Instead of appreciating and recognizing his natural need to express his feelings of displeasure and anger when confronted with situations that he didn't agree with he suppressed these emotions as he found them unpredictable, dangerous and very volatile. Alex intellectualized his existence since he came to believe that his problems were cerebral and the more he analyzed and tried to control his thinking the more he believed he would uncover and solve the problems that plagued him. He believed that there could be no evil in this world and that all of his negative intentions were therefore unnatural and had to be suppressed. He later realized that it was not his brain that needed fixing; rather it was his heart, that no matter how hard he tried, it could never be controlled. He finally came to the conclusion that you could never eliminate all evil in the world, no matter how good you were, and that a free will which could create both intense good and intense evil was the natural condition of man. This difficult part of his life has passed and now he is a normal and healthy person back in school.
Depression causes mood and physical changes in a person. Generally, normal people have good moods, but when depression strikes them their moods turn sour. A bad mood is when we have a spiritless, tired, and negative outlook on life. We become pessimistic and stop challenging ourselves. Difficult tasks seem too complicated to be tried. Instead of admiring people, we find them irritating. We have problems being affectionate and sex is not relaxing and fun (Mondimore, 1990, p.3). We become angry easily. We brood over minor problems and we avoid human contact. Self-confidence does not emanate from us and our self-esteem is low (Mondimore, 1990, p.4). The following is a list of the physical changes that accompany depression. Firstly, there is a loss of interest in sex. The drop in libido parallels the drop in energy and the general anhedonia typical of depression (Schwartz, 1993, p.