The Not-So-Great Depression
Feeling hopeless. Unable to sleep. Irritable. Weepy. Reclusive.
These are just some of the hallmarks of depression. If these feelings sound familiar, you’re not alone: Depression is a common psychological ailment, affecting nearly 20 million people in the United States annually.
Many mistake depression as just a phase and never seek medical assistance. But if you get the right help, in 30 days you may see significant improvements in your mood and get on the road to beating depression.
Depression: No Simple Sadness
“We all experience feelings of sadness, but depression is very different,” explains Joseph Luciani, Ph.D., a New Jersey-based psychologist and author of Self-Coaching: The Powerful Program to Beat Anxiety & Depression. Depression “is a physical illness with many more symptoms than an unhappy mood. The person with clinical depression finds that there is not always a logical reason for his or her dark feelings.”
Symptoms of depression can include an overwhelming feeling of unhappiness; changes in sleep and eating patterns; loss of interest in activities that once gave you pleasure; and restlessness and irritability. If you have suffered from these symptoms for two weeks or more, you could be dealing with depression.
The sooner you get help for your depression, the sooner you’ll feel better. “There are many different treatment options available, and it’s important to know help is available, and to take steps to get that help,” says John Preston, Psy.D., a board-certified neuropsychologist in California and author of You Can Beat Depression: A Guide To Prevention & Recovery. “Over 80% of people who seek depression help see improvements in their symptoms."
Depression Help: Treatment Options
Doctors and therapists generally stick to certain depression treatment options, usually consisting of talk therapy and medical or self-help techniques. Your treatment choices will depend on your diagnosis, severity of symptoms and preference.
“If depression is chemical in nature, a combination of medication and therapy might be necessary,” explains Preston. “The majority of depressions are psychological and most people can usually recover with simple self-help procedures and/or professional psychotherapy.”
Probably the one single thing that is most consistently helpful to my depression is movement/exercise. Even so, I don't follow that advice as often as I should and I still have depression, but after many years I've learned that it's almost like magic; rarely do I get a bout of depression that doesnt respond to even the briefest walk. I guess if I'm deep enough in depression, it only takes a little walk to bump things up. When I walk regularly, it's like a Force Field against depression; I never get down. When i let things get in the way of the daily walks, I get depressed again. I think if I win the lottery I'll hire a personal trainer to make me get out and walk every single day and see if I can go depression-free for a whole year or something.
Deepak Chopra says that 90% of our thoughts daily are negative. I discovered that volunteering will take away quite a lot of that negetive thought. I volunteer for the Animal Welfare and during this holiday season, I took away at least 20% of my negative thoughts.
(Somehow I hit the wrong button, so now I'll finish my comment.)
The meditation really helped calm my anxieties & thoughts.
I am so thankful that I was guided through this painful time, with the easiest experience it could have been. I kept telling myself that "this too will pass" & it has.
Occasionally I will have a day or two when I feel "down", but on the whole, I continue to climb toward the sun.
Hope this helps somebody else.
Take care of yourself!
In Nov.'06 I went into a deep depression. My best friend was moving to an independent living senior facility & needed help packing boxes, moving furniture & possessions. It was the coldest, wettest, rainest winter in years, & then a wind storm uprooted trees blew off roofs, and I lost electricity (for 10 days). Because I had promised to help my friend move, I HAD to help. She lost power only 2 days, so she had heat. It took all my energy to get up, get over to help her. We finished the move Jan. 15. That hard work, tho' it was difficult under the circumstances, managed to MAKE me come out of the depression. To this day, I don't know what caused it but since then I've been told that hard labor was the best thing I could have done. It was during that time when I did daily meditation.
I've been depressed forever and have dealt with it through medicine. The last few years have brought so many changes and "crisis" to my life that I spiraled into deep anxiety. I'm having a tough time just getting through the days, doing what needs to be done (go to work, care for my son), let alone caring for myself. The scariest part is feeling so alone, I literally have no friends or family here, and like Mollie says, 40 minutes a week in counseling doesnt help much. The days I feel strongest is when I do talk to my one friend (she lives 800 miles away and is currently going through her own crisis, and how long can you bother someone with your ongoing problems anyway without becoming a burden?) If I at least knew I was on the right path - I'm not sure the medicine I'm taking is helping, I dont have that network of help... and I'm not sure I'll even have a job at the rate I'm going. I'm so flustered I can't remember how I got here this morning...or what I should be doing...its like reading a page 20 times and it doesnt stick. I am trying to be my own advocate, but when you need help, even that seems hopeless.