Depression has many potential causes including, loss, trauma, major stress, lack of social connection and substance abuse. It’s usually characterized by strong and sustained feelings of negativity, helplessness, hopelessness, restlessness, fatigue, loss of appetite, insomnia, sleeping too much or not enough, and sometimes, suicidal thoughts or actions. Not unlike anxiety, depression seems to have the power to provide itself energy. When these symptoms persist, they tend to become cyclical and reoccurring. Feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, and worthlessness seep in and you no longer care about your own well-being. Or chronic insomnia, fatigue, oversleeping, appetite loss and/or poor diet choices appear. In which case, you physically and mentally lack the energy and motivation to improve. It’s like watching yourself drown in a shallow pool and doing nothing about it.
It's now a widely accepted idea that many mental health disorders can be traced back to and rooted in our childhood. Traumatic experiences in the growing brain of a child may cause neurochemical and/or subconscious behavioural shifts during critical development stages. When put in sustained stressful environments, children often develop coping and survival mechanisms in order to feel safe. As the child ages, these mechanisms become engrained behaviours that often evolve into more harmful acts such as addiction, unhealthy relationships or self-harming. These children are never taught how to properly deal with the stresses of life and desperately grasp for and hide under the safety blankets that addictive and unhealthy behaviors often provide. This is where the act of speaking to someone is the most vital.
As my world began to crumble and turned to shit like a poorly crafted outhouse, and my historical tendency to self-medicate with alcohol began to show its ugly face, I took my first big step in the right direction by deciding to speak to a counselor. And, when I say it was a big step, it was a BIG step. Throughout my life, I kept my problems locked up tighter than Instagram model yoga pants. My overinflated ego and faulty vision of what it meant to be a man ensured that I was to speak to no one about my problems, lest I be persecuted with shame and embarrassment for being weak as fuck.
The official criteria for the diagnosis of a major depressive disorder, according to a consensus of mental health professionals, is as such. It states that a patient must show five or more of the aforementioned symptoms, with one of them being either a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure, lasting for more than two consecutive weeks. This can be found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition, or DSM-5. Read it before bed, you’ll fall asleep in no time. Or if you’re like me, you’ll diagnose yourself with fourteen other disorders and you won’t sleep ever again.
Similar to anxiety, the development of depression can also have genetic roots. When we are born, we’re given a set of genes called sodium-dependent serotonin transporter, or 5-HTT for short. We receive one from our mother and one from our father. Some studies have shown that if a person is born with one short gene and one long gene, they are 33% more susceptible to developing depression after a stressful life event. If you’re born with two short genes, your chances of developing a major depressive increase even more. If you get a lucky roll of the dice and you’re born with two long genes, you’re much less likely to develop a depression. Meaning, that pessimism, guilt, anger, sadness, and irritability that you feel when you’re depressed could be explained by your genes. Stop blaming yourself and blame your parents (just kidding.)
There are many environmental triggers for depression. In my experience, after years of self-reflection, analysis, counselling, memory recollection, and investigation, I finally began to understand that my depression was most likely genetic but triggered by stressful or upsetting situations in my life, and then perpetuated by unhealthy lifestyle choices. I learned that there were other people in my family that suffered from anxiety and depression. I was reminded of times in my childhood and teens when I exhibited depressive symptoms. But of course, nascence and denial always prevailed in those periods. My alcohol abuse was a thin veil shielding me from my inner pain. For those of you who think that it’s a viable option to pick up the bottle to deal with your unfulfilled life, these next few paragraphs are especially for you.
“One drink is too many for me, and a thousand not enough.” – Brendan Behan.
Alcohol and drug abuse can be common causes as well as effects of a depressive disorder. When you partake in alcohol and drugs on a regular basis, you’re essentially poisoning yourself. Your brain is forced to try and fight to sustain homeostasis. Prolonged and frequent use of these substances can cause neurochemical changes in the brain. This can lead to surpluses or deficits of important neurochemicals. Your brain operates best when these chemicals are circulated at a moderate level. When it experiences continual periods of overloading or underloading, it slowly begins to deteriorate. Just like with anxiety, your hippocampus, the memory and emotion center of the brain, can start to shrink. Cells die off and aren’t regenerated without conscious effort and drastic lifestyle improvements. This can result in memory loss and if continued, can lead to alcohol-induced depression. As a person who is well acquainted with the ugly duo of alcohol and depression, I can tell you that it’s like the snake eating its own tail. You drink to block out the depression and you get depression from drinking. Take a guess at where that’s gonna lead you.
