Is depression caused by suppressed anger?

I have read alot since I started the Lexapro thread,I read the deppression thread.I thank all the folks on this site for weighing in on the subject.I have noticed in reading posts on this forum and others,alot of people go through alot of depression(myself included at times,but not so bad I can't come out of it)I especially thank Sweet Erika who had responded with some slapped back into reality information.I can't remember who but the mood gym came up,letme tell you it is a cognitive therapy course you take online.I did some studying in this mood gym with my wife,after the first section,I think it is more anger,that causes my wifes affliction.I researched more and found that anger causes people to go into depression,and how you deal with the anger can cause long term or short term depression.I haven't figured it all out yet,but my wife is doing better and I hope I am on to something.I don't have a lot of education,but owning a couple of succesful business ventures I have learned about people.I just wonder how y'all think on this matter?Am I going crazy trying to figure this out(with pink floyd in the background singing,"the lunatic is in the grass")LOL.Weigh in let me know what you think?

My depression and general anxiety is caused by anger.

I'm angry at my parents for abandoning and abusing me and this anger causes guilt and the abandonment issues cause distrust and anxiety.

My doctor's explained it using a computer analogy... my basic programming has a flaw (this guilt and feelings of abandonment)... and I'm supposed to re-write it. Tough work... not quite sure how I'm going to do it yet. I guess just keeping on going to therapy.

Thanks Sky,My wife is dealing with the same issue(with no meds,well the shrink gave her ativan in a small dose if the anxiety goes off the scale)I am sorry to hear that you were abused as a child,mywife went through a bad childhood too.
I hope you the best in your therapy,In reading the mood gym with my wife I came to the realization that changing those negative thoughts to positive is very tough when you are in the habit of having those negative thoughts.

Well it wasn't like sexual abuse or extreme physical abuse.... I feel hesitant to group myself in with those same people... like my piddly little emotional abuse can't compare to some of the real horrors.

But... we all need help, all the same.

Good luck with your wife as well. It's a hard road, that much I know, but I know that with support (like my fiance and you for your wife) and medical help it can get better.

yes you will be in our prayers,and it can be overcome

First, Skyy, good for you for working on your depression in therapy. A lot of people don't get that far - it takes a lot of guts to face that stuff! And also, abuse is abuse. If you experienced your parents' treatment of you as abuse, that is every bit as valid and painful an experience as someone who's had a more "graphic" trauma.

Pupper - I think that first of all, anything you read on a website about ANYTHING ought to be confirmed through other sources or just taken as one individual's experience. People here can shed some insights, and that's great, but it's a porn board after all, and even if anyone does claim any expertise beyond their own experience, you'd have no way of knowing that that person was representing him or herself accurately.

I think depression is a very complex disorder and its causes are many. For some people, it appears that depression is caused genetically. There are many family histories that present a compelling case for the heritability of depression. For some people, especially women, depression can be caused by hormonal shifts, such as women who have especially bad PMS or post-partum depression. For some people, it appears that diet or other substance intake may play a role, although that gets complicated because being depressed may screw up your eating habits. And for some people, depression can be linked to experience factors like trauma or neglect, either in childhood or adulthood. For most people, it is my belief that their depression has more than one cause, which is why medication coupled with insight-based ("talk") therapy seems to be pretty effective for a lot of people.

In my own experience, I had some childhood trauma and some genetic predisposition that led me to develop mild to moderate depression, which was particularly bad during early adolescence. When I finally got therapy, in college, I did discover that once I worked through the top layer of depression, I found this vast well of rage underneath it. That's probably not too uncommon, especially in people whose depression is more because of "nurture" or experience-based causes than biological ones.

I don't doubt that an online course may be helpful for your wife, especially as a first step, but it may also be helpful for her to seek out a professional who is experienced in working with people with depression. From the little that you've said here, it sounds like a counselor who takes a cognitive behavioral approach might be particularly suited to her needs. Even if therapy per se isn't the best choice for her, a professional social worker or psychologist might at least be a good resource for an evaluation and some suggestions of good books or methods to try. Most are willing to see you both together, if that's helpful. If finances are a problem, it's often possible to find free or sliding-scale care - typing "free therapy" and your city name into a search engine can be a good place to start.

Good luck to you both. Depression can be a difficult issue to deal with, but it can also be quite treatable. Your support makes a big difference.

Thanks or your input Revolution.You are correct,the internet is full of opinions,You must read all you can and glean what you can.What works for some doesn't work for others.Even though this is a porn site I feel that the feedback I have seenhas ben very insightful,the people here are genuine,and that is good.I feel that correct diet,exercise,and talking about the situation helps more that pills.Pills mask the problem they do not fix it.I am just trying to understand for my wifes sake as I have not experienced anything that I could not snap out of in a timely manner.

Serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Schmeritonin reuptake inhibitors. I have in on the highest authority that depression is really caused by infestation by alien spirits who were brought to earth and murdered by a Galactic Overlord some 75 million years ago.

Ahhh,If were only that easy

Nope my depression was initally caused by the death of a close friend. Nowadays anything can set me off though.

