Depression … As a society are we too keen to have a label?
How many women have said: ‘No matter what I go to the doctor for, they recommend antidepressants’?
There is a time and a place for their use in certain circumstances, and they have saved some lives. Depression is over and under-diagnosed, over-medicated and under-scrutinised.
Antidepressants are problematic and overprescribed. Instead of correcting the biochemistry, they merely mask or, in worst-case scenarios, accentuate the problem, at times leading to suicidal incidences themselves.
Many background causes and outcomes are treated in this way, never recognising and acknowledging the real core issue or root cause.
Depression itself is a complicated diagnosis.
- Several imbalances of neurotransmitters have different expressions of what we call clinical Depression.
- Situational Depression is again different, with an event or circumstances leading to an inability to deal with life’s expectations and burdens being the underlying cause requiring attention. For young mums, it’s often ‘too much on their plate and insufficient support’.
- Hormonal imbalances will, if unaddressed, present as a depressed state, especially when untreated, as with Endo or PCOS. Forms of contraception are clinically proven to cause Depression in many individuals.
- Gut microbiome imbalances, excess sugar or alcohol intake and allergies can present with a depression-like state, sometimes causing hormonal and sleep disturbances. With 90% of a major neurotransmitter, Serotonin, being produced in the gut, is it not worth a look?
- Sleep issues: while adding to the problem, are generally not the root cause. The root cause will be the instigator of the sleep issues.
- Substance use: Can be part of the problem or the perceived solution as a self-medicator to the Depression or the underlying cause as a crutch or masking agent.
Ideally, you’re searching for your best long-term outcome.
Addressing the root cause gives you the optimum route forward!
