This will be the first in a series of posts that looks at depression and what you can do to help yourself. Many people today suffer from depression at some point in their lives. Sometimes it is a result of a specific life event like the passing of a loved one, sometimes it is a sense of hopelessness that seems to descend on us.Depression can sap your energy, it seems to stifle hope you can only see unsatisfactory endings to your situation. The double edged sword with depression is that it seems impossible to get out of because you just can’t summon the energy to fight.
The first thing to realise is that you can do things that cost very little energy, you can realise that you can at least change your mind and you can question some of the things that you think about negative endings. Making small, simple changes to your life can go a long way to changing how well you cope with depression.
The first steps we are going to look at is just realising the tools that we have available to us. What things do we have in our life that might make a difference. These need not be huge perhaps there are somethings we haven’t thought of before. Perhaps you have a pet, cats and dogs for example tend to love their owners unconditionally.They also need exercise which perhaps give you the opportunity to get out.
Identifying friends and family that you might talk about how you feel, what you would feel comfortable saying to them and what would help you if they offered to help. You could talk to your GP, and while they can prescribe medicine to help, there is also a growing realisation that talking therapies like counselling can help. YOu coulds of course find a qualified counsellor (http://www.itsgoodtotalk.org.uk/therapists/).
Perhaps you are scared that you won’t be able to get better, so perhaps thinking about what scares you, so that you can understand your enemy. Perhaps you could think about taking some of the steps and see if they improve things, after all what do you have to loose.
Realise that you are not alone battling depression, around one third of adults visiting their GP are doing so because of depression. People go on to make full recoveries and you can be one of them too.
As you think about your feelings before next week’s post consider the following: Watching your life between now and then what is the one thing that you would like to keep.