Why Do Depressed People Lie in Bed?

In an earlier post you talked about using thoughts to come out of depression. Thoughts can also become a reinforcer that the goals are indeed unreachable and can even make far fetched connections, such as between one failure and a potential new one in the future, soon bringing people to thinking that they are hopelessly incapable of reaching any goals...

I think depression is the result of going after goals and repeatedly failing and/or determining in your head that you will fail at every goal you set. So, for example, the last few days I was depressed about marriage becuase I kept seeing how the divorce laws were so against men and how high the overall risk was. Thus, there is a dissonance between a goal (marriage) and my mind saying that goal is unrealistic based on the facts.

Hmmm, I find this very interesting, I have personal (unfortunate) experience of this strong desire to 'hide from life', and I am a very driven type A personality, so it is very out of character for me. That makes a lot of sense, I can see how when its 'all got too much' (nothing I did was working towards my goals) I retreated to my bed. I have heard how this is like a small child trying to return to the safety of its mothers womb, and it makes perfect sense.

However, the less you do, the less you want to do, so it is important to make yourself do say three small things a day, (one being go outside, even for ten minutes with a cup of tea), as this stops you feeling like a total ho-bo!

I found this site useful - http://www.curedepressionwithoutmedication.com, especially regards treating it yourself naturally, without relying on anti-depressants.

That is definitely something to think about, too MUCH motivation in the face of adversity rather than the opposite you get accused of when in that unpleasant state. Hmmm... very interesting article, thanks!

That makes a lot of sense, I can see how when its 'all got too much' (nothing I did was working towards my goals) I retreated to my bed. I have heard how this is like a small child trying to return to the safety of its mothers womb, and it makes perfect sense.

However, the less you do, the less you want to do, so it is important to make yourself do say three small things a day, (one being go outside, even for ten minutes with a cup of tea), as this stops you feeling like a total ho-bo!

I found this site useful - http://www.curedepressionwithoutmedication.com, especially regards treating it yourself naturally, without relying on anti-depressants.

That is definitely something to think about, too MUCH motivation in the face of adversity rather than the opposite you get accused of when in that unpleasant state. Hmmm... very interesting article, thanks!

I agree with you Jonathan. A hundred years ago, Freud observed that his depressed patients were engaging in some sort of "inner labor" that involved the systematic severing of an attachment to something that had been lost - a ruined relationship, an unattainable goal or an expectation that had been dashed.

Athina Markou and I recently published a comprehensive re-analysis of the biomedical literature suggesting that this "psychological remodeling job" is accompanied by actual structural neural remodeling in the brain. We review evidence that this process is mechanistically similar to an injury repair response.

Data suggests that the behavioral neurobiology of depression is quite similar to convalescence after a physical injury. Hence the not getting out of bed - depressed people may be recuperating from an emotionally traumatic brain microinjury. In fact, data is starting to roll in that this microinjury can be detected in depressed people using a brain imaging technique called Diffusion Tensor Imaging - a technique that was developed to detect subtle brain injury in concussion that is not detectable by conventional imaging.

We argue that during a depressive episode, the person is hypersensitive to psychological pain via a similar mechanism that makes people hypersensitive to physical pain in the region of a physical injury during healing.

..although I admit I am somewhat of a perfectionist these days and have problems getting interested in anything I don't know in advance I can and WILL do well.... that is mostly because my life has consisted of a loooong line of attempts that have failed over and over again.. and usually because of some external uncontrollable factor.. that has come along at JUST the wrong time.. call it bad luck.. bad karma.. I dunno but everything went to shit when I was about 4 years old.... and has never stopped going wrong..

Sure one could argue that because I am depressed I feel things heavier than most but people who know me and my background are quite shocked at how incredibly unlucky I and my family (which is now all dead) have been in life.. so its not something only I feel..

I've also been diagnosed with dysthymia by multiple doctors (that did not know about any previous diagnosis).. and it does fit so..

I echo: "great post".