I have heard several time that depression is anger turned inwards. I am angry because I feel cheated out of a lot of my child hood due to my mother's illness and her dependence on me. That has manifested itself as depression at some points in my life. I'm currently with a therapist to learn to deal with everything that happened.

BTW, don't listen to Pink Floyd when dealing with the depression. I did that back in high school and it turned me into a total basketcase!

Undomiel said:

Nope my depression was initally caused by the death of a close friend. Nowadays anything can set me off though.

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Could it be that you may be angry that your friend was taken and you weren't? Or angry that they left you?

Just saying is all.... I mean, I know I've felt that way about death in my life. Please don't take any offense. I'm seriously not intending any.

Sky,you took the words right out of my mouth.

dollface007 said:

BTW, don't listen to Pink Floyd when dealing with the depression. I did that back in high school and it turned me into a total basketcase!

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Doll,I had to add some humor(albiet sic)into a depression thread,although I do listen to that type as well as others.

my brother and his wife believe that a lot of our ailments are caused by anger or supressed anger. I think there is some truth to that belief.

The first time I had depression was while I was in High School - I think it was from trying to find one big solution to lots of little problems that built up to the worst one... Yeah... maybe there was some repressed anger there at my father... but I certainly didn't recognize it as such at the time.

The one about 10 years ago was brough on from being out of work longer than I had ever been since I started working full time (more than 2 years when the average before that was 4 months) plus some other problems. That time was not caused by anger but by despair and loss of self-confidence.

The most recent one was brough on by frustration (frustration can be a type of anger I guess) about my medical condition of several types and by the illnesses themselves (including Sleep apnea and ideopathic urticaria with angio-edema - transaltion:Hives of unknown cause with large welts) that I was powerless to change even though I had gone to lots of doctors. I did get enough treatment to remove the illness generated depression from lack of sleep (due to sleep apnea) - but I am still frustrated by the urticaria.

The fact that my current job is not very mentally challenging or rewarding also doesn't help.

In my opinion, anger is only one of several causes of depression. Illness such as sleep apnea, PLMS (Restless leg), Insomnia, etc. can cause clinical depression (low levels of seretonin, or other neurotransmitter imbalances)from lack of restful sleep even though there are no other triggering causes for the depression.

I'm not sure if it is always caused by anger. But certainly it is, sometimes.

Sometimes what does feel like the cause of my depression is anger at myself for not being good enough. Not pretty enough, not smart enough, not how I should be. Also, I think self-anger is may what motivate some of my self harmful behavior.

Depression is caused by bad economics, Bonnie & Clyde had solved that problem in the 1930's for their depression.

And when Bonnie and Clyde got to the point where they got help,they were laying in the morgue

pupper said:

And when Bonnie and Clyde got to the point where they got help,they were laying in the morgue

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It did cure the depression problem they were in.

Yes it did cure their depression,but I bet in reality they were angry for having been caught,too bad they did not seek therapy sooner.

doesn't have to be from a long time ago...

i'm glad that people are posting about how childhood stuff has affected them and that anger/frustration/rage from neglect and abuse can shape the way people deal with issues at older ages. i'd just like to add another perspective on this.

for myself, i had some pretty shitty things happen when i was younger with an abusive father and i think it definitely affected the way i coped with tough situations. right out of college i started living with my girlfriend and sunk into the worst depression of my life. i was suicidal, wreaking havoc on my relationship and putting my s/o into an impossible situation of being my sole provider of happiness. sexual frustrations (lack of sex/love) would set me off into feeling extremely angry and i would internalize and blame myself for it. "if i were in better shape", "if i were more attractive", "if i wasn't f-d up from my childhood", etc etc that got me really depressed. just want to highlight that it doesn't have to be anger from early stuff that can set off the motivation, but from things people are angry with now. i wish you and your wife the best of luck with treatment. i got myself out of that situation, lived on my own, went to counseling and i've recovered. it takes work, but the cognitive therapy is effective.

Absolut,I agree with you,it's anger for things now but the anger is spurned from the past hurts.When something happens to anger the depression prone person,they dwell over a bad situation,if they dwell long enough it turns into depression,and they have troulble snapping out of it due to anger and issues of how they think of the situation.Dealing with what goes on in the mind of these "depression prone" people is what helps them replacing negative thoughts with positive ones but like Sky said changing your thought patterns is difficult.

I have a form of Biological Depression since so many of my family has never had treatment for it I was born with really low levels of seritonan in the brain making mine seem worse than it really is.

(hope thats how ya spell the S word )

I don't think that ALL depression is caused by anger, no.

My s/o has to be on a SSRI because childhood depression (caused by abuse and neglect) caused permanent changes in his brain. We were told by his therapist very early on that most likely he will be on some form of meds for the rest of his life, and no amount of therapy is going to make his physical problem go away.

So in his case, depression has led to a lifetime of anger and anxiety- a catch 22 indeed as sometimes he gets deeply depressed all over again even with his meds and the therapist.

I tried to understand what his depression was and where it came from for so long... I don't believe that anyone can understand what it is to be depressed unless you have been there yourself.

Syb.