Depression

 

Unending sleepiness, so little energy that getting out of bed is almost impossible, locked into an almost-not-there kind of life.  Sometimes the effort of washing and dressing is too huge for someone suffering depression to look after themselves in the most basic ways.  Depression is debilitating.  Sometimes people suffering with depression are able to go to work, or to socialise, but then will collapse in exhaustion when they get home.  The effort it has taken to be at work, to socialise depletes all energy.  Perhaps something very heavy is stopping a depression sufferer from leading a fulfilling life.  Perhaps a feeling of impossibility or pointlessness.

 

Depression is caused by emotions which have been suppressed, perhaps for a long time.  However, emotions do not disappear.  You may not feel them any more, but they come out in different ways and one of these ways is as depression.  Good, solid psychotherapy/counselling provides a relationship of trust, where no judgements are made.  This enables the sufferer of depression to explore what it is that they do feel, deep underneath their suffering.  Then they can process these feelings.  Whether they decide to express these feelings to others is entirely personal and depends on the circumstances.  Expressing yourself to a psychotherapist or counsellor is often enough to result in large shifts and a feeling of unburdening, of lightness.

 

Psychotherapy/counselling can help depression to lift and it is possible to recover and never suffer with it again or if you do suffer with it again, you will develop ways of helping yourself to come out of depression more quickly. The psychotherapist/counsellor will explore with the sufferer what it is that lies behind the depression.  Each person will have their own, unique, causes of their depression. The causes are usually not obvious, or if they are, the reasons why they cause these feelings of immobility are not clear to see.  That is why spending some time looking more deeply uncovers the roots of this disabling condition.

 

Written by Alison Jones-Tyler, August 2019