Those Crazy Women: More Depressed Than Ever

Women are more depressed than men. We are twice as likely to develop depression and we take the most anti-depressants. Recently, a study has shown that our general happiness as a sex has plummetted.

The saddest part of the study is that no conclusive evidence was decided for the reason why we are generally the more melancholy bunch. We just are.

In order to understand women’s dominance over this mental disease, one needs to understand it first. If you’ve never experienced the pure emotional agony that depression comes with, it feels as if you’ve been enveloped in a black cloud. As if the world is being seen with a grey hue, not vibrant colors full of life and possibility, every dream feels impossible and every emotion is dimmer. It isn’t always even about sadness, but the sheer lack of emotion. Laying in bed, watching the world pass by wins over almost anything else.

Depression is often taken less seriously by the general public, being seen as a weakness. Those who cannot handle their emotions appropriately and with strength are thought of as wimps. As women, we are generally thought of as a “wimpier” group to begin with. Add depression, and the world finds you incapable of anything. In our dog eat dog world, those who have difficulty with their emotions find themselves left behind… making them even more depressed.

Some blame the new female depression on a general lack of female power. In the 70s, women were fresh off of the women’s rights movement. In the ’90s, I was born into a world complete with the Spice Girls’ girl power. Being a woman felt fantastic.

But now, being a woman simply feels like more of a burden. We get paid less in identical positions as males, achieve more college degrees with no recognition, and are left to feel like sexual objects. People care less and less about women’s rights nowadays and feminism is a bad word. All of this is enough to slowly chip away at our happiness, until we become chemically altered and depressed for good.

As a group we may be unhappier, but who’s to say all women share a common reason for their depression? There could be a number of reasons why a woman becomes sadder and sadder, just as a man does. It could easily just be a chemical malfunction in their brains with no setting off point to blame. But even if we are sadder, I’d like to think this is a great time for women. Slowly but surely we will be happier again. And maybe when we emerge from that black cloud, they’ll be a female president waiting on the other side.

Contact the author here: crazycolleen@morningquickie.com