Marg Hux Therapy

​​What Depression Feels Like

​

Perhaps your doctor has told you that you are depressed, or you may feel this is the case if for a couple of months or more you have been finding that you don’t have the energy or enjoyment in things that you used to have and everything feels much more tiring than usual.  You may have deep sadness or find it difficult to feel anything.Patterns of sleeping and eating may be altered.  And you may find that your thought patterns have changed, and everything feels very negative.

​

​Where It Comes From

 

Depression can be in response to an overwhelming problem, and many people have very difficult challenges in their life.  It can also arise when rationally you feel that there is not a good cause. 

Depression can be thought of as your body and mind’s “shut down response”.  It may develop when you have been living with situations or stresses that have felt impossible to resolve or escape.  Your body’s nervous system meant to mobilize for threats may have been running on overload and can’t continue.  You feel that you have no energy, may find you can’t sleep or may sleep all the time, and may lose appetite or be eating too much. 

Thoughts can become stuck in patterns that everything is negative, it is all your fault and that it’s not going to get better.  Automatic negative thoughts can be present and very hard to shake.  Your mind may loop with thoughts of worst possible outcomes and that these are inevitable.  It can feel challenging to move out of these stuck patterns of thought and feeling.   When you're depressed, it can feel as though nothing will ever change. Depression often tells us that the future is hopeless—but depression is not an accurate predictor of the future.  

​

How We Work Together 

 

A therapist can help you to understand that these patterns are not permanent.  You can be supported in helping to explore whether the negative thoughts are really the way things are or just the depressive tendency of mind. 

​

It can be very important to start making some small changes and in therapy you can find and make these steps toward solving your problems. 

Your lifestyle and changes in lifestyle can help or hinder your depression.  When your body is depleted of energy, it makes it so much harder to recover from depression and some of the important initial steps are finding ways to nourish, rest and move the body.   Sometimes the most important starting point is help to deeply relax and particularly to improve sleep. 

Body movement such as short walks, easy morning energy exercises and other somatic exercises can be very helpful.  You may find it helps to sit with the sad feelings and use somatic methods to make this gentle and also find some self care and things you find enjoyable. 

So that these types of changes don’t seem insurmountable, it’s important to find small steps toward improvement, to be supported in following through on some steps and to celebrate each improvement.

 

Medication can be helpful and for some people this is a very important part of their recovery, and others don’t want to take medication, or find that they are not able to tolerate it.  Whether or not medication is part of your treatment, there are many ways we can work with the mind, body and spirit to support recovery. 

As people begin to regain energy, emotions that have been buried or numbed, such as anger, fear or anxiety, sometimes begin to surface. While this can feel unsettling, it is often a sign that the nervous system is becoming more active again. Together we can work with these emotions safely, using somatic methods and gentle exploration to understand what they may be telling us about changes needed in your life. 

Depression may have recurred several times in your life, and once you are feeling better, it is important to stay aware of the signs of this pattern starting again, perhaps when other life challenges arise, and to be able to use your coping strategies.    

​

What is possible 

​​

Recovering from depression requires some work but it can be done and there is help.  People do recover, and with the right support life can begin to feel enjoyable again.

The goal is not simply to get back to where you were before, but to create a new, better, and more positive normal.