It's not in your head

I should have included this in my post yesterday from the beginning pages of Johann Hari's book 'Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions.' In the introduction he lays out not only his early beliefs about depression and anxiety, but what most of the world commonly thought as well. So, here's some of what he says (which is better than I could summarize):

"The forces that are making some of us depressed and severely anxious are, at the same time, making even more people unhappy. It turns out there IS a continuum between unhappiness and depression. They're still very different - in the same way that losing a finger in a car accident is different from losing an arm, and falling over in the street is different from falling off a cliff. But they are connected. Depression and anxiety, I was going to learn, are only the sharpest edges of a spear that has been thrust into almost everyone in our culture. That's why even people who are not depressed or severely anxious will recognize a lot of what I'm about to describe..." (p. 13)

"We have been systematically misinformed about what depression and anxiety are.

I had believed two stories about depression in my life. For the first eighteen years of my life, I had thought of it as 'all in my head' -- meaning it was not real, it was imaginary, fake, an indulgence, an embarrassment, a weakness. Then, for the next thirteen years, I believed it was 'all in my head' in a very different way -- it was due to a malfunctioning brain.

But I was going to learn that neither of these stories is true. The primary cause of all this rising depression and anxiety is not in our heads. It is, I discovered, largely in the world, and the way we are living in it. I learned there are at least nine proven causes of depression and anxiety (although nobody had brought them together like this before), and many of them are rising all around us -- causing us to feel radically worse..." (p. 14)

And this is what the book is about. The nine causes of depression and anxiety are "disconnections." I shared them before. They are:

• Disconnection from Meaningful Work
• Disconnection from Other People
• Disconnection from Meaningful Values
• Disconnection from Childhood Trauma
• Disconnection from Status and Respect
• Disconnection from the Natural World
• Disconnection from a Hopeful or Secure Future
• Causes 8 and 9: The Real Role of Genes and Brain Changes

So, over the course of however long, I will share snippets from each, and then the resulting "re-connections" we need to make. Unless, of course, I get tired of it. If you're interested you should probably just buy the book...

At any rate, I still go back and forth on things. One minute I think this is all hogwash, and then in the next I think it is right on the money. Whichever is the case, even given these findings are correct, the "fix" - if you will - is a little depressing in and of itself. Yet... it's still worth exploring. I think.