What really causes depression? I have been depressed for so long and was wondering what the real cause is.?

Have you ever noticed that none of the questions in mental health section ever get highlighted on the main screen? I think that is interesting. I guess we are all just suppose to be crazy and uninteresting.

No one knows what exactly causes clinical depression. Doctors believe it is mainly due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, involving low seratonin levels.This is an ongoing field of study and doctors keep revising their stances and adding elements of complexity to it. Most drugs used to treat it have been developed through trial and error more than educated guessing.

I've never noticed the main page thingy. When you're depressed you tend to look out for things to justify your thoughts and mood. It is a shame there is such a stigma on depression, and all mental illnesses really. The trouble is they are so subjective, you can never understand it until you've experienced it. It's easy to sympathise with a broken leg, but not with the overwhelming sense of emptiness, uselessness etc there comes with depression.

In answer to your question- like nearly everything in life, there's a genetic and environmental component to depression. It has been shown to run in families. The current theory is:

Everyone has a certain threshhold for depression. Given enough stressful stimulus- EVERYONE can become depressed- some people will never experience enough stress and trauma to overcome their natural threshhold. Some people however, have a genetic predisposition to having a lower threshhold- it takes less stress to make them depressed. It's all an interplay of adverse life events and then coping mechanisms.

Once below this threshhold, some people may bounce right back- we all have good and bad days. Some people however, react differently and remain depressed. There are several theories concerning low serotonin levels in the brain but currently we are unsure whether this is a cause of depression, or an effect of it.

If you imagine the mood as a balance scale. On one side, you have the stresses- family breakdown, isolation, divorce, abuse, genetic predisposition. On the other side you have the protective factors- close social networks, sense of self-reliance, high self esteem, coping mechanisms. Those who develop depression will have far more in the way of stresses than they do protective factors. The most common problem for depressives is "im all alone." "I have no one to talk to". Having a confidant, a close friend or family member is the single most important protective factor going to reduce the risk of depression.

In my opinion, depression is a vicious cycle. You succumb- through no fault of your own- to stresses which just overwhelm your coping mechanisms. You become depressed. In this frame of mind, all you see is badness and failure. You can never see a way out of this way of thinking. You lose all coping mechanisms and some people can stay depressed a long long time. For me, the best way out of it, is to stop seeing everything negatively, and to see things as they really are.

Eg- your friend was 10 minutes late for lunch. A depressed person might think "my friend hates me". They need to take a step back and think, "heck! can i read minds? no! My friend might have been late because she forgot something, has had some bad news, anything! Her being late, reflects on her, not on me."

Anyway, just waffling now. I hope you find the answers you're looking for.

boardness, no family time, Aloneness, stress, homework, anger, mostley boardness, then siucide! 0_o

cause they think no one goes through things in their lives like us users who go through things with mental illnesses and everyday struggles

If its not a tramatic life changing event. Its a chemical inbalance.