FLP ebook 11 - Help For Depression
Ask Yourself. Am I Present? Awaken the Observer and Come Present to Now.
With great gratitude, appreciation and praise we welcome you to the creation space of self love, courage, inspiration and the peace of mind that comes from gently balancing and lowering your brainwaves.
Listening to this THETA wave will assist you in creating a transformative meditative state, that will quiet your mind, relieve tension in your body, soothe your spirit, and help you remember how good it feels to be fully present in this beautiful moment of now.
Listen to this THETA brainwave as you study the following lesson.
When you are depressed it is often very hard to think clearly or make any decisions. It is also hard to think of anything to do to help yourself feel better. This guidance will help you take positive action in your own behalf.
First, you need to know if you are depressed.
Depression Quiz
Take the following Quiz to see if you might be depressed:
-Do you have persistent thoughts of death, dying, or suicide?
- Do you have a plan to end your life?
(If you do, contact your physician or a health care professional immediately.)
-Are you feeling hopeless and worthless, like it's not worth living?
-Are you unable to go to work or keep up with responsibilities that are part of your daily life?
because you feel bad and don't know why?
-Are activities that you have always found pleasurable, no longer enjoyable?
-Do you feel tired all the time? Do you sleep more than usual or have insomnia?
-Do you feel like eating all the time, especially sweets, or has your appetite decreased significantly?
-Are you having a hard time concentrating? Are you having a hard time remembering simple things like appointments and people's names?
-Do tasks that used to seem simple now seem very difficult?
-Are you avoiding friends and crowds?
- Are you having a very hard time getting over a loss or trauma in your life?
If you answer yes to one or more of the questions, see your physician right away to:
1. determine if there is a physical problem that needs attention; and,
2. to plan an appropriate course of treatment. Your physician can make a referral to other health care professionals as necessary.
If you cannot take this action on your own behalf, get a family member or friend to do it for you.
Keep in Mind
·Depression is not your fault.
·Depression is a temporary condition. You will get well. You will feel happy again.
·The best time to address depression is now, before it gets any worse.
·It's up to you, with the help of your supporters, to take responsibility for getting better.
See Your Doctor
Depression is serious. You need to see a general physician as soon as possible-- don't wait longer than a few days. The sooner you get treatment, the sooner you will feel better. You need an appointment with your physician for a complete physical examination to see if there is a medical condition that is causing or worsening your depression, to plan your treatment and for possible referral to a specialist. If you do not have a physician, contact a mental health organization in your area for a recommendation.
If any of the following apply to you, insist on an appointment within 24 hours or ask a friend or family member to do it for you (it's hard to do things for yourself when you are depressed).
-You feel absolutely hopeless and/or worthless.
·You feel like life is not worth living anymore.
·You think a lot about dying.
·You have thoughts of suicide.
·You have been making plans to end your life.
Ask a family member or friend to stay with you until it is time for your appointment. Make sure you keep the appointment.
When you see your doctor, take a complete listing of all medications and health care preparations you are using for any reason, and any unusual, uncomfortable or painful symptoms.
Suicide: Not a Good Idea
Experiencing psychiatric symptoms is horrible. Many people who try and live with these symptoms every day sometimes feel so discouraged they want to end their lives. Suicide is never a good idea. Why not?
1. Psychiatric symptoms get better. Sometimes they get better even if you don't do anything about them. But there are many things you can do to help relieve these symptoms. To feel a little better right now, try the following:
Tell someone how you feel--someone you like and trust. Talk to them until you feel better. Then listen to them while they tell you what is going on in their life.
Do something you really enjoy--something you love to do--like go for a walk, read a good book, play with your pet, draw a picture or sing a song
Get some exercise--any kind of movement will help you feel better. It doesn't have to be strenuous.
Eat something healthy like a salad, some fruit, a tuna fish sandwich or a baked potato.
Develop and use a symptom monitoring and response plan to help yourself get well and stay well.
2. When you feel better, you will have many wonderful experiences--warm spring days, snowy winter days, laughs with friends, playing with children, good movies, tasty food, great music, seeing, hearing, feeling. You will miss all these things, and many more, if you are not alive.
3. Your family members and friends will be devastated if you end your life. They will never get over it. They will think about it and miss you every day for the rest of their lives. If you have a box of family photographs, choose some photos of the people you love and display them around your house to remind yourself that you never want to hurt these people.
When symptoms are very severe, you may have a hard time making good decisions for yourself. To make it difficult to make a bad decision, like ending your life, make suicide hard for yourself by taking these preventive actions.
Get rid of all the old pills and any firearms you might have around your house.
Give away your car keys, credit cards and check books when you start to feel experience symptoms--before they get worse.
There are good people who can help you through these hard times. It may be your family members or friends. Set up a system with them so they will stay with you around the clock when your symptoms are severe. If you don't have family members or friends who could do this, call your local mental health emergency services and ask them what to do.
The National Hope Line Network 1-800-SUICIDE provides access to trained telephone counselors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Or for a crisis center in your area, go here.
Recovering from Depression
Getting well is a process that began for me a long time ago. I never expect to finish. Given different responses from responsible adults and health care professionals in my life, my journey might have been very different. In this article, I want to share what did happen and how I actually am getting well. At the conclusion of the article, I will share some perspectives on how I think my life could have been different (and a lot of pain averted) and how symptoms of depression and manic depression might be more appropriately dealt with to keep us from becoming "chronic mental patients". ( I feel that psychiatric disorders, as with all disorders, have a physiological and a psychological component. Response to particular treatment, management and self help scenarios varies with each individual. There is no one answer for everyone. We have to each search out the right path for ourselves.)
