Depression sucks. When you’re feeling down, it’s hard to connect with friends and loved ones, engage in enjoyed activities, exercise, work, complete homework... Sometimes, it’s so severe that someone might barely be able to do their daily routines (e.g., getting out of bed, showering) or they might feel hopeless about their future.
Although depression is heavy, my hot take is that depression treatment is easy. I use a cognitive-behavioral therapy called behavioral activation (BA). When actively doing this treatment (which means engaging in daily therapy homework practice), I have seen people go from being clinically depressed to no longer meeting criteria for the disorder in 4-6 weeks.
We’ve gotten to think of depression treatment as something super serious and long-term. We assume someone who has one depressive episode will need to take antidepressant medication for the rest of their life.
From my clinical experience, I would say that for people who are continuing to have episodes of depression, there is probably something driving that. Maybe they are stuck in an unhealthy relationship, living situation, or job. They might have an undiagnosed disorder, such as PTSD, an anxiety disorder or OCD-spectrum disorder, a substance use problem, or autism that is fueling the depression and needs separate treatment. A mental health professional should do a thorough assessment to determine if there are other factors that need clinical attention.
If you or your child have been “in treatment for depression” for longer than a few months and have not seen significant improvement, you and your treatment provider should be evaluating why this is the case. Are you not using the most effective treatment? Are you not practicing the skills outside of therapy? Is there another problem/disorder that needs to be addressed?
I also like to think about the different potential “causes” of depression (of course, there is usually not one singular cause, and this is one of those nature-nurture debates!). Maybe it’s more biological: you’re about to have your period or the season changed. That seems like something that could change on its own without intervention, and even more likely with using some skills. Maybe you’re feeling depressed because your grandparent died or you went through a serious breakup. That seems like a very natural time to feel down. It would be stranger to have a breakup of a serious relationship and then go out partying the next day like it never happened. You can take your time to reflect on the loss of the relationship while also doing things to bring joy back into your life. Maybe you get depressed because of the way you think about the world: “Nobody does things to my standard,” “Everyone hates me,” “I can never get things right.” Sometimes your perception of things is more the problem than your actual life. (Remember It’s a Wonderful Life?)
I also help people to ultimately view depression differently. Maybe depression used to show up and you were in for 3 months of sadness. Depression seemed like a guest that overstayed its welcome big time. After learning new skills, I hope people come to see depression as someone who comes by your home to say “hi” unexpectedly but that you have the power to send away eventually. Maybe “depression” comes in after a bad night of sleep, but it is already gone by the afternoon after forcing yourself up out of bed to do some aerobics. I think any of us would be alright with depression if it were something that at most showed up for a few hours per day 1-2 times per month.
Anyway, the title and photo are not meant to make light of depression. I want people to understand that there is so much hope for depression resolving now and in the future. And I also want people to be able to take a pause in this busy world and allow themselves to feel all emotional experiences: whether negative or positive.
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