A recent article that I read, said that “depression is distinguished from normal sadness by proneness to exaggerated feelings of guilt or self-blame.” Recently, I also read a book that claimed that depression is caused by anger which is pointed inwards towards oneself.
Looking to my own times of feeling depressed, I think by putting these two ideas together, really help explain why we get depressed, and in doing so, help us get out of our depressive episodes.
Specifically, when we feel guilty or create feelings of self-blame, we naturally become angry at our self – thus depression.
For me, I have noticed that I get depressed at night when I have nothing to do, and feel that I am wasting time, which creates self-blame since I have unrealistic expectations about accomplishments. It was only recently, that I realized that I had a hard time relaxing due this same guilt from wasting time.
However, I was able to reverse my last episode a few nights back by simply stopping the self-blame, and stopping the anger towards myself.
So, assuming the depression is not a chemical imbalance, hopefully this method can help you nip depression in the bud!