Saturday, November 8, 2008

How to Live with Depression

Clinical depression is becoming more and more common these days.  Whether it's because doctors are quicker to diagnosis the condition or are becoming more accurate in their diagnosis, or if there is some other reason for the rising numbers of this condition, some believe that up to one in four adults in the U.S. suffer from clinical depression.  It's important to remember that there is a difference between other types of sadness such as grief over someone's death or the loss of something else in your life and actual clinical depression, but if you have gotten a diagnosis from a health care professional how can you then deal with this condition?

For one thing it's important to remember that you don't want to give in to the disease no matter how tempting it may be.Some symptoms of clinical depression are when a person looses interest in life in general and sometimes spends all day every day in bed not caring about anything.  While these thoughts can be very overwhelming at times, it's a mistake to give in to them.  Staying in bed or isolating oneself is only going to make the condition much worse and probably affect those around you.  Clinical Depression is much like other conditions or diseases wherein the patient needs to do all they can to work around it rather than give in to it.  A person with a broken leg may be tempted to just sit in a chair and never go out anymore, but this won't help them heal and can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation.  The same with your condition - staying in and isolating oneself only makes it worse.  It's also noted that activities like regular exercise, volunteer work, and connecting with friends and family do not actually cure depression but they can help to make you feel better about yourself overall.  It's very difficult to force yourself to go out and exercise when you feel as you just want to sleep, or to connect with your family when you feel awful about yourself, but sometimes the things we need to force ourselves to do are often the best things for us.

Another reason it's important to face your Depression head-on is because this condition often affects friends, family, and your own career.  If you stay in bed all day how will this affect your children or your spouse?  If you allow yourself to get overwhelmed at work, how will this affect your job performance?  It's been said that you don't need to wait until you feel motivated to actually follow through with something, and of course clinical depression often takes away a patient's motivation for anything.  But rather than waiting until you "feel like" going to work or you "want" to give your kids attention, it's best to do those things anyway with or without motivation.

If you've been prescribed medication for your depression it's best to follow your doctor's directions carefully.Stopping your meds without the permission of your doctor is very serious and can prodcuc tragic results. 


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