Depression/Anxiety -Mental or Social/circumstantial?

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immsie
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05 Mar 2016, 5:24 am

Do you think Depression/Anxiety is more mental based or social/circumstantial based?

I'm convinced i have depression/anxiety as im 24, live at home with parents, no gf, no job, few friends etc rather than my brain is in an unhappy state. I feel anti depressants dont do much anyway.

Do you think by getting these things that most normal people have i would be happy or is depression truely "all in your head"?



germanium
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05 Mar 2016, 5:40 am

immsie wrote:
Do you think Depression/Anxiety is more mental based or social/circumstantial based?

I'm convinced i have depression/anxiety as im 24, live at home with parents, no gf, no job, few friends etc rather than my brain is in an unhappy state. I feel anti depressants dont do much anyway.

Do you think by getting these things that most normal people have i would be happy or is depression truely "all in your head"?


For me it is definitely neurological as my circumstances could be such that a normal person would be jumping for joy so to speak but I would be in the fetal position in the corner crying my eyes out so to speak especially if I felt that I somehow didn't deserve what positive thing that just happened. I suffer from major depression & dysthymic disorder which is a form of low level depression that never really goes away, even in my more seemingly happier moment it lurks in the background always haunting me. Antidepressants don't do much for me. Only thing that seemed to help me for any length of time was a Parkinson's drug called Selegiline.



Raleigh
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05 Mar 2016, 5:41 am

What thoughts are connected to your situation?
What are you telling yourself about having no gf, living at home, no job etc?


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immsie
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05 Mar 2016, 5:57 am

Raleigh wrote:
What thoughts are connected to your situation?
What are you telling yourself about having no gf, living at home, no job etc?


that i'm a bit of a loser and that if i get a gf, my own place, job etc i'll be happy. But tbh, i'm not even sure if i would be. I was never that happy, even as a kid. Perhaps some people just can't have that feeling that life is ok.



Raleigh
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05 Mar 2016, 6:29 am

Yeah, I've found that 100% of my depression is thought based.
I can be in the best situation and still be miserably depressed if I let myself dwell on negative thoughts until they turn into a depressive thought cycle.


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Raleigh
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05 Mar 2016, 6:30 am

My mind kills me.


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dcj123
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05 Mar 2016, 6:34 am

Raleigh wrote:
What thoughts are connected to your situation?
What are you telling yourself about having no gf, living at home, no job etc?


Bingo

CBT (therapy) explains it like this

You have the event which is all circumstantial followed by the core belief. Your core beliefs are your thoughts that tell you that you are a loser or that you were never happy. After the core belief than you get into the emotions, behaviours and more negative thoughts. If you have good core beliefs regardless of the circumstances than you won't have depression/anxiety. So its mental but the circumstances can trigger depression/anxiety in otherwise healthy people.



btbnnyr
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05 Mar 2016, 12:14 pm

Mental, since some people with bad life circumstances are not depressed, and some people with good life circumstances are depressed.


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Gaviamer
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24 Mar 2016, 2:55 pm

Both for me.I think. I tend to pull out of deep depression through distraction like a new hobby or moving or new job. When the distractions get old (or I just fail at them, lol) Its easy to backside.this sounds more mental/neurological than circumstantial but only because of its consistency.because I think if I was to succeed rather than fail at everything I do my depression would be manageable and prob not even an issue. So in that sense it's situational. Autism and LD make this a difficult pattern to to change though.



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24 Mar 2016, 3:26 pm

Keep an open mind about antidepressants. They really helped.I'm in the same circumstance as you are. Or whenever u posted this. I had the same perspective on antidepressants for the longest time. A yearish ago I started taking meds.don't remember what but they worked really well.prob saved my life. I'm 27 now and wish I'd given medication more of a chance when I was a little younger. I stopped taking them about 6 months ago and aside from a shifty emotional week of it getting out of my system I went right back to my mostly chiper optimistic self.