Are you depressed, and what makes you sad?

[flobadob]

Firstly, I understand that depression is a complex issue to do with imbalances in the brain and such, and I know that it is not as basic as the question I ask.

However, I'm just saying if you are depressed what sort of things set you off on a downward spiral. Is it thinking about how your life panned out compared to your dreams, is it money woes, is it thinking of all the ills in the world, or perhaps none of the above, or even all the above and more.

What sort of things make you depressed and are there things you can think about to bring you back to happy thoughts?

[Old_Geezer]

These days I feel permanently depressed. Not sure the GP would agree but, "there you go". It's the pointlessness of it all coupled with the demands imposed from employer or council or government or people, and how everything that can go wrong seems to do so, and the deterioration of old age, and how many others are a pain in the neck, and just about everything. Happy thoughts ? What are they ?

[divegirl]

I'm sorry but I don't think you understand depression.

I know you skip over the 'issue' of chemical imbalances but that is what it boils down to.
I have suffered with depression and anxiety for 25 odd years and though there can be triggers it is more than likely to just crush me from no where and for no reason.
I have been having a mild 'attack' for the last few weeks, nothing like the soul destroying episodes I have suffered in the past, it took days of cajoling to get me to leave the house to see the Olympics session I had booked.
We can all be worried about money, love and like, me as much as the next person, but that does not mean we are depressed.

Lisa x

[chelle7272]

Yes money is big part of it, with a child to support and the skyrocketing costs of pretty much everything.
Worrying about my childs future, work pressures, my parents getting older and in poorer health, and the pressure worrying about all that puts on my relationship with my OH.

And currently, being a Liverpool fan...

[divegirl]

Ooops Read as ' money, love and the like'

[Frank97]

Agree with Divegirl, when I get it nothing seems to trigger it, it just starts for seemingly no reason and no matter how many positive things I think of, it all just seems pointless.

[mccfluff]

money worries :-(

[gness]

Divegirl is right Flob. Worrying and depression are two very different things. I have been at rock bottom financially, a vanished OH, no job and a child to bring up...plus the possibility of losing my home. I was a bit worried but happy.

Much later....lovely home, no money worries and a great future ahead and I suffered an awful bout of depression.

[Khandro]

//are there things you can think about to bring you back to happy thoughts?// Meditation; clearing the mind of ALL thought is desirable, and achievable with practice for this. Also, I remember the writer, John Cowper-Powys talking about the removal of dark thoughts by making a 'salmon-like' leap of the mind to to more pleasing thoughts. In reality, many of the things that are depressing one can do sod all about anyway, so they may as well be pushed away, and instead try to put to right that which is within your possibility.

[Khandro]

PS. I am addressing the word as put in the question; "depressed", not 'clinical depression'.

[Old_Geezer]

Aye, I think some were treating the two as the same.

[ummmm]

People and anniversaries make me sad. When a anniversary is coming up I get a sense gloom come over me.

I don't worry about much other than that.

[DTCwordfan]

Big difference between being depressed and clinically depressed, I feel and by experience.

The former now money, my mother and daughters and associated with the latter, anniversaries and Christmas, though this year Xmas should be a little more "enjoyable".

[andy-hughes]

Having suffered with depression for the last twenty-three years, I am very aware of the differences between being 'depressed' and depression.

As such, I do not suffer from being depressed - the mental strength that got me out of a psychiatric hospital after a three-month stay following a complete breakdown still stays in place today.

I have occasional fears about returning to that state, but daily medication keeps me balanced, and other than that, i do not have any 'down' times at all.

I thinkt that having experienced the full extreme of what depression can do, the lighter notion of 'being depressed' is simply not there any more. i am pretty much a positive individual all the time, with very occasional (and I mean minutes, not weeks) dips which i counteract on contact.

My mental equilibrium has been extremely hard-won, it nearly cost me my life, but having attained it, I guard it and take care of it, and stick firmly to the adage that nothing matters very much, and most things don't matter at all.

