Friday, November 16, 2012

Depression


What I am learning

Notes from Depression by Richard O’Connor,Ph.D., c. 2010.

Skills of depressed people:
Ability to put on false front.
Isolation from affection, no emotion showing.
Somatization (body reveals through some illness)
Denial: anger turned inward or outward.
Repression: displaced emotion to other event (death of a pet, for example)
            Or “forgetting”  everything
Intellectualization
Projection onto others, blaming
Externalization (blaming)
Rages
Anehedonia (loss of joy in anything)
Hopelessness and apathy
Procrastination
Lethargy
Overwork, inability to prioritize
Obsessive/compulsive activities
Victimizing or violence towards others, or self mutilation
Pessimism
Negative self-talk
Selective attention to negative events
Depressed logic
Restricting social circle to depressed/dependcy
Counter dependency or porous boundaries
Impossible goals
No goals/lots of guilt
Passive-aggressive vs. self (set up failures)

Symptoms:
Lack of exercise
neglecting of medical care/ succumbing to quacks
abuse of alcohol or drugs

Depression is apparently a “threshold disease” like heart disease, that builds until it is discernible.
Back to healthy eating, exercise, reduce stress, increase involvement.  Pay attention to messages the body is sending.
Develop trust confidants, emotional engagement and support, seek understanding not advice.
Forego emotional control
Forego perfectionism
Develop mindfulness.

Know how you DO depression, to get clues how to Undo it.

Learn to feel.  Emotion are reflexes.  Pay attention to initial responses.
Feel, then decide how to express yourself.
Keep a mood journal, look for underlying causes.

Acedia (sloth) is a state of mild chronic depression.
Practice happiness.

Planning to see a therapist?  Choose with care.
Note your gut reaction to him/her.  Do you trust?
References, esp. from former patients.?
Experienced with depression?
Openness to medication?
Willingness to be directive if needed?

Request info from NIMH.  www.depression.org.  www.nami.org.
CBT= cognitive behavior therapy.
IPT+ interpersonal therapy.
Psychodynamic therapy refers to belief in unconscious motivations and reactions, a therapy which is better than medication in the long run.

The Mindful Way Through Depression with CD of guided meditations is recommended.
There is no specific self-help group for depressed people.
Go to sleep focused on happy events that day.  It grows new neurons!  Happy ones!
Engage in creativity.  Do not be seduced by stagnation.  The choice is to grow or die.

Practice self-constructive behavior.

Lots of recommended reading.




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If Life is a Game


If Life is a Game, These Are the Rules
By Cherie Carter-Scott Ph.D.  c.1998

  1. You will receive and body.
  2. You will be presented with lessons.
  3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
  4. A lesson is repeated until learned.
  5. Learning does not end.
  6. “There” is no better than “here.”
  7. Others are only mirrors of you.
  8. What you make of your life is up to you.
  9. All your answers lie inside you.
  10. You will forget all this at birth.

I affirm that all of the above is true in my experience.


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