1 Answer

I was told that, contrary to other mental health problems, like schizophrenia, genetical factors do NOT have a major influence on whether you are likely to develop depression or not.
Instead, it is very much a matter of how resistant you are to stress (stress meaning any type of adversary events in your life). We all suffer from one or the other kind of stress sometimes, but we have mechanisms to release the pressure. Imagine a barrel of water with a small hole at some point, where a certain amount of water is flowing out constantly. In a healthy person, the amount of water (emotional pressure) escaping through that hole is bigger, or at least equal, to the amount of water (emotional pressure) pouring into the barrell. In case of depression, that is not the case. The amount of water flowing into the barrel is too high to be all released through the hole, and at some point the barrel flows over. That is depression. Depending on your resistance, the hole in the barrel may be further up or further down in the side of the barrel.

Hope that helped.

Cheers,
Papitou