Thread by @TheBrometheus

Let’s talk depression and how it differs for men and women.

Men become depressed when they perceive a lack of control over their environment and their own feelings, when the pain won’t stop.

Women become depressed when they feel unloved and useless to their family.

Thread:

Men need control. They need to feel like they can effect change. Men need a mission and the belief they can accomplish it. With this in place, a man can endure any trial.

With no mission or belief in possible accomplishment, man collapses into despair and learned helplessness.

Helplessness and perceived impotence drag a man into depression. Prolonged helplessness turns into hopelessness, which indicates the severity rating on that depression. A man with zero hope is a man looking for a permanent way out regardless of consequence.

Women are different, more relational. They need to believe they are loved and they need to be useful to their loved ones. Their mission is the well-being of family, it’s automatic with anyone they connect to. When they feel like a burden or can’t help their loved ones, they sink.

A woman who watches her loved ones suffer where she can’t comfort or help them feels despair eat away at her. Their trauma becomes her trauma. Same if she believes no one loves her or ever will. A woman who believes she’s unlovable sinks into depression real fast and stays there.

Men are about action. When they have control to exert themself through action, they do well.

Women are relational. When they believe they are loved and of use to their family, they do well.

The key to fixing these depression issues is to find where you lack in these areas.

Are you a man who feels helpless and hopeless? Find the small ways you can take control. Prove to yourself you have some leverage, any leverage. Build yourself back up and take control step by step. Reach out and get new solutions from mentors who see more clearly than you do.

Are you a woman feeling unloved and useless? Figure out what you hate about yourself and either fix it or forgive yourself. Change who you’re with so they can accept your love. Find small ways to help those who are hurting. Get involved in volunteer charity work to feel useful.

These are not instant fixes and can’t replace deep introspection and perhaps some mental health treatment, but if you feel depressed and hopeless, let this thread guide you in making a start.

And reach out with questions to people around you. Question your dark assumptions.

This is just the overlay of the biggest focuses for depression differences between the sexes. There’s a whole host of other complications, most notably deep seated attachment issues which remove a person’s ability to fully securely connect with others and feel worthy.

Attachment is the biggest factor for depression shared by both sexes and also leads to massive anxiety issues which get treated, leaving the attachment issues underneath untouched, so the anxiety mysteriously never goes fully away.

Over time that constant anxiety can turn to massive depression which seems to have no root cause because the person’s outward life appears perfect. Attachment is a silent killer that runs deep and almost no one is talking about it.

If you’re crushed under depression, there is help. You always have options. Reach out to those around you, even just one person, and break free from the echo chamber inside your head that tells you there’s no solution because you’ve tried everything. Someone has an answer.

And now for the inevitable plugs. But hey, I’m a licensed psychotherapist and had to develop my own programs to manage these issues. Can’t give healthcare advice but I can offer education.

Here’s a video course on helping people find lasting life purpose. Gum.co/lwpurpose

And here’s my book on treating and fixing attachment issues that make a person believe they have a bad part deep down inside them that everyone else can see and will always abandon them for, something that makes it so they must earn love, but never will. amazon.com/dp/B07S33YGJZ/…