Cope With Depression Without Seeking Professional Help
Depression is a serious and common illness that touches many people. Ideally, this condition is brought to the attention and care of a mental health professional. However, this may not be possible in your situation. You may not have access to such care due to financial situation, geography, or cultural issues. Although the best approach is with the help of a trained professional, there are several basic techniques that may be very helpful in approaching this condition.
If you are feeling suicidal or that you may hurt others, contact your local suicide hotline, emergency room, or other agency for help, now. In the US, you can call 800-273-TALK, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.
Steps
- Understand depression. Depression isn't like the sadness one feels when a loved one dies, you don't get the job you wanted, or you are dumped by your girlfriend. Usually, a person grieves, or is angry, and otherwise feels profound negative emotions. And then these feelings pass. But in depression, these feelings keep going on an abnormally long time.
- Depression changes brain chemistry. Depression changes how your body reacts to the world, and you to the world. Numerous studies can show that people dealing with depression are "wired" differently than those without depression.
- Depression may not be just "sadness". Depression can make a person inconsolably sad. But it also manifest in other feelings, such as irritability, rage, shame, guilt, indecision, and a numbness of not really feeling any feelings at all.
- It also doesn't necessarily mean you never feel happy, either. Depression can be worse some days, and better other days. Depression is often not a simple, static state.
- Depression means you can't just "cheer up", or "just get over it". These well-meaning but misguided pieces of advice do not really work for someone who is depressed. While telling yourself affirmative statements, appreciating what you have, and trying to focus on the positive are not "wrong", for a person dealing with depression, it is like telling someone with bronchitis to try a throat lozenge - it is not nearly enough help and vastly oversimplifies your suffering.
- Open Yourself to Help. Often people dealing with depression tend to try avoid others. Unfortunately that is exactly the opposite of what such a person needs. Depression leads into a vicious spiral of isolation that tends to feed on itself and make everything progressively worse. Here you need to find the people on your side. Very few people can manage depression entirely on their own; you really need to find people who can help you.
- Family & Friends. Opening up to the people closest to you is ideal, if possible. Often these are the people who can help you best. You may be afraid of "burdening" them, but it is also their duty to be a good family member or friend to you.
- Clergy. Religious organizations can be a powerful resource for counseling without seeking medical help. Different faiths will approach depression differently, of course. But many can offer confidential help, faith-based counseling, and resources within your community.
- Teacher/Coach/Guidance Counselor/School Nurse/Other School-based Staff. Perhaps you have a good bond with a staff member at your school. Even if you are not even sure you want or need professional help, it helps to just talk.
- Depression/Suicide/Mental Health Hotline. Perhaps you are not comfortable with opening up to family, friends, teachers, or clergy. Many communities have free, confidential hotlines staffed by people who want to hear from you. They are really nice, kind, caring folks. They are also trained to listen, not judge, and help people with awful feelings.
- Depression Websites. The Internet has a lot of communities dedicated to people dealing with issues like depression. Many are free, anonymous, and often tailored to specific populations, such as teenagers, or homosexuals, mothers, Christian, from specific ethnic backgrounds, regions, survivors of rape, and on and on.
- Be Careful of "Simple Solutions". Very rarely is depression vanquished in a simple, easy manner. And one person's experience and comforts may not work at all for another. What works for you will usually be a combination of things. Especially be careful if a "solution" come with a hefty price-tag, or can only be done by one person, or requires secrecy; these indicate people or institutions that may not have your best interests in mind.
- Develop and Cultivate Interests, if Possible. Depression can make it difficult to do things a person used to find pleasurable. However, if at all possible, put time and energy aside to do things that bring you joy.
- Exercise can help depression. An exercise regimen can dramatically improve mood and health overall.
- Mindfulness activities, such as meditation, prayer, yoga, art, and other activities, can help keep you "in the moment", not dwelling on the past or dealing with anxieties about the future.
- Proper nutrition. Eating a diet that is healthy will make your body feel better than if you are eating poorly. If your physical body feels bad, your mental state will suffer. For some people, food issues like a sensitivity to certain food dyes can contribute.
- Write your feelings. Keep a journal, write poetry, blog --writing helps process feelings rather than "bottling them in". You can have a private journal, blog anonymously, or share your feelings at a public Internet forum...the choice is yours.
- Always know that you have rights. In most countries--these vary widely throughout the world--you generally have the right to accept or reject counselling, procedures, medication, and the like. It also means you have the right to change your mind on these issues. You have a right to dignity, respect, and happiness.
Tips
- Have a day out with friends to take your mind of everything
- Keep your 10 things simple and achievable; event-based. Don't write "be a good person", write "smile at the waitress every morning", or "meet [coco martin]".
- Enjoy your work. If you don't enjoy your work, talk to someone about how they enjoy it. If you feel you can't enjoy your work, find new work. By doing this, you can start to reconcile as much as you can with your life situation.
- Juggling is a great hobby to take up. Its fun, its social, and its the only recreation proven to increase the amount of gray matter in the areas of the brain relating to concentration and cognition.
- In some women, depression may be caused (or worsened) by low hormone levels, most commonly progesterone...and progesterone levels drop in times of stress (such as the holidays). Progesterone helps keep serotonin levels from dropping too low, and low serotonin can cause depression. Doctors can test for low progesterone and prescribe it (though many doctors are unaware of the link with depression); it is even available without prescription, which gives you an idea how safe it is when used according to directions. Indications that a depression may be progesterone related are: symptoms get worse in the two weeks before menses, during perimenopause/menopause, or after giving birth. Anxiety-depression is most commonly seen, sometimes accompanied by severe mood swings and insomnia; some women may get more headaches/migraines. NOTE: synthetic progestins such as Provera, medroxyprogesterone, DepoProvera, and birth control pills can make these symptoms worse instead of better; we're talking about progesterone specifically, not its "substitutes". Progesterone is available as Progest cream (a good brand) without prescription, and as Prometrium capsules with prescription; Find a Compounding Pharmacy also make various dose forms (such as Progesterone 50 mg/ml Lotion, compounded).
- Watch your money. A common habit of depressed people is to go on spending sprees.
Warnings
- Depression is a serious and common illness. If you in any way feel you are in danger of yourself, seek professional help. Never feel you are the first or only one to go through this. Be rational as you can. Respect yourself. Take as much control of your life as you can..
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