Background Depression Is A Condition Of 70% Of The Population

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

"British Scientists" recently conducted a sociological study, which showed that about 70% of the population of large cities live in a state of latent background depression

Most likely, this figure is slightly overestimated, but sociologists can be believed that the number of people who are in melancholy, blues and spleen is really great.

People suffering from background depression may periodically experience uplifting or even joy, but these are only temporary emotional outbursts, moreover, most often caused by a chance meeting or an unexpected event. At the same time, their usual, "background state" can be called just depression: they constantly wake up with a bad mood, eat and take a shower without any joy, and then go to work in a state of melancholy …

Another way to escape from the blues is to try to add some "spicy holidays" to the insipid everyday life. Most often, these holidays are associated with the consumption of alcohol, be it ritual Friday gatherings or spontaneous visits to clubs. The problem is that gradually all these "holidays" turn into a series of everyday rituals and seem to merge with the general depressive background of a person's mood.

The presence of background depression in a person becomes especially noticeable if we take out of the brackets all the usual ways for him to artificially maintain himself in a cheerful or active mood. Below we describe these self-organizing techniques of a depressed person.

Working trance state

Work sometimes distracts from the monotonous everyday life and the melancholy associated with it, bringing both positive and sharply negative emotions. Even psychological stress, conflicts or fear of failure can bring a person out of depression at least for a while. Having a job contributes to the forced entry into contact with other people, and any communication, even not very pleasant, somehow stirs up our soul.

A kind of "professional trance", when a person enters a special altered state of consciousness, automatically performing his usual work, is a great salvation for people who lose the joy of life. A person can be put into a trance state by both dull mechanical work and some completely intellectual activity - it is important that it be familiar and does not require excessive reflection.

Lack of work can have a detrimental effect on people's well-being. So many people note in themselves the presence of the so-called "New Year's depression", in which they usually plunge during the long New Year's holidays. The "New Year's Eve mood" promised by the advertisement somehow does not come, New Year's Eve smoothly flows into a series of dull drunks and a painful hangover.

Quite widely known are the cases when people who have been actively working all their lives, having gone on a well-deserved rest, fall into severe depression.

The life-affirming power of family scandals

Contrary to popular belief that the reason for most family scandals is a lack of understanding between spouses, it is worth noting that quarrels most often occur not because someone chronically does not fulfill the requests of their partner or breaks off on him the anger and irritation accumulated on work.

Much more often scandals occur due to the fact that either one or both spouses are in a state of chronic melancholy, and they are semi-consciously looking for various ways to get out of their background depression. And such a publicly available and free tool as a scandal comes in handy here.

Some kind of relief from depression brings already a slight irritation that arises as a reaction to the usual bad habits of a spouse, or an insult for some, even not very significant, reason. And if the spouse snapped back in response to your monotonous grumbling and if there was a reason for a verbal skirmish, then there is a chance to arrange a full-fledged scandal, saturated with emotions and accompanied by bursts of adrenaline.

In general, scandals very much enliven a dull family life and allow you to get rid of melancholy and boredom. True, after them comes a severe psychological hangover.

Cultivating sexual addiction and cravings for bad habits

Many have come across in life the so-called "Don Juan" or simply - "womanizer" who, out of an excess of love for life and because of what special social excitement, make numerous contacts with girls. There are also loving girls who just need male attention. Both those and others flirt and have romances from an excess of vital energy, curiosity and lust for life.

But very often people get into endless love relationships not at all from an excess of vitality, but on the contrary - “from poverty”: because they are simply sad and afraid to be alone with their background depression.

Thus, it can be assumed that some forms of Don Juanism are a manifestation of psychological dependence. And getting into a series of novels of the same type can be caused not only by the fact that a person is at the mercy of some "bad game" or "destructive social scenario" - but by the fact that he or she suffers from persistent background depression.

Love intrigues for a while distract from dull everyday life, but gradually they themselves degenerate into something dull and routine.

A lot has already been said about the tendency of some people to "go into a binge from loneliness" and other manifestations of domestic drunkenness, as well as club alcoholism, as well as about drugs and gambling addiction, therefore, in this article, these bad habits (ways to escape depression) we will not consider.

The main causes of background depression

Let's try to briefly list the main causes of background depression in a person.

Loss of meaning in life or disappointment in dreams

First of all, background depression is associated with a loss of meaningfulness in life or disappointment in childhood and adolescent dreams, as well as ideas about the structure of the world. Erich Fromm and his followers wrote a lot and well about this, so we will not develop this topic now.

