Why do I feel depressed even when my life is going great?

There is a common misconception that depression only comes up when things are falling apart around us or our lives are not going well. Sometimes, depression is not about if our lives are going great or not. Often times, our lives can be just fine, but we could still have underlying emotions or struggles or internal distress causing our depression. Even so, there are often triggers we are unaware of that can contribute too. So, we can certainly feel depressed even if things are not falling apart around us. We can feel depressed at any point or stage or time in our lives.

I feel that even though life is going great now, I must be missing something, or my emotions will soon level out and things will be bad again. Sometimes even when things are amazing, I am still not living up to my full potential, I'm not doing all I could do. I'm not perfect, so the 'great' life I have right now is not good enough or only an illusion. Similarly, I feel as though my perfectionism prevents me from ever truly reaching a point in my life when it's going great. There is always more I could be doing, there is always an area of my life that is not as perfect as it could be. There are always flaws, so there is always reasons to be depressed. But you can't get hung up on that, you can't focus on all the things you're not perfect at because you'll end up too terrified of moving or so tired it's not worth it anyway.

The reason that you may still be experiencing depression even though things are great is because, somewhere in your mind there is something that happened to make you feel depressed and the mind or brain takes a mental snapshot of that instance and it becomes a program that the brain uses to keep you safe even though there may be no threat. It does not recognize the fact that you are in no need to be protected. That snapshot that the brain takes then becomes stored in the body and as the book entitled says. THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE. What ever the event was it was an unpleasant experience to your mind and the emotion connected did not get process so that it could be filed away in its proper file. Therefore causing a stuck response to the brain. The brain is the organ that tells the rest of the body how function. So the body reacts to the instructions of the brain. The body is unaware that it is a faulty program. The only way to find out what the belief was, is to go back in your life and begin to dig into where the first experience of feeling depressed first showed up. Try to remember all the circumstances that surrounded that time. See who was involved with you feeling that way. Then you canbegan to remove that program and set up one that works for you. It will take much practice to get the brain to reset to a new program because it likes to stay in its comfort zone doing and acting out what is familiar. Practice makes perfect.

Even though our life could be going great, our mind is still the environment in which we live in. Exterior aspects could help you feel better, but unless you manage to deal with everything inside your mind, it will be difficult to feel as great as your life is. Think of your mind and your thoughts as an aspect that is equal or even bigger than the exterior aspects. When you start treating it like on, you see that it is the most important part of your life. If you feel as if there is nothing to solve in your mind, you might be missing something that is laying on some deeper level. Explore those possibilities.

I believe that everyone requires certain things to be happy, and if you’re missing some of those things you’ll likely be unhappy. For instance, if you’re passionate about drawing but don’t have time to draw because you’re too busy with things like a successful career, getting good grades, participating in extracurriculars, or volunteering, you may feel like your lifestyle, while appearing great to outside people, doesn’t match your requirements because it lacks something you’re passionate about - drawing. You may feel like something is still missing from your life, whether it’s hobbies, deep personal connections with other people, or experiences you never got to try.

One of the challenging things about depression is that it is completely indiscriminate. It can happen to any person, any time, regardless of your life circumstance. Often, depression is not caused by external factors at all, it can simply be as a result of the chemicals in your brain. Sometimes, the fact that you're feeling depressed despite your life going great, can cause feelings of guilt, and can make you feel like you should be more 'grateful'. I just want to reassure you that your feelings are totally valid, and you have nothing to feel guilty about. Please don't let these feelings prevent you from reaching out and getting the support you need.

There could be numerous reasons. The Rx pushers will always imply a serotonin imbalance, but the most probable is living long period(s) of one's life rife with stress and sorrow, and at such extremes that one conditions themselves to anticipate stress and sorrow, even when things are otherwise ... going great. The inability to breakaway from this pattern of thinking also has many causes, but the most prevalent is living in a cold or unsupportive environment where one is not allowed to express themselves honestly and naturally. Perhaps while growing up, attending school, or in a marriage or relationship. The remedial question should thus be, "Why SHOULD I feel depressed even when my life is going great?"

I just get scared about my future, and I've been sadly constantly so it's hard to accept the fact that everything is going great, which shouldn't be. It's like been depressed for so long so it's just got melted inside me. That's not a problem but it's sad cause whenever in a happy moment or something, I always have to remind myself the fact that I might get sad or something worse gonna happen soon, so I let myself get back into sad mood again so nothing sad could feel like that sudden sadness to me in a happy moment.

I cannot give an exact answer without knowing your exact situation. There are many causes for depression even if you have a great life; depression is caused by many things such as stress, loneliness, chemical imbalances, hormones, genetics, the list goes on and on. Sometimes we don't fully realize something really bothers us until we take the time to stop and think about everything going on in our lives. Are we truly getting what we need from all aspects of life? Are we truly gratified? Do we just feel like life is going great when it isn't going that great? Answering those questions often helps us realize why we feel the way we feel, and it can help us to figure out how to move past it.

Depression can be brought on by a multitude of factors, individually or all mixed up. It can be brought on by trauma (past or current), loss or grief, situationally (change(s)) in life), or other external triggers. If external triggers aren't easy to identify, the depression may simply be the byproduct of an internal imbalance in your brain. If you think this may be the case, speaking with a licensed therapist or health care professional who can help you diagnose the issue could be helpful. There are many paths to mental health management (peer support, diet & exercise, therapy, medication, education, etc) and through to recovery. Just remember, there is nothing wrong with you, and it takes a lot of courage, strength, and resilience to stand up, take ownership, and ask for help. I am rooting for you, and cheering you on!