Gradually, living with negative thoughts makes you change your beliefs about yourself and the rest of the world. You come to expect loss and disappointment. Self criticism becomes a habit. Your mind begins to distort your perceptions of the world around you, so that you filter out good things and only notice things that are dark and horrible. As these changes occur, you feel your life being pulled farther and farther down. In this state, it is easy to trigger your negative emotions, and you find yourself feeling angry or sad or crying at little things. We will review solutions to these problems in subsequent chapters.

Behavioral psychologists have observed that depressed individuals withdraw from the activities they used to enjoy and avoid being with the people they used to like. They stop going to places they used to like and eating the foods they liked to eat. Their associations become so negative that even the thought of doing an activity that used to be pleasant makes them feel miserable. Behavioral therapy reverses these behaviors and helps you remember how you acted before you were depressed.

• It seems like my depression is caused by my negative thoughts is that normal?
• Why do I get depressed without anything stressful happening to me?
• Is unipolar major depression just another term for life stress?
• Does early childhood abuse cause major depression?
• What’s the relationship between brain chemicals and depression?
• What part of the brain is responsible for depression?
• How many people are affected by clinical depression?
• What exactly do you mean when you talk about stress?
• Do you have to have the genes for depression in order to get depressed?
• What role does genetics play in depression?
• How does unipolar major depression start?
• Is major depression primarily physical or mental?
• Can’t anyone have these diagnostic criteria?
• Are there blood tests or brain scans that diagnose unipolar major depression?
• Why are so many physical symptoms in the definition of depression?
• My sadness seems reasonable and bearable how much sadness is normal?
• What is the single most important symptom of unipolar major depression?
• Is depression a fad diagnosis?
• Why can’t everyone diagnose their own depression?
• How is unipolar major depression diagnosed?