DEPRESSION
What is depression?
Depression is a mental illness, which one should not confuse with the short-term emotional distress, anxiety attacks or feeling low, which also are elements of depression. Anyone can feel low for a brief period of time, or have anxiety attacks once in a while, but that does not mean they are suffering from depression. Depression is much more serious than that, and is a persistent feeling of sadness, loneliness, grief, uselessness, and emotional pain. If not treated at the right time, it can lead to someone feeling suicidal, or harming themselves or even committing suicide.
A Black Hole
Some people describe depression as “living in a black hole” On the other hand it is not unheard that some depressed people may not feel sad at all. They may have a sense of feeling lifeless and apathetic, sometimes feeling angry and restless. The symptoms can differ from person to person but if intense feelings of sadness, worthlessness, helplessness, low energy and low mood are unrelenting and interfere with your ability to enjoy life, work, study, eat, sleep and generally stop you to have a fulfilling life then it may be time to get help.
Negative Thoughts
Feeling better takes time, but you can get there if you make positive healthy choices each day and start to break those negative patterns. When you are depressed it is easy to get into a cycle of automatic negative thoughts and you get caught into a vicious cycle that goes something like that: you get depressed and then get more depressed about being depressed. We work with you to bring these negative automatic thoughts into awareness, so that you can break the pattern with new constructive thoughts, habits an activities.
No matter how small the step is, the road to recovery is paved when you start walking in the right direction and at Therapy 121, we are here to help you take those tiny steps.