What is Depression?

According to Psychiatry.Org, Depression is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act.

Symptoms

  • feelings of emptiness

  • apathy

  • general discontent

  • guilt

  • hopelessness

  • lost of interest or pleasure in activities

  • mood swings

  • sadness

  • agitation

  • excessive crying

  • crying at random

  • irritability

  • restlessness

  • social isolation

  • early awakening

  • sleeping too much or too little

  • restless sleep

  • excessive hunger

  • loss of appetite

  • fatigue

  • body aches (including headaches)

  • lack of concentration

  • slowness in activity

  • weight gain or loss

  • thoughts of suicide

  • rumination (repeatedly going over thoughts)

It's easy to read things from a list, but it's harder to understand what it really means, and how it really feels like

So... let's talk more about some of the symptoms :)

It's well-known that a factor of depression is the lack of serotonin production. This is why SSRI medications, or Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which increase serotonin, are given to those with depression.

However, Depression isn't just a chemical inbalance.

With mental illness, your brain structure is changed.

It isn't just about the chemicals, but about the way the brain functions.


With depression, the brain takes in too much negativity.

Not only do you think depressing, self-blaming thoughts, but your brain also stores all of these negative thoughts - which just spurrs more negativity.

It's like your brain is addicted to it.

So, let's talk a little more about some factors that differ non-depressed brains from depressed brains

First, before we get into it, let's first talk about Rumination.

Rumination is usually at the center of the problem.

Ruminating is repetitively going over a thought or a problem without completion.

Those with depression have forced/uncontrollable rumination about being worthless, inadequate, having no future, being a burden, etc.


Now that we understand what rumination is and that rumination is UNCONTROLLABLE, let's talk about the brain!

At every single second of every single day, our brains are working in the background. Taking in information, filtering out the bad, irrelevant information we don't need, and storing it. The brain does this so we can function.

When you take in information from your life, your brain looks at it, and determines if it's something worth being kept in your working memory.

Working memory is a cognitive system responsible for storing temporary and manipulating information. The working memory has a limited capacity.

The working memory helps us with decision-making, planning, reasoning, learning, organizing, and paying attention!


For example:

Your sitting down in your room. You remember you have homework due tomorrow. You have homework in mind as you get your backpack nad get your homework out

The entire time it takes you, from when you were sitting to when you got your homework out, you were using your working memory.

If your working memory didn't hold onto this information, that you got up to get your homework, then you would have just stood there, thinking.... What was I going to do?

This is what happens when you enter a room and forget why you went in there - it's because your working brain didn't hold onto that information, onto why you were going in that room

So, you know how the brain is supposed to work.


But how does it work for those who have depression?

For people with depression, the brain has trouble separating relevant from irrelevant material, and negative from positive material

So, the brain ends up storing negative, irrelevant information. This information goes into the working memory we saw earlier.

For example, instead of storing something like "oh, i need to put my keys into my purse after i tie my shoes" , it will store, "fuck, i'm going to be late, i'm such an idiot, why can't i do anything?"


so, instead of remembering to put your keys into your bag, you'll just remember that negative thought you had
this can occur in conversation, too

In order to follow along and contribute to a conversation with another person or even a group of people, your working memory needs to grasp onto what people are saying, and store it in your working memory, so you can formulate a response

Daily things like this can be hard for people with depression - all because their brains are addicted to consuming negativity

source for everything i'm talking about:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3518852/

"In subsequent studies, participants with high self-reported rumination exhibited this effect even after controlling for level of depressive symptoms. Similar results have been reported in studies using emotional faces as stimuli; Goeleven et al. found that, compared with nondepressed participants, depressed individuals exhibited decreased inhibition for sad but not for happy facial expressions. Extrapolating from these findings to theoretical accounts of WM, results of both the original and the affective versions of the negative priming task suggest that depressed individuals have difficulty keeping irrelevant material, and negative material in particular, from entering WM. "

"the results of these studies reveal that depressed individuals are particularly vulnerable to elaborating on negative material in their environment, and that they experience difficulty disengaging from and inhibiting their processing of this material. As evidenced in multiple studies, these impairments are significantly associated with rumination, a specific style of thinking that involves the recurrence or recycling of thoughts in response to negative affect and that has been implicated as a vulnerability factor for depression. "

Let's talk about another aspect of depression: Emotional Regulation

Studies have found that depressed people have difficulties disengaging from negative information, or disconnecting themselves from negative information. This can increase emotion reactivity and decrease adaptive emotion regulation.




Which basically means – since you’re overloaded with so much negative information, it’s harder to regulate your emotions.

Which makes sense. If your constantly flooded with negative information that your brain is SUPPOSED to get rid of, it will overwhelm you. Your brain is not meant to handle that much negativity. Your brain isn’t meant to be working this way – there's an error.

basically -

a depressed person's brain is a brain that is addicted to consuming and holding onto negativity

and now the depressed person has to cope with it in order to function

Let's first understand that these symptoms can fluctuate in severity
Meaning, maybe, on Monday, a depressed person can be so fatigued that they can't get out of bed the entire day.

