How Does Depression Happen?

OP good post.

May I suggest you look into the MTHFR gene. I, as well as about 20% of the population have the same polymorphism (coding/transcription error) that I do. It is an important link to depression. The double coding error is 677ct which causes a 30% decrease in the breakdown of folic acid to folate which is important in gene expression. The other is 1298ac which is responsible for the breakdown of B12 into important neurotransmitters, including seratonin.

Am also in agreement with the feeling, touch, love shown to a child. But add to that other life circumstances and very important in my view, words spoken to people who may have been beaten down all their life and not have the stamina or resolve to understand that the word may just be their opinion. As always, one must examine theirself and make changes if needed.

Being one who believe in many lives, I believe these careless thoughtless words effect the soul of a person and the effects can be carried over for many lifetimes. Do these effect our genetic makeup or our ability to deal with or change that genetic makeup?

I will not be able to respond until late tomorrow if you choose to respond. Feel free to u2u if interested.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Your Born , Life Sucks , then you Die . That pretty much Explains it .

I know depressed people can be difficult to be around because they project their emotions, but if you stick by that person, show them you are a true friend, you'll be doing them the world of good. Sometimes people just need a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear to talk to.

I am somewhat familiar with these findings in the OP, but have not seen much research on the possibility of changes that could be made later in life. I wonder greatly about that.

Because I also had a depressive mother, and went through various type so of abuse and neglect. My mother had some sort of "blockage" she claimed, to physical affection, so could not touch us in affectionate ways (only to hit, kick or pull hair).

I was prone to depression for most of my life, and even as my life situation improved, I still found that there was a depth of depression that could hit me quickly, with a trigger (like a rejection of some sort) and I could dive quickly from being content or happy in general, to being suicidal.

I began to be afraid that no matter how much I improved my situation, this would be a risk for me- like a pit, once formed, it could become easily infected at any time.

But I found with time, that it became easier and easier to sustain a higher state of emotional being, the "dips" becoming less severe, and lasting less time. At this point, a few days of feeling listless or down makes me feel a bit like an observer of a passing state, until it is gone.

Analyzing this slow process, it seems quite cliché, but I sometimes think I was "healed with love". Seriously, having a mate that is very affectionate physically, and that showed to be a stable partner over a long period of time, I feel like it didn't just have the mental affect of making me believe love is possible, and can be relied on, but it seems like it had a physical effect on my body, my health. I wonder if there might be changes in the biology that could have been measured!

In any case, it provides some hope.

a reply to: Baddogma

What I've learned is this:

Human beings are unconsciously, through the influence of action (behavior) tied into one another. Basically, we exist within a field of emotional significance - and no one is exempt from being organized and influenced by it's "energies". Simply seeing - taking in and perceiving - forces into our awareness a 'reorgaization' of our attentional awareness.

What you've written is interesting; and I cannot tell you how good it is - from a psychoanalysts perspective - that you are able to take a skeptical attitude towards your psychiatrists take that 'depressed people like you are a little more intelligent'; because, of course, intelligence is a condemnation. Being knowledgeable or not is truly an irrelevant factor, because what matters, fundamentally, is how your nervous system RELATES to the world. And how you relate is something that precedes the development of your intelligence i.e is 'programmed' in the intrauterine environment (how stressed was your mother when she was pregnant?) and in the early years of life where, as mentioned before, epigenetic-genetic regulatory processes become 'conditioned', forcing - barring a major relational intervention (the presence of a positive, meaningful relationship with another person) - the developing self-system to take on certain 'meanings' towards the world.

But again, skepticism is HEALTHY, because it is a cognitive SEED that you can develop and foster. Of course, given the relational nature of consciousness, you can't do it alone: it is fundamentally impossible. If you want a life free of depressive affects, you need to accept some basic things about the world, and about your self: were all vulnerable, thus, we need to accept feelings that make us feel vulnerable, such as shame, anxiety and fear. We need to know how how we think and feel influences how others respond to us - and confirm for us - our 'take' on the world. To get out of this wickedly vicious feedback loop, you need to address some deep existential questions about life. And you need to pushhhhh! By this, I mean, you need to develop a tremendous conviction towards change; and change also means 'forgetting'. But even more, it means accepting: life can be this or that; horribly depressive, and meaningless, or wonderful and intrinsically meaningful. You need to accept how emotional processes create this bias; and how, even more fundamentally, SOCIAL processes - how human beings see both themselves and one another

I think it's fair to say that depression is a psycho-social malady.

It can be due to genetic factors and chemicals in the brain, and it can also be environmentally dependent. Often it seems to be a combination of the two.

What about people that feel apathy? Nothing really makes them sad, but nothing overly excites them or makes them happy?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

The clinical idea corresponding to apathy is dissociation.

The odd thing is, dissociation and depression seem to rely upon the same neurobiological network i.e they both seem to be mediated by parasympathetic processes; yet, in depression, something quite 'active' is happening (which implies a different neurochemistry). So what separates the two groups? And in addition - are people ever really, 'chronically' dissociated, that is, never experience depression or happiness?

Most people oscillate between all three states; happy sometimes, dissociated at other times, and depressed under other conditions. Yet, there definitely are people who are what older psychoanalytical theory called "schizoid": lacking emotion for pretty much anything.

The etiology of this condition seems to be rooted in the early life attachment system, where a primary caregiver evidences a 'dismissive' attitude to the infants emotional experience of the world. After trying, and then being dismissed, again and again, the infant develops a similar affect-strategy as the parent (the parent, after all, was also once an infant). This creates 'avoidant attachment', where the infant learns to relate with the world without feeling 'embodied'.