If you think about an overall conceptualisation of brain evolution, it is the successive development of layers functioning to itegrate the output of lower layers and feed back to fine-tune and reinforce them.
So there is no locus of control but a dynamic system; though if we were forced to point to the central feature it would have to be the lowest rather than the higher layers. These call the shots ultimately; the rest is superstructure. [See my lead paper for the Politics & Culture journal's symposium 'How is Culture Biological?']

I recall that depression in my youth was a result of a ridiculous crush that got totally out of hand. My brain was shutting down this hopeless trajectory so as in time to resume being real.

Im out of school on break now but when I was going I would have to poke and prod and scream at my self to get out of bed the process would take nearly 30min on a good day and sunday night was the worst the dread of school the next morning go to school with dread fear during the school day of the other hateful kids (i swear they were like little hitlers)
go home worn out and dreading the next morning this didnt really get THIS bad until winter started its probably a contributing factor to the morning fear i hate waking up to cold cloudyness.
-jehovahs girl

Depression is also an immunological reaction, as a reaction to some form of inflammation. It is perfectly possible to induce a depression by giving TNF-alfa to people, as done in cancer treatment.
The theory mentioned here does not incorporate any biological explanation to the state where one put ones body in a resting state, but it is perfectly logic reaction to an inflammation state.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18504118
(Depression, comorbidities and the TNF-alpha system)

It is not very logic for a biological living body to induce a immunological reaction to not reaching goals.
Stresshormones do interact with gut microbes, and is interpreted as a signal to turn over to a patological state for some bugs. That might explain why stress, as in not reaching goals, may end up as a inflammatory respons - depression - and seeking the bed.

Might. We´ll find out.

Well you're right and wrong. I'm depressed because I hang on too much to my failures though I've stopped pursuit. I can't get out of bed simply because the world is scary and the bed is safe.

This understanding of depression rings true given a recurring dream I had when very young and depressed through a hopeless, virulent crush on a girl at school.
The dream was of myself with a black dog, with which I leapt across a series of streams in the headmaster's garden in the school grounds.
They were infinitely deep, so that to fall in would mean death; and they got progressively ever wider, so that in the end I was faced with having to decide whether or not to stop jumping with the dog in tow to better ensure I could leap the stream and make the opposite bank.
Clearly, this dream related to my need to break the cognitive logjam into which I'd fallen: the black dog being the dark and dogged cognition that was the crush.

This is very, very interesting. I think you are on to something. My tendency toward depression morphed in to clinical depression when all the "things" I had been striving for had failed. Trying to meet the right man. Trying to succeed in my career. Trying to establish and keep my friendships. Now that I think about it, I was trying too hard to make these things happen. I wanted those things so badly, that failure was not an option. Was I too attached to having those things? But having a career, a mate, and meaningful friendships are not optional. We all need them for our health and well being.
Now, it's 5 years later, and I've given up trying so hard, or even trying at all. But the problem is that not trying, hasn't resulted in a new job or career, new friends, or a mate. Life is still in limbo. Is my fear of failure keeping me frozen?
If overcommitment to failing goals caused depression, than giving up those goals should reverse it. But it hasn't. Even though I am no longer desperately trying to make those thing happen, I still want them, and feel depressed about the fact that I don't have them.

