I heard a brief essay on the radio about the evolutionary benefits of depression so I may not have my facts straight and I do not to whom I should attribute the study. But the gist of what I heard was very interesting. It seems there is a connection the presence of depression and the increased presence of certain cytokines. Cytokines are proteins produced by cells for intercommunication. Some cytokines help to regulate the immune system; such as responses to inflammation.
How would depression be related to supporting the immune system? When we are depressed, our metabolism slows down. We tend to sleep a lot more, eat a lot more or a lot less, avoid interaction with others, and tend to shut down on being active in our lives. Removing ourselves from the world around us may be exactly what is needed to begin to heal. Even though we think of depression as 'bad', perhaps it serves to give us a necessary way to accommodate the required shift from overdoing to underdoing when we are ill. Perhaps evolution has given us a bio-chemical route to depression on purpose.
If you have depression with your MS, you are not alone. At first it may be a logical response to hearing the news that you have been diagnosed with an incurable chronic disease. Perhaps, if the depression continues, it may serve to support you letting go of your former life and to begin to heal. If the depression continues for a longer time, and prevents you from seeking the help you need to adjust and to heal yourself, then you may need to intervene and cue the body systems to move on towards benign activity once again.
We have a whole chapter in our book to address depression, and there is more and more information available for any of us who suffer from this. Perhaps some depression is a kind of natural gift, to surrender to giving yourself time to adjust and become proactive on your own behalf once again. The diagnosis of MS is not an end, but the beginning of an opportunity to reeducate yourself for an ongoing healthier lifestyle at all levels of your being.