Help for depression?
When all things take on a dark hue and nothing one does seems worthwhile, it is difficult to see anything positively or clearly. Depression is often something we live with for long periods of time, often in cycles of ups and downs. There tends to be a belief that ‘there is something wrong with me’. For someone viewing the world this way there is no point by seeking counselling for depression, because one of their underlying beliefs (fed by the depression itself of course) may be that there is nothing that can possibly help them. We may not realise that we don’t have to live this way, that we can get to the roots of our depression and find healing. One key to getting underneath this all-encompassing feeling is to realise that the negative self belief may not be true – that we may have swallowed some beliefs about ourselves from those around us when we were small.
Dealing with Depression
If we are lucky we can see that we are prey to negative self-beliefs like this and that give us no rest, but even this may be difficult. There may be confusion between our inner selves. There may be the high achiever – the one who we expect ourselves to be; or there may be one who is giving us negative interpretations of what we are experiencing (like lashing ourself with a whip); and there may also be one who is really angry with ourselves or the world for all it’s pain.
In the midst of all these ‘selves’, it can be very hard to see and feel who we really are. The confusion can be part of a spiral of emotion (see also my blog on spiralling emotions involved in anger)
I like to see our task in counselling for depression as a journey into the depths of the soul. To be ready to face the darkest places. Or perhaps just to have a look in places we never thought to look before. When we experience the thing we were afraid of it’s often not as scary as the fear had told us. With the help of a therapist who cares about you and will stay with you through this journey, you can learn to separate out what is real and enduring from that which is like a negative message being repeatedly fed to you from outside and reinforced from within. Steadily we can discover the real one who is experiencing the world.