Depression Therapy
Start Living, Not Just Existing
Are You Hurting?
Do you ever feel low, unhappy, sad, or hopeless,
as if a dark cloud is always looming over your head?
Do you find yourself crying for no apparent reason or experiencing a gut-wrenching sense of emptiness? Perhaps depression has robbed you of your joy and interest in the things you used to love.
You may have noticed that depression, like an unwelcome guest, has been knocking on your door and interfering with your daily life.
You might eat or sleep more or less than usual. You are easily exhausted and struggle to think, focus, and make decisions in everyday life.
Cornered by your emotional pain and struggle, you may feel as if your life is narrowing around you. Perhaps you feel you are losing your sense of self.
You look around and find that many people you meet daily seem to have it all. They seem happy. They look satisfied with their lives. Then you're plagued with questions like "Why can't I feel better?" "Why is life so hard?" "Why can't I be a normal person?" "Why can't I just be happy like everyone else? "Why they don't suffer the way I do? Why can't I be like them?"
Unhappiness Is a Normal Human Experience
We tend to put on a happy face, pretending everything is fine and that life is all good. The truth is low mood and sadness are normal human emotions that can be adaptive at times. It is natural to feel unhappy when we experience loss, separation, rejection, defeat, or ongoing or acute life stress. It signals that it is time to take a break, conserve our energy and resources, and find ways to alleviate our pain.
When Unhappiness Turns Into Depression
Our reactions to unhappiness can transform what might otherwise be a brief, passing sadness into persistent dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
Unhappiness is an inherent and unavoidable part of being alive. However, at some point on the continuum, it can escalate to clinical proportions and becomes quite distressing.
This happens when your mood begins to go down, and you also start to feel bad about yourself and the world. Your mind is taken over by negative thinking— thoughts that you are worthless, thoughts that you have let people down, thoughts that life is full of immense difficulties, and beliefs that the future is hopeless. Associations are formed in the brain between these thinking patterns and depressed, unhappy mood. Next time when an everyday sad mood arises, these negative thinking patterns appear right after, and then you feel even more depressed.
This is why depression is so prevalent. It doesn't take a traumatic loss to fall back into the spiral. Even everyday difficulties, which many people shrug off, can set off a downward spiral into depression. What is worse is that this connection becomes so ingrained that sometimes the person experiencing it is hardly aware of it.
You Are Not Alone
Depression is widespread and appears to be on the rise. The median age of onset, now in the late teens to early twenties, has become progressively lower. According to National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 21.0 million adults in the United States experienced at least one major depressive episode. This number represented 8.4% of all U.S. adults. An estimated 4.1 million adolescents aged 12 to 17 in the United States had at least one major depressive episode, 17.0% of the U.S. population aged 12 to 17.
Types of Depression
There are different types of depressive disorders, and while they share many similarities, each depressive disorder has its own unique set of symptoms.
Adjust Disorder with Depressed Mood
Major Depressive Disorder
Persistent Depressive Disorder
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
Postpartum Depression
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Bipolar Disorder
There is Hope
If you've been struggling for a while, you've probably discovered that worrying or suppressing your feelings doesn't help. Redoubling your efforts to turn off your troubled mind may give temporary relief, but it can also make things worse.
What if, contrary to what your thoughts may suggest, there is nothing wrong with you at all?
What if your valiant efforts to keep your emotions in check are actually backfiring on you?
What if they are the very things that are keeping you in pain or even making things worse?
Therapy can help you understand how this happens and what you can do about it. You will also learn new skills to cultivate a radically different way of coping with sadness/depression.
How Can Therapy Help
Therapy, as opposed to temporary relief, can assist you in making
radical and lasting changes in your life and well-being
in a variety of intricate ways:
✔ Identify the factors and life events that contribute to your depressed mood
✔ Combat negative self-talk that feeds your depression
✔ Respond wisely to the people and events that affect your mood
✔ Tune in to what’s happening in your mind, body, and the outside world, moment by moment
✔ Create a breathing space between you and your thoughts, feelings, and memories so that you can become a wise observer of your internal world
✔ Break free from the vicious cycles of depression
✔ Reconnect with and befriend your feelings - those you like, those you don’t like, and those you don’t know that you have
✔ Recognize your values and what truly matters to you, as opposed to what depression tells you that you can or can’t do
✔ Gradually incorporate enjoyable, fulfilling, valued-based activities back into your lives
✔ Restore your energy, a sense of self, and a sense of control and pleasure in life
I don’t Think that I am “Clinically Depressed.” Should I Still Consider Therapy?
We experience a low mood of any severity or duration, whether it's major depression, persistent, nagging unhappiness, or intermittent bouts of the blues that feel disruptive. So, yes, therapy can help with anything on this spectrum.
Many people seek therapy for life transition challenges, loss/grief, situational issues, relationship distress, or other issues that elicit depression-like symptoms. Seeking therapy for any of these issues can help prevent clinical depression from developing. As previously stated, feelings of unhappiness can be sneaky and quickly lead to depression. Therapy can reduce the likelihood of future episodes or lessen their severity
Lastly, you are enough.
You are important enough to attend to your emotional needs.
