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Depression - A Natural Response

When your body becomes depressed, often it is simply responding to its environment.  Your body's sympathetic nervous system, also knows as the "fight or flight" system, is there to help protect you.  The flight or flight responses go along with emotions to help you figure out what you need to feel safe and happy.   When you are in a situation in life that you cannot fight, you might get angry. Anger is an emotion that pulls for boundaries and changes.  You might be sad. Sad is an emotion that pulls for connection and closeness.  Or, you might be scared. Fear pulls for us to be safe again.

Certainly you could have these emotions in a moment of high stress.  Let's say you're being chased by the proverbial tiger.  Fear would be intense and work with your nervous system to motivate you to run and fast!   What happens though, if you cannot run away.  What happens if it is not a tiger, but instead the bank is foreclosing on your house because you lost your job, cannot find work and no longer have a savings?  This is chronic stress sending you into a place of chronic fear. What if you cannot fight or flee from this?

The other response that is part of our nervous system is the "freeze" response.  Think deer in the headlights. Only here, given the chronic nature of the problem, the car does not pass. Your body freezes, or shuts down.  The dark cloud of depression comes. You have needs, deep needs that are not getting met.  You cannot identify them, cannot express them and you feel stuck, trapped, out of options.  Depression is a natural response.

Worse, when a human is stuck in that place accompanied by the emotional pain of not getting that very deep unidentifiable need met, they will search for options. Not finding any, they will become focused on ending the pain.  Thoughts of 'not being' here will grown.  Thinking of ending one's life becomes an options because then the pain would end.  Makes sense.

Research shows that the best treatment for depression is a combination of medication and counseling.  Medication will help your body more susceptible to changes in one's environment, however it will not change the environment that is creating the depression.  Counseling is what will help create more clarity and understanding in order to identify the options that always do exist.  Counseling is a critical component to fighting depression.

If this makes sense, schedule an appointment and let's get to work on unwinding the depression you are battling and find those options to create a life free from depression.

Also keep in mind that Anxiety and Depression have similar characteristics and go together about 85% of the time.  Here is a page on WebMD that discusses this issue.