Lots of people have reasons to be depressed–troubled relationships, money problems, loss of a loved one, or poor health. And then some struggle with depression with they have no visible reason to feel so badly. Depression is defined as a loss of pleasure, low mood and low self-esteem. For some time now, the medical and psychiatric establishment has diagnosed individuals with chemical depression. Medication is typically prescribed for this, but as we have ample evidence, medicine doesn’t fix everything.
New research is looking in other directions to understand depression, examining the effect of physical inflammation and the immune system as players in this complex issue. The truth may lie in an interaction of several players
Most of us have down days or even weeks. We have challenges and frustrations and failures. These are all part of life and, despite all of this really sucking, sometimes we have things we can learn from the hard times. There are often concrete reasons for feeling blue and sometimes we need to come to terms with hard choices. Long-term, intractable depression, however, is different.
Research has long indicated that exercise and a healthy diet can actually help alter even deeply depressed moods. These choices, however, are hard to make when individuals don’t feel like getting off the couch. This is one struggle that can rob you of most of what makes life worthwhile. You may be, however, a very loving and giving individual and be completely convinced of the complete opposite.
Some individuals who’ve wrestled with this disorder report having been convinced that the world would be a better place without them. We all know this isn’t true, but that’s how it seems to the sufferer.
It’s important to remember that feelings–while very, very important–are not the complete reality. You need emotion to keep your world from turning gray, but you don’t want to let your feelings completely run amok.
Just because you feel useless and hopeless doesn’t make that true.
Suicide seems to some like it provides a welcome relief to an impossible problem, but it’s not a good solution. Not only can it be difficult to be successful in suiciding–leaving the depressed individual in an even worse situation–but when completed, suicide can leave a legacy that few want for their loved ones. Those with emotional and familial ties are more likely to attempt suicide if someone close to them has also made this choice.
The truth is most depressed and/or suicidal individuals don’t want to die. They just want to feel better and don’t know how to achieve this. Guilting depressed folk into staying alive doesn’t help the problem. They need to feel better. They also need to be listened to and to feel heard. This can be difficult to do when you’re close to the situation. You may even want to shake the suicidal person to get him or her to “snap out of it.”
The depressed deserve better. They deserve to feel better, even if they don’t feel they deserve anything good.
Talk to a therapist. If the first one doesn’t help, talk to another one and another one. Get someone to hear you…and learn to make life better…