Depression is a serious issue that impacts many people.
It’s important to recognise the signs of depression and take your mental health seriously – it can be hard, but there are ways to break the cycle. Depression is common in society today, with 1 in 4 adults experiencing mental health issues in their lifetime, including depressive disorder.
Depression manifests itself differently for everyone who suffers from it which can make symptoms difficult to spot until someone reaches out for help or an episode becomes severe enough that they need medical attention.
I am a mental health professional and I have helped hundred of young people to deal with their mental health problems.
How Common Is Depression?
Depression is a serious issue that impacts many people.
It’s important to recognise the signs of depression and take your mental health seriously – it can be hard, but there are ways to break the cycle. Depression is common in society today, with one out of four adults experiencing mental healthissues in their lifetime.
According to the mental health charity, Mind, 3 in every 100 people are diagnosed with clinical depression every week in the UK.
Recognising the signs of depression is the first step to breaking this cycle.
There are also many misconceptions surrounding mental health which can lead people to miss out on treatments and feel ashamed for what they’re going through – it’s essential that we confront these myths so that more people know where to turn when they need help.
Depression impacts us in different ways, for example we may find it hard to get out of bed, and we might feel worthless.
Today I will help you understand what depression is, how it can be treated and why mental health should not be ignored.
Am I Depressed Or Just Sad?
Depression is not just feeling sad for a short period of time, it’s much more than just a low mood.
It can be hard to know if you’re depressed or just dealing with sadness because while they both might have a similar symptom, they both cause different feelings and impacts on your life.
We all experience the blues from time to time, but there’s a difference between feeling sad for a couple of days and being depressed. Mental illness is just like a physical illness, and needs to be taken seriously.
How can I tell the difference between sadness and depression?
Sadness can be a response to something specific, like death of a loved one. It usually does not last long and you will eventually return to your normal mood.
Depression is more severe than sadness because it’s been shown that people with major depression have an increased risk for other mental health conditions such as anxiety or substance abuse.
It can be difficult to know if you’re depressed or just dealing with sadness because they both cause different feelings and impacts on your life.
Today I will help you to understand what depression really is, and help you to get to grips with it so you can start to recover.
Why Am I Depressed?
There isn’t a one-size-fits all answer to why you’re depressed, it varies from person to person. But it’s important for you to know that there are many different reasons why someone might be depressed.
– Difficulty in relationships, like when your partner leaves or ends the relationship with you
– Financial worries: not being able to meet rent, buy food etc. due to money problems and/or and protect you.
It’s important to know what causes depression so we can recognise those symptoms in ourselves and get help before it becomes too overwhelming for us.
– Feeling like you are not good enough for people
– Loneliness: feeling alone and isolated from the world around us. When we’re lonely, our thoughts can turn inwards to focus on negative feelings about ourselves or a sense of disconnection from others.
I will help you to get to the bottom of why you are depressed, so you can move forward with your life.
What Causes Depression?
There are several things that can cause depression, but the most common is being born with a chemical imbalance in your brain. You could also experience depression as a result of traumatic events in your past.
The 4 major causes of depression are:
-An event that leaves you feeling overwhelmed, helpless or a sense of injustice.
-A trauma such as childhood abuse from someone who was supposed to care for you.
-The death of an important person in your life – this could be the end of a relationship and even breakups can lead to depression.
-A long-term illness or disability.
In addition to this, there are other causes of depression that can be triggered by life changes such as starting a new school year and moving house.
What Are The Symptoms Of Depression?
The following are some signs that might be depression:
– Feeling worthless or guilty all the time, even when nothing bad has happened.
– Having trouble concentrating on anything, this may lead to someone not wanting to do their work or schoolwork at all
– Are these feelings excessive or exaggerated?
– Do I have a lot of trouble sleeping, eating and socialising with people?
– Am I having suicidal thoughts that are not just fleeting ideas but more like plans to end my life? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it might be time for help.
The Depressive Cycle
Let’s start with the depressive cycle; the negative thoughts you’re experiencing right now. These are your depressionsymptoms.
