Overcoming Depression is Not Just about ‘Positive Thinking’
You might hear a lot about positive thinking when you are trying to find a way to recover from depression. Getting over depression can be a little more complicated than just trying to think positively. Depression can show up in really different ways and it is important to remember that each person’s experience is unique. You can be depressed without even really feeling sad. For some people, it could be feelings of guilt and irritability that may be prominent. For other people it could be feelings of shame, tearfulness, concentration difficulties and indecision that are most noticeable.
For many people with depression a cycle sets in where you generally get less enjoyment from things you used to enjoy and for understandable reasons, you stop doing those things. You can’t be bothered to see friends, you drop the hobbies you used to love, you put less effort into most daily tasks, even with things like dressing yourself and cooking meals. Your world gets more and more narrow and less opportunities to escape depression present themselves due to the isolation and inactivity that depression can bring about. The solution can lie in finding ways to escape this cycle.
It can bring so much relief to realise that the way you are seeing things is not really the whole truth. In some cases, the negative way in which you are viewing things might be accurate, it is just that the positive things are missing. Without the hope and promise that comes from seeing a balance of positive and negative perspectives, life can get very bleak. It is often this pessimism that contributes to difficulties making decisions, all the options look unappealing when all you see are how things could go wrong. When you are considering several possibilities, and you only predict the ways in which each option could have negative consequences then every path you could take seems like a bad idea. Addressing the way you are thinking to include a balance of positives and negatives can help you move forward. This is where a good friend, partner or a formal relationship with a psychologist can be helpful. Family members and friends sometimes become fatigued from trying to help and are not always objective about you and your situation.
Overcoming depression is about trying to view things in more accurate ways, including both the positive and negative and breaking free from cycles of depression that keep you stuck where you are. Help is available, you don’t have to keep pushing through alone.
