Is It Always a Chemical Imbalance When You're Depressed?

Dear A. B. Curtiss

I also knew that people can brainswitch from being depressed to being joyful again. However, I have fallen in the trap of depression. I feel like I am blinded by all my thoughts.. I just want to ask you what do you think of my situation. Because right now I believe I’m still in the state of "depression" but I’m doing something about it. Thank you for the exercises on your website.

There are things that happened to me in the past week I think brought me to this kind of situation and now I want to "get back" again and forget about everything in the past. I feel like I can't because the things that happened in the past are still unresolved/understood.. now I’m confused. It could be because I haven’t gotten over the past or is it chemical imbalance? Im soo confused..

Thanks by the way for your website it really helped.. waiting for your reply.. thank you so much. K. M.

Dear K. M.

It's always a chemical imbalance when you are depressed. The chemical imbalance is caused by anxious thinking which triggers the fight or flight response and dumps stress chemicals in your brain. Stop thinking the anxious thoughts and the brain will stop producing stress chemicals that make you depressed.

You say there are things that happened in the past that you don’t understand. If you were not protected and loved by your parents or guardians, and suffered abuse or abandonment you will have a deep and repressed fear about it. This deep fear will also be a deep anger. Deep anger is anxiety producing and sooner or later turns into depression. This is the bad news.

The good news is that you don’t have to go back and rehash what or what did not happen. You can start right where you are and start noticing the things in your daily life that cause fear. If you are earnest in uncovering your repressed fear, you can let it finish. That’s all you can do with any fear. Notice it, and then let it finish. It is very painful to do this so most people quickly distract themselves from this pain by blaming people or circumstances around them. To get in touch with repressed fear read Chapter 10 in Depression is a Choice. If you don’t have the book, let me know and I can email the chapter.A.B. Curtiss

Dear A. B.

Thank you so much for replying..

But I’ve got a last question. It’s about chemical imbalance. Is it possible to occur when a person kept on thinking about negative things (you know because she's trying to understand something from her past that really affected her personality) and no one is there to listen, nor to correct her feelings and thoughts, so most likely it just gotten worst and worst... so is chemical imbalance possible to occur there? Thank you again.. this will be my last question

Dear K. M.

The self-focus that you get into while dwelling on the past with regret, fear, anxiety will, soon or later, turn into depression due to all the negative and anxious thinking that causes stress chemicals to be produced in your brain. A. B. Curtiss

Dear A. B.

Ok I have a question again. Actually I am not abused or hurt by someone. In fact I’m the one who is the bad one. I pushed people away and ended up being alone. I think that's the reason why I became depressed because I was left alone. I've got no friends, I’m not the approachable type of person and it gave me a negative impact. That's why I’m trying to understand, change, and accept the past. HOWEVER in my reflecting mode I slip to depression... and now I don't know. A part of me knows I can get over and forget about it, but a part of me doesn't want to because I don’t want to move on unless I understand the pattern in my depression. It’s hard to just move on and forget about it if you don't understand something.

Oh by the way, do you believe in the brainswitching thing? Before I wonder why people became depressed because I know that people can just forget about their problems so I wondered why they got stuck in them. But unfortunately then I became one of the victims.

Dear K. M.

It human nature for us to want friends and companionship with someone. If you are not good at making friends, you can improve your skills. Read a book by Dale Carnegie called “How to Make Friends and Influence People. Making friends is not a skill you are born with. If your parents didn’t help you to become sociable, you will have to learn those skills as an adult. Many people are lonely just because they didn’t develop the skill of how to make themselves likable and approachable to others.

The other thing that can keep you from being approachable is a lot of repressed fear. Even though you might not be aware of being a fearful person, it is very noticeable to others that you are not the warm and fuzzy type that it is comfortable to pal around with. Again, you can change this as well. You can get in touch with your repressed fear.

Any kind of self-focus, thinking about your faults, your failed past, former abuse and sad circumstances will sooner or later turn into depression. Even self-focus that starts out positive, after a while will turn on you and become negative. That is because your brain is a defense mechanism whose whole purpose is to keep you safe by looking for the negative, for possible problems, looking in dark places, etc. Self-focus should be avoided in favor of more productive and more outer-directed thinking . A. B. Curtiss