Years ago I was recommended a book written by a Dutch psychiatrist who had developed depression himself. The tagline was sort of "here's a professional who suffers from it, this will be insightful."
I couldn't relate to his condition for one iota (let alone finish the book); as he had mostly feelings of guilt and shame, and dark, weird mental images.
I guess depression is a sort of blanket term by now for many things, which probably complicates diagnosis and most of all, treatment.
Plus, I recently discovered the term "sh*t life syndrome", which is apparently getting to be known as a well-known term in the US/UK psychiatrics system (at least it has a Wikipedia page claiming that). It describes people who are poor or lonely because of the system surrounding them (prime example: they live in an area with raging unemployment). In that case, it's argued, symptoms of depression might actually be the logical response to an outside stimulus (or lack thereof). Yet, it appears many of these people are referred to psychological treatment because, well, society doesn't come up with any better option.
But what rubicon33 describes is certainly one way of depression, and I think a common one. But I'd go one step further even: Yes, people lack that little "kick" to get them going and do something entirely. But I don't think that's the root cause.
The root cause, to me, is that this kick has been subconciously "unlearned". Because when people with this sort of depression DO force themselves to do some of these things (and man, do they need to force themselves, with rational arguments and all sorts of tricks), they are not enjoying it. To stick with the example of playing tennis: Non-depressed people come back and say: "That was fun! I powered myself out on the tennis court, maybe I even won, I feel good.". People with this particular sort of depression come back and say: "That was physically, but mostly mentally exhausting. I want to sleep or procrastinate now and reset my thoughts to the baseline of being emotionless."
Disclaimer: Yes, I think I can also kind of speak on this subject. I've been repeatedly diagnosed with childhood PTSD and depression possibly ever since that (which makes it 30+ years); which doesn't mean that I'm not questioning this all the time, because the biggest trick played by depression is to make you think that everything may be just normal sadness/exhaustion/"not trying hard enough" ...).
Years ago I was recommended a book written by a Dutch psychiatrist who had developed depression himself. The tagline was sort of "here's a professional who suffers from it, this will be insightful."
I couldn't relate to his condition for one iota (let alone finish the book); as he had mostly feelings of guilt and shame, and dark, weird mental images.
I guess depression is a sort of blanket term by now for many things, which probably complicates diagnosis and most of all, treatment.
Plus, I recently discovered the term "sh*t life syndrome", which is apparently getting to be known as a well-known term in the US/UK psychiatrics system (at least it has a Wikipedia page claiming that). It describes people who are poor or lonely because of the system surrounding them (prime example: they live in an area with raging unemployment). In that case, it's argued, symptoms of depression might actually be the logical response to an outside stimulus (or lack thereof). Yet, it appears many of these people are referred to psychological treatment because, well, society doesn't come up with any better option.
But what rubicon33 describes is certainly one way of depression, and I think a common one. But I'd go one step further even: Yes, people lack that little "kick" to get them going and do something entirely. But I don't think that's the root cause.
The root cause, to me, is that this kick has been subconciously "unlearned". Because when people with this sort of depression DO force themselves to do some of these things (and man, do they need to force themselves, with rational arguments and all sorts of tricks), they are not enjoying it. To stick with the example of playing tennis: Non-depressed people come back and say: "That was fun! I powered myself out on the tennis court, maybe I even won, I feel good.". People with this particular sort of depression come back and say: "That was physically, but mostly mentally exhausting. I want to sleep or procrastinate now and reset my thoughts to the baseline of being emotionless."
Disclaimer: Yes, I think I can also kind of speak on this subject. I've been repeatedly diagnosed with childhood PTSD and depression possibly ever since that (which makes it 30+ years); which doesn't mean that I'm not questioning this all the time, because the biggest trick played by depression is to make you think that everything may be just normal sadness/exhaustion/"not trying hard enough" ...).