How To Be Proactive About Treating Depression

When you live with clinical depression, it can be difficult to know how to get out of the vicious cycle of apathy, listlessness, and feeling like you just “can’t.” Your brain is telling you that you can’t, and the most important thing to remember is that “you can.” I’m not indicating in any way shape or form that this is easy. However, it’s an excellent strategy or coping mechanism for managing depression. Notice I used the word “managing” in reference to depression. That’s because in some ways we have limited control over how depression impacts us on a personal level. What we DO have control over are our actions once we start feeling depressed. This is what cognitive behavior therapy is all about. You are learning real coping skills to deal with the intrusive thoughts associated with feeling depressed. CBT encourages people living with depression (myself included) to question or reality test their thoughts. For example here’s a common depression induced thought: nobody cares about me, and they would be better off if I didn’t exist. This thought is a based on multiple cognitive distortions. Let’s start with “nobody cares about me.” This is assumption based on mind reading. You don’t actually know if nobody cares about you because you can’t read their minds. Additionally, another distortion that’s involved here is overgeneralization. In life there will be people wh...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news