Why Does Depression Occur?

Depression is not a weakness or punishment. Many things can cause it. Some people can pinpoint a single trigger event, while others experience a variety of events and feelings related to their depression. Still others become depressed for no apparent reason. It is not the depressed person's fault that he or she is depressed, nor is it a weakness.

Depression may be an inherited condition for some people. One may have close relatives who also have suffered from depression. Depression can begin in the brain where messages about moving, thinking, and feeling are relayed by electrical and chemical signals in the nerve cells. Research has shown that people with depression may have different patterns of signals or different amounts of certain chemicals that result in some messages not being delivered between nerve cells. Chemical changes in the brain can be responsible for depression. Stress may trigger chemical changes in some people. Researchers are continuing to discover more about why chemical changes occur and how they contribute to symptoms of depression.

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