Home > Miscellaneous Articles > Depression

Depression Most people get bouts of depression sometime in their lives. With some, it is an ongoing battle. Other people may get it occasionally. A person may get depressed after the death of a loved one, or at the thought of going to work. When the attention is turned to the death, or to work, the thought has what we may call a depressed shade to it. The depression is associated with the thought in the same way as a colour is associated with an object. Eventually, the depression associated with a loved one fades as time heals the memory. The concentration is turned to other things. When the person who gets depressed thinks about other things they are no longer depressed. Along with the depression of a mundane nine-to-five job is the euphoria of a Friday evening. If you found out that you had just come into a substantial amount of money, say from a lottery, you mood would be upbeat. Work would have a pleasant feel about it. The future may look rosy but until you pick the cheque up nothing has really changed. Suppose you were subsequently informed that it was a mistake and you hadn't won any money. You would probably feel a bit depressed, but again, nothing has really changed. One of the characteristics of clinical depression is that it doesn't have an apparent cause. The individual feels depressed about life. Whatever their attention turns to has a depressed colour to it. The depressive can’t simply turn their attention to something else. The naive idea that a depressive can simply snap out of their depression by thinking about something else is based on the misconception that the depression is associated with something they are thinking about. Having said that, anyone can choose to make themselves depressed if they worked at it. A similar effort can get someone out of the depression, but the depression robs an individual of both the incentive and the ability to change their state. Personally, I find particular days of the week are associated with certain moods. These probably come from the prevailing mood of the general population, as my own life does not usually follow a weekly schedule. If I so chose I could absorb the prevailing mood and get euphoric on a Friday evening, or depressed on a Tuesday evening, but I stay detached from the mood. In the same way a person can stay detached from the feelings associated with work or the death of a loved one. You still feel it but it doesn't overpower you. People who suffer from depression should attempt to identify the cause. What is that they think about that is associated with the mood? If there is nothing apparent then do the following: write down everything that is not associated with depression. For example, eating, for some people it may be smoking or talking to a particular person. You have to separate the mood from the events. As it were, learn to detach a colour from the object it colours. When are able to do that you have the hook to pull yourself out of the depression.