The Ultimate Cause of Depression

Cause of Depression

Depression is one of the most common psychological effect to people who experienced or encountered mostly traumatic happenings and events in different situations or a sudden realization of a particular reality or truth. Signs of depression include loss of appetite, prolonged sadness and loneliness, sudden quiet cries, loss of interest, hopeless look and noticeable facial drops, sleeps more or does not sleep well, weight gain or weight loss, prolonged quietness, irritability and sensitivity. People who are aware that they are entering this stage often seek help from psychiatrists and psychologists. They were given prescriptions and diet recommendations including therapy sessions. The patient will have an option to have a doctor visit at home or them having a clinic or hospital appointment. In severe cases, a relative or a family member would proactively take measures to help a member with severe depression. Depression affects all. Even if someone is not depressed but is around someone who is depressed, it can affect them too. And we already know how it affects us when we are in this situation.

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I know my introduction is quite generic and common and yes we might have heard this from other people, family, friends, or we might have read about it in books and online, or watched YouTube Videos about signs of depressions where advises were given to viewers on what they can do to manage it. They are helpful and all are informative which many of us would agree. But with these vast information we read and see online or in other sources, have we noticed something? Yes all of the advises and recommendations are helpful and yes it is up to us to apply it. But something is missing.

What is missing?

You may have encountered a lot of advises from a lot of people around you, but you find yourself still questioning yourself “why.” Like “why me” or “why is this happening to me”? And then here we are comparing our situations to other people. We sometimes find ourselves in the state with this “hopeless blank stare” thinking about it deeply. Using our memories to track back every thing that had happened and why it happened. Even if we find the answers in our thoughts, we still question it. Then we start to doubt ourselves leading to thoughts of guilt and helplessness. Some people may tend to act on silence while others would act on noticeable anger and rage. This is when a specialist is needed especially if the capacity of people around who are helping are having difficulties dealing with it (I mean we for instance). The outcomes of seeking professional help would depend on the affected person so there are prescribed medicines to take and therapy sessions which will involve just about a lot of things to do and we already know this. It can be effective for some and in some severe cases, confinement and high end therapies are necessary. But do we really need all those recommended drugs and therapies? My outright answer is NO. We just need to find what is missing and the answer to the “ultimate cause of depression”.

Let’s break lose of it

I would love to talk about the history as to when and how depression came about. Although we can look for more information online, but my purpose to write about it is awareness and awakeness (just made that term). Let us break lose of it, there is only one Ultimate Cause of Depression.

ANSWER: COMPARISON

There I gave it. But the question is why COMPARISON.

Comparison in many different ways good because it promotes good and positive motivation in doing what is acceptable to the universal society For example, you have a friend who is more intelligent and more recognized in school than you. You become motivated to the same and setting your friend as your role model. You study hard and make ways for you be as intelligent and recognized like your friend. In most schools, they announce top achievers to motivate students to do even better and have a chance to be included in the top achievers. Being one of the achievers in school is really good and it feels good, too. Will also make your family proud of you. But being at the top comes with a price. You have to be able to keep it or you will lose it (if you are highly competitive).

Some people are not that competitive so for them when someone other than them make it to the top, they will be proud of them (as what we have been educated and believed to be acceptable).

But the more bold fact of reality is, being at the top would mean being in power. That is why it comes with a price. When someone achieved more than you, you will feel this teeny tiny bit of envy and insecurity which grows into a positive tree or a negative tree. And it all starts from there. Similar to family relations as well. If one member is favored more than the other, envy and insecurity can arise in the members of the family. Envy and insecurity equals depression. Equals depression because there were comparisons.

Our Tendencies

We all have tendencies to compare ourselves to others and others comparing us with others. We compare what we have with each other and decide what we can do to maintain harmony. It is quite vague whether it is good or bad to compare one from the other although it is evident that the outcome is more bad than good. That is why many people are depressed. Since when did we get this idea anyway. How did we end up having to compare ourselves to others and the effects are more bad than good? (depends on how one defines good and bad).

The Media

You are walking in a city where there are lots of things you see in huge advertising billboards and ads posted in public transportation. You find an ad with a very beautiful picture of a young teenage model showing you that they are wearing a brand that we know obviously this young teenage model is promoting. We find it catchy and we find ourselves wanting to buy it. Either the reason would be because you like to wear what this young teenage model is wearing or you wanted to support the brand the young teenage model is promoting or basically because it is going to be like following the current trend and you do not want to be left off. Now if you can buy it, there will be no problem with keeping up with the trend. But what if you do not have money to buy it? Either you will work hard to earn money to buy it or just ignore it and put your hard earned money in other priorities you have. We may have been presented with this much ads and we are given a choice of reason to acquire it or not.

This is a general and simple example of what media can do to our own sense of self perspectives. We either become like them or not like them. There are a lot of things advertised in televisions, social media sites, billboards and in some radio programs. What they show to the media can influence ones own sense of self perspectives. From health to beauty enhancement to lifestyle and character change.

Character change can lead to facing obstacles. If one cannot maintain the change, one would fall into the trap of not keeping up with what is acceptable to the universal society. Not being able to keep up with what is acceptable to the universal society can lead to sense of sadness due to the condition of unacceptance. Which will then lead to people either doing things that would help them get back to what is acceptable to the society or just stepping back and accepting the fact the they do not belong anymore. Media has taken control over people’s sense of self perspective. If we do not pay attention, we will fail which then can lead to depression. There is nothing wrong if it has good effects to people working on the changes, but we still have to pay attention to what the changes entails to. The greater the change, the greater responsibility to maintain the change, the greater the damage.

Ways to avoid being depressed

I may not be that of an expert in giving advises regarding depression and all, but the possible ways I can give are based on my own experiences. Here are some of the things we can do to avoid it.

1. Stop comparison: You can use comparison if it is for the better of what you are presently doing but if you think it is not going to have good effects. Just stop and move on.

2. Analyze what you see and hear: Let us critically use our subjective and objective skills in observing what is happening around us.

3. Acknowledge and Acceptance: Acknowledge things that you can and cannot do. The same thing with what you can and cannot give. Accept yourself. We are not like the others. We are more than them.

4. Feelings and emotions: Acknowledge and accept that is alright to feel like you are left out. That is okay. You do not need to fill in every detail of what you are lacking just to gain acceptance. Acknowledge and accept your own feelings and emotions. Take action and be responsible for it. Do not rely on others to accept your feelings and emotions because not all of them do.

5. Trust the situation more than the people: Trusting in the situation will help you protect yourself from being controlled by what you see and what you feel. One sad fact of life, we cannot fully put our trust to people as people tend to change for survival. Look closely to what is called in the situation and you will be able to better make choices and decisions that would benefit you in the long term basis.

We can fight depression. We are strong and capable and we have every capacity to evolve. Let make use of our time to focus more on greater things for our lives than things that would drag us down.