Depression – Its Forms and Impact

Psychiatrists, medical doctors, and psychologists still argue about cause.  Here, we need to notice some elements of depression.

• Biological.  Your family members may have had non-situational depression, meaning for some reason, it came with their body state.  Men have biological causes of depression too. Life-long hormone fluctuations in some women can contribute to it. Many women have depression following enormous hormonal changes after the birth of their baby or babies (post partum aka baby blues) or in midlife menopause. This is natural.
• Trauma Aftermath. Depressions can occur following trauma or shock. The mind and body work hard to adapt to tremendous shock and change.  Trauma can be a one time event or an ongoing threats or events.  Ongoing stressors set many people up for depression because ongoing stressors wear on the whole person — body, soul, spirit, and mind.
• Nutrition Problems.  Lack of certain vitamins or minerals impact your gut’s ability to produce certain needed brain hormones such as serotonin.  Birth control pills with synthetic progesterone can trigger depression in women.  Lack of proper gut bacteria from processed food diets actually cause gut bacteria to die off and contribute to depression.
• Grief and Loss.  Symptoms of depression may follow grief from death and loss, or surgeries such as heart surgery, an injury, or other insults to the body and soul.  I definitely include sexual, emotional, and physical abuse in this latter category.
• Early Depression.  Oftentimes depression begins early in life, meaning in infancy, childhood, youth, or in young adult years.  Sometimes these experiences make us more vulnerable in adulthood.
• Yearly Seasons.  Even the annual onset of winter in gray, rainy Portland can bring on a kind of depression called seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
• Sometimes, we say we just don’t know the cause but we need to get help anyway.

Not all depressions emerge from biological bases but all depressions have biological impact. This is why I want you to reach out for help as soon as you can.  

For some, a depressed mood emerges as we emerge into the world of work and or family. Sometimes a depressed mood comes over us later in life.  For instance, young people facing new responsibilities or feeling like they are not measuring up can become depressed.  Adults can experience mid-life crises when entering the second half of life, regardless of their specific age.  Elders may feel depression as temporal limits develop.

Here are other examples for people of any age:

• A difficult outer situation occurs.  For example: people can feel trapped in a situation — a job situation or a job loss, a bad marriage, a role in life, or a war they can’t influence.
• Social or spiritual events.  Example: over whelming loss, rejection, or deeply distressing interpersonal situations.
• Current loss or shock that reaches back.  It somehow links with early trauma or difficulties and produces depression.  One examples is being in an industry where job loss occurs and you lose your sense of meaning or purpose.
• Events push us too far.  These push you beyond what you are physically, mentally, or spiritually unable to change or endure — in some cases, years after these events occur.
• Continual self-medication with alcohol or drugs.
• A hidden medical condition such as blood sugar instability, thyroid, gut issues, Vitamin D deficiency, or something else.