When did my mood instability start? I think it began when I first felt that I was different from other kids in school. I didn't know what was different about me, but I knew something was different. Was it because my friend was hit by a car and killed when I was walking home from school when I was five years old? Was it because my mother was in a mental hospital? Was it because I never felt wanted, affirmed or loved? Was it because there were two older male relatives who harassed me and molested me for many years? Was it because a caretaker kept telling me all the things that were wrong with me? As I look back at pictures of me when I was a little girl, it is clear that I looked like any other kid. What was it in my mind that made me different?
Sometimes I gave in to the despair and spent as much time as I could, alone in my room, crying uncontrollably. At other times I responded to the bleak circumstances of my life by being a "too bright and cheery" overachiever. There never seemed to be any middle ground. Even back then, as a child and as a teenager, I was looking for answers-ways to feel better. I became an avid reader of self help magazine articles and books. I tried diet and exercise. I constantly tried to achieve an elusive perfection. Nothing helped much.
But I got by. When I finished school, I did all the things women were supposed to do in those days. Go to college, get married and have a family. Sometimes everything seemed so hard. Other times, everything seemed so easy. Was everyone's life like this? Trying to keep going or going too fast.
Then there came a time when the depression got too deep. I couldn't get out of bed, much less take care of my five children and administer the small private school I started when I was feeling "up". I went to see a psychiatrist. He listened to my story and said there was no question about it. I was manic depressive like my mother. He said lithium three times a day would take care of the whole problem. What an easy answer! I was thrilled.
For ten years, I took my lithium and continued to do everything I could to improve myself. My life continued to be very chaotic. But my ups weren't so up, and my downs weren't so down. Then I was overtaken with a dangerous episode of lithium toxicity. Why hadn't anyone ever told me that if you keep taking your lithium when you are dehydrated from a stomach bug, you can get lithium toxicity? Come to think of it, I knew very little about this substance I was so religiously putting in my mouth. Although I was doing everything in my power to keep myself well, I still felt that the ultimate responsibility for my well-being was in the hands of my psychiatrist. I was totally trusting that he was making the right decisions in my behalf.
A Recovery Story: Taking Responsibility For Your Life
I am reminded of the biblical quote around giving a man a fishing rod to catch his own fish, rather than feeding him a daily diet. Mental health issues are no different in this sense, than any other of the elements of life we must face. If we wish to have a chocolate bar, we must do a number of things to achieve that goal; such as walk to the shop, ensure we have enough money etc. Too often in my work, I meet people who have never taken responsibility for their lives, let alone their illness. Too often behavioral factors are blamed on mental health, as an excuse for not moving forward and making the most of life's abundance. We can liken this to many of the societal problems we see in our poorer areas. Lack of hope, self determination, living a preconceived idea of what is expected, rather than breaking free of the bounds that have taken us to this stage in life.
Mental illness is not a reason to roll over and rely on others who have no vested interest in our recovery. It is a valid reason to take charge and make the most of what we have. Our strengths in being able to survive are phenomenal, and give us a greater advantage, I feel, over the general population. How can you gain insight and strength if you have never been challenged in the ways that we have in our personal development? In this I can only look to my own personal development over the years; and the steps I have had to take to achieve a level of wellness that has allowed me to participate fully in life.
For me, hope was an issue that had to be addressed in order to consider moving on to the other steps of recovery. I had to accept my life was not over, that I was not baggage that could be disposed of in a corner and forgotten by society. I spent my life till 35 years with no label and no understanding that I had a mental illness (even though as a teenager I had been institutionalized for a period). I had lived my whole life with feelings of depression and suicidation. In not understanding what was wrong, I battled on and continued to suffer, striving constantly to be able to achieve the goals I knew I should be able to. When I hit a particularly bad low and was told I was suffering depression I felt like I had been released. With the knowledge that there was a legitimate reason for my feelings, I was able to actually begin to grow. For me, a label was a positive experience in that it allowed me to make sense of my life.
Slowly, I began to find out as much as I could about my illness and the rapid cycling nature of it.This knowledge was the basis that I could then re-build my self-esteem and life around. The more knowledge I gained, the more knowledge I realized I needed to know. I questioned my doctor, my community psychiatric nurse, other service users my friends I searched the Internet. It was from these varied sources I began to understand more about what was normal to feel and what was illness. I looked at the behavioral triggers and undertook counseling to remove as many as I could. If I realized I was reacting due to a past event from my childhood I acknowledged it and re-evaluated from my adult. I maintained a mood chart, studied the medications I was on, the side effects, combinations and expected outcomes. It took ten years to get my medication right, and I was the one in the end who suggested the combination that has proved to work.
Luckily I had a very good doctor who treated me as a peer and respected my input. This is not to say I always had such professional input. I have seen many doctors with varying results, some good some bad. But the knowledge and the will to live a full life made me question the opinions of the professionals. If I was not satisfied with the treatment or their response to me I took another. I had to be strong in advocating for my needs to be met. I could not sit back and allow others to decide what was in my best interest. This of course did not happen overnight. It has taken many years to reach the level I am at now. Especially learning to question the medical professions choices and rational.
I am well now and working full time because I have done the hard yards. Have taken responsibility for my life and my recovery (ability to live well in the presence or absence of mental illness). Created a supportive network of friends I can call if I need to. Though I must admit I still tend to isolate more than I should. Where hope was once an impossible dream, a term I never really believed in or accepted for my life. I am now living my life the way I want to. Achieving the goals I set for myself, participating in the way I wish to in life. Hope is now a term belonging to the past; I no longer need to hope as I have achieved that goal. I have the self-esteem I once lacked. I no longer try to hide my illness from others in fear of rejection, or feel that I am inferior to others. I control my life with the support of professionals and friends. I, like all who recover (be it mental illness or alcoholism etc), have learnt that the only thing that will make a difference is self-determination, the willingness to take full responsibility for my life.