Dragonflymagic's advice column

Life is an adventure but Life doesn't come with user manuals for everything. School subjects do little to prepare us. Its no wonder we all need helpful advice sometimes. Blessings to you!

advice

When I started college I noticed that I was feeling kind of down. I was at a new school so I felt very shy and didn't want to talk to people. It got worse and after a while I didn't want to go to my classes anymore. I knew something was wrong so I went to see a psychologist and she told me that I have depression and anxiety. She also said that I've had it for so long that I didn't even realize it was there. My doctor then put me on antidepressants. My question is, since I've been depressed for so long is it possible for me to get better? Or is this just a part of who I am now and my personality? Thanks

I am not a doctor but can share from what I have learned via friends and some family with this issues. There are two kinds of depression. One is the kind that evey living being on the planet is sure to have experienced at least once, because it is due to one particular situation that set it off. This one is called a situational depression. Then there is 'clinical depression' which is used to describe the type that only responds to medicine and the medicine is a synthetically made, feel good hormone, that usually resides in your brain, but the reserves of that hormone get used up and your brain is not able to reproduce and make the needed hormones on your own which is how our bodies are meant to function. So in the situational ones, there is nothing wrong with your ability to create these hormones, so when the levels of these hormones run low or are used up, thats where we came up with the word 'depressed' to describe the situation, depressed levels of hormones. So its the actual reason for them being depressed that makes a difference whether you can get better and not need meds, get better when taking meds and live fairly normal, or as in what I hear from most people on depression meds, they cant handle the side effects or it just isn't having any positive effects. Your doctor has no proof other than the words you shared with him/her to base the assumption that you have had this all your life. I have only had situational depression a few times in life and I had really bad anxiety, social anxiety as a kid and teen. So I can see where my anxiety had plenty of choices to make it easy to fall into depression, by continually mulling over in my mind all the things I wished I could do but was too afraid and anxious about. And the more a person dwells on something, even its already done and gone and there is no way to change it, yet we torture our minds, and have no feel good hormones to deal with the situation. I have the following example. My middle daughters first boyfriend dumped her. She took it hard and became depressed. She didn't realize that just the normal stresses of life, college, etc was using those up and she was doing nothing that would bring those levels back up. I had recently read about them and saved the info on my computer so I printed out and gave the list to my daughter. She thanked me but said it probably won't help because when you see this list, you won't think those are things that can help in situational depression. So thru her job, she was allowed one free visit paid to see a psychologist. She went. He could tell from what she did share that since she wasn't depressed before being dumped that it was most likely situational depression and since she couldn't afford to see him again, the Dr. gave her a list of things she could do to try and see if they helped. She came to see me, so excited and showed me the list which matched the one I had told her about earlier. She applied herself and the depression disappeared.
So in answer to whether this is part of who you are now, that remains to be seen, whether you have situational depression or clinical type. The clinical one being that your body is not able to make thise hormones on its own means that yes this would be part of who you are for the rest of your life. It doesn't get better, just as a person born without an arm, can't grow themselves a replacement arm, like starfish do.

If you are being honest in saying you noticed feeling down only after starting college and not before then, it is possible you don't have situational depression. You may have it now but theres a sure way to find out. You try doing all the things on the list I am going to give you and if there is no improvement in, lets say a month, then you may have depression. The anxiety most likely is real because I haven't heard of anything that brings it on, you are just born with it, but it too can be overcome because I overcame mine. I can see though how my anxietey could easily have been the springboard to bring on depression of either kind, if I had also had an issue with negative or distorted thinking. I remember from the youngest age I was anxious around people other than my family. But that is another list. Lets have you try the first list and see if you start feeling better. If you do but after a while you are anxious and you notice that you are starting to feel depressed again, it might be time to work on your anxiety as well. I read a book done by a psychologist who used to just hand out medication as your doctor did. He was approached by colleagues to try a new style of work called CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. When he did, he discovered that the majority of patients on depression meds did not need to be on it, just that their feel good hormone levels were low or gone. When he used this method on his patients, they were normal again and did not need meds. This went to prove that the greater percent of people do not need medication to handle depression because they have the kind that can be treated. However, you may need professional help discovering what your anxieties are and overcoming them. So I want to share a link to that Dr.s website called Feeling Good.
https://feelinggood.com/

It should give you enough hope to find a Dr. who is trained in using CBT and those initials can be found when looking up such a Dr. its after their name with other credentials. I remember reading a success story ages ago of a woman who wrote in to say that she had depression her entire life and once she tried the CBT techniques taught to her, she was normal and didn't need meds anymore. So it doesn't matter how long you've had it, you can heal it if there is no medical reason your brain can't create more of the hormones. Its nothing new, as CBT has been around for many decades by now, long before you were even born and possibly before your Mom was born or shortly thereafter. Now I list the things to help raise feel good hormones so your body produces more to handle the stresses of your life. After all, college is stressful, being away from friends and having to make new ones can be stressful. Here now is the list of things that raise the levels of feel good hormones, Dr. approved.

1. Music; specifically playing the songs where the tune, not the words, actually make you feel better instantly. Its few songs that do it but if you are looking for it, you'll feel it. It feels like my heart is a balloon ready to float gently up and out of my chest. One such song for me is Clocks by Coldplay. Its not the words but the melody that does it for me. I'll repeat the song a couple times and I can already feel the difference.
2. Movement: For me, I choose to dance by myself in a room while listening to the songs whose melodys already help. But it can be hard work, excercise, the kind that keeps you moving. I challenge you to try skipping like little kids do. I did that once outside on the sidewalk. I am older and couldn't skip for long but the short distance I went had me unable to suppress laughter and I instantly felt good. If a short distance, you may be able to do this indoors.
3.Meditation: Quieting your mind and since the mind is the one suffering, it can help to meditate and try using whatever methods make it work for you. I find I can't clear my mind for long but I can for short bits and those help too.
4. Hugs: People can usually say they have gotten a few hugs in their life but not on a consistant basis, and not the long lasting bear hugs. All I knew was the sideways hugs that paranoid people in church gave me. The quick grab and release don't work because it doesn't give your body enough time to kick into gear the hormone making. You can't give a hug without getting one in return so start initiating it, with friends and family. If you are not the kind who finds hugging easy to do, force yourself because the benefits of this are again an instant feel good for me. To get these benefits, you give a full frontal hug and hold on til past the moment where it starts to feel weird or uncomfortable to be hugging that long. Hugging with rocking back and forth hides that uncomfortableness and makes it looks like you are extremely and enthusiastically glad to see them. I can feel the difference the longer I hug. Most hugs last only a second or two. I am not calling for minute long hugs, just something 6 to 10 seconds long and you'll see that feels like a long time but long enough for the hormone maker inside me to start producing more.
5. Lastly we have being grateful and thankful daily, not just a few times or only at THanksgiving. This is important for having positive mental health but I can't say this was one of the most effective for me. Being grateful for what you have, takes a good amount of stress off when you are not focusing on what you don't have or what went wrong. Being thankful for what you have and doing so often whether stating it out loud or thinking it in your head can help start those hormones going. In myself, I find it does more to help correct my line of thinking if I start to think negative too often. All people do negative thinking at times. The difference is they catch themselves doing so. Stop. Laugh at themselves and tell themselves the bad thing won;t happen, isn't likely or isn't all that bad to worry about.