How to Live .org

Thursday, December 21, 2006

There is a very strong (and justified) correlation between being depressed and feeling that life is without purpose or meaning. But which is the cause and which is the effect? Or are both effects of another cause? Or do they magnify each other in a positive feedback loop? My guess would be that heredity and environment contribute to depression, which in turn leads to a perceived lack of purpose or meaning, but I can imagine causal arrows pointing in both directions. Can anyone enlighten me on this, either with objective knowledge of studies or subjective knowledge of your own experiences with depression and purposelessness?

posted by howtolive.org at 9:30 AM  

5 Comments:

  • Strange that you ask this question today. I have been reading a book on this very subject. I have also been going through a lot of depression and trying to figure it all out. I was journaling last night about cause and effect concerning my own case. Your question is one of those "Chicken or the Egg," kind of questions that I wonder about frequently.

    For me, I know that depression was/is "in the family." However, genetics play only a part. How we REACT to the depression is the critical part of the equation. This book I am reading (almost finished) pushes strongly in the direction of adapting your life to live with it, rather than the never ending struggle to fight it with drug after drug, therapist after therapist. He looks at all angles, looks at the history of depression going back centuries, the latest medications, etc. I've personally gone through the med thing time after time. I am convinced that they are for short-term use only and can - at times - lead to even greater agony than the original depression.

    It's an interesting question that you pose, and one that really has no right or wrong answer. I see it both ways and depression is such a personal malady. We all experience it differently.

    This book, by the way, is an excellent read. One of the best I've read on the subject and I've read (literally) a hundred or more. This gem is called, "Where the Roots Reach for Water: A Personal and Natural History of Melancholia" by Jeffery Smith.

    By Mike, at 3:17 PM  

  • Subjective experience: Mood is variant; Intellectual experience of the world tends to be more constant (allowing for ongoing enlightment). When depressed, I tend to resent the world; when happy, I tend to forget about it. Regardless, it is obvious the world is without purpose or meaning beyond that imparted to it by humans.

    Anyone with depression, particularly high-frequency, cyclical depression, will eventually deduce a causal link; Mine tends to be a combination of poor diet, poor sleep, limited exercise, and social isolation.

    By Anonymous, at 8:29 PM  

  • I would say that, objectively, life is inherently without meaning or purpose. Depending upon how one looks at it, this existential fact can be profoundly depressing, or simply true.

    My experience is that, for as long as I resisted the reality of purposelessness and meaninglessness, as long as I clung to my belief that there must be and/or should be purpose and meaning, depression would arise. Once I learned to just relax and accept it, the depression abated.

    By Greg, at 3:23 AM  

  • I think that in the vast majority of cases our emotions follow our thinking or, more broadly, our understanding of reality. So, for example, if my girlfriend dumps me I feel bad. If I loose my job and I have no prospects and my family suffers because of it, I feel lousy, depressed, uninspired, etc. So is it any wonder that if one thinks that life has no meaning they will be depressed? On the other hand, if a person as a "clinical" tendency towards depression (ie - emotions don't follow from their understanding of reality, but are sometimes random), they may be more predisposed than most to think that their life has no meaning. So I think depression can easily arrise from environment or heredety or subjective experience.

    But does life have no meaning? I'm not willing to grant that.

    By Rob, at 1:03 PM  

  • i think dipression comes to anyone when they phase a situation which they didn't expect; realizing something beyond their belief system which may or may not be true; they will be dipressed until they accept that and they can be normal once they find a way to live with it.

    By Anonymous, at 12:52 AM  

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