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Why depression develops

Following on from the description of what depression is (here), I explain how depression usually develops. For a lot of people, when they are depressed, the reasons for depression developing can be unclear - for them and their loved ones. Read on to learn how depression can develop in many people.

Seeking to understand why depression develops

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Often this is something we can become focused on. This is understandable, because it is good to work out why we are struggling. Why things have changed for us.

 

Sometimes it is easier to be confident about what led to depression developing, at other times it’s not so easy.

 

Sometimes it can be that there is a negative life event, that caused a negative change for us. Along these lines, it could be that an important relationship ended – one that meant a lot of us, that we didn’t want to end, didn’t expect to end and left us in a more difficult situation.

 

Alternatively, if work is important to us and our identity, perhaps with us spending a lot of our time there, then if our work comes to an end, then this could be the event that sends us into a spin.

Depression is more than sadness. Men and women can ovecome it.

"People say I'm depressed, because I had a difficult childhood. Is this true?"

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This is an interesting question. Research shows that experiencing a tough childhood can increase the chances of becoming depressed. But let’s look into this some more.

 

What do we mean by this?

 

Examples of experiencing adversity in childhood include:

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  • spending long periods of time in hospital

  • having long times away from parents

  • experiencing significant illnesses or accidents

  • moving from a stable home to unstable settings

  • living in unstable situations (e.g. war)

  • witnessing domestic violence/abuse

  • being the victim of abuse (neglect, physical, sexual, emotional, psychological…)

  • bullying

 

This list is not exhaustive. There will be other experienced in childhood that make navigating childhood smoothly a real challenge, or impossible. Experiencing one or more of these types of situations in childhood, is linked with a greater chance of developing depression. However, it is important to note, that not everyone does.

 

So, what else matters?

 

To a large extent, what can help to counterbalance the difficult experiences in childhood is the presence of one or more positive factors. These include having good supportive, encouraging and nurturing relationships with parents, caregivers, family members or friends.

 

And then there are other factors, such as genetic factors, that we are only starting to understand.

 

Adverse experiences during childhood do not, thankfully, guarantee that depression will develop.

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Similarly, not having significant adverse experiences during childhood does not stop you from developing depression.

 

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“What’s going on, because I keep experiencing depression?”

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The research shows that the more times we experience depression, then the less it appears to take to send us down again into another bout of depression. Once we get to our 3rd or 4th episode, then it becomes next to impossible for most of us to pinpoint a big-enough event that we can say led to our latest episode of depression. It seems like each depressed episode reinforces a way of thinking, feeling and behaving that becomes more worn-in, like a rut, that takes less for us to fall back into.

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This doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that we can do to reduce the chance of us falling into the depression rut, or to get out of it sooner. For more on this, read the section on the best treatment for depression.

 

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