Depression is a reality often ignored of our lives. We all have occasionally sad, melancholic feelings but usually they wear off in the fast lane of life.
Depressive illness stays there though. It doesn't go away for days and shadows every activity, feeling or thought you have.
Many people who experience depression never seek treatment. Which is wrong. Depression can disappear by itself but often lies there, in the background of your life, keeping your mental energies stuck.
Treatment for depression can involve medication in the first acute phase, always followed by psychotherapy where life issues are addressed.
Depression can be due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, but when you get to analyze people's lives, you realize that their life is not at all a happy place, that would exclude any psychological reason to get depressed.
Going to therapy it's not going to unveil issues which weren't there in the first place. That's for conspiracy lovers. Going to therapy will help you bring into consciousness feelings you've denied. Feelings of guilt, shame or regret or a general state of in-satisfaction with your life.
Life it's complicated and it's normal to cause depressive episodes at some point in your life. Most likely, depression is a result of a combination of some chemical conditions of your brain and some challenging situations of your life.
Depression and relationships
Many people carry the depression with them which becomes a lifestyle. Some are addicted to it, using their blue moods to manipulate people around them in order to get attention, or to make them feel guilty or to force them to show their feelings.
Depression has to be treated by addressing both the biological and psychological issues that caused it.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the best ways to treat it. Most often we entertain automated negative thinking patterns that gets us depressed. Generalization, guilt, exaggerations, fear of death, fear of loneliness, fear of responsibility, all these can create depression.
Fear is one of the main psychological cause of depression. Fear of change, fear of loneliness, fear of unknown, fear of not being enough or fear of not being loved.
Most of our decisions are not taken due to love or to progress our life, but due to fear, trying to avoid pain and the irrational fear of losing.
All these are psychological mechanisms embedded by evolution in our brains. We are predisposed to negative thinking, because this is how we protect ourselves, by anticipating bad scenarios and exercising attitudes for when the bad strikes.
It's an evolutionary remaining of our becoming. Some theories suggest that dreams and especially nightmares are also ways our brains try to elaborate and exercise attitudes for bad scenarios.
Same time, studies showed that depressed people tend to be more realistic actually about their own abilities and generally about life. Optimistic people are sometimes in denial, overestimating themselves and reality.
Some depression is unavoidable at a point. Your goal should not be to avoid pain and depression at all cost, but to learn to tolerate temporary melancholia, to face your fears and heal past traumas.
To learn to identify thinking errors and to replace them with new, more positive attitudes. It will take time and effort, have patience, don't wait overnight results. Depression can be treated. It may involve big changes, but change is welcomed and at a point you have to embrace change and take responsibility for your own happiness.
And you have to master the art of not taking yourself so seriously. A good sense of humor will help you tolerate your blue moods. Same time, depressive episodes can be productive for artistic spirits.
It is well-known that creative people have higher inclinations to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and overall, inner drama.
When depression steals all your energy though and you remain caught in a negative vision of yourself and your life, seek help, seek therapy. Change is possible, I've seen it happening, I've helped making it possible in people's lives.
Sophie Rinaldi is a life coach and licensed counselor.
You can learn more about Sophie Rinaldi or have a session of online counseling through live chat at http://www.therapy-counseling.net
Sophie Rinaldi is an expert counselor and licensed therapist offering live advice through live chat or email sessions
http://www.therapy-counseling.net
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