This post and the previous comment irritate me. When I think of depression in this context, I think of Major Depression or Bipolar Depression on the more severe end. Something that is a medical and psychological illness that a few unlikely people get for a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Major depression isn’t a “natural state” or something that you get because you think negatively all the time. This may be true of mild depression or grief or “the blues,” but not major depression. Certainly negative thinking can be a factor in some cases, but it’s certainly not the cause and therapy can only go so far.

I have been taught to think of depression as a medical illness and that it caused me to do things I did not want to do and neglect things that I wanted to do. Just as how OCD makes people preform compulsions over and over. Yes, I would say Depression causes “difficulty concentrating, suicidal thoughts, no interest,etc” and that the list of things you described are “symptoms” and “effects” of the depression. Just as how vomiting is a “symptom” of the stomach flu. In addition, I think it’s possible that the “symptoms” of depression can make the depression worse. For example, sleeping too much is both a symptom of depression and a depressor. However, just because Major depression causes a bunch of nasty things to happen to us, doesn’t mean we are powerless against it. There are many ways a depressed person can correct the chemical imbalances and brain dysfunction. For example, “retraining” your brain through therapy, as well as exercise and socializing to counter the effects of increased cortisol and release “feel good chemicals.” And of course medication when necessary to help restore your brain to it’s undepressed state.

I hope that makes sense. I think people need to realize that Major Depression is not “normal” and can cause many problems for a person that they are not in control over.

Hi LS,
I am very sorry that my post upsets you. I mean to challenge people’s thinking, but not so much as to be irritating. I cannot speak for Joye, but take her comment to mean that she has found that she has a choice of how to respond to her depression, not that we do not get depressed. I love her statement of “With cognitive therapy to separate thoughts from feelings from actions, it is fairly easy for anyone to act as they choose unlinked to the past or future misgivings. Depression never made me do anything.”

I did not mean to allude to depression not existing – for me it is very real and very deep. What I am asking is what depression is from an experiential and definitional standpoint. I am trying to separate our reaction from the depression itself because it seems that by defining them so closely tied together it reinforces the belief that we have no choice but to react adversely while depressed.

Your statements seem very much in line with what I am trying to say and helps to clarify my message – Depression is very real, AND we can use tools to function better while in it.

I really like your example of vomiting as a symptom of the flu. Perhaps symptom is the same as “reaction” in this case. Can I have a deep flu (just as deep as one with the vomit symptom) without the reaction of vomiting? In that case, I would start to recognize the flu as different from the symptoms. Flu as far as I understand it is an infestation of bacteria that may causes symptoms like vomiting (along with several others).

My question is: What is Depression and how is it different from our reactions to it? If we explore those questions we will better understand both what depression is and what choices we have in our reactions. You make that point beautifully when you say “However, just because Major depression CAUSES a bunch of nasty things to happen to us, doesn’t mean we are powerless against it.”

Please don’t be upset with my efforts to explore depression more deeply. Your input is very valuable and I would hate for you to not engage because my questioning irritates you.

I think I sometimes say ‘depression causes me to …’ because at the point of feeling depressed, it feels as if I had no agency and no control over myself. The knowledge that depression is ‘a part of me’, instead of being a virus or a bacterial infection, only makes it worse, because to me it means that I cannot get better unless I discover a sense of agency within myself that at the same time I feel to be lacking. And that’s scary, really really scary – and it’s easier splitting the disease/symptoms from ‘the rest that I am’ rather than accepting that it’s all me. Why else would we speak of ‘fighting depression’ rather than ‘fighting ourselves’?

Lest I be misunderstood, I by no means want to say that depression was under my control or that it was just a lack of willpower or a failure ‘to pull yourself up by the bootstraps’. If it was that easy, I wouldn’t be in such dire straits all the time. But essentially, depression robs me of the choice to make better choices. That’s why I find talk therapy so helpful: It makes you think it through and discover that actually, the range of actions available to you is way wider than you thought. It gives me back the feeling that maybe I do have some choice, after all. (Doesn’t mean I’ll be feeling better overall, but it makes me feel better about my actions – and consequently, over time, about me and that part of me that is depression, too.)