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It’s a dreadful place.
1. Listen to the right people.
If you’re like me, you’re convinced that you are lazy, ugly, stupid, weak, pathetic, and self-absorbed when you are depressed or have given into an addiction. Unconsciously you seek people, places, and things that will confirm those opinions. So, for example, when my self-esteem has plummeted to below-seawater status, I can’t stop thinking about the relative who asked me, after I had just returned from the psych ward and was doing everything I possibly could to recover from depression: “Do you WANT to feel better?” Indicating that I was somehow willing myself to stay sick in order to get attention or maybe because fantasizing about death is so much fun. I can’t get her and that question out of my mind when I’m pedaling backward. SO I draw a picture of her, with her question inside a bubble. Then I draw me with a bubble that says “HELL YES, DIMWIT!” Then I get out my self-esteem file and read a few of the affirmations of why I’m not lazy, ugly, stupid, weak, pathetic, and self-absorbed.
2. Make time to cry.
I’ve listed the healing faculties of tears in my piece “7 Good Reasons to Cry Your Eyes Out.” Your body essentially purges toxins when you weep. It’s as if all your emotions are bubbling to the surface, and when you cry, you release them, which is why it is so cathartic. Lately I’ve been allowing myself 10 to 15 minutes in the morning to have a good cry, to say whatever I want without cognitive adjustments, to let it all out, and not to judge it.
3. Ditch the self-help.
As I wrote in my piece “Use Caution with Positive Thinking,” cognitive-behavioral adjustments can be extremely helpful for persons struggling with mild to moderate depression, or struggling with an addition that isn’t destroying them. With severe depression or a crippling addiction, though, positive thinking can sometimes make matters worse. I was so relieved the other day when my psychiatrist told me to put the self-help books away. Because I do think they were contributing to my self-battery.
Right now, when I start to think “I can’t take it anymore,” I try not to fret. I don’t worry about how I can adjust those thoughts. I simply consider the thoughts as symptoms of my bipolar disorder, and say to myself, “It’s okay. You won’t feel that way when you’re better. The thoughts are like a drop in insulin to a diabetic … a symptom of your illness, and a sign you need to be especially gentle with yourself.”
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Therese Borchard is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit. Subscribe to Beyond Blue, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.
Meet others on the journey in
Therese’s community group
Ask Therese to be your friend
Therese Borchard is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit. Subscribe to Beyond Blue, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.
posted March 24, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Thank you so much – again – Therese. I relapsed last Wednesday in a bad way. I’d felt the black cloud hovering for weeks, and was trying my hardest to fend it off from a full-blown attack, but it didn’t work. Doc switched my meds, so hopefully that will help, it can’t come soon enough. Thank you for these tips.
posted March 24, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Thanks. You’re helping me through my dark time.
I’m confused as to when this was written, but always value you sharing your personal struggle, that so many of us share.
posted March 24, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Thanks for the post. It is useful advice. Hope this passes and you feel well again soon.
posted March 24, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I am experiencing a relapse of depression right now. What a blessing your blog is. You are so articulate and honest. It is a relief to read. Thanks for sharing.
One thing I am going to try is making a daily list of three positive things that happened during the day (no matter how small), and for each of those things, list three reasons why it happened. I got the idea from a great new documentary from PBS called This Emotional Life. It is a way to help you identify your strengths from the Positive Psychology school of thought. Since it is so hard to feel a sense of accomplishment in depression, I think it might be a good way to redirect our attention to the little positives that we overlook and to acknowledge small victories. Also, it is supposed to eventually help you identify your own patterns of behavior and thought that serve you well.
posted March 25, 2010 at 10:50 am
I love you Therese… Most of the times I keep feeling like an “outsider”.. The “chosen one to suffer” but reading your blogs and the comments makes me feel like I didn’t choose this…I just dont crave for attention..The negative thoughts are not just erasable by babbling some affirmations.. I finally sought help after beating myself up for being such a pathetic loser & a cripple. Now I feel much much better.. I have a long way to go but still just want you to know..You’re an angel put here to ease ppl like me suffering from depression.. Thank you & God bless you.
posted March 25, 2010 at 12:49 pm
this was so very helpful since i just had a major meltdown in the last couple days. i am not bipolar, but i have CFS, fibromyalgia, anxiety and depression. CFS just kicks butt and when all that comes together it is as if the world is coming to an end. thank therese, i am going to print this out and keep it close by.
posted March 25, 2010 at 12:50 pm
stay strong your a beautyful person think of all the great reasons you have to keep your head up.i know how you feel i had to recover cold turkey all alone,it forced me to a place i did,nt want to be in ,but needed to be in .I had to face the biggest challange of my life.Childcustody,when my kids lives flashed before my eyes i got my mined right
posted March 26, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Theresa–
Wanted to pass this on in case you are unfamiliar with Mr. Mariant–
http://www.exec-comms.com/blog/2010/03/25/interview-david-mariant-bipolar-survivor/
posted June 14, 2010 at 10:55 pm
1. Dr. Low says we have a passion for self-distrust.
2. I wish I could cry more often as I totally believe it is a positive experience. Didn’t Holly Hunter cry every morning in the movie Broadcast News as if it were a ritual she had to perform on a daily basis?
I now keep a list of sayings from Recovery International on my night stand. There are about 30 and I am trying to stay with one saying a day, i.e., “humor is your best friend, temper is your worst enemy” and, “people do things that annoy you, not to annoy you” (the latter I don’t believe 100% all of the time, but most of the time for us nervous persons, it is true.
I had not been to their website lately and it appears to be a bit different but there are still Forums where you can read Examples of what nervous people are going through and don’t expect any dramatic ones, most are very normal, average triviliaties of every day life that throw us off. Peg