for me is something like bipolar. Why would it mannifest that way in some and not others? Why mannifest like that all? From an outsiders perspective, it consists of two moods that are totally opposite. Either manic- full of ideas, full of energy or, depressive- very low mood and, no energy. That surely has to be a change in how the brain functions. That can't be learned behaviour if the stimuli stays the same but, the response keeps switching.

Analysing myself, I think there are multiple things at play. I'm not sure all of the (bad) behaviours I so easily slip in to are down to depression.

I can be incredibly lazy and lethargic. There again- I am able to fulfil pretty demanding workloads if I have them. So- it's not that I'm incapable of working hard. Take for today- it's gone midday and, I'm still in bed. However, if I had a project on and the deadline is right on top of me, I've been known to get up at 5am.

That's what I find makes mental illnesses complicated. You simply can't walk on two broken legs. But, is it that we can't get out of bed or, that we won't?

I expect that's why there is less sympathy for mental illness. People wonder if it is a decision not to help ourselves more. Even I do with myself- in fact, I kind of know it is for me. Like you say though- part of it is because we may have learnt that to fight to do things is futile.

For me though, I think I may be a boarderline hoarder. Not to the extent of some poor people. I can throw stuff away. My job tends to create a lot of excess materials that are often useful to keep hold of. So, there's also a real logic to keeping stuff, rather than having to buy it again. It's more the mess side of it though. While it's not exactly nice, I can live in such a mess. So, I will be willing to let it get really bad before I take action. I'd still feel embarassed for other people to see it but, I don't have enough respect for myself to keep my living environment nice. So, regarding having so much reluctance to clean and tidy etc- I'm not sure that's just depression at work, I think other things come into it.

I think we can also develop other things- like eating disorders, body dysmorphia, that make our depression worse. I have had borderline eating disorders in the past I would say but, I've pretty much always been overweight. I know my not so good diet and current lack of exercise is also contributing to how shit I feel.

It's all very curious though. I'm sure disorders of the brain do exist though. Take OCD- that can manifest in an opposite way of obsessive cleanliness. We also have members here who seem to have both OCD and depression. I think sometimes, one disorder intensifies another.

 

[alwaysalone]

I think it's multi faceted and dependent on the person. I believe that's one reason it so hard to treat. In a sense it's a nature vs nurture argument. I.e. why are there siblings raised essentially the same with the same "normal" traumas (maybe death of a pet or grandparent) and one is suicidal one would never even consider suicide?
How much is depression nature (chemical imbalance or lack of activity in certain parts of the brain etc..) and how much is nurture?

 

[timechained]

Hmmmm, maybe the manifestations in our daily lives are various but the cause could be side effects of withstanding gravity?

The more depressed the greater the pressure one feels like the world is caving in, and the less depressed the lighter one feels like the world is expanding.

 

[Alexandra0]

In existence itself

 

[whatishope]

For me, depression was caused by not being able to get a girlfriend, and then realizing we are in fact nothing forever."

That is one of the main causes for me as well.

I've also thought about this a lot and find psychiatry very dissatisfactory- both in explanation, diagnosis and treatment.

...

It's all very curious though. I'm sure disorders of the brain do exist though. Take OCD- that can manifest in an opposite way of obsessive cleanliness. We also have members here who seem to have both OCD and depression. I think sometimes, one disorder intensifies another.

Very interesting thoughts. I have to say, I feel very similar to you in many ways. I am functional now, in the sense that if I have things I need to finish, I wake up on time, shower, eat, go to a coworking space (I work remotely) and be able to put in the work. The thing is, as you said, often times, I don't want to. I know that when I was much younger, it didn't use to be this way. I used to be lazy about work, but I generally enjoyed working on school and university projects. Maybe this could be a learned thing?

I am also convinced disorders of the brain exists. Things like OCD and ADHD have pretty convincing arguments. Depression seems an odd one to me, as most of what we call depression to me seems to only include symptoms. It's like stomach pain. It can be caused by simple things as eating hard to digest food, too much acid, to very serious things like cancer. I thing it's the same for depression. The same symptoms can be caused by many different things. In some cases, there could be complex medical reasons, in other cases, it might be normal reaction to unhealthy environment / events (like stomach pain when eating bad food).

 

[GMOpNsOTW9J]

I've been wondering a lot about depression recently, and what it is. I personally don't think the current medical theories are correct. I don't doubt the measured effects (like chemical imbalance in the brain, lack of energy, lack of motivation etc), but these are all effects, not causes. Similarly, I don't believe any single event can be the cause of depression, since many people go through traumatic events without developing depression.

To me, depression goes deeper and requires more. I am basing this on my experience, so it is obviously biased. I think to get to depression, a person must experience repeated failure or difficulty, and all corrective attempts must also fail. If this happens over a long enough period of time, depression sets in. This is because of a logical conclusion the brain makes: that all efforts failed, and there is no point in putting in further effort. I have noticed this pattern in reading other people's stories as well.

