Clinical depression and the stresses of life.

As an ongoing student of psychology you should have learned that depression is not caused by struggles we encounter in life, but a chemical problem within the brain. I do believe however that if on has a tramatic experience or has struggles, it could trigger a chemical change within the brain as a response to the situation, if the predisposition to depression was already there.

I believe it could lead to clinical depression, however, it could also serve to fuel ones desire to improve ones lot and not to stay in such situation indefinitely. It really depends on how emotionally intelligent a person is. Any small struggle could led to clinical depression for someone who is not used to any difficulties or just doesn't have any backbone or character.

I think that before things get overwhelming most mentally healthy people will deal with the problems so they don't get overwhelming. So to answer your question, I would say not unless you're already clinically depressed. If you're already clinically depressed you have a different outlook because of it and you're more likely to get overwhelmed with small problems than someone who isn't clinically depressed. Clinical depression is a physical condition, not all mental. I believe that people are genetically predisposed to either have it or not. If a person gets the right treatment, medication and therapy for the problem they can live a normal life, but if treatment is discontinued it can get much worse. I think it's too hard to really diagnose it because a person can be depressed without being clinically depressed because of the situation or circumstance they're in. Once the situation becomes different the depression subsides. So I imagine a lot of people are diagnosed as being clinically depressed and put on medication when they really just needed a shoulder to cry on. I went through over twenty years of medications being changed and diagnoses being changed and basically went through hell before they finally realized that I suffered from clinical depression and bipolar disorder. Now I'm on the right meds and things don't bother me like they used to, but that might also have to do with age and maturity as well. There are just so many variables to consider. It's almost impossible to get a clear diagnosis, especially if a person has a lot of stress and bad things going on in their life. Anyone would have problems under these circumstances.

That's an interesting question, and I don't know how much insight I can offer, but I can tell you that the struggles or stressful things I encounter in my life certainly don't help my depression. In fact, I'd say they make the depression worse. Furthermore, I can tell you that one bad, stressful day can trigger a depressive episode that can last for months. The last depressive epidoe I've been dealing with now has lasted over two years and shows no signs of getting any better. I've been diagnosed with treatment resistant depression and went so far as to have a VNS implant surgically implanted to help with the depressive symptoms. While it showed some signs of promise, life circumstances has made it impossible for me to continue to receive follow-up treatment for my depression and VNS monitoring. Does this struggle and stress add to my depression? You'd better believe it. I think some of us are pre-disposed to depression, and once in the thick of it, the brain activity changes and we have clinical depression set in. But to ask if these things can lead to clinical depression is such a broad question. I guess you could say in my case, my struggles with dealing with childhood abuse that continued into my adult life lead to my depression. Does that help answer your question?

It sounds a lot like the age old question, what came first, the chicken or the egg? I've heard a lot of different theories on the subject but without the means to conduct several types of studies I can't say that I personally believe or disbelieve any one of them over another. I do certainly believe that there is a chemical component to depression but whether this neuro-chemical make up is a result of life stressors conditioning the brain to respond in this way or the other way around I can't say. I wasn't diagnosed with clinical depression until I was in my 20s. I then knew that I'd been depressed for a long time back in my past but I can't pinpoint exactly when it actually started. So I fear I'm no great help there. At the same time I was also diagnosed with Panic Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder and I can tell you the exact day I had my first panic attack! Which actually just leads into a whole other discussion, did my panic attacks somehow induce my depression, vice versa, or are they just coincidental to each other? Argh! LOL My first panic attack was, no joke, my first day of Kindergarten. At that young an age I would think that I'd be carefree and innocent enough that stresses in my life would be nearly nil but I can't even say that for absolute certain. Surely there must be some component of biological makeup that at least make it more likely that depression isn't caused by stress though? Otherwise why would one person going through a particular stress not become clinically depressed while another that goes through the very same thing become depressed? Ah but that could be blamed on how each cope with this stress too, I suppose, nuture vs. nature and all that. I'm stumped! It's a HIGHLY complicated issue!! I'd love to hear what you find out though!