Status Updates From Overcoming Depression: A se...

One reason for exploring the social aspects of depression is to highlight that suffering from depression can arise from real social hardships and is not about being a bad or weak person. There may be things in your life that make depression more likely. Once you give up blaming yourself and feeling inadequate, you might begin to see how to make changes.

Indeed, knowing what our needs are, and being able to express them, is important for mental health, especially if we are successful in eliciting supportive signals from others.

Sometimes we need to make our emotions and moods less volatile by learning new ways of coping and re-interpreting some of the things that trigger negative feelings. If anxiety is a prob, you may need to follow a routine of gradual exposure to the things that make you anxious, rather than avoiding them entirely, so that over time you retain your mind not to trigger anxiety so easily.

Sometimes we need to make our emotions and moods less volatile by learning new ways of coping and re-interpreting some of the things that trigger negative feelings. If anxiety is a problem, you may need to follow a routine of gradual exposure to the things that make you anxious, rather than avoiding them entirely, so that over time you retain your mind not to trigger anxiety so easily.

If our responses are being too easily triggered, we need to become less sensitive to events that trigger our emotions and moods—to desensitize ourselves.

If you can learn to challenge the inferiority thoughts and break the link between subordinate feelings (e.g., anxiety, unhappiness) and behavior (hiding away, loss of confidence) and stress, you will feel better.

But depression can also arise from too much closeness. We may feel trapped and weighed down in relationships and can’t get away, or don’t have enough space or distance from others. And we might feel guilty about even wanting to get more space.

Lonely, despair-type depressions can arise when it seems that we cannot get close enough to others; we feel cut off and solitary. When people are depressed they often feel emotionally alone and isolated—this is the part of the depressive experience. It can feel as if there is a barrier between oneself and others.

Depression is not just psychological or ‘all in the mind,’ or a sign of weak character. Depression is about how our bodies and brains respond to stress. Depression is about genetic and developmental sensitivities. And, of course, being depressed and tired can itself be stressful and depressing.

The more we can say, ‘Okay, my depression is a part of me; one of my many brain systems, but it can’t be relied on to be accurate or helpful,’ the more we can step in to try to take control of it.

If we can get other systems to challenge the depression, by learning how to think differently about ourselves and events, then we have an opportunity to get things back into balance.