In my case, I was most depressed during the pandemic. I was already in a pretty bad mental state, and the lockdown made sure all my efforts were fruitless. In this period, I had days when I didn't get out of bed at all. Since then, slowly, I have become more functional, but, fundamentally, my depression is still with me. I still feel like there is no future for me, and I feel hopeless and powerless to change anything.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

Its similar for me. I became quadriplegic. At the beginning I had the will to somehow "get through this". But life just wears you down. Everyday is a fight for the smallest things. As reward I get wounds, infections and whatnot. Dont forget the isolation. After years you just realize there is no point in trying. Its the logical Conclusion as you say.
For my family I will try everything this year to get better, but I feel it wont be enough. Right now the only few seconds of relief I get are when I think about nonexistence. And sleep but waking up is nightmare.

 

[Forever Sleep]

That is one of the main causes for me as well.



Very interesting thoughts. I have to say, I feel very similar to you in many ways. I am functional now, in the sense that if I have things I need to finish, I wake up on time, shower, eat, go to a coworking space (I work remotely) and be able to put in the work. The thing is, as you said, often times, I don't want to. I know that when I was much younger, it didn't use to be this way. I used to be lazy about work, but I generally enjoyed working on school and university projects. Maybe this could be a learned thing?

I am also convinced disorders of the brain exists. Things like OCD and ADHD have pretty convincing arguments. Depression seems an odd one to me, as most of what we call depression to me seems to only include symptoms. It's like stomach pain. It can be caused by simple things as eating hard to digest food, too much acid, to very serious things like cancer. I thing it's the same for depression. The same symptoms can be caused by many different things. In some cases, there could be complex medical reasons, in other cases, it might be normal reaction to unhealthy environment / events (like stomach pain when eating bad food).

I definitely agree that depression is a tricky one. Maybe difficult to cure also if the motivation for it is different. If it's situational depresion- which I imagine it is for a lot of people, life is simply very difficult for a lot of us! How can that be fully cured if our situation doesn't change? It's like saying- don't say 'owe!' when I stamp on your foot!

I have however known a normally very optimistic, power house of a person say they experienced a severe mood shift after changing a medication. So- that seems to suggest that it can suddenly be brought on by some sort of physiological shift.

I just think it's complicated really. I kind of suspect there are different types, different triggers, different severities and, different ways they manifest. I presume the treatments also vary in effectiveness because of this. Truly- I wish they'd figure it out!

There are definitely different patterns in brain scans with people with different conditions though- so we know something specific is going on or, not going on in the brain- for the various afflictions. I don't understand why we don't here more about the actual brain being studied though.

I guess it must be. Maybe I'm just not really knowledgable to be able to judge what and what not is being focussed on but clearly, they don't seem to have come to many conclusions or else, I suspect they would be more public knowledge by now.

 

[whatishope]

I definitely agree that depression is a tricky one. Maybe difficult to cure also if the motivation for it is different. If it's situational depresion- which I imagine it is for a lot of people, life is simply very difficult for a lot of us! How can that be fully cured if our situation doesn't change? It's like saying- don't say 'owe!' when I stamp on your foot!

I have however known a normally very optimistic, power house of a person say they experienced a severe mood shift after changing a medication. So- that seems to suggest that it can suddenly be brought on by some sort of physiological shift.

I just think it's complicated really. I kind of suspect there are different types, different triggers, different severities and, different ways they manifest. I presume the treatments also vary in effectiveness because of this. Truly- I wish they'd figure it out!

There are definitely different patterns in brain scans with people with different conditions though- so we know something specific is going on or, not going on in the brain- for the various afflictions. I don't understand why we don't here more about the actual brain being studied though.

I guess it must be. Maybe I'm just not really knowledgable to be able to judge what and what not is being focussed on but clearly, they don't seem to have come to many conclusions or else, I suspect they would be more public knowledge by now.

I also wish people would put more effort into trying to understand this. I Unfortunately, I don't think this can happen in a very scientific way. Since every person is unique, each case needs to be investigated individually. After that, patterns will emerge and those patterns can be used for treatment / prevention. I honestly want to read some philosophy books about depression. I feel like those could be more insightful then modern scientific literature.

 

[divinemistress36]

Complicated question. The Brain is so complex. Mines genetic, trauma, and brain injury.

 

[Linda]

I've been wondering a lot about depression recently, and what it is. I personally don't think the current medical theories are correct. I don't doubt the measured effects (like chemical imbalance in the brain, lack of energy, lack of motivation etc), but these are all effects, not causes. Similarly, I don't believe any single event can be the cause of depression, since many people go through traumatic events without developing depression.

