by Rahul Toulsien
The writer of this article used to suffer from depression, and so understands what an isolating and joyless frame of mind depression can put you in. It can induce a sort of paralysis which makes you feel that you are incapable of doing anything.
Depression is often fed by negative thoughts, which results in a downward spiral in that the more negative thoughts you have, the more depressed you feel, and the more depressed you feel the more negative thoughts you generate.
In this day and age where we expect a remedy for everything with little effort required on our part, we sometimes expect to have our mental health treated like any other medical condition, i.e. with some sort of medication. However, in my experience, whilst medication can help to some extent, it often feels like one is simply masking the problem rather than going to the root.
Sometimes the problem is pride when it comes to treating depression. If I think this is because when we find medication doesn’t truly work we regard the more esoteric world of therapy to be complete nonsense.
There are many reasons why people may choose not to have therapy to treat their depression, I know I came up with a few excuses including:
1. Some people feel that those who attend therapy are somehow weak. However, there is a mountain of research that suggests that therapy works, and the idea that people who undergo therapy are weak is perhaps an excuse for people who suffer from depression to avoid having to admit they have a problem. Rather than being weak, many people consider that admitting one has a problem takes more courage than to continue to create a false front and a “stiff upper lip.”
2. Another barrier for some people is the idea that therapy cannot help them. This is similar to a child saying they don’t like a certain type of food when they haven’t in fact tried it. This may sound a little harsh, (when I suffered from depression I sometimes needed some straight talking), but sometimes it can be easy to avoid doing something, particularly when one is depressed, due to one’s negative thoughts. Certainly conquering depression may involve the use of multiple sources, but therapy should definitely be one of the tools in one’s arsenal.
3. There can also be a feeling that therapy for depression involves changing the way one thinks, and will therefore take a long time for any positive result. This is partly true, but there are in fact many simple exercise is one in a very short space of time, and practice out in the real world.
The fact of the matter is, that curing one’s depression is often a combination of medication, therapy and self-help (to see one self-help option Click Here). In my case it was mostly self-help as there are many excellent books on the subject. One thing is certain, that if you take no action you will achieve no result.