Loss of faith in yourself and disappointment in your ideals

Often, background depression occurs due to the fact that in the course of a series of events, past ambitions break down and self-confidence disappears. Low or too realistic self-esteem is formed. We can say that a typical representative of the community of people suffering from background depression is one who can no longer afford to be the “first guy in the village”, and the role of a member of the “urban crowd” does not suit him.

Striving for simplicity and "living for yourself."

Some people get depressed because the world and social life are too complicated and they are just too lazy to wade through all these difficulties. They proclaim the slogan “you need to live easier”, but naturally, without much effort, they still fail to maintain themselves in a “positive” state. Therefore, their "simple world" begins to fade, and then comes depression, because to maintain it, you do not need to strain and make efforts.

The strategy "live for oneself" leads to similar results: if a person becomes bored with delving into the intricacies of human relations, he gradually finds himself alone. So people who call for the positive, saying that the main thing is “not to create unnecessary stress” and “not to aggravate the situation,” thereby embark on the path to a gloomy everyday depression.

The simplification of life and the primitivization of feelings leads to a shallowing of the soul, and, as you know, in shallow water the waves are stronger, so lovers of simple positives are very simply covered with a wave of household depression.

Too much abuse of sullen cynicism, without an admixture of irony

Many people mistake cynicism for a manifestation of intellectual maturity and worldly wisdom, confusing it with insight and understanding of "how this life really works." Cynicism without an admixture of irony and self-irony is a very harmful intellectual entertainment, it devalues and deprives everything of meaning.

It is significant that people who resort to cynicism only as a special form of humor are much less likely to find themselves in a state of background depression.

The tendency to search for oneself within one's psyche

There is a very widespread belief that you can understand yourself only by listening to the rustles of your soul, and you can find your calling by going through psychological tests that will tell you what you are predisposed to. It is even difficult for us to imagine how many people got lost in their “rich inner world”, which, in fact, turned out to be not so interesting.

It is worth noting that both introverts and extroverts suffer from this scourge. It's just that the former are lost for a long time, going into the dense jungle of their psyche, and the latter are mistaken somewhere at its edge, not for long, but with boring repetition. And those, and others, in the end, do not find themselves, but they meet with melancholy and depression.

The state of energy depletion due to the suppression of various social and existential fears

Some are afraid of public speaking, others are afraid of making a ridiculous mistake and being branded as uneducated or stupid, someone is afraid to make the wrong choice. Very often these fears are ridiculous and inspired by horror stories from childhood or class prejudices. But in the end, these fears lead to depletion of mental strength, the person loses the ability to self-mobilize and falls into depression.

The magical power of the family or social scenario has dried up

Sometimes people fall into a state of depression in a situation when they reach the end of their family or social scenario, and they do not have the skills to build their own life strategy.

So many stories that capture our imagination end with the words: "since then they have lived happily ever after", but for many it is from this moment that melancholy begins. Previously, life was filled with dramatic events and seethed with emotions, but now monotonous everyday life has come and, as a result, melancholy and spleen.

How to get rid of background depression

The requirement to limit the size of the article allows us to show signs of laziness and focus on the most important thing, that is, how to get rid of background depression. Therefore, now we will list these methods through bulite points, and we will analyze them in detail in the next article.

Means for removing a person from background depression:

Multilevel reframing: restoring the meaningfulness of life at different levels

• Not the diagnosis of complexes and the consequences of psychological stress, but the identification of "sleeping abilities" and abandoned undertakings.
• Identification of factors devouring psychic energy.
• Restoring a life trajectory and developing a life strategy.
• Clearing the basic channels of the influx of psychic energy: curiosity, social excitement, ambition, drives, "escape from fear" and "pursuit of the problem"
• Connection to "higher energy sources": creativity, mission, vocation.
• Getting rid of self-esteem imposed by other people, as well as turning it into one's own reflection: both on the interpersonal and on the social level.

It is worth noting that people suffering from background depression come to psychologists most often during periods when their "stable mental state" is disturbed by some unplanned dramatic event. It can be a divorce, a breakup with a loved one, loss of a job, betrayal of a spouse or wife, strong but unrequited love - in general, something that knocks them out of their familiar rut.

……….

Background depression can seem to people to be such a natural state that when they come to a psychologist, they try to come up with some other, often contrived, problem, which, in their opinion, is something more believable and worthy of greater respect.

S. As an illustration, I used a drawing by my sister - Goreva Elena