depression... illness or natural response?

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I'm wondering if anyone else here doesn't see depression, even very crippling depression, as an "illness," but rather as a natural response to emotional pain, traumas, disappointments, losses? (I don't mean to start a debate, just curious if anyone else has had these thoughts.) By saying it's not an "illness," I'm not trying to detract from the horrible nature of feeling depressed, just that I don't think it's "abnormal" to go into a depressive state after a trauma, loss, hurt, or stress.

I have experienced varying degrees of depression, or profound sadness & hopelessness, off and on since I was a teenager. At the time is was very unusual to medicate anyone under the age of 18, but right around the time I did turn 18 it became more acceptable and even expected to treat young depressed people with medication. I spent about three years on different medications that had no effect-- on the depression anyway-- and then I quit the meds completely and avoided psychiatry and therapists too. It seemed like they were trying to medicalize what I think is a very normal human response-- sadness when you are hurt and traumatized.

I had a lot of very painful things happen to me from early on in my life. I don't pretend my life has been much worse than others, there are people who suffered and suffer much more than I ever have. But the world has so much pain to hand out, i am not surprised at all that so many people feel depression and sadness. I think it's normal to feel that way, if other people, or circumstances, have made you suffer.

For instance, I had a friend who went through a somewhat unpleasant divorce. She was under a lot of stress and felt sad and hopeless. She went to a therapist and was put on an antidepressant. I don't understand why her depression was treated as an "illness" when there clearly was a cause for it? I know she thought it would make her feel better, and it did seem to make her somewhat "different," but she was still very unhappy and stressed because the initial factors causing it were ongoing. She grew dependent on the meds and suffered bad withdrawal symptoms whenever she tried to go off them.

If you have suffered from depression do you consider it an illness or a natural response? Or both?

I personally think it could be both. I have depression, which a lot of it I believe is due to past experiences and being nervous about the future, in that case, that would be a natural response. I also believe that part of it could be mental illness as well and that medication does help some people with depression. I'm currently on Prozac and it has done wonders for my depression. It definitely hasn't cured it, but I've come a long way in these last couple months I've been on the Prozac.

I'm with you - all the way. Depression, like anger and frustration, is a natural response to being immersed in a world that just doesn't make sense.

Even with language, which is often the area we're best equipped to cope with, there's a world of subtexts from which we're forever excluded, and without those even close inspection fails to yield sensible responses.

I think depression is a natural response to "the world" but we all live in our own world with our own friends and family. "The world" outside is as unforgiving and uncomfortable. I mean, if your house gets forclosed and you aren't depressed, then you're missing a natural response. As long as the world ignores you, it's possible to be happy in your own little world with your friends and family, for that to happen you have to stay on top of your rent / mortgage / taxes / food bill / energy bill. It's a fair bit of sorting out. Even then, happiness as well as depression can be classed as a mental illness, because happy people are more likely to make mistakes. They already have the reward stimulus that should come from completing a difficult task, so they have less incentive to try. Just as if you're depressed, you don't get the reward stimulus even if you do complete a difficult task.

Of course, you should feel happy when you succeed, and unhappy when you fail, this is normal. When the balance goes, it's important to try to get it back, but SSRIs never did that for me. I just ended up on a pill based buzz all the time. I was chemically happy, whether I succeeded or failed at anything. There was no incentive to do well, and after a year, I missed a dose and found how horrible the withdrawl symptoms made me feel. I knew they'd only get worse, so I packed in the pills and got my human (although Aspie) brain chemistry back.

It's just a natural state to the world that no-one you don't know ever wants to get hold of you to give you good news, apart from maybe the executor of your long lost rich uncle's will.

I've never thought of my depression as a natural response to the problems in my life. It almost makes sense, though!

My first diagnosis with depression came after I had a baby...the post-partum depression turned to clinical depression & along the way the Dr. THOUGHT I had Bi-Polar disorder, but then after a move out of state, a new Dr. realized I have Adult ADD & stubborn clinical depression.

I still plan on taking my anti-depressants, because they DO help.

But that is an interesting thought.

I consider depression to be a response to the situation you are in. I get depressed when my life is not going well. When thing are going well, I feel fine. I understand that a cause of depression can be a hormonal imbalance, but for me it's a reflection of how my days are going.

I tend to feel depressed no matter what is going on. Somehow I can find the negative thing to fret over and stew over it.

