Depression - biological or learned behavior

How does one know what causes yourself to become depressed. I hear the chemical imbalance theory and it half way makes sense. Insufficent amounts of serotonine, dopamine, norepinephrine can make you feel depressed. I also think depression is something that is learned in a way. I don't mean someone teaches you how to be depressed, vut I mean you lack coping skills, self esteem, self worth, social anxiety, fear of talking about your problems to people, perfectionism etc.

Do you ever identifiy the cause of depression at some point in the healing process? I can remember feeling sad sometimes for no reason, but I also have other issues that contribute. I have a difficult time trusting people and talking about what is bothering me. I also lack self esteem and I often feel like I am a failure and worthless. Maybe that stems from depression, or maybe it comes from past experiences and it feeds my depression. I'm not sure which. I especially have a hard time accepting failure and I am overcritical of myself. I hate myself a lot when I make a mistake. I also don't deal with critism very well. When I am critised I feel like I am a complelty awful person and no one likes me. I know that is a self created delusion, but I am not sure how to deal with it. I also have fears of people abandoning me. I think that is why I don't like to get close to people. It seams like everyone in my life gives up on me and I hate that. Maybe I push them away or maybe I just isolate myself and they quit caring. I don't know.

I know these are issues that will come out in therapy for me. I'm just feeling really low at the moment and I'm not sure how to deal with it. I was feeling mostly normal over the weekend, but when Monday came around my mood tanked.

Many factors. We are hunter gatherers. survival. Alcohol. Lack of exercise. Lack of purpose. Environmental causes. Abuse etc.

I suffer from chronic depression as well. I also get tired of going back to work Monday mornings...mostly because over the weekend all the work will pile up and by Monday it really seems overwhelnming. I think at least some of my depression must be chemically related. I already have problems balancing out my hormones, and that must affect my other chemical receptors as well. Medication (now that I found the right mixure/doses) has made coping with these issues much easier. I wouldn't say I am at a 10 out of ten, but I definitely went from a 4 to an 8 on my normality meter.

[quote=adam_k;3009344]

Oh MAN this is SO me. I can completely identify with everything you wrote here...you have described me to the letter. I wish I had an answer for you. It definitely is a good question, as far as if it is learned or not. Maybe not learned, but maybe how we deal with things in the end contributes to the depression. I can definitely agree with the chemical imbalance part too. I think it goes hand in hand. Like if you have the chemicals for a pool to keep it clean, but don't know how to put them in, the pool can't stay clean. (bad analogy I know) I mean, the meds will work on the chemical part, but if our coping skills/self talk is bad, we might as well be dumping tar into the water.

I hope that made sense. I wish it was as easy as changing coping skills/self talk. I hope I don't look like an idiot for saying this, I don't really voice my opinion a lot but you really hit the nail on the head with your post. I am glad you are doing therapy. That is supposed to help too!

I think that some people have a biological disposition to be depressed, but that whether they actually develop it often has to do with how they are raised. If they have that disposition but are raised in a healthy, nurturing environment, it may never develop, and if that's not the case, it comes out. However, some cases, pregnancy, mid-life crisis, change of life issues, can sometimes throw the "biology" off enough that is appears regardless of upbringing.

Sometimes its a choice too. If you are isolated you may choose to depress. Actually I read a book about that once. "Choice theory" We choose to depress. William Glasser. A shame I never finish the books I read. Haha. Another good one is 'the power of intention'.

I think it can be both. For instance, I have clinical depression. From what I understand, I'm lacking in the chemicals in the brain so it has to be replaced by the antidepressants. I've been on them for about 40 years so far. I'll have to be on them til I die. I tried getting off at one point, and ended up in the pits of hell. Never again.

I also think it can be environmental/learned. If you were brought up in a "toxic" environment, i.e. neglectful parents; unemotional parents; addictive parents; abusive parents; financially needy household; too many children that some get "left out;" etc. Those type environments can certainly cause depression.

I was brought up with alcoholic parents who totally ignored ALL of us. There were 4 girls and we got absolutely NO attention at all. So all of us are afflicted with depression. I'm the only one who has sought treatment -- maybe I was the craziest.

But I do think it can be BOTH biological & environmental/learned. All I know is that it's miserable! God bless & take care. Hugs, Lee

What a tangled ball of string we are . I rather see myself as a cluster of strings entangled to the degree of them overlapping tightly . The point seems to deal with the one strand that is poking out from the ball the most .

Everyone is right about the views presented, I feel. So I'll add something a little different.

When we let other peoples' opinions of us rule our concept of who we are, we're making a vey big mistake. In truth, we should never judge ourselves based on who or what someone says we are. People really reveal more of themselves than they do about anyone else when they begin to make character judgments.

What we should do, instead, is not judge at all. We should just evaluate who we are by our deepest principles and try to live by them. That way, we'll be just fine.

This seems to help a good bit in relating to peoples' ideas that seem to hurt; in most cases, those who do this are trying to throw off something within themselves that they feel about themselves unconsciously.

Hope this helps a little.

[quote=AngelWolf3;3009382]I feel exactly the same way, also.

I also think it can be a mix of genetics, learned behavior and having the proper trigger. Both of my parents were on antidepressants. I was 14 the first time I was put on them. But there were soo many environmental factors as well. If you are trained to be optimistic and happy it's probably easier to overcome the genetic tendencies. Of course, if your parents are depressed they probably don't have good coping skills themselves.
All I can say is thank God for modern medicine.