Let’s take a trip inside your body when tainted by alcohol. Down the hatch go a few shots of tequila, one after another. As the horrid liquor settles in your stomach, it gets absorbed and sent to your liver for processing. After the alcohol is metabolized by the liver, it makes its way into the bloodstream. Those seemingly harmless and fun-inducing shots of Mexican devil juice eventually reach the brain and, depending on your relationship with alcohol, this is where the party starts or ends. The alcohol now begins to bind to a neurotransmitter called Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid, or GABA, which is responsible for energy levels and giving a sense of calm when overexcited. The GABA levels in the brain increase, giving you the semi-sedated and relaxed demeanor, as well as the dead-fish look on your face as you and your buddy dare each other to eat Tide Pods or jump off a balcony. At the same time, the alcohol has also bound to and suppressed another neurotransmitter that increases brain activity and energy levels called Glutamate. This is why you are more than happy to slump on the couch and laugh hysterically at farts and Spongebob episodes like a four-year-old child. To top it all off, alcohol intensifies the release of Dopamine, also known as the “feel-good” chemical. That might explain the loosened inhibitions and the bright idea to send less than flattering dick pics to women who definitely don’t want to see your dick, bro.
Now, this all sounds like a lot of harmless fun, and it can be in moderation. But if you’re predisposed to alcoholism or already suffer from depression, you might just be prying open the shark’s mouth and hopping in before it even thought of eating you. When alcohol consumption becomes excessive and problematic, things can go downhill quick. The more you drink, the higher your tolerance usually becomes. Soon, those five beers that used to get you plastered, now do nothing. Your intake increases and so does the negative effect of the alcohol on your brain and body. You might find yourself becoming more dependent on the drink to help you feel good. This is because your brain begins to realize that guzzling booze means a big ol’ shot of Dopamine too. And, when alcohol becomes the only place where you can seek this neurochemical, it becomes your medicine. As time passes, that Dopamine dump peaks and you no longer receive that good feeling as you once did. Sadly, you’ve already become entrapped by your alcohol dependence and you continually chase that Dopamine Dragon, but to no avail.
It’s a common theme in depressed people to use alcohol and other drugs as a kind of medicine to forget about their troubles or to block out painful memories. Basically, these substances have given your ailing brain a short-term solution to feeling depressed. Once the brain understands this, it wants more. So, instead of working out the core issues of what’s causing your depression, you grasp for the bottle and try to forget that anything is wrong. But, as I’m sure you already know, this is only a temporary reprieve and soon enough you wake up with a terrible headache and those problems are still there, waiting for you like your girlfriend was when you blacked out at the party and didn’t make it home the night before. Abusing alcohol and some drugs to hide depression is like putting a band-aid on a severed leg and pretending that nothing happened. Soon that leg, or lack thereof, is going to fester and become septic and gangrenous, just like the negative thought patterns in your depressive brain. Your stinky leg infection will only spread, and that band-aid will fall off and flutter to the ground, forgotten and useless.
What you put in your body will determine the health of your brain. Now, it would be disingenuous of me to claim that I don’t partake in some of the unhealthy facets of life. However, my thought processes have evolved to recognize whether I’m partaking out of temporary enjoyment in a healthy and moderated manner, or am I overindulging in an attempt to cover up newfound issues instead of confronting them. Coping mechanisms are comfortable and reliable and are always easier than actually dealing with your problems. It can be a quick descent from social user to full-blown alcoholism if you’re not cognizant of your actions and tendencies.
Although you may be in a state of searing mental pain and you’ve been dampened and flooded by bursting dark clouds, your smouldering embers of strength lay dormant, awaiting a gentle breeze of confidence to light your fire once more. A single spark creates the greatest wildfires of unmatched ferocity. If you can survive the pain that depression brings each day, then you can survive the hard work that’s needed to heal the damage it’s caused. Embrace your pain and struggles and look at them as the fuel you need to get your fire burning again.