How do you feel depressed or anxious?
Over the past 20 years of my counseling career, I have heard many patient accounts of how living with these two mental health diagnoses looks. Depression with its clinical symptoms of low motivation, low mood, frequent despair, tears, difficulties sleeping, eating and facing the day can feel stuck in real emotional sands. One patient likened his experience to depression to being trapped inside a black box, unable to find the lid and see the light outside. Another reflected on the feeling of being trapped under the thick cover of emotional fog that separated him from anything and anyone who gave him joy.
On the other hand, anxiety can feel trapped in a life-threatening situation, every moment, every day. The simple activities of going to work, seeing friends or facing countless everyday experiences can lead to a fast heart attack and a high sense of impending doom. He compared a patient to living with a widespread sense of awe, and that something was about to be terribly wrong. Her mind was like a relentless security guard, always examining the environment for a potential threat. Her voice was strongly seductive, and encouraged her to undo anything that might threaten him with exhaustion.
What can I do to feel better?
Self-care with depression or anxiety is essential to healing. While the role of the drug is often of paramount importance in the journey of treatment, the development of a mentality also includes playing an active role in caring for ourselves. Integrating healthy coping behaviors is a necessary element in elevating mood and managing the very attractive nature of these disorders.
Mary was a 49-year-old woman, and I was pleased to work with her as she steadily ascended from a dark pit of depression. We worked closely for six months to explore what led to depression and identify practical and useful strategies that she could use to manage her mood. At our last session, we explored the many changes she had made, which enabled her to ease the constant grip of depression he suffered after a series of life crises that left her feeling flattened. In the midst of the many things that we discussed that day, some of the things I said with me remained of the importance they revealed about the role of self-care and depression.
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Anxiety management with self-care
Anxiety is a complex monster. It appears quite differently from depression.While depression often creates a sense of inner, anxiety creates a sense of fear. Our anxious minds can be very adept at examining the environment for a threat, causing concern to become a total fear. Often, the enthusiastic mind resembles me as a best friend, whispering messages that fill you with suspicion and encouraging you to withdraw from everything that contains any element of the unknown.
In treatment, a critical component of treatment is the management of avoidance. Anxiety likes to convince its victims to avoid anything that makes them anxious. Initially when you avoid a threatening or stressful situation, anxiety decreases. It feels better at first to avoid.
