Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Why Do People With "Great Lives" Still Suffer From Depression?

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Why Do People With "Great Lives" Still Suffer From Depression? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:08
  Psych mom show. I wanted everybody to look at
• 0:13
  the description and subscribe. That is what I want you to do.
• 0:17
  Before I start talking because I have so many extra episodes and
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  it'll be awesome for you to have access to all of the paid
• 0:25
  episodes and also that really motivates me to keep on
• 0:29
  recording all these free episodes.
• 0:32
  So do that now and then we can move on to to our topic that's
• 0:38
  for today. On the docket is why the people
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  with good lives that seem like they ought to be happy.
• 0:46
  Why do those people suffer from depression sometimes?
• 0:49
  Right? So I got this question and my
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  Facebook page and somebody said why if somebody has a good life
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  with whatever they want you no family support a family, good
• 1:02
  job whatever. Why can those people be?
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  Dan, you know, working in my field, sometimes you you're not
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  sure what you know like how people even think about
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  depression or things like that anymore to me.
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  It's so obvious in my field that I work with.
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  So many people all the time that I have great lives and suffer
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  from depression. I'm great ostensibly from the
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  outside. I forget that that seemed idea
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  to many people is surprising or confusing.
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  So, I wanted to explain Lane why people do suffer from depression
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  and why it transcends, what sort of life, you, you seem to have
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  so like everything depression. And by the way, you could also
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  insert anxiety here or any anything borderline personality,
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  really any any issue at all PTSD, people understand more
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  PTSD comes from trauma. But in even with PTSD, there are
• 2:01
  genetic loading. So there's, you know, that are
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  going to make you more Are likely to get PTSD from any
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  trauma. So everything is nature and
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  nurture, everything is both nature, and nurture, you come
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  into this world with your DNA and that is coded for
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  predispositions to certain issues that your parents
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  struggled with, you know, your parents or the generation
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  before. But most often you don't really
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  have to go further than your parents to see why you may have
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  a genetic predisposition for certain things in.
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  Fact, the length of time that babies spend crying after they
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  get their heel prick to take their blood as a newborn baby in
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  the hospital predict whether they're going to be depressed at
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  age 18. That's a study that I read some
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  years ago that was very interesting.
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  Literally the baby comes out of the womb and is already
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  predisposed to cry a lot or not in response to the heel prick,
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  the needle. And if the ones who cry longer
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  and are less readily soothed are Likelier to be depressed later
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  on. They just have that genetic
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  loading for depression, and that there's really nothing that you
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  could do about that. So, environment is extremely
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  important to, but frequently the best environment, the world
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  cannot make up for what you're genetically predisposed to have.
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  So, if you have two depressed parents, let's say, and then
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  you're adopted a way into a family of extremely laid-back.
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  Loving nurturing. Cheering people.
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  There is still a chance that you're going to end up with
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  depression down the line because you are genetically predisposed
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  toward depression now because environment can have a
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  moderating influence. You are maybe less likely to
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  have depression and and or the depression would be less severe
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  than if you had remained in this.
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  Hypothetical situation being raised by two parents who are
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  both extremely depressed. So what happens, by the way,
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  most people are not adopted away.
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  We know a lot of our, we have a lot of our knowledge about
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  nature versus nurture and the relative importance of each from
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  twin studies where identical twins are adopted away into
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  different families. I actually just saw that.
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  There are interesting documentaries out now because
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  some of these studies were done in the 50s through 90s and they
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  were very unethical. And they the Twins were adopted
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  away on purpose and two different families and not ever
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  told that they had a twin. And the families were not told
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  that the baby they were He had an identical twin and this was
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  done for the purpose of these studies.
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  And for this body of research on nature versus nurture, which is
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  obviously very unethical, but it does not mean that important
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  research wasn't done. It shouldn't have been done.