Maybe you feel that you’re not good enough, or you’ll never be good enough? Or there’s no point in things, or you feel like people don’t like you?
Take notice of your negative feelings about the world in general.
Then we need to take a look at the physical manifestations of depression and a lack of motivation is a very powerful demonstration of this.
Maybe you feel tired, or you feel heavy? Or just generally feel unable or unwilling to do things?
This leads to a neglect of personal responsibilities, not doing the things you know you need to do. And maybe those things are piling up and they’re becoming more and more difficult?
This brings us onto the emotional experiences of depression.
We feel sad. We feel guilty, we feel low self-worth. We feel lonely and we feel that nobody else ‘gets us’ and that is hard to deal with.
And these emotions feed the thoughts and beliefs about ourselves.
Those beliefs and thoughts feed the physical manifestations and the physical symptoms, feed the neglect of personal responsibilities and the lack of personal responsibility that feeds the lack of enjoyment.
This feeds a cycle again, and it becomes more and more intense leading to severe depression.
Take notice of these depressive symptoms – they are important.
Understanding Your Depression
I want you to write down your personal experience with each of those areas.
So what do you think about yourself negatively? What do you think about yourself when you feel depressed? What negative thoughts are you experiencing?
Then I want you to write down your personal physical manifestations of depression.
Next write down the personal responsibilities you are now neglecting. Have you stopped revising? Have you stopped engaging with friends?
Then write down the lack of achievement in your life. What do you feel you should be achieving that you’re not achieving?
Finally I want you to write down your personal emotional responses and experiences, such as sadness or anger.
This exercise will give you a good awareness of how and why you are feeling as you do.
Breaking The Cycle
Now we’re going to look at what is perpetuating your depression, what is keeping it going and what is triggering it.
We’re going to look at those two areas; the neglect of personal responsibility and a lack of achievement in your life.
Tackling both of these areas can help overcome even chronic depression.
Now, while the emotional responses which are really difficult and the negative thoughts, which, of course, are difficult and it goes without saying that the physical responses are really hard to experience to at this point, there’s very little we can actually do to change those on their own.
We can’t target them individually.
What we can do is we can get a hold of the neglect of personal responsibilities and the lack of achievement in your life, and we can work from there.
And achievement in these areas will improve the overall picture.
If you can begin to do the things that you need to do, you’re going to start to feel a sense of achievement.
So do small things that give you a sense of achievement, a sense of satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment.
Your Plan To Beat Depression
This works for people suffering anything from mild depression to severe depression,
It’s cognitive behavioural therapy as an alternative to antidepressant medication that I use during my therapy sessions. However you should always speak to your doctor if you feel your depression is becoming unmanageable.
What I want you to do is take that list of all the things that you are neglecting at the moment and create a hierarchy.
What this means is that you’re going to start from the bottom up.
You’re going to pick the easiest pick the most manageable. Maybe it’s returning a book to the library or washing the dishes.
Work your way up from there because there’s no point now starting a 2,000 word essay from scratch and expecting to complete it by tomorrow.
Because if you fail it’s going to intensify that depressive cycle and it’s going to make you actually believe the negative things that you think about yourself is going to firm that up.
So start small and begin to feel more achievement.
And that achievement is going to help you develop meaning and purpose.
Meaning and purpose are so important when it comes to depression.
People who experience depression have a distinct lack of meaning, a purpose in their lives. At that point, you’re going to create meaning and purpose by engaging in small tasks that give you a sense of accomplishment.
You’ll be engaging in life again in the way that you want to, and that will make you feel good.
And those difficult emotional responses to depression will change. The guilt will turn into optimism and hope.
The sadness will turn into happiness and contentedness.
Those negative thoughts about yourself will transform into self belief and self motivation.
And those physical responses of tiredness will soon turn into energy.
And you will be in control of your mental health and you will have the life that you want to live. Then you will reach your full and true academic potential.
Conclusion
Hopefully by completing this exercise, your depressed mood will begin to fade and your depression symptoms will reduce.
However, it is always recommended that you should speak mental health professional as treatment such as antidepressants or therapy might be required.