ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION: SELF-HELP
Self-help in anxiety/depression has three main parts. First of all, be prepared to admit that you’re depressed; secondly, don’t wallow in it, but get professional help; and, finally, start helping yourself to get out of it. This is not the same as ‘pulling yourself together’, which doesn’t work, mainly because it’s directed at the wrong things.
Recognising that you have a psychological cause for your headache is the first step towards healing it. If you are constantly striving to prove that there is a physical cause as a way of evading your responsibility to tackle your psychological problems, then you will make no headway. For some reason society tends to make out that people with psychological problems are evil or guilty, while those with physical problems are not. It really isn’t like that at all. True, you may have made decisions which, with hindsight, yon realise have contributed to your own current unhappiness. But for many sufferers from psychological illnesses, sufferings have been imposed from outside – the woman who was abused as a child; the adolescent who doesn’t love himself because his parents never really loved him; the man who is never allowed to show his anger because anger was always taboo in the family. Psychologically speaking, depression is often in-turned aggression -anger that you have not been able to express and so you turn it in upon yourself. So just because there is a psychological cause doesn’t mean that you are necessarily guilty; certainly, no more than if you had broken a leg skiing.
The second part of self-help is to recognise that although you are depressed you mustn’t wallow in it. Those who are depressed can get terribly self-absorbed with their depression and after a time some of them, as the saying goes, enjoy ill-health. Once you start wallowing in it you self-perpetuate the illness, and if you continue with the self-pity you’re likely to find that you quickly start running out of friends.
The third self-help method is honestly and courageously to face up to the things that are bothering you. Often it is an unspoken subconscious fear that you are too frightened to approach; perhaps it’s the fear of death; or that you can’t adjust to your sexuality; or you feel worthless as a result of being unemployed; or maybe you just feel unloved and unlovable. Courageously going headfirst into whatever problem is bugging you is often the quickest way to get out of those types of depression which are purely psychological in origin. Trying to evade the problem merely prolongs the issue and will lead you into more misery.
This is not easy to do. Facing up to those fearsome problems that are so hard to handle that you try to forget about them and bury them in your subconscious, is a very frightening activity, and you will need a lot of emotional support to do it. Tackling deep-rooted, fearsome problems like this is often where professional guidance and counselling come in.
Finally, make sure you get enough exercise. The apathy of depression is quite enough to stop you doing things, but exercise really can make you feel a lot better. Physically speaking, exercise releases the body’s own morphine-like chemicals (the endorphins) inside the brain, and these contribute to an increased sense of well-being. In addition, exercise uses up the extra adrenalin that will be swilling round your system if you’re anxious.
Depression often has its roots in in-turned aggression – an inability to vent anger. Very often the condition can be improved by learning how to appropriately dissipate it. Assertiveness training is part of this technique – learning how not to be trampled on can be very important. It is all about making sure that you are able to put your point of view forward and be listened to. Some people were never taught to be assertive; they find themselves doing what others want simply because they’ve never learned to stand up for themselves.
Physical contact is often a necessity in cases of depression. We humans need the constant physical encouragement of human contact, and families and spouses can often help by making a point of touching. The hand on the arm, the arm round the shoulder, the kiss, the cuddle; these all say ‘You’re important to me, you’re valuable in yourself – sentiments that the depressed person longs to hear.
It will help considerably to express your feelings more often. In depression the emotions often get buttoned up, and expressing them can help (particularly as these emotions can be very strong in depression). In our stiff-upper-lip society, it’s not always easy to let your emotions out, and expressing what you feel in art, music or dance may help. Art, dance and music therapy can be extremely helpful .
Although you might think that religion would be a consolation in depression -and sometimes it is – some depressed people perceive their religious beliefs as a burden rather than as a liberation. This is often tied in with a sense of guilt, worthlessness or failure. It is important to realise that these fears are a reflection of your depression, not an indictment of your beliefs.
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