Is depression hereditary?: - Above & Beyond
Is depression hereditary?
As far as I know depression CAN be hereditary, but in few cases it actually is. When it comes to depression most of it tends to be learned behavior and not genetics, though they can play a part. Though of course if you are around say a parent, often, and they too suffer from depression, then it might get you down also, but not because it is hereditary, more because it's just an influence on your mood... xx
Thanks for your answer Susanna. I hope that you get the information you need for your mum.
Dddepression is. Not learnt behaviour it is a clinical condition
great blog!
I think most of the time it's developmental, because would they know to be be depressed? We are all in control of our minds, and the question you have to ask is, who's driving that vehicle in your head.
People say, "he or her, or this makes me depressed". Response is "What are they doing what makes you choose to be depressed"?
Are you saying that people choose to be depressed? I find that strange.
There is a lot of info out there about depression, and the main thing to remember is what ever the cause, the brain chemistry changes, making depression a physical disease.
Perhaps you could look up some more, if you have not had depression it is hard to understand.
Hello Cazbaz, I hope your well
not necessarily choose, what I was saying is that we have a choice in life and some people who get depressed think that they don't have a choice. And that when people get depressed it could be for all sorts of reasons, as we're all different. When we're depressed we have a choice to stand up to it and really do something about it, because you deserve to live a great life. The thing I always say is, if you don't control your own mind... who does? My intention is not to sound unsympathetic because believe me I am. I see people who are suicidal or clinically depressed so I know at first hand. We're only human, so I've experienced depression too where at one point it was horrendous, but then I had to really work hard.
I know all about the brain chemistry and the physical side of it. But we can all heal. Just like a broken arm, or even sinister health conditions such as cancer through he mind and body connection. When I say choice I'm talking about unconscious choices that we are unaware of because of our emotions or certain life events and triggers, for example, my partner has had Type 1 Diabetes for 19 years and whilst she did not consciously think "oh, I'll give myself this life threatening condition today", but she does acknowledge that for certain reasons she made the unconscious decision for her body to respond by mal-functioning to a certain life event that was very traumatic in childhood contributing to diabetes - the good news is with this, is she now has the power to work out how to reverse this. Take care cazbar
Hi John
I agree with what you are saying in some ways, in that yes we do all get depressed for different reasons as we are all different, but I don't agree at all that we have a choice about whether we become depressed. What I do think is that we usually have some degree of choice about how we deal with the depression - many people are able to choose whether to go to their G|P, whether to ask for medication or choose therapy instead, whether to go outside and meet with people or stay home - but it is simplistic in my view to suggest ALL people have a choice because many clearly do not. People who are disabled cannot always get to meet people and so feel lonely which increases their depression to the point where it is beyond their coping ability. In fact |I would say that one of the distinguishing features of depression rather than just a low feeling is that depression has taken a person lower than they can cope with which is why they are no longer able to deal with the negative feelings without help.
Just a thought.
Suex
Why would anyone choose to be depressed? I am really upset by remarks like that I suffer very badly from depression as well as chronic pain osteo arthritis tendonitus and a frozen shoulder! The most pain and anguish comes from the depression only a person who has never been depressed say that!!!!!!!
Too many folk just have no idea - I think you need to acknowledge their ignorance rather than let their misguided comments bother you - every situation and person is unique.
Good that, despite all those issues "chronic pain osteo arthritis tendonitus and a frozen shoulder" you still the most pain and anguish comes from the depression.
It might gradually allow others to see things from a different perspective
Hi
As a psychologist and psychotherapist I don't think it's possible to answer that question with a yes or no, so I will try to explain my thoughts - I apologise for the length of my reply but there is no easy answer!
ALL aspects of personality are due to the interaction between what we inherit and our experiences. We inherit certain predispositions or tendencies to respond in certain ways, so for example some people are more reactive than others, they respond more strongly to experience, they are more highly strung whilst other people are more placid. Some people are more sensitive than others so an experience that scares one person may not scare another person because they are less sensitive to the world around them. Some people are more creative in that they are more able to combine thoughts in usual ways whereas other people are more rigid and predictable in their responses. All those kinds of things exist in some form from the time of conception and are the result of our bio-chemical make up. So each of us has a particular make up that depends upon the genes we inherit but also upon what happens to change us bio-chemically when we are in the womb, for example a stressed mother may increase the likelihood of her unborn child having more stress hormone within their bio-chemical make up. Those changes result from an interaction between our bio-chemical make up and the world in which we find ourselves and continue throughout life.
