I haven't quite given up on 'showing you the light' about this aspect of depression, if I may speak presumptiosly.
Anthem said:
To me these external factors are all simply attaching to or emphasizing whatever is already there on the inside of a person’s mind (no matter how latent or subtle) and magnifying it and bringing to the surface. To me this is why some are impacted by these things and others are not.I really would suggest a closer look at this: Before Sally and Mary take the pill Sally is happier, more optimistic and more bright-eyed than Mary.
When Sally gets depressed because she goes on the pill and Mary not, you would seem to be saying that there was some negativity 'there' in Sally and not in Mary which the pill is bringing out. What in earth would it have been, if Sally was happier than Mary before they went on the pill???
This is not hypothetical. I personally
know of a very happy and positive woman who got depressed when she went on the pill and had to stop it. And other not-so-happy, not-so-positive women who had no such problem.
There is indeed something there in Sally not in Mary, and that is that, by whatever mechanism, Sally's body cannot tolerate the pill and responds with a depression of mood. This could easily be some very technical mechanism. Perhaps it disturbs some deep neurological mechanisms of sleep. Perhaps the effect is like a permanent PMS (just guessing).
Did it occur to you that these simple differences in body function might be the reason why one person might not have mood problems with the pill and the other not, rather than underlying differences in perspective? Differences that have no more 'meaning' or psychology behind them than say a food intolerance or allergy?
Likewise for S.A.D., post-partum depression and so on. We might find that Mary is susceptible to S.A.D. and Sally not -- the reverse of the relationship regarding the pill, where you might have attributed Sally's problems with the pill to be some 'negativity' that Mary does not have.
But one thing that has come out of research on S.A.D. over the years is that it seems that some people have a sleep-cycle (circadian rhythm) that is more heavily dependent on sunlight to keep it in order. These people can get S.A.D. This is probably genetically determined. Without the sunlight, their body gets all confused about night and day and their sleeping function and waking function gets all messed up, and they get depressed.
The reason that this happens to one person and not another, is not that one person has latent negative thoughts that the other does not -- it is because one person's sleep cycle is messed up by the lack of sunlight and the other's is not. And it probably goes down to some extremely technical and arcane mechanism in the body clock. Most peoples body clocks are more robust and do not get confused in this way, and they do not get S.A.D., while other's do and they get S.A.D. Perspectives and thoughts are not involved in the primary mechanism.
Noone can be in a good healthy mood when their sleep is destroyed. No-one. You take those drugs I mention and your serotonin levels will plummet and your sleep will be destroyed and your mood will be destroyed. You will be depressed. You can deny it, but it is true.
Maybe I shouldn't be trying to push people out of their flawed models when they don't want it, I don't know. But I like to make a good case for other people reading if other people are holding the same mistakes. Because I believe it has importance.
You seem to be holding onto something like a 'hermetic' view of the mind and its moods, where it is believed to have a complete potential independence from 'the world' and the state of the body. This was a mistake many of the ancient greeks had, and Descartes too. I believe this mistake is very rare in 'the East' and it is certainly not part of the Yoga tradition. Modern Science, the mental health professions, and experimentation can decisively prove that mistaken.
That is, a person who can keep a good mood regardless of organic 'external' factors (such as complete destruction of their sleep), will never be found. It is a mythical person.