depression causing symptoms or symptoms causing depression?

I have been extremely down, emotional, suicidal. Anyone been in the situation of questioning whether you are either becoming depressed and therefore not eating and sleeping or if you are emotional because you are not eating and sleeping? That is where I am now.

My pdoc pushed up my appt and increased my seroquel to 600MG. Because of this, I only woke twice last night and feel rested this morning. I have a sinking feeling but am feeling much better then I have over the last week or so. I am hoping it is not another depression.

I have lots of physical symptoms and ask myself "do I have these symptoms because I'm depressed, or am I depressed because I have these symptoms". I've not yet found an acceptable or certain answer to my questions. ((((Hugs))). I hope you are not getting depressed but it sure does sound like you already are. ((Hugs))

My previous psychiatrist used to say, "I can make anyone depressed. Take away food, don't let them sleep, and isolate them from their family and friends. Then watch what happens."

Basically he was saying that the things we do (or that happen to us) when depressed are the exact things that would cause depression in the first place, and it becomes a vicious cycle. The only way out is to break those things and stop them from happening. This can be aided by medications, but it's also a set of behavioral problems that need to be addressed one way or another.

Best of luck to you as you break the cycle.

This is something I've been interested in when looking at the overall patterns of my life. My thought is that my hypomania caused depression due to the trouble I was getting in. The hypomania was either seasonal or triggered by events that were overstimulating (moving to California for example). But I can also say that depression has slammed me for no reason at all. My last bout came shortly after I had just received very high accolades for my work (on a multi-national scale).. so I should have been stoked. I had also just returned from a show that went really well. I may have been hypo during the time leading up to the show and during. I sure crashed hard afterwards. I remember coming in from the shop in tears telling my wife that the depression had just hit.

I think it can go either way. I often wonder this with mania, am I manic because I haven't been sleeping well or have I not been sleeping well because I'm manic. hard to pin point which one it is.

This is a classic case of the chicken or the egg. In my opinion I believe that depression causes the symptoms.Don't you despise not knowing though for sure. I truly hate not being omniscient!

Exactly....it's very confusing. But I can't really control my need for sleep so when I find I have no need of it, I doubt it was a simple decision I made not to sleep. Something chemical seems to be going on.

Im still in college so my sleep can be changed by me or a chemical change. So it may or may not be a choice for me.