Depression Tendencies Linked to First Loves

Here’s a study that’s pretty important to the online personals world – relationships in early adulthood can reveal the first indications of depression, particularly in young women.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Maine has found that a young woman or man who “excessively seeks reassurance in their romantic relationships” is at higher risk for developing depression later in life. For the study, they observed 110 young couples aged 17 to 26 that were in committed relationships for, on average, about twelve months. They found that when a partner was constantly seeking reassurance of how much their partner cared for them, they were also more likely to develop depression later on.  Women had more of a tendency to seek this sort of reassurance.

“Greater excessive reassurance seeking, co-rumination and poor romantic relationship quality each uniquely predict depressive symptoms for young women,” said Jessica Fales, one of the researchers on the study.

Luckily, if women are taught how to deal with this at a young age, they can move past such tendencies. “These are behaviors that can be changed,” said Fales. “they can more readily be targeted through intervention. For example, because we know that dwelling on negative topics or problems with others can lead to depressive symptoms, we can talk to young people about more active problem solving.”

Yes! Active problem solving! Like breaking up with your dumb-ass boyfriend and joining an online dating site!

I think, on the other hand, that it is extremely important we teach young women to not seek reassurance from their boyfriends, and from men in general. One key thing I believe researchers are overlooking here is the fact that women in our society are taught to seek validation from men for their self-worth in almost every aspect of their lives. It’s hard then, not to be depressed if they can’t get validation for their being from the most (romantically) important man in their lives. How are they supposed to cope, when young, if they feel they’ve failed at that personal level even? We really need to instill our young women with some better  critical-analytical skills. We should also tell them that if they get depressed over a man, they should just take up boxing instead of sitting around moping, and pretend their sparring partner is their boyfriend. Or maybe that’s not such a good idea…