Part 2 of "Depression - three major components and why they CAN be transformed."

In Part 1 of this series we briefly discussed the nature of the disease that is depression, and its arguably the most-sited component: changes in brain structure as well as responses that are unique to depression.

Now it is time to unearth the second 'layer' to this complex condition: cognitive traits.

Before we focus on that topic in earnest, it is worth noting, once again, that all of the layers - biological, cognitive and emotional are interdependent, they affect, modify and, in case of depression it would seem more accurately, "feed" onto each other, producing more and more dire states as time goes on.

As severe altering of the brain biology can produce a drastically different states and attitudes in a person, affecting both cognitive and emotional functioning, so can prolonged state of extreme stress - whether emotional or mental - alter the biology, and indeed the very structure of the brain (as evident in case of hypothalamus and amygdala), bringing with it new level of intensity and the nature of the responses.

With that in mind, let us proceed to the cognitive part of the puzzle :)

Suppose, as in an example we were discussing earlier, one was abused as a child, which led to altering of one's brain functions and responses. How is this going to manifest in the cognitive process? If the "danger" response part of the brain is overactive - because it has been stimulated for so long it went in the overdrive - the person is going to tend to focus on anything that 'threatens' them and therefore, in their mind, jeopardizes their goal of survival.

They will inadvertently hone in on the people and situations that they deem unsafe, and will perceive every minuscule bit of data that an unaffected person would never make an effort to discern.

/In my opinion, herein lies the secret of Narcissist's and/or Psychopath's "supernatural" ability to recognize, almost intuit people's tiniest signals, their wishes and moods. It is common knowledge that a large chunk (if not a majority) of people who have NPD and/or anti-social disorder were severely abused as children, which in turn led to profound change in their emotional and cognitive processing of the outside input. Anyway, back to our example./

What do you suppose this type of hyper vigilance, an intense focus on the factors that the person deems crucial to their survival, will do to their overall ability to function and perform? There is the same 'law' to this as to accounting: If the inordinate amount of energy is spent on performing one task, this means that the energy can not be expedited elsewhere. Thus the person may appear 'spacey', unable to concentrate, loosing focus, forgetting things etc.

Given the limited 'view' from outside, people may wonder just what is going on, and even the person affected by this may not consciously realize the mechanism behind their reactions - they may have been living in such a state for so long that they perceive it as normal. In addition to having their energy tied-up in this unconscious state of hyper-alert, they themselves may feel like they have little control over their apparent lack of concentration.

What is such a person likely to think (or, more accurately, tell themselves?) "I can not believe this! - I am such an airhead. I can not f on the lesson, I get stuck where everyone gets it with ease. I must be stupid" Now, looking a little bit ahead - what emotional states such thoughts are likely to produce? How might that affect the person's behavior? And in turn, will those states and behaviors alleviate or exacerbate the problem?

When emotionally and mentally overwhelmed, many people will go into protective mode and shut out the part of themselves that seems to 'cause' pain (more accurately would be to say "the part of themselves that holds the energy of the traumatic situation, until said situation gets resolved.) In order to function in their everyday lives, they simply "package" the uncomfortable parts of themselves and pretend they can move on without really having to resolve anything. Such attitudes towards their experiences and emotions, though understandable (and very prevalent) still brings very poor results. Unresolved feelings sooner or later manifest themselves in the most troubling ways, and a habit of denying our own real feelings and experiences can lead us too far astray, sometimes in the realm of neurosys.

In case of depression, we know for a fact that as a part of coping strategy, the area of the brain responsible for processing memory and emotions literally shrinks in size. In addition, in many cases the brain cells get "conditioned" to respond disproportionately to negative stimuli, and "ignore", or have far less response to neutral and positive input. Sounds familiar? Depressed people are notorious for seeing the world in "black" - they only focus on negative and painful events to the exclusion of everything else.

What about the first part - how does reduction in size of that certain (crucial) area of the brain manifest itself? Well, first the person stops experiencing the normal fluctuation of the emotions every healthy person experiences from time to time. It gets to the point where no matter what positive or negative situations arise the affected individual simply does not experience a response at all - they get the same flat, "numb", sterilized feeling no matter what the circumstance. (this one was, and occasionally is, big for me personally).

