With a good job and a loving family, can we still feel depressed?
Depression is
not a condition that depends solely on a person's life circumstances.
Certainly, stressful situations such as loss of job, family problems, or
relationship difficulties can trigger the onset of a depressive episode.
However, a lack of obvious stressful circumstances does not make a person
invulnerable to becoming depressed. This can make it difficult sometimes
for others to understand, as they may think, "What do you have to be
depressed about?" The depression may be viewed as a lack of personal
willpower. You may feel guilty about being unhappy, and again, the idea
of needing to "pull myself together" becomes part of your thinking. These
thought patterns may impede initiation of treatment. With that said,
sometimes when there are no obvious external stressors present, there may
be "internal" ones. Perhaps you feel like a failure for not having
reached certain goals. Perhaps an unrelated event has triggered fears and
anxieties that now fuel a depressive episode. These are potential avenues
to be explored in a therapy, to help with recovery, and to maintain
remission.
So it would
make sense to examine your daily routines to see if indeed problems do
exist. It is also important to be evaluated for a medical condition as a
cause of the depression. Psychiatrists routinely consider the possibility
of medical conditions as a cause, and may recommend a medical workup. It
is always a surprise when we learn about a famous person for example, who
admits to having taken anti-depressants, who seems to us to "have it
all." We may even wonder, "what's your problem?" when in fact what this
shows is that what appears on the surface to be an admirable life, often
has many other unknown aspects to it.
