Am I experiencing depression?

-

Depression can sneak up on us and sometimes we’re not even aware that we’re experiencing it. The difficulty with this is that the longer we are in it without intervening, the harder it can be to come out.

Being able to spot it is not for the sake of having a diagnosis to fix, but rather to enable us to take back some control and make little changes day to day (based on our capacity in the moment) that can reduce its intensity and make it more achievable to find your way out.

Here are some things to look out for...

Thoughts:

  • I'm a failure
  • It's my fault
  • Nothing good ever happens to me
  • I'm worthless
  • Life's not worth living
  • People would be better off without me
Physical symptoms:
  • Feeling tired all the time
  • Feeling sick and run down
  • Headaches and muscle pains
  • Stomach pain, butterflies or churning gut
  • Sleep problems
  • Loss or change of appetite
  • Significant weight loss or gain
Feelings:
  • Overwhelmed or indecisive
  • Guilty
  • Irritable or frustrated
  • Lacking in confidence
  • Unhappy or disappointed
  • Miserable or sad
Behaviour:
  • Not going out anymore
  • Not getting things done at work or school
  • Withrawing from close family and friends
  • Relying on alcohol and sedatives
  • Not doing usual enjoyable activities
  • Unable to concentrate

Question for you:

What is a small way you can take responsibility for improving your mental health today?

For some it might be getting out of bed to eat a nourishing meal or have a shower, for others it may be choosing to walk to work or sit with a cup of tea for a few minutes, some may like to find time for prayer or call a friend or take on a new project. These things may sound very simple but the key here is not so much the task but the belief in our capacity to achieve them & an increase in our sense of self in the process.
Beyondblue.org.au

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is telepathy ruining my relationship?

-
Image
I was asked recently what is the most common challenge I see couples facing in my practice and I found it surprisingly easy to answer... can you guess?  Telepathy. The dictionary describes it as "the supposed communication of thoughts or ideas by means other than the known senses" . I'm not sure about you but I am yet to meet someone who can prove to me that they are indeed telepathic and able to read the minds of others. And yet, almost every couple that sits in front of me in therapy are behaving in ways that suggest they have the gift, and spoiler alert, it is not leading to enriching & satisfying relationships.  A fictitious example: Julia arrives home from work to her partner Rob. The house is a mess & Julia thinks to herself "Aargh, Rob is so lazy! He never helps out around the house, he knew I had a big meeting today couldn't he have at least tidied up a bit before I got home? He clearly doesn't care about how important my day was." Julia ...
Read more

Starting school/daycare - a lesson in growing pains.

-
Image
It's a new year and a lot of families are managing an array of big changes including kids starting daycare/preschool/school/high school or kids moving into a new year with new teachers, classrooms and peers.  Change is just one of those things that naturally tends to produce some degree of discomfort for most people (the unknown is not a popular place to be) and this becomes even more complex when a parent is a bystander of their child facing change - cue anxiety!  A lot of parents (myself included) already begin preparing their child for the change well before it's even taken place. In the circumstance of school changes, the lead up is often filled with social stories, orientation visits, play dates, books, meetings with teachers, new backpacks, lunch box prep and so on. These are not bad things, in fact they can be really helpful, but can you see how much energy is already being directed towards managing the change for the child? Before the school year has even begun our min...
Read more

When anxiety shows up uninvited – how to prevent it from taking control

-
Image
“Anxiety can be defined as the response of an organism to a threat, real or imagined. It is a process that, in some form, is present in all living things.” — Murray Bowen Everyone experiences varying degrees of anxiety at different points in their life. If you meet someone that says they haven’t, they may not be aware of how anxiety shows up for them. Bowen theorists tend to use terms such as tension and/or discomfort interchangeably with anxiety, I find that most people can relate to the experience of discomfort/tension but often do not attribute that to anxiety. In the end, what we label it doesn’t actually matter – what matters is an ability to observe it in ourselves and to become acquainted with how it shows up in our body, thoughts, behaviours and emotions - and further, what automatic patterns of behaviour we have developed in order to manage it. These behavioural strategies for managing the discomfort are often so automatic that we have no idea we’re doing them – a lot of them ...
Read more