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The Causes of Unipolar Depression

Life events can affect someone's general mood. People can claim that they've become "depressed" from having a bad day or hearing some troubling news. Those events can seem depressing, but most can get back to performing normal daily functions relatively quickly. Being diagnosed with unipolar depression can take these bad moments and extend the negative feelings for days, weeks, months or even years.

  1. Symptoms

    • Unipolar depression is characterized by an overall lack of energy, drive and positive feelings. No symptoms are directly related to substances or substance abuse, although substances can contribute to the symptoms. Patients can seem to sleep for days or stay confined to the bed. They also suffer from irrational thoughts of guilt, worthlessness and self-doubt. Patients have little interest in doing the ordinary things that made them happy, nor do they want to perform daily functions like go to work or school. Suicidal thoughts and unexplained fixations on death are also observed in patients. Ten to 15 percent of patients diagnosed with depression actually complete suicide.

    Family History

    • Risk factors of those predispositioned to have unipolar depression include a family history of depression or mood disorders. If it is in the blood, it wouldn't be surprising that a life event such as a death in the family or job loss could trigger depression. Those types of events would normally send people into a low, depressed state for a few days, but for someone that may be in a risk factor group, that event could start a chronic period that can last for years.

    Trauma

    • Some life events transcend human capacity. Trauma can also trigger depression. This could include loss of limb, terminal disease, or a sudden death witnessed by the patient. Other traumatic events like child or sexual abuse can also trigger depression. Those abuses (or witnessing thereof) can further complicate matters by creating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a form of anxiety.

    Shortfalls in Upbringing

    • A person's upbringing can also lead to unipolar depression. If childhood lessons did not prepare a person on how to deal with failure or overcome obstacles, the patient's mind may be incapable of positive thought or self-worth. Irrational fears and overall pessimism are symptoms of unipolar depression. For example, someone losing out on a promotion opportunity for the first time could feel a sense of inadequacy that starts a depressive state. The reality could be that the patient was perfectly qualified but lost to someone a little better suited. But he may never have learned how to properly handle disappointment. In fact, his family system could have been nothing but pessimism and lack of hope for improvement, further solidifying the disappointment.

    A Reward Factor

    • One other possible cause of depression is also another aspect of learned behavior: reward. For some,depression may be the only way to get attention. These patients aren't necessarily malingerers; they may have just taught themselves via a personal reward system from their families that anything other than depression doesn't get them attention. Consider a family member whose accomplishments are constantly overlooked. Suddenly he falls into a depressive state, and everyone drops what their doing to provide care, comfort and relief. If he comes out of that state and the family goes back to "normal," he may unconsciously allow himself to fail again, only to feel that love. The book "Listening to Depression" by Lara Honos-Web outlines this reward system.

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