When a person starts to feel unwell, are not only the symptoms of the disease relevant, in this case the symptoms of depression ?, but also the apprehension that knowledge of the diagnosis can cause.
On the other hand, a diagnosis has been received or not, people who begin to experience symptoms of depression may be afraid of their behaviors, cognitions and reactions. In this article we present some keys that can help us start our fight against depression and emerge victorious.
- The most important thing when treating a depressive disorder is knowing that we have to want to get rid of it.
- The discipline will have to be superior to taking one or the other and waiting.
Psychopharmaceuticals, in some cases, can be very useful when combined with psychological therapy, but there’s the key, therapy, if we decide to do it, can be the most powerful tool we have to start feeling better and stay away from despair. , sadness or apathy.
Therefore, therapy is also a message of hope for people suffering from depression because it works.
Different psychological currents offer scientifically validated, experimentally tested and postulated options in the treatment of depression. From the behavioral activation that acceptance and commitment therapy offers to Ellis’s rational emotional therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, many tools are helpful.
So, believe it or not, it is important to know that it is possible to leave the depressive state and that it is not necessary to do so alone: the psychologist knows the tools and will be a job for both.
One of the most notorious symptoms of depression is the abandonment of intrinsically motivated activities, the activities that used to attract attention are left out unsposyed, so that the person gradually loses these sources of positive emotions.
Lack of motivation or desire is a major factor: it numbs initiative and tests willpower. The depressed person feels helpless and therefore tries to save him as much as possible.
However, being a legacy of the model of thought in which we were educated, the truth is that desires can be created, the fact that they do not exist does not mean that what we do should not be done.
If a person has lost the desire to walk the dog every morning, it is important to keep in mind that certain activities can continue to be carried out “undesyed”, precisely to create “wins”.
Certainly, after this walk, we will feel better, with a mood that we will drag to the next activity, which we will least have a hard time performing.
People with depression can see how their thoughts have changed, these can be more negative, more desperate or sadder, they can flood internal dialogue with phrases that hurt a lot.
No treatment? A cognitive restructuring job, for example? It is difficult to see that these thoughts exist, but above all to dismantle them and withdraw their validity.
What would this be like to deal with in therapy?Anything that’s highly recommended to get you started? The depressed person is not expected to know how to do it alone. Actually, you don’t have to.
We must not believe everything our head says, even if it seems right. Ideas like “Nobody cares about me,” “I don’t serve anything,” “Can’t I go on?These are irrational thoughts that undermine our self. “
Since we often cannot avoid them, it is essential to have strategies that allow us to ignore them. In this sense, activity-led distraction strategies work very well.
One of the most important factors in the treatment of depression is to have a dense and supportive social circle. The downside is that depression itself often uses this support circle, so it shrinks in size as it sinks de increasingly into the mental abyss.
On many occasions, people seek help. They try not to see correspondence between them, so they end up giving up, they no longer love business, they feel powerless when they don’t know how to help and they end up going.
That is why it is so important that if we are part of this circle of a person suffering from depression, we stay in our place. The intervention, as well as the evaluation, must be led by a professional.
Sometimes he’s lazy. Sometimes it’s scary. Sometimes lack of willpower or “faith in psychology”. One way or another, depression forms a poignant and persistent state from which it is possible to escape.
While there are cases where spontaneous remission exists, the truth is that there are people who can live with depression for many years to come. Others, a life. This does not mean that you cannot work on this depression, but that you may never have faced a specific, adapted and specialized intervention.
Although these are very different examples, we cannot expect to cure leukemia without going to the doctor; we can wait to go to the dermatologist when we notice a spot on the skin, but in this case the time we waste will be against us, the same goes for psychological disorders.
So while we think we’re not that bad at therapy, that it’s not worth it, or that it won’t be helpful, it’s better to prevent than cure and work in time so that depression doesn’t turn into a snowball.
If personal resources permit, therapy may be the first step in overcoming depression and starting a job well guided by specialized people to help in these cases.
It is about directing forces that have not yet been taken by depression to places that give us back control and a sense of well-being.