To me, depression goes deeper and requires more. I am basing this on my experience, so it is obviously biased. I think to get to depression, a person must experience repeated failure or difficulty, and all corrective attempts must also fail. If this happens over a long enough period of time, depression sets in. This is because of a logical conclusion the brain makes: that all efforts failed, and there is no point in putting in further effort. I have noticed this pattern in reading other people's stories as well.

In my case, I was most depressed during the pandemic. I was already in a pretty bad mental state, and the lockdown made sure all my efforts were fruitless. In this period, I had days when I didn't get out of bed at all. Since then, slowly, I have become more functional, but, fundamentally, my depression is still with me. I still feel like there is no future for me, and I feel hopeless and powerless to change anything.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

I don't think "depression" is a single entity. I think it is an umbrella term for several different conditions that almost certainly have different causes, and would need different treatments. That's why any particular antidepressant will work for some people but not others. The way forward in understanding depression will come from detailed imaging of the brains of people that are depressed, and figuring out how to link brain function (and perhaps brain structure too) to the clinical symptoms of depression. Once they have done that, they will have a better chance of giving each depressed person the treatment that is right for them. But don't hold your breath. We are decades away from adequate treatments for depression.

 

[Forveleth]

I always thought this lecture was interesting.

 

[karakoltriste]

capitalism and trauma.The serotonine theory is outdated

 

[Bowerbird]

In my case personally I feel like theres just definitely something wrong with my brain and how its wired... like i was just born like this. I literally have a LONG family history of mental illness and insanity, etc, I probably inherited some of that crap and my brain is just... faulty, its how I was born.

 

[ForeverLonely82]

living while being set up for failure. if you don't have luck on your side, you're cooked and fucked simultaneously.

 

[whatishope]

living while being set up for failure. if you don't have luck on your side, you're cooked and fucked simultaneously.

This is an interesting point to raise. Could it be then, that fact that you need luck to happen in your life for anything to improve cause depression? This is seems like a massive lose of agency for the person. It moult also certainly drain it's motivation to do anything. Really interesting.

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

The theory with the most explanatory power for my own situation is that depression is more of an "energy disorder" than a "mood disorder."

So, I think we all start off with a "battery percentage" of about 100%, barring some exceptions of people who seem to be effectively born depressed. Throughout life, we encounter difficulties--failures, grief, heartbreak, etc.--that deplete our battery power. However, we also encounter things that recharge our battery power--love, joy, passion, etc. For people who are not depressed or suicidal, the recharging events in their lives equal or outweigh the depleting events, so they stay relatively replenished.

However, if that balance changes, and you start to become depleted faster than you're being recharged, then once you fall below a certain threshold (say 50%), you fall into a low-energy state, also known as depression. The tricky thing about being in a low-energy state is that it becomes a feedback loop, because now, everything feels like it sucks energy out of you and becomes more tiresome than pleasurable, even things that otherwise would've made you feel better, like a nice evening with close friends (there's the anhedonia). So then you basically just enter a downwards spiral, where the little bits of recharge you get are too few and too weak to meaningfully move the needle. Once you get to a low enough percentage, you're so tired that suicide becomes the only bearable option, since you no longer have enough to carry on with the regular burdens of life for even one more day.

This is certainly what happened to me: No history of depression, no trauma, no bullying, but then a sudden flurry of suffering came my way, and it was too much at once. I got depleted at a very rapid rate, dropped below the threshold and into depression, and ever since, have been unable recharge enough to get out. Everything is just too tiring...

 

[dust-in-the-wind]

For me, my severe depression started from realizing we all suffer, grow old and die. Life inherently has no meaning. Everything is pointless and ultimately nothing matters and we are alone.
Once that realization hits, the damage is done and the will to live obliterated.

 

[Fall_Apart]

For me, the causes of depression are very clear. Existence is absurd in the first place. Sooner or later, we are destined to lose the things we love, including the most important people in our lives. Secondly, we are destined to suffer a lot of trauma with the awareness of injustice, without having any power to change things. Furthermore, we are forced to accept an existence based on evil, having to constantly fight to find a way to suffer less. Finally, we are forced to grow old and die of some disease, surviving in a system that tries to prolong your suffering in the name of the sanctity of life.

 

[Scythe]

I believe for some people it's literally a chemical inbalance in their head or just smth physically wrong with their brain. This is why you get so many dipshits saying "oh just get medicated it'll cure you". The meds are made to fix chemical inbalances and can to some extent help with mild depression for people whose life suck or whatever.

But now that society is collapsing under late stage captialism more people are depressed because their life is shit. I do think trauma is also a cause just people respond differently so not everyone will get depressed from trauma.

I peesonally believe having your day to day life be the exact same can lead to it as well. Since it's just boring, to have everyday be a repeat of the last. The days bleed into each other and time loses its meaning. Not a happy life to live.

