Depression Is Not the Result of “Faulty Brain Chemistry”

Solving any problem starts with first correctly defining it

Depression used to suck all life out of me. It was bad. Once a month, I wouldn’t be able to think or feel much. I couldn’t make it out of bed.

My life was on pause. The only thing I did was sleep so the time would pass faster. It was a pretty sad existence. One I hid very well.

When my mom found out, she told me “it was in the family”. My grandmother had also suffered from depression.

I went to a psychiatrist. He wanted to put me on Prozac. The same week, a New Yorker edition landed on my doormat that featured a cover story about the difficulties of going off psychiatric drugs.

I saw it as a sign. The universe was affirming a belief I already held, that depression is there for a reason. It’s not random, it’s not just brain chemistry or genetics. That by medicating it, I’d mute the messenger and pass up a chance to get to the bottom of what my psyche was trying to tell me.

If you’re reading this, maybe this is your sign from the universe. I’ve since cured my depression and if you’re eager to do the same, you can read about my experience below, supported by further anecdotal stories and science.

The Medical Model Assumes That The Major Cause of Depression Is Altered Brain Chemistry

Modern medicine is built around diagnoses. Diagnoses determine treatment.

So, let’s look at how the medical community explains depression.

Psychiatry.org cites four risk factors for depression:

1. Biochemistry: Differences in certain chemicals in the brain may contribute to symptoms of depression.
2. Genetics: Depression can run in families. (…)
3. Personality: People with low self-esteem, who are easily overwhelmed by stress, or who are generally pessimistic appear to be more likely to experience depression.
4. Environmental factors: Continuous exposure to violence, neglect, abuse or poverty may make some people more vulnerable to depression.

Here’s what’s wrong with this list:

1. Altered brain chemicals don’t contribute to symptoms of depression by causing them, they are merely a consequence of the depression. You can’t describe the cause of an illness by describing its symptoms.
2. Depression doesn’t run in families, generational trauma runs in families.
3. Low self-esteem does contribute, yes, but then again, what’s causing the low self-esteem?
4. Good news, I got nothing to complain about with number 4.

The recurring theme is that the mental health care system diagnoses symptoms, not root causes when it comes to depression.

The Way We Diagnose Depression Prevents Us From Treating Its Root Cause

The problem with diagnosing depression based on symptoms is that you’ll end up only treating symptoms instead of whatever is causing them.

You cannot solve a problem unless you’ve identified it properly. Unless you’re asking the right questions.

The narrative around brain chemistry is what’s allowed the $1.3 trillion pharma industry to build billion-dollar products, called SSRIs.

SSRIs are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors that manipulate your brain chemistry (i.e., your serotonin receptors) to bring it back into balance.

Patients treated with SSRIs often have to take them for years, sometimes the rest of their lives, since they don’t address the root cause and only help manage symptoms. According to the CDC, a staggering 13% of adults (and 18% of women) in the US were treated with SSRIs between 2015–2018.

That’s not to say that antidepressants are useless. There certainly is value in them. If someone is suicidal or simply not functional, it can be more critical to treat those acute symptoms than to go on an adventure hunt for the root cause. The hunt requires time, a luxury not everyone has.

Antidepressants should not, however, be prescribed as easily and widely as they are now. There are consequences.

Psychiatric Drugs Are a Poor Long-Term Solution and Also Potentially Harmful

Antidepressants may be an effective short-term intervention, but that’s not how they’re mostly used.

Most patients continue to take medication well beyond the time they’ve found relief in their symptoms. That’s because when they try to wean themselves off, they find that symptoms return (surprise, surprise).

That’s, of course, only when antidepressants work, to begin with. This is the case only for ~55% of the patients after two months, a pretty poor response rate compared to 38% in the placebo group that get better without SSRIs.

Further, they can be a dangerous long-term solution for some.

In Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker reviews decades of long-term studies on psychiatric drugs and comes to a terrifying conclusion. Not only is the efficacy of many of the most popular drugs poor, but they also seem to correlate directly to the rise of mental illness in the US. Patients receive medication, develop side effects, and receive more medication to mitigate those side effects. This can turn into a downward spiral that results in additional mental health diagnoses that were not present, to begin with.

This is precisely the story told in the aforementioned New Yorker story which chronicles Laura Delano, a Harvard student from a well-off household in Connecticut. Laura was diagnosed with depression and bipolar in her teens. Over the span of 14 years, doctors put her on 19 different medications. When Delano decided to wean off all medication and turn her back on her diagnoses, her symptoms eventually faded. She now writes about the “freedom to be with emotional pain” and has since founded a non-profit called Inner Compass Initiative and The Withdrawal Project to save others from the hell she went through.

If you believe Robert Whitaker’s data, there are millions of stories like Laura’s.

So, if psychiatric drugs are not the answer, what could be an alternative then?

An Alternative, More Effective Model Is the “Root Cause Approach”

Renowned depth psychologist Carl G. Jung argues that depression is a symptom of inner imbalances.

The important difference here is that he doesn’t say chemical imbalances, but inner imbalances. Too much or not enough of something inside of you.

Jung believed that symptoms are the voice of the soul.

He proposed that the way to treat these imbalances and heal your patterns is to explore the subconscious. He suggested that by trying to hear what they’re expressing, you could develop a relationship with your inner forces.

Swiss psychologist Alice Miller further argues that depression is the result of disconnection from self in childhood:

“In what is described as depression and experienced as emptiness, futility, fear of impoverishment, and loneliness can usually be recognized as the tragic loss of the self in childhood, manifested as the total alienation from the self in the adult.”

She proceeds by saying that the opposite of depression is not the lack of pain but the ability to feel the full range of emotions.

My Story Illustrates That Depression Can Be Cured When the True Root Cause Is Revealed and Healed

The first time I ever drank Ayahuasca, I learned that there was an invisible undercurrent that had perpetuated every area of my life, the belief that I was not enough.

It was a subconscious belief I’d adopted in early childhood.

I wasn’t aware that it was ruling my life.

After that one retreat, I never had a suicidal thought again. Not once.

I still struggled with my once-monthly depression, however, which I’d come to learn was a symptom of the mood disorder Pre-Menstrual Dysmorphic Disorder (PMDD). 15% of PMDD patients attempt suicide.

Over a year after my first Ayahuasca experience, I returned to the plant medicine for more healing. I healed repressed sexual trauma that had come back to me during a meditation retreat, as a result of which my PMDD miraculously disappeared. I’ve since found research (here and here) that connects PMDD with PTSD and sexual trauma, something none of my doctors mentioned, probably because they didn’t know.

It still feels too good to be true, but the depression is gone. It’s been nearly a year.

Now, I also experience the freedom to “be with emotional pain”, which I do still experience, just as every human does.

Psychedelic integration and trauma recovery are no piece of cake. It’s different, however. I get to feel it to heal it and am no longer a lifeless robot. Depression froze my ability to feel anything at all, and without feeling it, I couldn’t heal it. Now I do, and the loneliness is replaced with community.

How You Can Start To Do the Inner Work To Cure Your Depression

You might be wondering now how you could heal your own inner imbalances.

Here are a few options:

• Find a therapist specialized in in-depth psychology or (ideally and) specialized in Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, which are both root cause approaches to mental health.
• Look into psychedelic medicine — it’s the most effective (and efficient) tool to work with your subconscious. There are legal options, too.
• If you’re too afraid of psychedelics (read here why you shouldn’t be, though), explore other ways to work with your subconscious, such as holotropic breathwork.

The first step to healing is always a change of awareness.

Perhaps, like me, you have a little voice inside that’s telling you that there might be more to your depression than just your brain chemistry.

I’d encourage you to follow it.

It’s not only saved my life but also created a new one that is fuller than I could’ve ever imagined.

Curious to learn more about psychedelic healing?

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