I think for me it's a combination of things. I think in one sense, I was "predisposed" to it to a point, but I also had environmental factors play into it as well. I think if my life had been better growing up, I might have still struggled a little, but I don't think it would have been near as bad.

I agree but I come from a family of 8 kids and I am thonly one depressses

Absolutely agree with u. It has to be our environment that gets as into depression.

I don't get that, as i don't choose to be depressed...more like I don't have any choice in the matter. What does it mean by we choose to depress?

I'm not sure. I've called mine "situational". I'd never been depressed before. It's hard to handle these really difficult situations and I haven't been able to what you'd say cope.

I personally did not "choose to depress." In fact I have fought it tooth and nail my whole life. As far as isolating, I don't isolate then "choose to depress"--I isolate BECAUSE I AM ALREADY DEPRESSED! Usually, people who claim those theories don't know what they're talking about.

I often wonder if I was always had depression and just didn't know what the feeling was. I do remember crying an excessive amount when I was younger and maybe when it seemed inappropriate. I also remember missing a lot of school. I would say that I was sick but I really wasn't. There wasn't anything i really disliked about school, I just remember wanting to be alone a lot. In my early teens it was worse. After some traumatic events, it became ten fold worse. I was extremely depressed in my late teens. I made some life improvements. Graduating HS and going to college, being with someone who showed me respect and didn't take advantage of me, setting boundaries with my dysfunctional family. My life improved and few a few years I felt happy, but I don't think I was ever "normal". I think depression is always there in the background for me.

Wow-that sounds just like me! I remember in 3rd grade, asking if I could go the nurse's office w/o feeling sick because I wanted to just curl up in bed at home--and I liked school! In the 4th grade, we moved, and I remember a good part of the school year, I would actually curl up in a ball under my desk and just bawl my eyes out. My teacher actually had to have a meeting with my mom because of it. I started faking sick a lot, or sometimes just not go to school because it was just too much for me to be around everyone else. I don't think I was ever "normal" either, at least I never felt like I was.

That happens a lot--children from the very same family will end up very different. It's definatly a complicated issue.

Hey,

I think that is a mix of both...as for genetics, I don't know who had depression in my family because for them it was a taboo subject...but in terms of neurobiology and all that, I believe that patterns or habits of thought can affect the biological functions of the brain and change its chemistry or wiring. So thought can change biology overtime...like if we don't think positively, that pathway in our brain weakens and it makes us harder to access that positivity...I dunno if that is true, but it makes sense to me. And biology can affect thought, like I certainly believe that I have low levels of serotonin...as long as I can remember I've never been the super bubbly type. So biologically I would be more susceptible to having a low mood? If only it was so easy to figure out, I would probably be feeling like a million bucks if it was.

I come from a long, long line of depressives. My mother's side of the family is chock full of recluses, eccentrics, suicides...anyone who's borderline normal is very apparently not "normal" due to their brittle nature and condescending aloofness. There's a lot of bad parenting thrown into the mix, but the big question is, Which came first, the mental illness or the dysfunction? I'm pretty sure it's a combination of both. I've learned a lot of CBT-type tricks over the years, and the most they've ever done for me is keep me from going over the precipice. All the therapy and behavior modification in the world isn't going to make this broken plane fly right. It keeps it from crashing, sure, but nothing ever gets fixed.

And like some others here, there were signs way back in childhood that I wasn't going to grow up to be a happy, well-adjusted, fully functioning member of society. I threatened to kill myself at the age of nine. My grades were spiraling downwards and I was repeatedly feigning illness to miss school by junior high. Guidance counselors mandated weekly sessions from junior high through high school. My mother told them, She's fine, she's just a little shy. My parents refused to seek professional help for me - I know my paranoid mother was terrified CYS would take me away - so the school counselors tried, unsuccessfully, to fill that role. I never opened up to them.

Anywho, I would have to say that it's definitely a combination of nature/nurture.

Each experience builds on the one before . Interesting to have hindsight available to gain some understanding of the present .

The title of this thread offends me. I didn't "learn" to be depressed.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I guess a more fitting title would be learning not to be depressed. I have a lot of familiy members who resorted to drugs and alcohol to deal with things. I don't think I ever learned the skills I needed to be emotionally well. The best I can do is pretend go be happy and enjoy the few days I actually feel good.

I feel like depression can be biological, environmental, or a combination. A close relative experienced depression for the first time in response to a very negative workplace situation in which the bosses made it impossible to complete any or all of her tasks. Plus she was already coping with grief following the death of a close family friend. Her normal disposition is optimistic and "can do" but this situation found her "shoulding on herself" (as my T likes to call it), i.e., pushing herself beyond appropriate expectations and so feeling like a failure. With counseling, medication, and a job change, she has gotten her life back together and is active and upbeat again.

I experienced my first bout of MDD as a young adult--wasn't ready for college and dropped out, poor social skills, not enough work experience to get a decent job, some estrangement from parents (with a dad who also experienced depression, I now see), feeling like a failure, etc. etc. I didn't know there was a help available (although when I did go back to college I went to the counseling center and didn't get the help I needed). I feel like the interaction between my own disposition (shy, fearful, worried) and the ways I responded to the situation I was in made me ripe for depression.

I think we do "learn" to be depressed--I feel like it's a way to stay safe in scary or hurtful or shameful situation. But when fear and shame take over and we don't feel that we can cope with things going on in our lives, well, major depression rears its ugly head and doesn't want to let go...and we don't know how to let go of it, either.

Thank goodness for modern medications, counseling, and support groups like this one!