 

[ForeverLonely82]

This is an interesting point to raise. Could it be then, that fact that you need luck to happen in your life for anything to improve cause depression? This is seems like a massive lose of agency for the person. It moult also certainly drain it's motivation to do anything. Really interesting.

It's true. Most people I see get ahead or surge in life is from luck. Like with jobs and other forms of improvement they have connections and people around them that actually care to help them out. If you are unlucky...You have nothing, but yourself. Some people are able to pull themselves up after being knocked over many times and others dealt with it so many times that they just accept their fate. Some are blessed...others are just result of combined DNA and nothing else. Not everyone is destined for greatness, it's delusional and blue pilled to believe in such fantasy.

 

[TheStrawberriest]

My personal belief is that depression is the result of the relationship between work and reward becoming fundamentally broken. I believe the natural state of humans is to want to work hard and be useful. I've noticed that everyone has embodied that ideal as children. Children always want to volunteer to help with this or that. It's why child labor laws exist; preying on that fact means you can get away with giving them practically nothing for their labor.

However, somewhere along the way, for some people, that ideal gets beaten out of them, one way or another. For some people, it's just an unfortunate fact of biology. In a more direct sense, maybe a chemical imbalance in the brain means that their efforts can no longer be mentally rewarding, no matter the physical reward. In another way, OCD and ADHD, by themselves, do not fundamentally cause depression. However, they can make it harder to meet the demands of modern society, denying a person what they feel should be a proportionate reward for work that is harder to them.

For others, it's learned. Sometimes society beats down on them, eliminating or minimizing the physical reward but demanding a disproportionate amount of work. Consistent failure is the crystallization of this idea; if I keep working hard for no reward, why do I keep working hard?

Other times, specific goals just cannot be met. Constantly attempting, but failing, to meet a specific goal can beat down on the work-reward response. A lack of intimacy is fundamentally just the idea that looking for or investing into a partner does not guarantee one will attain the affection they require. Nihilism is just the same idea, but on an even longer scale; if my hard work fundamentally doesn't matter in the end, why should I continue?

Thus, I believe depression is fundamentally just that Pavlovian response being broken. Sometimes, a quirk of biology means that it required little outside interference to break. Other times, it's just the word beating down on us no matter how hard we try. I feel that every response I've read here is, on a fundamental level, just this idea that work is no longer rewarding. When work is no longer rewarding, it signals a lack of agency. Through it all, a lack of agency is what we're really complaining about isn't it?

 

[TiredNorthStar]

Capitalism

 

[Alexei_Kirillov]

My personal belief is that depression is the result of the relationship between work and reward becoming fundamentally broken. I believe the natural state of humans is to want to work hard and be useful. I've noticed that everyone has embodied that ideal as children. Children always want to volunteer to help with this or that. It's why child labor laws exist; preying on that fact means you can get away with giving them practically nothing for their labor.

However, somewhere along the way, for some people, that ideal gets beaten out of them, one way or another. For some people, it's just an unfortunate fact of biology. In a more direct sense, maybe a chemical imbalance in the brain means that their efforts can no longer be mentally rewarding, no matter the physical reward. In another way, OCD and ADHD, by themselves, do not fundamentally cause depression. However, they can make it harder to meet the demands of modern society, denying a person what they feel should be a proportionate reward for work that is harder to them.

For others, it's learned. Sometimes society beats down on them, eliminating or minimizing the physical reward but demanding a disproportionate amount of work. Consistent failure is the crystallization of this idea; if I keep working hard for no reward, why do I keep working hard?

Other times, specific goals just cannot be met. Constantly attempting, but failing, to meet a specific goal can beat down on the work-reward response. A lack of intimacy is fundamentally just the idea that looking for or investing into a partner does not guarantee one will attain the affection they require. Nihilism is just the same idea, but on an even longer scale; if my hard work fundamentally doesn't matter in the end, why should I continue?

Thus, I believe depression is fundamentally just that Pavlovian response being broken. Sometimes, a quirk of biology means that it required little outside interference to break. Other times, it's just the word beating down on us no matter how hard we try. I feel that every response I've read here is, on a fundamental level, just this idea that work is no longer rewarding. When work is no longer rewarding, it signals a lack of agency. Through it all, a lack of agency is what we're really complaining about isn't it?

I think this is one of the reasons why so many people--maybe most of us--are unsuited to 9-to-5 desk jobs where we stare at a computer screen all day, effectively doing nothing but moving imaginary letters and numbers around. We're putting in all this work but the output of that work is nebulous, so it just feels like treading water, going nowhere; that reward mechanism that's supposed to make work feel satisfying never gets activated. Do that day in, day out, and it's no wonder that people get depressed.