There is the more direct result of experience which takes place from birth. We are all born with the same basic needs - food, water, sleep, safety, self-esteem, a sense of social belonging etc - Maslow describes them in terms of there being a hierarchy so that we have to have food to survive but we will survive even if we have little self-esteem, so some needs are more important than others. Each baby will be born with the same needs ie all babies need food or self-esteem etc but the extent to which we are able to tolerate frustration of the needs will differ because that our ability to tolerate frustration is due to the personality factors that are bio-chemical and that we are born with. One baby will tolerate waiting for a feed longer than another baby without harm and that's why it's important that parents respond to the individual personality of a baby rather than just to all babies in the same way - all babies need food but some babies can tolerate waiting longer than others - they are not being good or naughty, they are just born with different innate levels of tolerance. When we are made to wait longer than we can tolerate then the result is stress which alters our bio-chemical make up, and so gradually over time our personality is formed by the extent to which OUR individual needs are met - not just the needs of a child, but the needs of the child we were while we were developing.
As we become able to understand the world we can moderate our responses by thinking about what is happening to us, so for example a three month old baby has no ability to understand why it is waiting for food because the amount of experience and brain development does not allow for that kind of maturity of thought, but by twelve months a baby is able to understand that if it waits food should come soon because they have learned that when they can hear mum in the kitchen food usually follows - also they develop language which enables them to understand when mum says food is coming and they can understand the soothing tone of voice that has been associated with food coming in the past.
Depression can result from many different experiences but one common factor is that the depressed person has been stressed - they may not have FELT stressed, it may simply be a bodily stress such as anxiety when they were a baby and before they were unable to know the feeling they were experiencing was anxiety, or it may be a prolonged stressful response to a situation, for example parents constantly arguing results in a child having a higher level of stress hormone than in a peaceful environment although the child may be quite used to the arguing and may not consciously experience feeling stressed as a result - their body carries the stressful response even when they do not know they are stressed.
In that way our biochemical make-up is altered over time by experience. When a person is depressed it is impossible to know whether they were born as a baby who was destined to become depressed. However it is possible to say that whatever experiences they have had they did not enable their innate personality to adapt in a way that was positive because depression that affects life in a negative way cannot be considered to be a positive adaptation. In some way the depressed person's needs have not been met. They may have been born with a more difficult temperament than another person or may have had more difficult experiences to deal with than others, it is often not completely possible to tease out the extent to which each of those has contributed to the depression.
What is possible is to look at what happens when people have certain experiences. There is substantial evidence to show that certain events and circumstances in childhood are likely to lead to a person becoming depressed later in life even if they were not depressed as a child. Some of those events and circumstances are:
- early separation from the main caretakers during the first five years of life
- a depressed mother
- trauma such as abuse, hostility, assault, being abandoned or unprotected from fear
- repeated moves of surroundings so they never become familiar
- lack of social skills enabling friends to be made during childhood
- witnessing verbal conflict or violence in the home
- being on the end of critical or undermining comments which affect self-esteem and confidence
- low achievement below actual ability at school
Those kinds of experiences often lead to depression in adulthood because they have affected our life chances and feeling life has been unfair to us or feeling we are less able than we might otherwise have been is depressing - depression is a natural and healthy response to that situation. The problem is that often we do not know what the situations were that lead us to be depressed because they happened a long time ago and we are used to being the way we are so assume it is just something about us. The issue that always crops up is - was it my fault, was I such a difficult child that I deserved what happened to me
It's easy to idealise what SHOULD happen - every child's needs should be met to the extent that they need them to be - but the world is not ideal. Parents also have their personalities and have had experiences that have not always met their needs and so they are unable to meet those particular needs in their children and so often their children have similar difficulties. Sometimes a parent manages to pretend they are not depressed or to cope by denying the depression altogether, but their behaviour will demonstrate the depression and a baby will pick that up long before they are able to recognise or understand what it is that they are experiencing. In this way tendencies to behave in certain ways are learned, and this is how depression can also be learned, not just by copying, but by responding to certain behaviours of the parents. This pattern goes on throughout life, we continue to learn from experience even as adults. The whole idea of therapy is that by having new experiences we can learn that what we expect to happen because of past experiences does not always happen, and in that way we can begin to understand how we became depressed.
End of essay! Sorry about that, but it is the only way I could respond to your question.
Suexxx
While researchers are becoming increasingly aware that depression can be genetic, there is a need to put some more light on this topic because it is often misinterpreted. Is Depression Hereditary? Many people have a misconception that if their parents or any of their relatives had depression at some point in their lives, it will develop within themselves too. In reality, this is not entirely true, but yes, you need to be extra conscious when the problem is genetic.
Reference : findatopdoc.com/Mental-Heal...
