Depression without a cause?

-post deleted for personal reasons-

The world can be a frightening place sometimes, you are clearly sensitive to it. It doesn't mean you're worthless. We do what we do to cope with it. Some people hide themselves away, others descend into alcohol or drugs, others try to go forward into the world and take a stand, regardless of how they feel. We all cope differently.

I don't think depression has any one underlying cause. It's one of those things that has various factors at play. Losing someone close to you can contribute to those feelings, but so can other things. Every one of us is unique and the things that happen to us and around us shape the people that we are.

Simply by joining this site, like I have today, should be seen as a step forward. You can speak your mind here and no one will judge you. Maybe through talking things out with sympathetic strangers you will find your place in the world. Maybe we all will one day.

Take care.

I was SO much like you!

I was exactly your age when I became agoraphobic. Seventeen years later, I've lost my entire youth. I wish to god that back when I was your age, I'd gotten the help I needed. If I'd sought professional help, been correctly diagnosed and been prescribed medication back then, I might not have squandered my entire youth. I honestly believe your parents would be incredibly relieved if you went to them and said that you think you're really ill and that it's time to get help. Then when people say you're just "lazy" they'd be able to tell them they're wrong, that you have a legitimate illness and it's not your fault but that you're using every possible means to get better. It sounds obvious that you do suffer from clinical depression and severe social phobia. There are medications that specifically treat those illnesses. They can make a WORLD of difference. You can go from seeing only black and white to seeing in color again. They're not a cure but they can give you back hope and will to live. I hope you'll think about it, I know it's hard but PLEASE don't make the same mistakes I did!

A friend wrote to me to explain that there are two types of depressions. One with a cause and another without a cause. He says those with a cause are easy to deal with but not those without a cause.

But I tend to believe that all depressions have a cause. But the difficulty would be in defining the cause, that is to discover the reason for its setting in.

I am not a psychologist or a psychoanalyst. So I do not know how a psychologists or a psychoanalyst would look at it.

I feel that it is a mental state that has set in which you cannot got rid of because the mind has accepted to live with it. A person has a mind and the form. The mind cannot act on its own without interposing the mind. And the mind too cannot do any thing without the body. Therefore these two entities work in coordination with one another. Therefore the body has nothing to do with your “feeling low”. It is the mind that has to be provoked to rediscover yourself before the “ low feelings” set in. The mind has to be forced to snap out of the state it had creatred.

I think your going back to the past will not help you even if it is to find the cause of your depressions( if we could call it that at least for the time being), nor will it help, by thinking of the future. The past is dead and over, the future is an unknown space. You will therefore, have to begin from now the present moment, in order to push away the “low feelings” you have.

Your first attempt should be to build confidence in yourself. You are not different from any one else. There are lot of others who have no jobs. Therefore there is no reason for you to have any sort of complex, for being without a job.

Shutting yourself from the out side world and sleeping most of the time will only add to your problem of “feeling low”. Therefore, you should decide immediately to give up your persisting habit of sleeping most of the time and closing yourself up all alone.

You should also develop your determination. Even if you do not want to go out determine that you are not going to give in to your feelings, and step out of your habit.

You should determine to change your habits. It is the habits that you have grown into that compel you to continue the way you are. Try changing all you habits, and build new habits.

Get up in the morning every day at a given time. Take your tea with your family. Smile even if it would be difficult at the beginning. Speak even if it is to say very little.. And go for a walk. Go to a library. Read books . If you do not want to read, look at pictures in books, flowers, paintings by great painters.

Walk back home. Sit and see the television even if you do not want to talk to others. Have lunch with the family. Keep awake. That may change a little. It is these little efforts that will flower into success. Wish you well.

You have lost your self confidence to the extent that you evzen feel what you had written is a mess. What you have written is excellent. It has helped you to open yourself to the public.

Please take courage, and determine to change…………….

Dear « DeadtotheworlD »

I prefer you chose a more positive, more lively sort of pseudonym instead of
“DeadtotheworlD”. We are all alive, and the world is what we make of it.

I do not know whether you had read my last post. However, there were many things I would have liked to have said, but left out not knowing in what mood you may come to read the post.

Psychiatrists have all types of names to different types of moods, bipolar disorder, schizophrenic , and what not. They often give pills to make the patient sleep. In sleep one reposes, and the mind stops thinking. That often helps, even if the cause itself is not treated. Some even put patients under hypnotism to find out whether a childhood psychological shock had put the person in to that state.

All that is good, and very much appreciable for the relief brought to those who suffer from these negative states of mind.

The mind -that is what I left out writing about in my last post. The mind is continuously assailed by thoughts of all sorts, dark, negative thoughts, or very bright,pleasant thoughts etc. The thoughts arise from what we call our sense faculties-the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body coming in contact with external objects like what we see, hear, smell, taste or feel.

The “ Mind” is also a sense faculty. The external objects it comes in contact with are the thoughts that arise in the mind itself.

These thoughts “seems” to arise ceaselessly. However, no two thoughts arise at the same time. A thought arises and falls away before another thought arises. They arise and fall away in such rapid succession you feel that the thoughts are flowing in without end, one after another. It is this assailment of the mind by uncontrolled thoughts that may cause that sense of helplessness, feeling low, impatience etc. Thoughts arise mainly from our desire, attachment, anger, dislike , jealousy, hatred, or the delusion of feeling that “I am” the one that is being subjected to these emotions and not others etc.

But if we can control, or find a short gap in between these rising and falling away thoughts., it may give us a small respite to at lease know what are these rising and falling away thoughts. But such a control being impossible , the psychiatrists get the “patient” to speak out, and give pills to make them sleep to give a small interval of quietness to the mind.

But it may be possible to quieten the mind and limit the rising and falling away thoughts , by some other means. A quietened mind disposes of dark thoughts, and brings in serenity, and composure.

I would not like to make long posts, therefore I will make another post later on, if you make us know that you have read these posts on the message board.

mine depression started in grade 7 up to now, and it sucks, it affect everything I do, all my interactions with people, my mood, everything, and I got serious mood swings every two or three days or so

Thank you guys for responding to my post. I'm sorry I didn't respond, I haven't been on this forum hardly at all, I only saw that I had comments on this post after logging in to my old e-mail today. My bad.
I think I found the cause of my unhappiness and I'm getting a lot better now thankfully.
I'm greatful for the responses, I must have forgotten about this place after I posted that. I was in a much worse place when I wrote that rant and I've had help since. It's good to know there are nice people out there though, so thanks again ::