We’ve Got Depression All Wrong. It’s Trying to Save Us.

All my and my wifes depression come from problems that we cannot really solve. I mean when there is a source of depression I don't really see a solution until the source is rectified. If your depressed because your homeless and living on the streets talking with people will not get rid of it.

Depression has many causes:

• For once, people work too much. It exhausts the body and we feel tired.
• For two, there's the meaninglessness of life. It's difficult to stay motivated when nothing makes sense/there is no future.
• Thirdly, positive sexual experiences strongly cure depression. Since the dating market is largely fucked (no pun intended), well that option doesn't exist to large parts of the population.
• Fourtly we're socialized to hide depression. As everybody knows, the first step to solve a problem is to recognize it exists. Stigmatization of depression has held back effective treatment for way too long.

Overworked is my depression.

I once was a recluse I didn't go out for months at a time. Most mentally lucid and healthy I've felt.

Porges believes

This is an interesting article and yet you've chosen to quote the most speculative unscientific part of it from the final paragraph.

"Have you tried going outside" is not a scientific cure for depression.

I get more depression around people. I do better in the woods all by myself. My protection is to get away from people. I don't feel lonely or alienated in solitude.

When people are told that depression is an aberration, we are telling them that they are not part of the tribe. They are not right, they don’t belong. That’s when their shame deepens and they avoid social connection.

And that's not the only reason people are made to feel they're not part of the tribe, that they don't belong. There are many things in this modern (post modern?) world that cause us to become alienated from other people, even and especially those in our own community. The nature of community itself has changed. Many relationships and social institutions feel more tenuous or impermanent.

It's a vicious cycle: people feel alienated from others, it causes them stress, the stress causes anxiety, that leads to the immobilization response and depression, the effects of the anxiety and depression cause people to become further alienated from others, and the process accelerates and perpetuates.

I have to somewhat agree with the author. My experience and understanding of depression is that it is more of a (sometimes very persistent) symptom than an underlying cause. Ideally, we would all have the guidance to deal with depressing scenarios, but similar to dissociation during trauma, our mind defaults back to disconnection to limit the pain.

I’m not saying this is every case, but I do think as a society we could view depression more as a coping strategy, and try to replace it with healthier practices. After time, it takes more time and effort and support to replace those coping strategies, but that is essentially what psychotherapy does.

I think too often in the modern world people tend to just shrug and say “this is who I am,” instead of trying to improve their coping skills and quality of life. Like another commentor mentions, this becomes a feedback loop of depression feeding depression and takes immense support and effort to curve and should absolutely not be shamed.

Seems to be an ambitious rethinking of depression. As someone diagnosed bi-polar, I'll watch the development of this idea with interest.

But if the threat continues indefinitely and there is no way to fight or flee, the immobilization response continues. And since the response also changes brain activity, it impacts how people’s emotions and their ability to solve problems. People feel like they can’t get moving physically or mentally, they feel hopeless and helpless. That’s depression

[…]

Immobilization has an important role. It dulls pain and makes us feel disconnected. Think of a rabbit hanging limply in the fox’s mouth: that rabbit is shutting down so it won’t suffer too badly when the fox eats it. And the immobilization response also has a metabolic effect, slowing the metabolism and switching the body to ketosis. Some doctors speculate that this metabolic state could help to heal severe illness.

I could see this being the case. If I hate my job and have no other prospects on the horizon, my getting angry at stupid decisions by mgmt threaten my ability to preserve my position. But sarcastically resenting them keep me in stasis. I don't think that's a great analogy for what is being described here, but that's what I've got off the cuff.

It costs money to find people that don't suck.