I got ahold of my medical records from a psychiatrist I had a couple of years ago. In ALL of his notes he said that yes, I had/have a lot of life circumstances that would make me feel down, but I just couldn't let myself feel good for very long. On top of that, I found a way for every bad thing that happens to be my own fault.

I'm on a mild dose of Wellbutrin which I'm not sure is working anymore. I'm hesitant to ask for anything else though, because I'm not sure I want to be in a numb "fog" all of the time. When I think of all the sleep I could be getting and the minor annoyances that I could just let go of, it's tempting though.

So illness or natural response? possibly both?

I'd definitely say that depression is both a natural response and an illness.
If someone has a number of physcial factors happen to their body, the body will sometimes respond with physical symptoms of some illness. I see no reason why the same cannot, or does not happen with mental factors affecting our mind.

I think depression (feelings of sadness) is a perfectly natural response to life events.

Different people will react differently to the same life events (some people will become more sad than others) so there is not a direct correlation.

It starts becoming an illness when it significantly affects the person (in terms of reduced functioning, other health problems, suicide risk etc.).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "ill" as

so depression, at higher levels, will count as an illness.



Whilst the causes are clear, they may still be making the person ill. Treating the causes may be one option, but this is often difficult or impossible (or cause significant harm to other people). Treating the symptoms may be the only available option.

I don't know that it's an either/or situation. I believe it can be both. In my case, I believe that my depression is caused by a large backlog of emotions that have not been dealt with or resolved adequately. I'm currently working on that. My goal is to eventually overcome my depression. I'm also on antidepressants, but I don't feel numb from them, I still have a lot of emotions. Neither do I feel buzzed.

I read that a little bit of depression is an evolutionary advantage. Sometimes, you do have to give up on some things. Depression can help you give up projects rather than pursuing them in vain.

But too much depression is bad.

Definitely, I've been very depressed for half of my life (starting in my teens). Every once in a while a well meaning family member would say something about it. I explained to them that it made perfect sense for me to be depressed. Being traumatically taunted/isolated for years to the point that everything I did in my life was made to feel wrong plus being hopeless about the future made perfect sense. Why would someone not be depressed in that situation, was my thought on it.

Since then someone made the observation that my current depression is often due to things that I want to do but end up not doing because of my social anxiety. It's often based on external events.

Anxiety & the blues is a normal response to stress & traumatic events. It is the brains way of letting you know that something is wrong. It is telling you to do something to deal with the stress/trauma.

However, only to a certain extent. If the the blues/anxiety meet the following criteria: 1. last for a long period of time, 2. cause distress, 3. interfere with daily functioning, 4. deviant from norm; it can qualify for for a diagnosis of depression. I don't remember the specific length of time it needs to last. Deviate from the norm means, it is not the normal response to the situation. Having anxiety & the blues after a school shooting would be a normal response. However, if it continues to persists if would be considered deviating from the norm.

One of the biggest issues, if not the biggest, is people's lack of understanding. There are a lot of stereotypes, biases, & prejudices of people that have depression. Many people think that depression is a choice, that you did it to yourself. To clarify this: the choices you make can make you vulnerable to depression, the depression itself is a chemical imbalance, how you deal with the depression is a choice.

Depression can be triggered & aggravated by external & internal stress/traumas. That does not make the depression any less painful & debilitating.

Source: college classes in psychology & personal experience

Both probably, I've been depressed for as long as I can remember, but terrible things have been continually happening to me actively for as long as I can remember as well so cause and effect really. After a while it gets deeply ingrained into your psyche and thus becomes chronic so it becomes an illness. There are two ways my depression may go away, medication or a large unbroken chain of good things happening to me, thus changing whats ingrained in me.

Depression does affect the body somewhat like an illness, but antidepressants are no better than "anything that feels weird" instead of an obvious sugar pill in clinical trials. The whole business just gives you an inclination to try a new perspective, but then there's an addiction to deal with. My counselor had a big laugh when I pointed out that the list of how to get off antidepressants was the same as the list of how not to get on - counseling and support. Most depressed people can't find that support.

I've struggled with depression most of my life, correlating to the times when I just couldn't make progress in my life more than anything else. In a tight community, it would be a signal to gather and help someone feel worthwhile (In the Native American ceremony for depression, the dancers must not have a single kinked feather in their costumes.) In a civilization with high unemployment, depression is just a handy way to keep people quiet and undemanding. I had to move several times to change my situations almost at random. Exercise, sunshine, and healthy food always help. My bicycle saved me a lot of time and money, and racing the cars was a great stress-buster.