Anyone Suffering from Depression?

Feeling sad, or what we may call "depressed", happens to all of us. The word depressed is a common everyday word. People might say "I'm depressed" when in fact they mean "I'm fed up because I've had a row, or failed an exam, or lost my job", etc. These ups and downs of life are common and normal. Most people recover quite quickly. With true depression, you have a low mood and other symptoms each day for at least two weeks. Symptoms can also become severe enough to interfere with normal day-to-day activities. Many people know when they are depressed. However, some people do not realise when they are depressed. They may know that they are not right and are not functioning well, but don't know why. Some people think that they have a physical illness - for example, if they lose weight.

This blog is to help you and give you professional advice/help about your depression. To also socialise with the public who are experiencing the same problem as you and to connect and interact with other social groups to give each other advice.

Questionnaire

1) What sort of depression are you suffering from?

2) Are you taking any medication for it? if so, what?

3) What is your main issue your depressed about?

4) Are you seeking any medical help or any professional help?

5) Would you say that your situation is quite severe or minor?

6) How often do you become depressed?

7) How do you think you could avoid further depression or avoid it in the future?

8) Do you think you will over come this depression if you are depressed?

9) Is there any eating disorders you have when suffering from this?

10) Is being depressed something new to you?

Professional to talk to other people and advise them-give them professional help.-Free access.

This is a section to give you professional advice to help you deal with depression. There is a professional called, Doctor David Veale to talk to you and give you professional help.

Everyone feels down from time to time but this usually passes fairly quickly and doesn’t interfere too much with the way we live our lives. When most people say ‘I’m depressed’ they mean that they are feeling low or sad, or stressed maybe. These feelings are normal facets of human experience. When health professionals talk of depression, however, they are using the term in a different way. They are referring to a condition which is qualitatively different from the normal ups and downs of everyday life. This is the type of depression we will be discussing: it is more painful than a normal low, lasts longer and interferes with your life in all sorts of ways. However there is probably a continuum between normal sadness and depression with no clear dividing lines.

How depression affects the way you think, feel, and act

The best of way of thinking about your depression is to divide the symptoms into the way you think, the way you feel and the way you act. Not everyone experiences the same symptoms – it partly depends on the severity of your problem and your culture.

Thinking negatively

When you are depressed, you tend to think negatively about your self; the situation you are in; what you have done in the past, and your future. You might believe that you are weak or a failure and that the future is hopeless. Throughout this book we’ll be emphasising the importance of recognising that thoughts about your self and the future are just that – thoughts, not reality.  Learning to accept these negative thoughts willingly as “just thoughts” and not buying into them has been proven by numerous studies to be an important part of overcoming depression.

Self-Criticism

When you feel depressed you might be self critical and ‘label’ yourself as useless, stupid or a failure. More severely depressed people tend to view themselves as totally worthless, unlovable or bad. You may frequently focus on past mistakes which seem to confirm your negative view of yourself. However when you are depressed, thoughts become fused with reality and accepted as facts. As a consequence, you develop a pattern of thinking which is like holding a prejudice against yourself. You are then more likely to avoid challenges or situations in which you believe others will put you down. You will learn in this book to notice when you are thinking about yourself in this prejudiced way by prefacing it “I had a thought that I was a failure” thus underlining that it’s just your thought or a mental event. When self-criticism is strong then you would learn to develop a compassionate mind.

Helplessness and hopelessness

When you are depressed you may think that you are helpless to solve problems or you may feel trapped. You might believe the future to be hopeless and even want to end your life as a way of escaping from your problems. In depression, believing the future to be hopeless has become fused with reality and you think things cannot get better or can only get worse.

It is quite common for people who are experiencing depression to have thoughts of suicide, without taking the further step of acting upon those thoughts. However if you feel very hopeless about the future and are planning ways to end your own life, seek help as soon as possible.  There’s every chance you could still use the advice in this book to overcome your depression, it’s just that you may need support and assistance from a health professional as well.  See Chapter 9 on Suicide and on seeking professional help in Appendix 2.

When ‘thinking solutions’ are part of the problem- ruminations.

There are several ways in which you might be trying to improve the way you feel, which may in fact be making you feel worse.

(a) avoiding thinking about the situation you are in. This might bring temporary relief but results in problems being left unresolved or building up.

(b) controlling your thoughts or suppressing them, which can mean they enter your mind more frequently. You are probably trying to ‘put right’ or make sense of past events by ruminating on them, perhaps mulling them over and over. Unwittingly you are probably trying solve problems that cannot be solved, or analyse a question that cannot be answered. This usually consists of lot of “Why?” type questions. For example “Why am I so depressed?” or “Why did my partner leave me?” Another favourite “If only…” fantasies as in “If only I had taken her advice…” “If only I looked better…”. Alternatively you may be constantly comparing yourself against others and making judgements and criticising yourself. Rumination invariably makes you feel worse as you never resolve the existing questions and may even generate new questions that cannot be answered.

These are different ideas of how you can manage your depression:

■Exercise, like walking, lifting weights, golf, martial arts, team sports

(like basketball, football, ultimate Frisbee, softball etc.)