Hi Susan

Do you not think that the issue is not so much aspiring to career, friends and mate per se -- though one way of looking at this is the the problem for women of trying to 'have it all' -- but that there is no ceiling to your aspiration; that is, it forever recedes into the distance?
Isn't an aspiration career-wise putting off finding 'the right one' until you've climbed as high as you can in what is really the male hierarchy, so that you can put yourself in the path of a high-status male who meets your expectations?
A part of the problem women face is that, unlike for men, their mate-value doesn't tend to rise with age as they gain status in the workplace. Status is male mate-value. Female mate-value is best summed up as 'fertility': in human terms, simply youth and beauty. The reality is that female mate-value declines from a young age, falling off a cliff after age 25 -- even without the physical impact of childbirth.
Consequently, women fail to realise that as they spend years trying to ascend a hierarchy (that is not their own natural sociality in any case) in order to to meet 'the right one', all of the potential 'right ones' are more interested in the women they once were -- younger ones.
What is more, high-status men often eschew women high-flyers because they instinctively realise that they would be more prone to betrayal through extra-pair sex (cuckolding), given that such women move in circles that contain other high-status -- or still higher-states -- men.
This is why female high-flyers are so often 'left high and dry'.
It is not for nothing that the leading researcher into women and work -- Catherine Hakim -- finds across Europe that only 10-15% of women want to work full-time and continuously like men; and of this already low proportion, only a quarter see themselves as careerists. That's less than 5%. 95% of women can't be wrong. They're following their deep instincts to first and foremost reproduce.

This may be the case in many instances, but certainly not all the time. When I was first diagnosed with major depression, I went from 100 mph to 0 in less than a week. I was 17 and was very active in school activities and very goal oriented. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going wrong with any of those activities and I was keeping my grades up. All of the sudden I became sluggish and before the end of the week I was laying in bed in the infirmary and physically could not get up. I had all kinds of tests done and I was told that nothing was wrong. I went on Paxil and voila! I was up and out of bed, doing everything I had been doing, within 3 weeks or so. When this happens to me now, I make sure I am getting optimal nutrients, eating well and getting enough sun before I begin a medication- but I didn't know any of that when I was 17, and Paxil really worked for me.
I am only one person of course, but several of my friends have had similar experiences.
This was NOT a case of me not meeting my goals or being disappointed in myself. This article was a frustrating read! There have been times in my life when I WAS frustrated by my lack of progress/etc. that yes, I have taken a "time out," and I just shut down for awhile. But there is a BIG, BIG difference between my two experiences.
The difference is incredibly important and the AWARENESS of it is imperative to helping all people with depression. Lumping it all together with a single cause is ridiculous and dangerous.

Reading all the comments, one thing hit me. The focus of those who are of have been depressed is so self! Been there too. Maybe if we get out of bed to do something loving for someone else, that would be a goal that would be fulfilling! It doesn't have to be major volunteer work, just a tiny action to brighten someone's day

My opinion isn't that its a lack of motivation. All the motivation in the world can't correct a chemical imbalance. But in my opinion, it isn't that every depressed person faces a lack of motivation (speaking for myself at least), its that when I lay in bed and sleep all day its because that particular day looks grim and I am trying to hasten tomorrow hoping it will be better.

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Refreshing perspective on depression. My depression is always worse when my body is fighting inflammation of known or unknown origin. Fever of any sort makes it worse. Tummy trouble is in the loop as well.

It is hard to know which is the chicken or the egg though.

I am wondering whether the concepts of goals, motivation etc are mind constructs to make sense of our physical ailments?

Terrific minds working on this. Will be reading.

I think you've forgotten that a major sign of Depression is distruption of the sleep pattern. During my depressive episodes my sleep goes out the window & therefore I am constantly tired.
Where do people go when they are tired?

That & sleep is the only way I know of, to stop thinking & while Depressed, thinking usually becomes my worst enemy.

I can relate to the wanting to stay in bed, block out the world in isolation as it feels a safe an comforting place to be and not sure either if this is a sign of depression or just happens when life is not working out a it should!

This is the first article about depression that actually feels useful.

I've fought my battles with depression since high school (and maybe longer . . . I imagine so) and have tried to reason my way out (even tried academic study for a while) but with no luck. So, I kinda just keep on running and I don't even know from what or to what. I've lost so many friends (because it's just too hard to explain and, let's face it, people don' t want to deal and who can blame them) and am losing my entire sense of self. I feel like I don' t want to be alive, but I don' t want to feel that way.

This article feels like it is on the right track. The thing is, how do you get your motivation back and how do you learn to make it work for you?

