Depression
“Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible… When we can see the impermanence… of our pain & sorrow, or even a situation we can make a breakthrough to the heart of reality.”
Thich Naht Hanh
Get Your Energy and LifeBack
Major Depression is a serious disabling illness. It has been said that Major Depression is one of the worst diseases anybody can suffer from.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 280 million people, suffer from depression. Depression is a leading cause of disability.
Depression causes immense psychological suffering.Depression crushes, weakens, and paralyzes its victims leaving them alone, isolated, unable to care for themselves, and unable to function in life. Depression ruins lives. It persists long after its trigger is no longer present in your life.
Anhedonia (lack of pleasure) is a defining feature of depression. Other symptoms are despair, immense guilt, grief, problems with sleep and appetite, lethargy, loss of motivation, and thoughts of self-harm.
There isn’t a single cause for depression. Interaction of biological, psychological, and environmental factors are implicated in depression. Adverse life experiences have been shown to have a significant connection with depression.
You can heal from depression. Your will to cope may have been buried but it’s still there. You can become a person who acts rather then remain the victim of depression or others.
Why You Can’t Just Snap Out of It
The every-day usage of the word depression to refer to brief down mood fluctuations due to life disappointments is misleading and misses the seriousness of major depression.
Moralistic and judgmental views of depression do not help. You may have been told “to snap out of it”, “we all get depressed”, or your experience may have been minimized, “hey, bad things happen”, etc.,
Depression is a state characterized by a sense of loss of control, overwhelm, powerlessness, and often lack of social support.
Prolonged exposure to repeated and uncontrollable psychological stress, in which the person feels a lack of control, a lack of options, or ability to escape the stressor, leads to a shutdown response also known as learned helplessness. This is a self-protection strategy in an environment perceived as dangerous.
This happens as a reaction to adverse life experiences, characterized by a lack of control such as abuse or inescapable trauma.
Prolonged exposure to psychological stress inhibits learning, diminishes self-efficacy, and leads to hopelessness and helplessness even after the adverse events have ceased. Helplessness becomes an over-generalized way that the person deals with life.