However, maybe on Tuesday, it only takes them half an hour to get out of bed.

Maybe on Wednesday, they aren't able to take a shower or do chores around the house

But on Thursday, they're able to shower and do some chores - maybe not all of them, but some.


It depends! Some days are worse than others. Some day are better than others.
That's important to understand.
And it's important to understand that it's not because your lazy, or "broken".

Fatigue

  • extreme exhaustion

  • so extreme that it feels like your body is filled with lead

  • it's not a "sleepy" exhaustion or "sleepy" tiredness. it doesn't correlate with sleep

  • not only can your body feel exhausted and weighed down, but your mind as well

  • you can be emotionally/mentally exhausted

  • thinking can be hard. thinking can hurt. not a physical pain, but a mental pain (we'll talk about that later)

  • mental/emotional fatigue is usually paired with brain fog, or being unable to think clearly

  • sometimes, breathing, moving, talking, and even trying to form a coherent thought can be extremely difficult

Irritability

  • irritablity doesn't always make rational sense

  • you could be fine one minute, and the next, you just feel the need to snap at someone

  • this can rise up out of nowhere

  • it isn't your fault

  • however, if you take this out on someone, or snap at someone, it IS your fault

  • your emotions are valid, and your emotions aren't your fault

  • but it's important to make sure that your emotions don't hurt others

  • this is why learning healthy coping mechanisms is very, very important

  • if you don't have depression, and don't really understand:

  • it feels like a balloon rapidly expanding inside of you

  • and it's all you can think about. it's pushing at your lungs and it's in your throat and it's in your head, saturating everything

  • it's all you can think about

  • and, eventually, the balloon is either going to pop

  • or you can slowly deflate it using healthy coping mechanisms

Intrusive Thoughts

  • this isn't much of a "Symptom" - it's more of something that goes along with rumination that I haven't heard many people talk about

  • when i say "intrusive thoughts", i don't mean the intrusive thoughts that go with OCD

  • Depressive intrusive thoughts are negative thoughts that can pop up randomly at any time - especially at times when your mind is wandering/you're not focused, and especially on "Bad Days"

  • thoughts such as:

  • "I'm not worth anything"

  • "I dont deserve anything good"

  • "I should kill myself"

  • can pop up randomly

  • there's usually two reactions to these thoughts:

  • ruminating/rumination

  • or, using a coping skill/distracting yourself from the negative thoughts

Rumination

  • Ruminating is repetitively going over a thought or a problem without completion.

  • Those with depression have forced/uncontrollable rumination about being worthless, inadequate, having no future, being a burden, etc.

  • The more you try to suppress or ignore these thoughts, the worse they get

  • if you try and look at these thoughts from a logical stance -

  • for example, if you're thinking you have no future and you're going to fail at everything you do, you can try to use logic to debunk these thoughts -

  • it often makes it worse

  • but - how does looking at depressive thoughts with logic make it worse?

  • depression isn't something you can debate with. for some anxious thoughts, you CAN use logic, but with depression, the more you think and try and debunk these bad thoughts, the more your brain tells you you're wrong

  • and then, the more you get wrapped up in the cycle of rumination

  • because, to depression, logic doesn't matter. all depression does is force these thoughts into your head and tell you it's a fact

  • and how the fuck are you going to argue with your literal brain telling you you're worthless?

  • it's not YOU saying these bad things about yourself. you can't control it

  • it's the depressionthat takes over for a little bit

  • you can't argue with these thoughts, and you can't try and push these thoughts down

  • you can't interact with these thoughts at all or it will get worse

  • again, this is why coping skills and learning healthy ways to distract yourself is extremely extremely extremely important

Mental/Emotional Pain

  • Just like the intrusive thoughts, this isn't talked about much, but i feel like it's important to talk about!

  • depression and having all of these depressing thoughts can hurt

  • sometimes, when you're stuck deep in the cycle of ruminating, deeply contemplating suicide, feeling overwhelmed with depressive emotions, or if you're extremely fatigued, you can experience mental pain

  • it's hard to explain, but i'll do my best!

  • it can feel like:

  • two semi-trucks slamming into your brain over, and over, and over

  • (remember, this isn't head pain, or a headache. this is emotions and mental. so when i say brain, im using that as a way to say all of your emotions and feelings and mental state)

  • it can also feel as though something is clawing inside of you, and your chest

  • it may feel like something is trying to rip you apart from the inside

  • it may also feel like all of these experiences i just listed all at once

  • so, having trucks ram into your brain again and again, having something clawing inside of you to get out, having something trying to rip your insides apart

  • it feels like that, on a loop. continuously. and you can't stop it.

Coping Mechanisms - Grounding

There are two essential coping mechanisms that we'll talk about!
1. Grounding
2. Distracting

Grounding is a technique that helps you feel more connected to life and reality. It can also help you regulate your emotions, and return to a more neutral, calm state of mind.

Grounding can help with not only depression, but anxiety, PTSD, dissociation, etc.