Why can the smallest things trigger my depression?
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Last Updated: 12/31/2019 at 4:56am
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Top Rated Answers
think of it like the last drop that comes on top of a glass that's already full. when you consider that you will understand that it's not just something small, but the last drop that comes on top of everything that happened
Anonymous - Expert in Depression
November 6th, 2015 3:44am
Depression will do all it can to bring you down, when you're depressed you become sensitive to the little things. If you find yourself getting easily triggered it may indicate that you haven't yet let go of the past. You need to find peace and an understanding of your condition.
I personally think that the depression is there to start with. It may be latent. Then when something happens, even if it is small that depression is just activated or evoked.
The effort involved in trying to "be happy" can sometimes feel so all encompassing and exhaustive. So, when you're trudging uphill and something triggers that reminder of how steep life can get, it feels like it can derail you. I think it's important in these times to focus on the strides that have been made. It can be something as simple as recognizing that you only hit the snooze button only 3 times instead of 10. It may be small, but at least it's something!
Anonymous
June 6th, 2016 9:53am
I think the smallest things trigger depression because they bring us back to a specific memory or feeling. Perhaps that memory or feeling now causes us a great amount of grief when it use to make us happy. Words trigger me like crazy!
In my experience, the harder I try to ignore the big things going on in my life, bigger the small things seem. Once I stopped fighting my feelings and ignoring the big problems in my life, it became easier to deal with the day to day let downs. I have to accept that somethings will trigger me and by doing so, my brain seems to fight me less and let me be peaceful more.
Depression is a coping mechanism. People with depression have often (but not always) suffered some kind of trauma (even if it may seem small) and any kind of trigger can be enough to remind yourself of that trauma and so trigger your depression. For example, if at one point in life you were attacked by bees, if in later life you saw a bee: you might go into a huge panic. To other's, that might seem like a huge over-reaction. But upon seeing the bee, your brain will access prior-knowledge of bees, and find 'BEES ATTACK. BEES ARE BAD', and therefore trigger what it thinks to be the appropriate reaction. It does not matter how big or small a trigger can be - if we have not yet dealt with something in our past.
Sometimes we make associations with depression and those can be huge things or small thing. I like to try and recognise what might be a trigger and way to cope with it or express. it.
Anonymous
August 2nd, 2016 10:32am
With depression sometimes the smallest things can make us feel overwhelmed. Depression can make us feel like we're alone and in the dumps. Learning to manage your triggers and work out the things that trigger you the most, we can have better, happier lives.
Anonymous
April 24th, 2015 9:11pm
Everyone has different triggers. Sometimes you'll have a predisposition during specific moments (during certain seasons or situations), and that'll leave you more perceptive to a depressive episode. The important thing is to learn what the things leave you more likely to have these situations and learn to cope with them.
When you're depressed, the tiniest things can seem like such a huge momentous thing. You just have to remind yourself, it's okay.
Doctors still don't know a lot about depression or what the cause is so there could be count list of things that may trigger it not matter how "small" it may be.
Small things represent the majority of things we deal with everyday in our lives. As we live and form memories, a lot of the small stuff seems like it gets forgotten, but we very much remember the emotions we have formed around them.
The real difference between remembering an emotion and experiencing it again is nebulous. Emotional remembering that triggers depression is more like a black hole. Little things, or daily tasks are like super dense but small parts of our lives. They may seem small but there is a lot of mass in there. A really sentimental memento might even feel heavier in the hand than something that actually weighs more.
Depression seems to tip the scale of perception from dense star to black hole, which in the moment feels like an inescapable weight towards which you are inexorably pulled. It can turn doing the laundry into hauling a hundred thousand pounds. The mental strength required to do basic tasks comes to represent survival even more so than the tasks. Let’s all hang in there.
The real difference between remembering an emotion and experiencing it again is nebulous. For emotional remembering that triggers depression it is more like a supernova. Small tasks trigger BIG emotions because those big emotions have been drilled in throughout the doings of those tasks
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