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However, there is a situation where depression goes much deeper and becomes associated with something more than just those awful life
events that are uncontrollable and happen to everyone. Yes the same bad things happen, but they become related to our very self, our
'weakness' and the belief that there is nothing we can do about it.
With severe depression, nothing sounds good and nothing feels good. Thinking processes slow down and are replaced by a lack of concentration,
indecisiveness, and rumination. Dullness descends over us and even colours can appear faded.
Depress means 'to press down' and deep depression results from a 'pushing down' of emotions and feelings, particularly anger. Our mind and
body symbolise this dullness and 'pressing down' and make it real to us through physical sensations such as 'a weight on our shoulders' or
'a thick fog surrounding us'.
Depression involves tiredness and body aches, lethargy and procrastination, and our depressed immune system often results in constant
colds, flus and viruses. In chronic depression the only real things we do feel include anxiety and fear, worthlessness, helplessness,
hopelessness and guilt.
The current worldview of depression is based on the medical model, which views it as a mental illness caused by something
going wrong in the brain and the answer lies in 'fixing' the thing that has gone wrong – often with medication.
However...
Take the middle-aged woman, (emotionally fragile from early life stress and conflict), who suffers emotional abuse at the hands of her
partner – abuse that not only scares her but also makes her feel that she cannot do anything right, and that everything she
does fails miserably or is totally worthless. Is her severe depression simply the result of something
going wrong in her brain that can be fixed by medication?
Or is there a better explanation?
And a better solution?
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