No one knows for sure why this is the case. Theories suggest that women's social role has historically been less satisfactory, that their hormonal ebb and flow makes them more susceptible, that they are more likely to experience trauma, and that they are simply given social permission to express depression. Men are five times more likely than women to commit suicide. Many men feel they are faking it, making it up as they go along, always one misstep away from disaster. They try to reassure themselves by swaggering around the house, but they wonder if women aren't really laughing behind their backs.
Many abusers use violence to express the frustrations and hopelessness that come from depression.
Six million elderly suffer from some form of depression. Their depression tends to be dismissed as inevitable, but in fact is caused more by poor health and poor sleep than grief, loss or isolation. Among the elderly who commit suicide, almost 75 percent visit a doctor within a week before their deaths, but only in 25 percent of those cases did the physician recognize a depression. There is no organized self-help movement for depression, despite the proliferation of groups like AA, Cancervive, Better Breathers, Agoraphobics Together, groups for the bereaved, for the divorced, for children of divorce, etc. This book is the first to present a model for a Depression Self-Help Group.