Why Do People Get Depressed?

• Depression comes from prolonged frustration and stress.
• Depression can be good for you!
• Sometimes its better to give up and take some time to rest.

Whenever one of our needs reaches a certain level of dissatisfaction, we experience a corresponding primary feeling which is meant to motivate us into taking action so that we can fulfil that need.

However should the actions we take be unsuccessful in satisfying our need, then the result of those actions will lead to the secondary feeling of frustration.

This feeling of frustration indicates to us that the actions we are currently taking to satisfy our need, are not effective in doing so.

Therefore the longer we feel frustrated the longer our need will remain unfulfilled, and the more painful our primary and secondary feelings will become.

All of this “pain” directly affects the body as internal stress, which given enough time, can have very harmful effects on the body.

In order to prevent these harmful effects from occurring, the body then activates its final self defence mechanism; depression.

The Lead Up To Depression

All depression initially begins as a result of the frustration we experience from ineffectively trying to satisfy our needs.

As we continue to experience frustration, our body is put under increasing amounts of stress until eventually it can take no more.

This cycle leading up to depression is just like having your car stuck in the mud, with its wheels frantically spinning but going nowhere.

The longer the wheels spin the more fuel the car will burn, and the more the engine will start to wear out. If this continues, eventually the engine will overheat and the car will break down.

The only way to prevent this from happening is to take your foot off the accelerator, and find another way to get out the mud.

In exactly the same way depression serves to stop you from having a break down, by signalling to you when your body needs time to recover from the stress caused by your frustration.

A New Perspective On Depression

If we look at depression in the same way as we do a car spinning its wheels in the mud, suddenly our view of depression begins to change.

Rather than seeing depression as something which we should try to deny or ignore, we can now look upon depression as an opportunity to reevaluate our current situation and prevent our actions from doing us further harm.

This view of depression being beneficial to an individual is nothing new. For example, the link below will take you to a BBC news story where a leading psychiatrist in England talks about why depression can be good for you.

“Is Depression Good For You?”

Reevaluating The Situation

When a person falls into depression, they often think that their situation is completely hopeless. During this stage of hopelessness, a depressed person will feel as though they can no longer achieve their goal and eventually will give up on it.

Whilst this may seem like admitting defeat, it is infact the very mechanism used by depression to prevent you from suffering a total mental breakdown.

Since you are now no longer engaging in the same actions that initially caused your frustration, by stopping those actions you allow yourself time to recover from the stress that frustration was causing you.

Why It Can Be Good To Give Up

This period of “giving up” is a very important stage of depression, as it allows you to reevaluate your situation and look at it from a different perspective.

This is something which is not possible when you are feeling stressed out and frustrated, because negative emotions such as these can negativity affect your ability to think clearly.

What this means is that the more stress you are under the more impaired your thinking will become, which will result in more unsuccessful attempts to fulfil your needs and therefore more frustration.

The tertiary feeling of depression helps to stop this process, by reducing your level of stress and frustration.

Once this occurs and your ability to think is no longer impaired, you are then in a position to take a fresh look at your life and embark upon a new course of action.

In the next article, we shall look at how you can respond appropriately to your depression and then overcome it.