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  Of course, people should have known that they had a twin,
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  right? But, you know, the data stands
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  and so we know a lot from those twin studies and from other
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  studies of babies and, and following them YouTube channel
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  research, Etc. So the point here is that
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  there's something called the diathesis-stress model of mental
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  illness. And it means that if you have a
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  genetic loading for a specific mental illness, you are likelier
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  to express that if you are in a stressful situation.
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  So for example, boot camp turns on the schizophrenia Gene in a
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  Out of men that had a genetic loading for schizophrenia.
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  And then they may not that may not have ever happened though.
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  It may not have come out unless they had a major stressor.
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  So there was a study I read years ago about that.
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  This was a lot of what we learned in grad school was the
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  relative importance of nature versus nurture.
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  So if you undergo an extremely stressful experience, you're
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  likely your to express your genes basically.
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  Turned on like you have a dormant depressive
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  predisposition but then if you undergo a massive stress that it
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  turns on. So a trauma can turn on the
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  depression gene or the anxiety gene or what have you.
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  So the reason that people who have supportive families and a
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  great job and they're real attractive and Wealthy like
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  movie stars, right? Movie stars kill themselves,
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  they have depression, Not all of them, obviously, some of them
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  and why people think that they are, you know, living the dream
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  because there are biological predispositions for depression.
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  Depression is an illness. You do not have the rights, you
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  know, neurotransmitters going on.
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  You don't have enough serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine in
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  the right balance in your brain. This is frequently due to
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  genetics, just coming from a depressed parent or, you know,
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  to depressed parents. Then also, Most people are not
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  adopted way, they're raised by those same depressed, parents,
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  and parents with depression, don't parent as well as Parents
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  Without depression and I could link you to things.
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  I've written about how depression impact parenting
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  doesn't mean everybody with depression is a bad parent.
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  It just means that you are teaching usually more negative
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  worldview because that's what you have, you know?
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  So that's why it's so important to get help if you are a parent
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  with depression. Both therapy and medication can
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  help. So, it's nature and nurture,
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  you're coming out with jeans for depression, and then you are
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  being parented by somebody with depression, who's then
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  implicitly training, you to view the world in a negative way.
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  And also depressed, parents, they do less of certain
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  important things when the child is in critical stages such as
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  mirroring, when the child, is a baby.
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  If you feel very apathetic and down, then when your baby
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  laughs. And smiles and Chatters instead
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  of laughing and smiling and making noises back, you just
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  don't do anything, you know. And and that that's upsetting to
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  the baby and kind of doesn't show the baby that they have any
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  agency in the world. It's like an example of the
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  still face experiment which is an analogue of Parental
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  depression, where the baby tries to talk and make noises, and the
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  parent is told not to respond at all and just have a still face
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  first. D s and this upsets the baby and
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  they don't do this to be cruel. But as to show what it does,
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  when a child does not get a healthy level of Parental
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  responsibilities and I could link you to the still face
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  experiment into something on that.
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  But the point here, is that you could have the best life in the
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  world, your your could have a loving spouse, you could have
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  great kids, you could be like, Rich, whatever but if Your brain
• 9:06
  is has a genetic wiring for depression, then you're going to
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  be depressed. Also hormonal changes, many
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  women have pmdd that you that is a genetic thing to premenstrual
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  dysphoric disorder. It's like no matter what they
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  do, no matter how great their life is, they're going to feel
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  like shit the week before their period.
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  I just talked about this in a different podcast.
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  What about hormonal changes in menopause?
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  That's pretty big. What about men with low
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  testosterone, if Testosterone goes down men and up.
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  Depressed, a lot of the time, it doesn't matter how wealthy and
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  successful they are, they will still be depressed if they have
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  low testosterone. What about childhood trauma?
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  You could have really no loading for depression at all, but if
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  you're abused throughout your childhood, that turns off
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  certain genes and turns on other ones and then you're in a
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  constant trauma, you know, induced State later on, You
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  release more cord. Has all the stress hormone as a
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  child and it rewires your brain. So that your hyper-vigilant and
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  anxious and depressed later in your life, some of these issues
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  can be ameliorated with treatments.