 Also, short term memory and ability to focus suffer as well. Now, this is likely to produce something like the following thoughts: "What is wrong with me? I used to be a completely different person. I can not even get any joy out of holding my grandchild (child, pet etc.) This is just not right - I am a disgrace to my family." as well as "I am always confusing/forgetting important details. I am going to get fired one of these days." Needless to say, this does only deepen the problem by making the person feel more inadequate and out of control. The more such thoughts and feelings run amok, the more one's self-esteem suffers, the more they try avoiding potentially embarrassing/ upsetting situations and so the vicious cycle is gaining momentum.

Repetitive negative, self-critical thoughts followed by feelings of deep shame and inadequacy (or numbness if the individual has gotten so overwhelmed they have opted-out of feeling altogether) are at the the heart of the disease. Worse yet, overtime they proceed to affect the brain and therefore hormonal processes further, making one sink deeper and deeper until there seems to be no way out.

It is not a pretty picture, huh? However, if we just approach it from purely antithetical point of view, what do we have? Some kind of a traumatic event (either physical or psychological, or both) altered the way one's brain is functioning, processing input. That, in turn, produced less-than-ideal perceptions and thought patterns, which then alter one's emotions. We know for a fact (it is scientifically proven) that each of the three factors - biological, cognitive and emotional, has the ability to affect the other too. If one is willing to change, where precisely do we start?

We all know what happens if we attempt to simply alter the first - biological (chemical) side of things. There are many ways to go about this, and the most common by far is to take the "missing" hormones and/or other necessary bio components in their synthetic form.

/Because I trust in your own ability to judge for yourself, I will not comment on this other than say that, in my opinion this is not an ultimate way of finding genuine and lasting relief from depression./

What else then? I do not suppose than one can do much about altering their emotional state when they are in the throws of a deep and dark depressive episode. For all of those "well-wishers" who recommend to "snap out of it" and, even more so, for those of us who are sick and tired of hearing that, I will say it again - depression is no joke. It is not some fleeting fancy one just able to wave away. There is a multi-dollar industry built on providing relief for the sufferers - and as much as I am not a fan of such solutions, it is BIG for a reason. That said, I will provide some practical steps that can be useful for natural altering of the emotional state in Part 3 of the series, and they work fabulously for me, but I will be the first one to recognize that they require an expenditure of willpower a deeply depressed person may simply be unable to muster at the moment.

/There is a little secret to jump-starting the process which I will be very glad to share with you in the future post on the emotional factor./

Supposing both of above passages are true, what are we left with? Ah, that's right! - the cognitive process - the way we consciously perceive and (key word!) verbalize said perceptions to ourselves. This we will discuss in detail in Part 3.

For now, we just want to clearly understand the three major components of the depressive state, and by that virtue open the door to the possibility of mastering it.

Depression - three major components and why they CAN be transformed. Part 1.

Depression sucks - plain and simple. If you ever had the misfortune to be affected by the decease,
I did not have to tell you this (other than to validate your experience). Others - the ones who have never been through it, however, find it difficult to relate to a depressed person's experience, and some even go so far as to doubt that the real problem exists. "Pull yourself together" - they say - "Snap out of it!" As if the person suffering through the darkest moments of their live have simply failed to recognize the need to "snap out". Clearly, if they had what it took to get out of their miserable state, they would have done so without any reminders! You do not exactly tell a person with a broken leg to pull themselves together and start walking as everyone else does. With depression,  however, as it is often the case with emotional and mental conditions, most observers simply fail to see the link.

Frustrating as it is, do not let them discourage you, or make you more feel more inadequate and likely to blame yourself. Depression is real, it requires some real work (utilizing some real science) to recover, but the best thing is - it is entirely withing your reach to start feeling better.

I am the living proof that one can overcome the darkest states without the help of pharmaceuticals, though the path by no means has been an easy one. Just to let you know that this was indeed serious,
I have been diagnosed with chronic and severe depression, and I have made a few attempts on my life early on. However, as the time went on, I learned how to overcome the worst periods, how to cope, how to function (though, sometimes, barely) and - best of all - how to slowly but surely get better over time.

Recently, my close friend had become extremely depressed, and since I have been through the state, I have clearly recognized the signals. In order to help him, I now had to clearly communicate what I have learned, as well as do more research in order to give weight (scientific back-up) to the ideas.

