Depression Five: Grief

Loss is a major cause of depression and almost any kind of loss can bring it on depending on its perceived value. For example, you become depressed when a treasured figurine that your now passed away mother gave you breaks. It may feel as though another link to your mother has been broken. Your depression may be about the loss of a treasured relationship and all the unrealized love that can never be realized. Your depression may be the unrecognized grief about that relationship. If you recognized the sadness at the loss of love and opportunity for love and grieved it, your depression would depart.  Years ago I met a woman who had lost her husband from a car accident. He was killed at a certain stop light she passed every day to and from work. She never grieved, never cried but went to work passing that same stop light for years. Her depression was caused by her unexpressed grief. Had she cried and allowed herself to feel the pain of her loss her depression would have lifted. As it was she suffered much more pain than if she had faced and grieved the pain of loosing her husband. Depression can be lifted by allowing ourselves to face and express our grief. Then life can go on and joy can return.