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  Some of them are harder to address.
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  So there are a million reasons that have nothing to do with
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  your external life that show why you're depressed.
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  And if you don't realize this, then you may blame things on
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  like your marriage. Your job or the fact that you're
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  not the weight you want to be or whatever.
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  But it's never just one thing, you know, it's usually a whole
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  bunch of things. I mean, it doesn't like so a lot
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  of people they get divorced and they're like, oh my depression
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  was due to my bad marriage. Now it's all going to be better.
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  I mean like that never happens. Really, like if you are somebody
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  who struggles with depression, your depression is going to come
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  back, you know? And at that point where it comes
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  back, you're going to be like, oh, I guess it wasn't due to my
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  Marriage. Now, that doesn't mean your
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  marriage wasn't bad. It doesn't mean that you
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  shouldn't have divorce, but what it means is that there's usually
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  not a one. One variable Magic Bullet
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  solution to depression. Depression is a multivariate.
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  A deep-seated illness, you know, just like getting into a better
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  marriage. Is it going to cure your
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  diabetes? This is not going to cure your
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  cancer. It's not going to cure your
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  depression. You know when women have
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  atypical depression, they're more responsive to pleasurable
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  events but eventually they go back.
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  To a baseline of depression. So you know, in my situation I
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  have been divorced and then I remarried and I still struggle
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  with depression, you know, it's nothing my husband did or didn't
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  do you know? It's it's how I am and there are
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  ways to treat it, there are certainly ways to try to keep
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  yourself in a good place. Whether that's therapy
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  medication. Exercise meditation looks
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  different for everybody but it's never just like finding the
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  right person or finding the The right job or, you know, or
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  moving like people try to move, they're like, oh, I'm just not
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  happy because I live in a city. I'm going to live in the
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  country. Well then guess what you're
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  depressed in the country to if you don't see that it's a deeper
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  issue. And if it's unresolved childhood
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  trauma, you got to work on that in therapy.
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  You know, it's really important to understand that if you do not
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  process and work through your unresolved childhood issues that
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  that's going to keep and perpetuate.
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  Depression. So there are a lot of causes of
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  depression and there are a lot of reasons that people try to
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  obviously think that there could be a Magic Bullet that's really
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  a nice thing to think it's a fantasy though you know and it
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  doesn't really help because then you're just going to keep on
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  moving or changing jobs or changing spouses or something.
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  If you don't realize that the issue is more internal and
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  there's a book about meditation. Ation wherever you go.
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  There you are. I could link you to that.
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  And that really is a one-sentence summary of why it
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  doesn't work to try to just change your job and then
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  everything's going to be better. I mean, certainly people could
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  find careers that are better suited to them and so forth, but
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  it's never just one reason why a person has clinical, depression,
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  you know, it's usually nature and nurture combined with
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  whatever stressors are being undergone in the moment.
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  And even if there are no, real stressors to speak of in a
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  person's life, Life, they can still suffer from the illness of
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  depression, which is a brain illness, right?
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  It is a brain illness, seasonal, depression, pmdd
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  hormone-related, depression, all of these things they just turn
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  on sometimes you're okay, okay, okay.
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  And then you're not and there wasn't really a trigger, that's
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  external, it's hormonal, biological seasonal, I mean
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  there could be so many reasons. So hopefully this gave you View.
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  A little bit of an understanding about this difficult topic to
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  understand. And thank you so much for
• 14:12
  listening and listen to this one again, you know, and if there
• 14:14
  were things that you didn't understand, write them down,
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  Google them, Google more about depression, you could ask me to
• 14:21
  about different sorts of questions that you have when you
• 14:24
  listen to my podcast, things that you'd like me to expand on,
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  but for now, I hope that this one gave you a little bit of a
• 14:31
  broader understanding about the confusing topic.
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  Topic of why people with ostensibly great lives.
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  Still suffer from depression.