THE CAUSE OF DEPRESSION

Your “essential” goal box

Due to everything people see in life, different people develop different views on what a successful life is. And whatever they believe a successful life is, that is what they will have placed in their “essential” goal box. In other words, in that box you place what you believe you MUST live up to (how you think life must unfold) before you are allowed to say you have done well in life, or that your life has gone correctly. 

For most people, what they have in their goal box is fine. Indeed most people’s goals are beautiful goals. Some people have things in there which they won’t be able to achieve in their lifetime, but that is not the problem. The problem is that they have their sense of personal value and the success of their life attached to achieving those things. Subconsciously they feel that they have to live up to a particular criteria in order to be able to receive and keep growing in life.

Stage one depression

Consequently, if ever one day we reach the conclusion that: due to circumstances, we believe there are too many obstacles preventing us from ever being able to achieve that which is in our “essential” goal box, our mind will become psychologically devastated. We then hold the conclusion that there is now no point in possessing goals and working on a future: “What is the point in even having goals and working on a future if you can’t achieve what you want?”. WHY BOTHER? This conclusion turns particular sectors of the mind down, thus decreasing the level of neurotransmitter production. That is stage one of depression.

Stage two depression

The second stage of depression usually follows a few months after the person has been diagnosed with depression. When people are educated to believe that depression is caused by a dysfunctional brain, they then believe it is a health condition which they will always have. They believe the depression (and their mind) is now the obstacle to them ever achieving that existence they believe they need to. So they then reach the next level of believing that there is now absolutely no point in possessing goals and working on a future: “Now that I’ve got depression, I’ll never get life to go the way I want it to, so what is thepoint?”. This again decreases the brain’s production of neurotransmitters.

So in stage two, the person is depressed about being depressed! Depression is not caused by the chemical change in the brain, but rather the “what is the point in using my mind?” attitude! The physical decrease in the neurotransmitters simply creates the horrible mental symptoms of darkness, and lowered mental alertness etc. Clinical depression is not the result of a dysfunctional brain. Any healthy brain will turn down particular sectors and decrease its production of neurotransmitters if a person reaches such a conclusion. The brain will return to normal neurotransmitter production when this incorrect conclusion is rectified. Thus depression occurs when people believe there is no point in having goals, which is the result of people believing that a successful life is obtained by achieving your goal.