[EvianBaby]

I think it's different for everyone. For me it changes for no apparant reason or trigger but when I'm going through a bad bout then of course all the negative thoughts of things that have happened, work worries and fear of things coming overide any rational thoughts. Recently I went through a long period of a 'downer' to the point of finally admitting to myself I needed some help. And although the help does seem to be working I'm trying to pull myself out of it. Although I'm on the extreme opposite now. Where a few weeks ago I couldn't bare to lift my head off the pillow and could barely hold a conversation without crying I'm now like a bloody road runner, to the point where other people are commenting on how different I've become over a couple of weeks. But it's always there, it just seems like sometimes it's easier to push things away than at other times and you're always living with the knowledge that at some point it's going to come and bite you again.

[bednobs]

when i was depressed a few years ago, i put it down to the fact i couldn't have kids, however, logically that couldn't have been right because i'd always not got pregnant and "knew" i couldn't have kids for some years before that, and then when i started on the tablet, they made me feel immeasurably better.

[VHG]

I am 62 years old but have been depressed on and off since I was about 14.

I dont mean depressed in a clinical way, though I have had one nervous breakdown, and come very near to it at other times in my life, but more a sense of "gloom" hanging over my head all the time.

My problems are not about money (I worked for 30 years for a large computer company and got paid well and I am now retired with a good pension).

They are not about my married life. I am in my second marriage and after 27 years we are still very happy together and have a good active sex life.

I have 4 children (2 from each marriage), and they are all fit and healthy and in good jobs etc.

So you might say "why so sad".

Well I cant explain it, I just find life VERY VERY hard, worry about anything and everything, seeing the negative in many things, and tend always to be a "glass half empty" type of person.

I sometimes see people in a pub laughing their head of and being so happy, but I never ever feel like that.

I remember one guy I worked with who was generally happy and laughed a lot through the day, he probably laughed more in one day that I do in a year.

I can never do anything, or go anywhere (like a holiday), without thinking it is all going to go wrong, and this puts a great damper on anything I do. I am usually just so glad when the holiday is over and I am back home.

I have contemplated suicide many many times over the last 30 years. My divorce 30 years ago was very traumatic and led to my first nervous breakdown and has led to many suicide thoughts since.

I remember going on holiday to Jersey with my wife about 5 years ago for a lovely holiday, and when we were walking along the cliffs on the North shore my main thoughts were what a great place to commit suicide, nobody would find your body for ages. I never told her this of course (may have spoilt the holiday !).

I think there are just some people who have an inability to be happy and just find life very hard. Someone like Tchaikovsky spent his whole life "sad" and in the end probably committed suicide, same with Van Gogh, who did commit suicide.

I have read numerous books about "overcoming depression", attended a 12 week therapy course, and taken various drugs given to me by the doctor, but it has never done any good and I think I am destined to be like this for the rest of my life.

[andy-hughes]

VHG - I sympathise and empathise entirely with your situation.

Due to the constant misunderstanding of depression, so many sufferers have their pluses pointed out to them, followed by the question - "What have you got to be depressed about?"

The simple answer is that depression needs no reason, and will strike the apparently luckiest people in the world with equal vigour as it does the poor and destitute.

Being asked for a reason when there is no reason to give has to be one of the hardest aspects of dealing with this condition - sometimes its better to give a fictional reason, whcih deflects further comment. Offering the absence of a reason tends to be met with soubriets like 'Worse things happen at sea ..." and similar nonsense which can tempt the sufferer to thoughts of violence, if only they had the physical strength ... strength which is drained by the constant and all-encompassing thoughts that whir through the mind every single consious second.

It is evil incarnate. Simple as that.

[Wharton]

Old...Geezer
//It's the pointlessness of it all// - I couldn't have put it better.
I get told that I think too much.

[flobadob]

There are a lot of interesting points and stories there. I did try to point out at the start that I was not trying to get to the root of depression and was not trying to cause any offence such as divgirl may have taken.

Simply, I'm trying to figure out what thoughts can start to bouts of depression. For example, I can completely understand that if someone had serious financial issues, couples with a spouse leaving, well how could you not be depressed with that.

Then the other side were people may see the Haiti earthquake and hundreds of thousands affected it by that, and it could set them off. Then of course other people just breeze on by no matter what. As I said, complex.

[Khandro]

You could equally ask I suppose, what makes people happy? In India, I once watched two young women sitting in the gutter, one combing the hair of the other and deftly removing lice with her fingernails, they were completely impoverished, they chattered and laughed continuously, and were full of almost tangible joyfulness.