Depression and Society

Depression and Society

By L. (written on October 10, 2008)

There seems to be two schools of thought when it comes to depression: there are those who believe in a physiological cause, where chemical imbalances in the brain are responsible for the disorder; and those who believe that depression has a psychological cause. Regardless of the specific details on the two ways of explaining exactly how the disorder is caused the treatment for depression today is virtually the same: Anti-depressants to fix the chemical imbalance and therapy to change the way the patient perceives their life so to eradicate the depressive psychological stimuli. The treatment often works, even if it takes a long time and much trial and error with anti-depressants. Therefore people tend to leave it at that, that is, if you become depressed, just find a shrink and get some anti-depressants.

I however, believe that people’s perception and understanding of Depression is extremely superficial and short-sighted. Depression gets diagnosed and treated almost like a cold or the Flu; of course, nobody will deny the difference in degree when it comes to the effect of depression. What I mean is, people don’t analyze the underlying causes of Depression enough and fail to realize what Depression tells us about our society. In my opinion, Depression is much more than just a disorder or a disease; it is a social marker, much like unemployment, crime and poverty.

While the physiological side of Depression is undeniable, I believe that it is the psychological side that calls for more analysis, the psychological causes for Depression to be precise and how it relates to human behavior. Many theories in human behavior say that our behavior is an attempt to satisfy our psychological needs, such as the need for affection, acceptance, power, security, comfort, etc and our physiological needs such as food and shelter. There are different levels of needs of course, for example, a woman would, or should, have a greater need to satisfy her children’s basic needs, thus satisfying her maternal needs, than she should need, say, make up. So if she’s unable to afford make up, she will become upset, but if she’s unable to satisfy her maternal needs for a prolonged time, her sadness will rise to the level of Depression. Thus, Depression is a result of a person’s inability to satisfy their most basic needs which often leads to the perception of more negativity than positivity to offset the negativity.

Who’s to blame? Is it the person suffering from Depression, or Society? It is easy to blame the person suffering from Depression and say they should learn to “deal” with their problems better. However, if one analyzes it thoroughly, they will find that society is as much to blame, if not more, than the individual. Consider the following hypothetical:

Jenny is fourteen years old from a relatively poor family. She’s a little bit overweight because she doesn’t have a very nutritious diet. She doesn’t have much family support because her parents are working most of the time. She goes to a public school where most of her peers live a better economic situation than her. Some of her peers make fun of her because she’s poor and thus not as “fashionable” as her; others make fun of her because of her weight. Because she doesn’t have much family support her self-esteem starts to sink and eventually she’s desperately looking for ways to cope with her situation.

While this is just a hypothetical situation, I am sure that it is the reality for many fourteen year old teenagers. There are many possible outcomes for this hypothetical, but most of them are negative, and to expect Jenny to overcome the situation is to be somewhat delusional. Many in her situation will turn to drugs or alcohol in order to cope with the situation. Others will end up following the wrong crowds in a desperate attempt to find acceptance. Some will end up in crime, in prostitution, not to mention those that will eventually commit suicide. To summarize, most in this situation will suffer some kind of Depression because there’s too much negative things in their lives and not enough positive ones to offset the negative. Moreover, in their desperate attempts to cope with their situation, many will take a path that will lead to even more negativity, even more Depression, and what began as peer pressure and jokes will become much more serious.

Back to Jenny, why was she in this situation? One of the reasons is that she’s poor, but can we blame Jenny for it? No, we can’t she’s only fourteen. Another reason, she’s overweight because of bad nutrition, but can we blame her for that? No, we can’t, she shouldn’t be responsible for providing herself with good nutrition. Yet another reason, she doesn’t have enough family support, but can we blame Jenny for that? No, we can’t, we can’t even blame her parents as they’re doing what they can to make sure she has at least enough to eat and a roof above her head.

So who do we blame for Jenny’s situation? I blame society. Why? There are two major reasons. The first is that the world today has more than enough resources to satisfy the basic needs of every single human being alive. No person should become depressed as a result of the inability to satisfy their basic needs because this inability should not exist. The second reason rests on the many images that society builds. For example, society has created an idea of beauty that is delusional at best and unhealthy. The way beauty is depicted in the media leads many to pursue an impossible goal of achieving this artificial, sick, sense of beauty. Moreover, we have an unrealistic idea of what it means to be happy, based on the sole idea of being richer, prettier, more powerful than the next person, which fundamentally relies on the unhappiness of the next person.

Jenny’s hypothetical is only one out of numerous situations where society, and not the individual, is responsible for Depression. And when a large part of the population suffers from Depression, as is the case at the moment, it tells me that a large part of the population is unable to achieve happiness. Moreover, the fact that there are so many people Depressed today is a sign that everyone wants to deny: that we have failed to build an acceptable society; a sign that we must change our perception of reality itself in order secure a society where the next generation doesn’t have to be depressed. The really ironically depressing truth is: we cannot fix this with either anti-depressants or therapy.