Why's everyone so depressed?

[EyeofOdin]

It seems as if there has been a huge growth of people diagnosed with depression in the 20th and 21st centuries, but why? Why are people so depressed now? Shouldn't we be happier now, with generally better living conditions and better wealth than we had in the 18th and 19th centuries?

I'm no psychologist, but I have some theories as to why all of a sudden 1 out of every 2 women are depressed and 1 out of every 3 men are depressed.

1) It's simply being noticed now. We've always been depressed and always had these mental diseases such as general, mild depression to full blown, severe schizophrenia. Our science has developed so that we can recognize the symptoms and treat them.

2) We're a medicated society. Someone goes through a breakup, can't get over that person, and claims to be depressed and that's forever someone diagnosed with mild to moderate depression if he or she goes to a doctor and gets medicated to replace the grieving process.

3) We've evolved that way. Because we live in such a relatively sheltered and protected world, we don't have the evolutionary pressures to keep bad genes from passing on and good genes to prosper. In most industrial countries, monogamy is the norm, so good genes are very limited in their ability to be passed from parent to child and bad genes have the opportunity pass to the next generation, whether they be genes causing mental illness, eyes that see better in the dark, blindness, cancer and a whole host of signs of either good or bad health. It's a free for all in the world of genetics.

4) We're living outside of our natural state.

Think about it. We've lived for a very very long time as tribes. Europeans alone for over 40,000 years, and before we were just humans, 1.9 million years. We're programmed for these simple, hunting-gathering societies where we're a) attuned with nature and b) forced to be in good relationship with each other (It's very difficult to gossip when the person you're gossiping about is in the next tent and can hear everything you're saying. Plus, if a tribe wasn't in unison with each other, they died. Simply put).

Now, we're taken out of that natural state. We're not connected with our families like we used to be. We move very far away from them and only see and talk to them through the internet, phones and other forms of technology, then make up for lost time once or twice a year. We're not connected with Nature like we used to be. Sure, our fashion changes, but our routine doesn't. Everything stays the same, even though we have an instinct inside of us to stay inside when it's cold or rainy, and to go outside when it's warm and bright (any restaurant will attest to this. Business is dead in winter). Some of us live our lives being paranoid that everyone is talking about us because we're not forced in the same small area to settle conflicts.

I would like to hear the opinion of someone who's actually educated psychology

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Well, I can say that my depression isn't caused by not living as a hunter/gatherer in a tent with a tribe out in the wilderness. Not my choice of lifestyle.

 

[LuisDantas]

My take on it:

1. We lost a lot of delusional certainty in the 19th century and early 20th. "Western" society found itself at the point where it could no longer afford not to notice the price it had to pay to pursue its most confortable goals, and it turned out to be utterly unprepared to pay it. The self-important, uncompromising, expansionist and anti-intellectual mindset that was (and is still) so natural for so many people has been consistently found out lacking.

It is not only a matter of facing a loss of perceived importance; generally speaking, we are still pursuing goals that we know to be futile or destructive, but lack the self-confidence to even try to change course.

2. Reliance on social reinforcement and drug use as opposed to actual reflection.

3. Social pressure. Societies are generally simply too unwise for their own good. Instead of helping each other, people all too often end up scaring or deluding each other.

4. Competitive pressures. Up until maybe the 1950s people had a fairly clear idea of their lot in life and what to expect of their future. These days whole careers are born almost overnight, and job opportunities and their worth depend on a lot of factors hard to predict or to control (such as the competition from China and India).

5. Lack of necessary revision of family and social expectations. People still generally expect people to either marry or at least hook up and have at least one child, despite a clear and widening general lack of proper structure.

Raising children has IMO always been a group effort, but the last few decades have made it considerably harder. Between incredibly heightened cost of life (in no small part due to raised consumerism), ever-increasing reliance of drugs legal or otherwise, at least two generations raised in deluded views of their own worth and capacity, heightened gulfs among social classes (and resulting isolationism and lack of mutual trust), and two or three generations getting used to couples simply not really being expected to last or to even keep caring for each other, people are doing their best to avoid panicking outright while trying their hand at a serious responsibility that they usually are simply not truly up to. And it is happening everywhere at the same time, so the panick is probably understandable if not justified.

6. Demographical pressure. As consumer demands and population levels both keep raising, it is simply common sense to expect quality of life to steadily decline until a correction course is at least attempted.

 

[Farrukh]

Well, I can say that my depression isn't caused by not living as a hunter/gatherer in a tent with a tribe out in the wilderness. Not my choice of lifestyle.

it is my personal opinion, i'm not sure if i'm right or wrong, I've observed that people who put all their efforts for success in this life, for getting each and everything, they get too much tension while waiting for the results of their efforts.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

I won't necessarily disagree with the OP, but I'll add my thoughts to this topic.

Here's some reasons why we notice depression more now over just a century or two ago:

1. Depression used to be considered a form of spiritual immaturity. In other words, if a certain person wasn't living "in the will of god", then depression was a demonic malady that could show itself. So people would hide their depression, for fear of being ousted by their spiritual peers.

2. Even after the enlightenment, depression still wasn't very well studied or understood. So most people would keep it to themselves. With more understanding and better treatments today, more people are open about their depression and seeking help.

3. I read an article on Cracked about how certain mental maladies actually served an evolutionary purpose in man's earlier history, but since societies and cultures have changed, they no longer serve their purpose, and now serve a something more negative than positive.

4. Times have changed. While it seems that science and technology have made great advances, society and culture hasn't. The world economy has tanked, war is on the rise, people are more anti-social, apathetic, and misanthropic, and the quality of life has generally gone downhill. Personal circumstances have gotten worse, and people are seeking help.

5. Over/mis-diagnosis. This one has to play a part in it. I think some mental conditions are over diagnosed or mis-diagnosed on a regular basis. No one wants to take responsibility for their own lives, run to a psychiatrist, and get on medicine just for not liking their current conditions. Which will lead me to my last point:

6. Over-medicated. Most people want quick fixes to their problems, and think that medicine is always the answer, and don't ever get to the bottom of what's really causing their problems, so they never really get better.