Early Deprivation: Can Early Deprivation Cause Someone To Suffer From Depression?

For quite some time now, someone might have suffered from depression. As a result of this, they can typically have a low mode, not be able to experience pleasure or be interested in doing a great deal.

Due to this, days, weeks, months and even years might have passed by but they won’t have been able to make the most of this time. In general, it can be as though they are on the outside looking in.

A Bleak Existence

Thanks to how disconnected and lifeless they generally feel, they might often wonder why they are alive. What can play a part in why this is something that they think about is that they can compare their life with others.

Then again, they could simply think about how much of their life has passed and how little motivation they have to change it and struggle to see a reason why they should be here. Or, they might have tried to change their life but have not been able to make much progress.

A Waste of time

So, they might have tried medication, different supplements, had cognitive behavioural therapy and exercised. In the beginning, what they tried, regardless of what it was, might have worked but they might have soon gone back to how they were before.

They might then have gotten their hopes up, only to experience an even greater sense of despair as time passed. If this is the case, they could believe that it is not possible for them to change how they experience life and that their life will always be this way.

External Feedback

Still, there could be at least one person in their life who tells them to keep going and not give up on themselves. Yet, if a small part of them doesn’t want to give up, another, bigger part of them might not be able to handle living in this way for much longer.

Naturally, if they have experienced life in this way for a very long time, it is to be expected that they will have been worn down and don’t have a strong need to be here. Right now, they could believe that it would take a miracle for them to change.

A New Direction

If they were able to take a step back and think about when they first started to experience life in this way, what might enter their mind is that they went through something very stressful. So, they could find that they experienced a breakup, lost a loved one or lost their job, for instance.

After this, they ended up going from someone who could somewhat embrace, if not fully embrace life, to someone who simply couldn’t embrace life. If they were able to remember how they felt during this time, they could find that they felt helpless and hopeless.

A Big Impact

Additionally, they may find that they went into an emotionally collapsed state and mentally disconnected from themselves. Their parasympathetic nervous system would have been activated and they would have become disembodied.

Therefore, part of them would have gone down and another part of them, their awareness, would have gone up. Furthermore, what took place for them at a mental, emotional and physical level is likely to have had an impact on their hormones and neurotransmitters and is likely to continue to do so.

The Big Picture

Taking this into account, if they have taken medication, tried different supplements, had cognitive behavioural therapy and exercised to try to change how they experience life and this hasn’t worked, this is not going to be much of a surprise. Each of these approaches will have been focused on the effects of what is going on for them but not the cause.

When it comes to medication, then, this is likely to have been aimed at changing what is going on in their brain and enhancing certain chemicals. This would have been based on the view that their inability to produce enough serotonin was causing them to be depressed.

The others

When it comes to the supplements that they used, some of these would have likely been aimed at increasing their serotonin levels. As for cognitive behavioural therapy, they may have been told that their ‘negative’ thoughts and beliefs were playing a big part in why they were depressed.

And, finally, exercise was probably also seen as a way for them to increase their feel-good brain chemicals and, thus, feel better about themselves. If they tried this and felt better for a while, it is likely to be because the chemicals that were released aided in repression and, thereby, prevented their conscious mind from being flooded by input from other areas of their brain.

At the root

What each of these approaches would have overlooked is the fact that they are likely to be carrying trauma and unless this is dealt with, they are unlikely to get to the root of the issue. It can seem strange as to why the common approach to depression is to overlook deeper issues and focus on symptoms but this can be seen as a consequence of trauma.

One thing that trauma does is uproot someone from their body and, so, one outcome, when a society is filled with people, on all levels, who are unknowingly in a traumatised state, is that there will generally be a very surface-level understanding and approach to mental and emotional issues. It’s then as though there is a collective and unconscious agreement not to go deeper in order to avoid opening Pandora’s Box.

Old Wounds

With this in mind, it will be essential for them to deal with the impact that their stressful situation had on them all those years ago. There is also the chance that what happened at this stage of their life unlocked pain that they experienced as a child or before but had to repress.

This may have been a stage of their life when one or both of their parents were emotionally unavailable and out of reach. Consequently, it would have been normal for them to feel helpless and hopeless and going into a collapsed and disconnected state would have been a defence against the pain that they were in, as they were helpless and hopeless at this stage of their life.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.

---

​If you feel this has been of value, please leave a comment, like or get in touch. And feel free to share this article.

• Join my Facebook Page.
• Follow me on Twitter.
• The books I have written.
• Consultations.

Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk