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When I found myself unable to step out of a confining situation, that’s when I would experience very real depression.
An interesting article:
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/...elicia-bender/
I think that depression can quite often be argued as being situational rather than clinical.
Often, very often, but not always. Other than PND, I have never had a crisis because of trauma in my life
I think I probably tick that box. traumatic birth of my kids a bad relationship, victim of multiple crimes, losing my kids death of both parents in a short period, rendered homeless, court battle.
But are these the reason for my depression? I'm not convinved.
thanks for the article. i had depression and anxiety as a child without knowing it, but I had a very unstable childhood, so that's not surprising. And then 'episodes' since when life has felt too overwhelming as an adult. I do think if I had had a more stable childhood I would not have got anxiety/depression as I did, but maybe still susceptible to it, or maybe there is are some genetics involved so I have a predisposition if the right buttons are triggered. I don't know. I do think that my neuro pathways were very much influenced by my everyday childhood experiences (living in an extremely volatile and traumatic environment), that caused quite a permanent change in my responses in terms of anxiety. I am way more anxious that most people I know even on a good day! My natural response then was to be quiet and good,my way of trying to cope; but ultimately detrimental, as I never expressed myself about anything, and if I did I was ignored. so loads of repression. Though sometimes I can go beyond that if I use meditation/mindfulness enough. And I get very confused about the differences between anxiety and depression - as they just seem different responses to the same thing, but I don't know about that. I do think depression is a natural response to some life experiences. And I also sometimes get grieving and 'normal' sadness mixed up with depression. Though i feel everything so acutely, I think I'm ultra-sensitive. I can't say for sure what the answers are really.
This is what I used to think. But then actually when I started looking at things more closely, there had been trauma.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paula
My depression has always been there. But because I was so hard on myself, I didn't recognise trauma properly. I just thought it was another thing I should be getting on with, I didn't stop and say 'no, this is hard, I need to slow down' because I thought I couldn't, I shouldn't. My depression has made trauma worse in that sense. And often when people chat here on the forum I can see that they are dealing with a lot of stuff, but don't necessarily realise and recognise how much they are dealing with.
Now I am better at slowing down when things are tough. Instead of just blindly carrying on trying to push through all the trauma, I let it be there, I let myself cry, I take a hot bath, I rest more, I am kinder to myself. I do what people without depression do without thinking.
That article reminded me of similar moments and feelings from my childhood. More often than not, just from talking to people or reading posts, there are identifiable reasons for someone's depression. It could be described as a delayed reaction, but because it's separated from the original events in time, the connection is not always made to the original causes. This is often because it simply wasn't possible to express or feel those reactions at the time - if the environment didn't feel safe to do so, or it wasn't acknowledged or allowed - but those things happened and had resulting feelings, and those feelings may still be there, unrecognised and disconnected, and bubbling up periodically to knock us for six. One reason maybe that we only have our own experience to go on. We haven't known anything else so whatever our experience it is normal to us, even though our experience may not have been healthy at all, but we haven't known any better. Couple that with a natural loyalty or imprinting with formative figures in our lives and it may be very hard for us to recognise that what we are feeling, albeit often at a later date when circumstances have changed, is fully understandable and justifiable given what we have been through.
Making those connections, and giving ourselves the compassion we might have never received, is said to help the healing process.