■Try to be with other people

■Get involved in activities that may make you feel better go to a game, movie, or

concert with a buddy

■Talk to a buddy that you trust

■Volunteer

What causes depression?

Our understanding of the cause of depression is that it is a consequence of avoiding or trying to control unpleasant thoughts, feelings and problems and trying to find reasons for the past or to solve unsolvable problems. This is called ruminating. The effect is that you become being inactive and withdrawn. This in turn leads you to feel worse and you miss out on experiences in life that normally bring satisfaction or pleasure. Furthermore the way you act has an effect on others and the environment around you that further feeds your depression.

Depression is thus highly understandable given the context you find yourself in (e.g. a conflict in your relationship, a loss of your job). The appeal of shifting from an emphasis on ‘internal defects’ (e.g. lack of serotonin, faulty thinking) as an explanation for depression is that many people find that it helps them to feel less blamed or stigmatised for their problem. By focussing on the context and whether what your reaction works in helping you to achieve what you want in life, it is a highly practical approach. Crucially it’s also a highly scientific perspective in the sense that the approach been scientifically proven to be effective and it rests on testable theories.

I hope this guidance has helped you. There is treatment you can take to help you.  There are a number of evidence based talking treatments and medication for depression which are outlines in the NICE guidelines. Recommended talking treatments include Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Behavioural Activation, Inter-Personal Therapy and behavioural couples therapy and most anti-depressants.

Advantages and disadvantages of counselling and drugs.

Advantages of counselling

·         Counselling will help a person to understand the cause of depression. This will help in dealing with the cause positively and avoiding negative thinking. Counselling support will help one to decrease the symptoms of depression by helping the person build up their self-esteem and confidence. The patient will also be able to change their attitude towards life after a few sessions of counselling.

·         Getting counselling help will affirm someone with depressions self-worth, improving the quality of their life by feeling more able and adequate. Since depression makes one feel hopeless and helpless, counselling will install renewed a sense of hope in life. Counselling will act as a safeguard and help one stop having life threatening thoughts like suicide, abuse of drugs, alcoholism and violence.

·         With depression, the patient tends to think of the worst case scenario, leading to unhealthy ways reactions to situations. Plymouth State University notes that counseling helps the patient make better decisions, as the counselling teaches the patient how to deal with problems in a healthy way. For example, if the patient hurts herself in response to a disappointment, such as a poor grade, the therapist will teach the patient a safer way of dealing with that situation, such as doing a breathing exercise. This skill can help the patient increase her self-confidence and work through problems.

Advantages for Drugs

·         There has been a recent controversy in North America regarding the safety of anti-depressants.  (drugs). A small percentage of people can develop suicidal thoughts when prescribed certain types of medication.  The drugs involved in these feelings belong to a class of anti-depressant known as SSRIs which work by using the chemical serotonin, found in the brain.  Symptoms include increased aggressiveness, anxiety and insomnia; however, studies have shown that less than 5% of people suffer these effects.

·         Most mental health experts agree that when depression is severe, medication can be helpful—even life-saving. However, research shows that antidepressants fall short for many people.-A major U.S. government study released in 2006 showed that fewer than 50 percent of people become symptom-free on antidepressants, even after trying two different medications.

·         Other studies show that the benefits of depression medication have been exaggerated, with some researchers concluding that, when it comes to mild to moderate depression, antidepressants are only slightly more effective than placebos.

Disadvantages of Counselling

·         A disadvantage is that psychotherapy typically takes longer than drug therapy to produce benefits that are noticeable to the person receiving treatment -- six to eight weeks or longer for psychotherapy, compared with four to six weeks for medication. Also, psychotherapy alone is not effective in people with severe depression or bipolar disorder.

·         Depending on the severity of the depression and other factors specific to each individual, a therapist selects a combination of techniques from the range of psychotherapeutic approaches. Regardless of the particular approach, the essential foundation of all psychotherapy is the establishment of a trusting relationship with the therapist. This allows the patient to share confidences, life experiences and problems. If psychotherapy alone leads to no improvement by six weeks, or if a person has only a partial or weak response by 12 weeks, medication should be strongly considered.

Disadvantages of drugs

·         It is thought that anti-depressants can often be shared around friends, particularly Prozac.  This can be dangerous and only doctors or psychiatric nurses should be prescribing this medication.  For those not clinically depressed, they will have no effect on the mood but will still lead to many of the side effects.

·         One major disadvantage of using anti-depressants is the time they take to be effective.  There will likely be a two week delay before they have any influence on mood.

·         Around a third of people who take anti-depressants will experience significant withdrawals.  Symptoms of withdrawal include flu-like symptoms, anxiety, dizziness and vivid dreams and nightmares.  While taking anti-depressants for a period of time will help many, for most it will only temporarily alleviate symptoms of depression.  It is important that the underlying causes are dealt with as well.

This section is for a group of users who suffer from this issue or who have suffered to talk to people and socialise about this issue, and give people examples of it.