I really get the little suicide thing. Very well put. The only time it doesn't work is when you can't turn the mind off.

This article makes a lot of sense. The thing is, however, where do you start when you are directionless. Where do you begin when you do not enjoy any aspect of life. Where do you even begin when you are sitting at home, jobless no school, feeling tired and weak not only mentally but physically which is another aspect depression affects. When you have hit rock bottom, it seems impossible to get back up, because the things that used to interest you before do not interest you any longer. It almost seems like you are a different person, as if you don't even remember the person you were before.

Im going through one of these phases. Ive not moved from my bed for 5 days now apart from to use the washroom and to fill my water bottle. I wish I was no longer part of this world but am too much of a wimp to do anything about it. I am estranged from my family. I was incare as a teenager and have dabbled wwith drugs. A lot of physical and sexual abuse when I was younger. Am clean now. Just take quetiapine. I went back to my family and they accepted me. They are sttict sikhs but I met a muslim guy and ran off with him. My dad attacked us and was subsequently arrested.
Now me and this guy have split up but Istill live with him and his sson and mother. But as I said ive been im bed for 5 days. Cos were not together anymore and I do this so oftrm he hasnt knocked my door which bybthe way I have been keeping locked or phoned me. Life is supposed to get better after the last 10 years have been so painful but its not getting better. I hate this. I feel so alone and like a lost cause. I dont even know why writing this. I havent written in my diary for months

Im going through one of these phases. Ive not moved from my bed for 5 days now apart from to use the washroom and to fill my water bottle. I wish I was no longer part of this world but am too much of a wimp to do anything about it. I am estranged from my family. I was incare as a teenager and have dabbled wwith drugs. A lot of physical and sexual abuse when I was younger. Am clean now. Just take quetiapine. I went back to my family and they accepted me. They are sttict sikhs but I met a muslim guy and ran off with him. My dad attacked us and was subsequently arrested.
Now me and this guy have split up but Istill live with him and his sson and mother. But as I said ive been im bed for 5 days. Cos were not together anymore and I do this so oftrm he hasnt knocked my door which bybthe way I have been keeping locked or phoned me. Life is supposed to get better after the last 10 years have been so painful but its not getting better. I hate this. I feel so alone and like a lost cause. I dont even know why writing this. I havent written in my diary for months

You have so clearly articulated what I am going through..... and I feel REALLY get the motivation ( or lack there of) of my actions, thoughts and behaviors I am currently going through. NO ONE seems to get it, although many people in my life DO care. Just FINALLY being able to read the thoughts I have been internally processing over and over ( and over) in a negative loop on my head is extremely helpful and comforting. It brings some clarity I can share with others and let's me know I am not alone and explains some of the WHY. Please keep up your work. Most useful thing I have read by far. Life changing.

If you are at rock bottom, and in bed, it's not that you just don't want to get out of bed, or that it's a simple choice to get out of bed...YOU CANT!!! Severe clinical depression saps your energy in ways you can't even imagine unless you have experienced it. If you think you can think your way out, you have no idea. People die every day because they can't get the help they need because no one really thinks they are sick. They just have a bad attitude, and need to chose to be happy. Wow....Just wow. I hope if someone I love needs to get help, they find someone who really knows how serious depression is, so they don't potentially die from it because no one understood the seriousness of the ILLNESS.

F*** you and your terrible analysis

This explains my issues with depression pretty well. However, I think for a lot of people, myself included, perfectionism plays a key role in the failure to attain goals leading to depression. I feel this is particularly true of the depression commonly experienced by artists / creative types.

Each of my major depressive episodes has been precipitated by either a serious physical health problem which has kept me out of school/work (thus depriving me of the ability to complete goals), or a serious adverse event in my life (abusive relationship, becoming disabled and losing my career, etc., severe difficulties with my PhD, despite all my efforts). I just kept trying in each of these situations, until I became so depressed that I had no choice but to stay in bed. Interesting....