Depression

Depression

By: Elizabeth Oosthuizen

Psychologist

“Yet through depression we enter depths and in depths we find soul. Depression…. brings refuge, limitation, focus, gravity, weight and humble powerlessness. The true revolution begins in the individual who can be true to his or her depression” - James Hillman.

What is depression?

Depression is a state of being in which the normal energy of life seems curiously drained. It can range from feeling a bit down or having the blues to a full-blown suicidal despair. It’s not just something that people get – economic situations and weather systems have depressions, too. Perhaps there is a clue here to depression being in some sense a natural process and part of the cycle of life. And this is important because what we think and feel about our depression colours our experience of it.

Each person must find their depression’s meaning for them. Each person has unique life experiences, thus a unique perspective, and working though their depression will make them emotionally literate. They must individually explore and learn life messages from their life experiences.

A message from an individual overcoming his depression:

“If I hadn’t have become depressed, I would have carried on with the same old life and never grown up”

How does it feel? The symptoms:

The specific symptoms of depression vary but can include:

• Apathy – lack of interest in life

• Difficulties in sleeping

• Problems with concentration and performing tasks, difficulty making decisions

• Loss of appetite (or occasionally overeating)

• Feelings of hopelessness, on the verge of despair – inappropriate guilt

• Anxiety

• Suicidal thoughts

• Low energy or fatigue

Also:

• Negative colouring of life experiences

• Chronic feeling of low self-esteem

• Heightened sensitivity to criticism

The opposite of depression is not health, but mania. Many people who cannot tolerate their depression flip into an excited state of mania. (manic depressive illness).

He/she will

• feel euphoric, unusually good, cheerful, or high, often having an infectious quality for the uninvolved observer, but recognized as excessive by those who know the person well;

• have an inflated self-esteem, be full of energy (decreased need for sleep), speech will be loud, breitling replica watches rapid and difficult to interrupt;

• activities can be intrusive, domineering, disorganized and bizarre (e.g. will call friends at all hours of the night, dress in colorful or strange garments, give advice to passing strangers)

How is depression caused?

(A) - The fundamental experience of depression is loss of power, but there are many ways in which it can come about. Many people experience a period of depression after a major life change, e.g. having a baby or starting a new project. Depression is sometimes a way of coping with the transition, adjusting to the new reality Colored Contact Lenses.

• Events, which commonly trigger depression can include:

• Loneliness and social isolation

• Financial problems

• Separation and divorce

• A major change e.g. house move, marriage, retirement

• Redundancy

• Childbirth

• Bereavement or loss

• Shock or trauma

(B) - Depression can also arise from emotional causes.

• The denial and suppression of certain emotions, particularly anger, grief, resentment and fear, breitling replica watches often leads to depression. If we believe certain emotions are unacceptable, then we tend to pretend to ourselves and others that we are not feeling them.

• Transitional period, changing yourself. (Rescuer, persecutor, victim!!!)

Through your life experiences on your life journey since childhood, you have habituated to deeply ingrained, unconscious emotional and behavioral habits or “games” as Berne calls them. This will influence your thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. If gradually or suddenly, on your life journey, you are in a situation (relationship/work/friends) where you can’t play these games that you, of course, are an expert on – it can result in depression. Here is an example of such “patterns of games”.

PERSECUTOR: “I’m OK, you’re not OK”

They play games that put other people down and they do this to elevate themselves

PAY-OFF: “I get what I want”

VICTIM: “I’m not OK, your OK”

Play the game of “poor me” to manipulate others

Their problems are caused by people other than themselves.

PAY-OFF: “I don’t have to deal with things that seem too difficult”

RESCUER: I’m OK, your not OK”

Take too much responsibility upon themselves for others

“Need-to-be-needed” types

PAY-OFF: “I like to be needed”

Cycle of depression:

• underlying depressive predisposition and/or trigger of event

• bubble bursts and depression returns

• feelings of powerlessness

• depression short-circuited into elation and mania

depression solidifies –

• become a chronic state

• anger, fear, suppressed

DEPRESSION AS TRANSITIONAL STATE

• acceptance of new state and end of depression

• ability to learn from depression and move on

Finding a personal meaning in depression: The treatment

Task for the friend/colleague:

Listen – the depressed individual will find the right solution, for themselves. Do not force them to do activities. Be there for them when they need an “ear”.

If you are depressed yourself: Tasks:

• Make a daily schedule for yourself. Try to schedule activities to fill up every hour during the day. It is best to start with easy activities and progress to more difficult tasks. Check off each activity as it is completed. In this way, you will begin to break the self-defeating cycle of feeling helpless and falling further behind.

• Write down self-critical and negative thoughts as they occur – especially those that immediately precede feelings of sadness. After you have collected these thoughts, write a rational answer to each. E.g. the thought “No one loves me” should be answered with a list of those who do care.

• Monitor your feelings each day. You can use a table like the following:

Date/Time EMOTIONS

How I felt ENVIRONMENT

What was happening at the time THOUGHTS / IMAGES

What was going through my mind? BEHAVIOR

What I did

e.g.

Monday Lousy The computer crashed and I lost hours of work This always happens to me. Life is unfair. I’m stupid for not making copies earlier Cursed. Gritted my teeth

• Creative Task: Sit down and pull up a chair beside you. Locate the part of your body where your depression is situated. Very gently, as if it were a real thing, lift the depression out of you own body and out on the chair beside you. Keep sitting together for a while. Your depression is now separate from you. If you like, ask your depression what it would like you to do for it. You might like to ask what changes in your life it wants to bring about. Don’t necessarily act literally on what it says but respect and consider it. This exercise is called personifying the emotion and can be done with any emotion.

• Creative Task: Make a painting or drawing about how you are feeling.

For depression following a life event change: Give yourself extra nurturing, talk etc. and let depression pass. If you get stuck, investigate the depression further.

Psychotherapy: Psychologist/Psychiatrist

During this process emotional messages are explored by questioning your feelings regarding your life journey and by exploring your current emotions, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors (games). You will investigate, learn about, and analyze the situation(s) and life event(s) that lead to the depression. With this awareness come insight, understanding and the potential for emotional and behavioral change = thus to incorporate the knowledge and things you learn into “you”. Shedding your “old skin”. Ultimately the process is to learn and investigate your emotional messages and become emotional intelligent.

General Practitioner/Psychiatrist will assist you in getting the proper medical attention via medication.

Conclusion:

The key thing with depression is not to become stuck in it, but to see it as a stage, which you pass through, discovering its meaning and message.

Elizabeth Oosthuizen

Counselling Psychologist

Phone: +27 (0)21 555 1484

Fax: +27 (0)21 555 2351

Cell: +27 (0)82 739 6321

E-Mail: erooted@freemail.absa.co.za

Web Address: www.blaauwberg.net/cic/listing.asp?pid=205