That got me thinking: there are a lot of folks in the similar situation all around the world. Since I am already streamlining and organizing what I have learned both through experience and research, why not share it? Though it will undoubtedly take many posts to cover the the subject, here is the first basic summary anyone who is troubled by depression should get familiar with.

It is easier to think of depression, if you underline the labyrinth of symptoms, states, effects and manifestations that it can produce with one simple structure (kind of like creating a map for a complicated natural landscape.) Here are three main areas where depressive states, once triggered, become a sort of sinister feedback loop that, if unchecked, soon transforms in a vicious cycle sucking you deeper and deeper into private hell known as depression.

So here is the first, and the most scientifically discussed factor:

1. Brain (and hormonal) composition.

Here is a fun fact: there is a certain area of the brain, called hypothalamus (which, among other things, deals with  emotion and memory) that is shown to be SHRUNK up to 25% when depression is experienced. (The good new is, it is also possible to regain the normal size, if a person have successfully recovered and stayed healthy for a prolonged period of time.) So there are actual organic changes your brain that take place when you are under immense stress that prolonged depression brings. (not to be confused with the stress that actually can initiate first bouts of depression, which we will talk about later in the third component/factor.) There are also profound changes in how the nerve/brain cells transmit and process different signals/information, that, though may be of a cognitive nature (second component) at first, may overtime "materialize" themselves in the actual brain processing changes.

Before we go any further, let me introduce (or remind you of) a concept called neuroplasticity. It is both fascinating and encouraging, at least for people who have bought into science's earlier notion that mental disorders such as depression where 'hard wired' into 'faulty' brain structure, and there was nothing we could do about it, other than pop pills and bear the side effects.

Long story short neuroplasticity simply means ability, as well as tendency of our brain to change in response to input and/or environment.

Say you were abused as a kid. Every day was a chaotic, deeply terrifying ordeal. If that kind of extreme stress went on for years, it is only logical to expect that the amazing survival-oriented 'device' that is our body will find the way to adopt, take in the input that it is receiving and make changes accordingly: it will likely alter the way we respond to extreme stress and an onslaught of hormonal, and therefore emotional storms it produces, and that in turn will alter how we express ourselves, as well as how we handle our thoughts, perceptions and memories.

If we were simply to leave the individual in shell-shocked state, even when changing the environment to a safe one, we can not expect them to automatically fully recover, because the damage the extreme situation produced have altered the chemistry -  indeed, the very structure of the brain, and reversing the changes will require highly focused and persistent work.

Another interesting fact is that our brain cells can attune themselves to 'highlight' and give priority to specific kind of responses. This makes complete sense as well. A soldier in combat quickly learns how to focus their attention on things that represent a threat, since their survival depends on it. In the same way, a kid that was physically abused will focus and heighten their sensitivity to particular "vibe", situations or facial expressions that can be a precursor of further abuse (though it is important to understand that creating intimidating and/or chaotic atmosphere qualifies as an emotional/mental abuse in its own right.) Growing up, without sufficient competent help the individual will likely focus on singling out similar expressions and signals from other people, and will dedicate a disproportional amount of their energy on dealing with the perceived threat and response to such signals, compared to a person who had a happy, self-affirming childhood.

In a case of depression, it is often the case that people give priority to negative input, focusing exclusively on the information that is likely to deepen their despair and/or confirm that there is indeed little to no hope for them. As for emotional response, that has been likely considerably muted, for the purpose of stopping the negative emotion's overload, and the chemical/hormonal mayhem it unleashes on the body.

The takeaway: there were likely perfectly rational, survival-oriented reasons for particular wiring of your brain in the past. Even if you do not think they were particularly traumatic experiences, your body likely had a pretty solid (from its perspective) reason to respond in a way that it did. Now that we had (hopefully) made it out of the particular environment that had called for such changes, given the awareness we gained, we are free to set up new cognitive/emotional patterns that will let us reach and remain in the state of wellness.

In the next couple of posts we will discuss:

1 Cognitive component and 2 Emotional states that pose a challenge in depression, as well as how to bring both of those back to balance.

Thank you for reading and please know that it is possible to make it back to healthy, balanced life.