by Jules Lister

Created on: July 14, 2009

Anything, is the simple answer to this question, there are no hard and fast psychological rules that can tell you when a person may suddenly find themselves feeling this way. Of course there are well known ones such as bereavement, serious financial problems, constant abuse, victim of crime perhaps and so many others. Though these can lead to intense hopelessness, loneliness or even feelings of complete low self esteem that move us to depression, things can start from much more inconspicuous beginnings.

Those who will suffer this will find the journey can be started by the smallest of things, so insignificant at the time you don't even realise you are about to find yourself on this dark path.

Recently, just before writing this, I found myself in this land of dim hopes and it was started in what at the time was the most sublime manner. One evening after work as has happened many times before, we were having a few drinks and chatting as you do. There was no real topic of conversation and we meandered along as we have done so very many times before. Some how, I don't really remember, the memories have become a little vague now, one of my friends talked briefly about their uncle passing away and made comment about their relationship with him and other family members reactions. He was fine with the whole thing and the conversation moved on to more entertaining subject matters.

But it was this simple conversation that started my mind on an inextricable train of thought that led me to a place I never thought I would ever get to. It reminded me of a death of a very close member of my family a few years back but it didn't stop there as this started other thoughts about other things in my life that were having bad emotional and psychological effects. Within a couple of days this had added up to some very low feelings and dark accompanying thoughts. Very soon, like so many others, I found myself in the company of depression.

It was like rain drops filling a vacant hole, each on their own so seemingly insignificant but eventually they lead to a whole that is so much greater than its component parts. Thoughts about different things start to come together like heavy rain being funnelled to a single point. It gets that the puddle becomes so full that you feel like it can drown you. It's more than that though, the rain won't stop and all you can see is it becoming an ocean and you won't be able to tread water long enough to be rescued.

It is amazing to think what great depths can be reached from the simplest and most random of things some times but in the case of depression there is no hard and fast rule about the trigger simply that everyone's will be slightly if not completely different. Even if the actual root causes are more or less the same like the similarity or the rain drops.

In the end though it could be anything that starts it, likely one of the well known reasons but it could also just as easily be something seen on the TV or in a film, read in a book, only getting one number on a lottery ticket, perhaps even stubbing your toe on the sofa.

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