This theory has much going for it since the discovery of the physiological foundations for embodied experience, communication, affect regulation and emotion: the so-called polyvagal complex. The vagal system is structured in such a way that the upper portion (the dorsal branch), under certain affective stress (overarousal of the body's stress response system) will preferentially inhibit the lower portion that connects with the facial muscles, inner ear, pharynx, larynx, and most interestingly, the orbitofrontal cortex (the part of the brain behind our eyes, where we exercise executive control of emotion). Basically, this is a trauma prevention system: when the child is being 'traumatized' by not being recognized by a parent, the body 'inhibits' connection between the mind and the body, that is, the infant no longer counts - or knows - strong emotional arousal as a part of it's lived experience.

This is probably the basis for adult 'apathy'. Particularly if this has always been how the person experienced the world.

originally posted by: SensiblyReckless
I know depressed people can be difficult to be around because they project their emotions, but if you stick by that person, show them you are a true friend, you'll be doing them the world of good. Sometimes people just need a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear to talk to.

I need those eyes on my avatar; just changed to black and white spinning hypnotic wheels. What a good thought you have. I will tell you as an empath, you have to ground first when in the presence of those afflicted. This is a backfired mental rotation they cannot get out of. The brain trains itself; it has neurotransmitters that fire in patterns; these being the negative thought forms of self destruction in this instance. How deep into the abyss are they as may require more than a good friend. Nice thoughts SensiblyReckless.

a reply to: liveandlearn

I really don't have anything to say about the many lives hypothesis (which is always and fundamentally a hypothesis), so of course I do not know about anything of this order - that is, the notion that a 'continuity' of self, or what have you, influences the development of genetic material.

But from a purely theoretical perspective, if you wanted to believe that, you would have to take into account the role maternal distress has on genetic-epigenetic programming of the developing fetus; and this, since it is 'influenced from without', by other people, would then truly overwhelm our imagination: as everyone is affecting everyone else.

Such a perspective would necessarily entail a 'collective soul' with little souls 'meeting up' in life in an essentially predetermined way.

I don't know about any of that. And I don't think it's worthy my time to speculate (beyond what I just made logically clear). However, this does not mean life isn't mysterious; that odd and bizarre synchronicities that seem to defy probability frequently happen. I can't explain this as it seems to lie outside the ordinary framework of analyzeable causation. Besides saying "I'm thinking about something, and what I'm thinking about is logically consistent with what I was thinking about before; when suddenly, on the radio, at the exact same time, I hear the word I was just saying and repeating to myself in my head".

For some reason I can't quote Astrocyte.....

It isn't science.

Yet.

There is no "supernatural". If it exists, it is intended to exist.

That said, the best explanation I have for that spookyness you are talking about is, "Experience follows thought". This isn't to say that "The Secret" has any real validity, or that we are masters of our own reality. Nor am I saying that isn't true. But, if nothing else, our mindset attunes us to our environment, and may account for synchronicities?

How many times did people see 11:11 on a clock and never really think about it, before the internet? Mindset attunes to environment.



The general gist of where your discussion seems to be headed, in the end, results in a collective consciousness. t least to some degrees, with potentially fragmented collectives due to geography and politics.

But if epigentics is driven by real world experience, then every interaction has the potential for causing harm/damage to generations coming afterwards in that family. And a good deed has th epotential for the opposite.

That is perhaps the most buddhist thing I have ever seen come out of psychology.

Depression has many causes, but most of it is caused by bad vibes created by our environment, and the toxic foods that we eat.

Ive suffered from severe depression my entire life, never even knowing i was depressed. Just thinking that was just the way that it was, until i became deathly i'll and had to go to several Dr.s, where they had diagnosed me with a plethora of ailments, with the major one being Severe depression.

Vitamin D deficiency is a major contributor to depression. Some people just don't absorb it from the Sun or in their food, so its important that we take supplements to get rid of the brain Fog and the Helplessness.

Earth Magnet anomalies, even Lunar and Cosmic Anomalies have major impacts on our well being.

Chiropractics , Massage therapy, relaxation, and love really helps. Surrounding yourself with positive people, with goals is the game changer, finding positive purpose is the Cure.

How does it happen?

I've been dealing with it for most of my adult life. The only thing I have figured out for certain: depression is really a number of factors with a number of causes. It's caused by genetics, as it runs rampant through my mother's side of the family. It's also caused by environment, as my childhood wasn't exactly happy or stable. It's caused by severely negative, life altering experiences that have significantly wounded your mind, PTSD being a good example. It certainly is chemically based in the brain, and thus, can be effected by external physical factors, such as diet, sun, drug or alcohol use, head injury, ect. It also has many psychological and spiritual components to it.

But depression is not about being "sad". When I go into a depressive episode, I lose complete interest in life. Depression is total and complete emotional, mental, social, and ultimately, physical, meltdown. Psychic entropy. And thus, if one is to ever effectively treat depression, one has to attack it from all those angles. Meds and psychotherapy will fail if the person does not have a good, involved social support system of friends, family, ect. And most of all, a reason. Something in life to hold on to after losing interest or desire for everything else. Find it and hold on.

originally posted by: SPECULUM


Vitamin D deficiency is a major contributor to depression. Some people just don't absorb it from the Sun or in their food, so its important that we take supplements to get rid of the brain Fog and the Helplessness.

Just yesterday, I saw a flyer on the wall of my doctors office, in which subjects were being searched out to study the link between vitamin D deficiency and depression... that sounds like an interesting angle to look into...