Helping Someone with Depression Means Overcoming Our Reluctance to Learn About Something Unpleasant

Helping someone with depression starts with caring enough to learn.  But it isn’t just learning, it is learning about a topic that is anything but fun to study.   What makes it interesting is that depression is like a ferocious bear that needs to be tamed.  When you are in the cage with such a beast, you become interested in anything and everything that might help you tame the beast of depression.  A good start is to learn the signs of depressoin and the difference between normal sadness and clnical depression.  The two are very different, but frequently confused with each other.

Helping Someone with Depression Means Overcoming Our Distaste for Emotion Pain

It’s often said that men like to fix things.  In reality, none of us enjoys hearing about a problem or a challenge that makes us feel helpless.  Just thinking about depression can make us feel the unpleasant feelings of frustration and helplessness.  Sometimes, we lunge for quick solutions such as, “Just snap out of it!” or “Well, I’m sure that you feel better soon.”  But these are really a way for us to distance ourselves from the distasteful pain of our emotions.

It's a fight!

Helping someone with depression means coming along side them, knowing that it will not feel good to you, knowing that you may feel overwhelmed at times.   One thing you can say to yourself when this happens is, “Wow, I do feel helpless.  Everything in me wants to get away from this person and their depression.  But now I see that this is exactly what my friend (wife, husband, son, daughter, mother, or father, etc.) feels.  He wants to get away from this dreadful feeling, but he feels trapped.”

Helping someone with depression is joining them in the maze

When we take this perspective while helping someone with depression, we start to see that helping doesn’t mean fixing.  Rather, it means that we step into the cramped helplessness maze with the person we love so that they won’t be alone as they feel such dark helplessness.   This is difficult because one of the common signs of depression is irritability.  A depressed friend or loved one can be prickly, grumby, and unattractive.  “What happened to your sense of humor?” you ask.  Furthermore, it is important that you take enough care for your own well-being that you don’t become clinically depressed yourself!

Helping Someone with Depression Means Coping with Stress More Effectively

This leads to the third obstacle to overcome:  we must recognize that we are dealing with the a huge amount of stress for ourselves and we must learn how to cope with stress more effectively.  This usually means that you make a few tough decisions to create a little more space in your schedule and your list of commitments so that you have time and mental space to deal with the stress.  Stress?  Yes, stress.  It’s stressful to keep an eye one someone who has made rumblings about wanting to die.  It’s stressful to have your overtures of care rebuffed and discounted.

So helping someone with depression means learning how to manage your own stress in better ways. Creating space in your head and your schedule to have time and energy to care is usually the first step.  The second step is to help find a good therapist for the person you care about.  Notice that I say this as a step for managing your stress.  Helping someone with depression is difficult enough when the person you care for is in the care of a competent psychologist.  It’s  a hundred times harder if you are being forced into the role of therapist–a role you are not trained for.  Sometimes, it helps to say to the person

“Look, I love you and it pains me to see you so unhappy.  I am committed to helping in whatever way I can, but you make it harder than it needs to be by putting off going to therapy.  Your fear of this is, by default, put huge responsiblity on my shoulders.  And, it remains there even when you tell me to not worry about it.”

In a nutshell, helping someone with depression involves overcoming 3 obstacles:  (1) our reluctance to learn about unpleasant things; (2) our distaste for feeling helpless to fix something; (3) the weaknesses in our own ways of  copiing with stress.  But, helping someone with depression is not all darkness and gloom.  There is quite a thrill when you begin to see someon you love start their own serious journey out of hopelessness and despair.  It’s an even bigger delight when you see positive changes each week and evenually… (drum roll, please) the return of joy.

The Return of Joy

If you suspect that you may have a mood disorder and you are wondering how to fight depression, where can you turn for help?  The first thing to do is to schedule an appointment with the family doctor for a complete physical.  This is important because there are many possible physical conditions that can generate the signs and symptoms of depression.  A strenuous learning curve for how to fight depression may not be necessary if the signs and symptoms of depression that you are experiencing are caused by a hormone deficiency, for example.

There are specific questions you need to ask your doctor.  QUESTION 1:  During the examination, say to the physician,  “I’m wondering if I have the symptoms of depression.  What do you think?”  This will ensure that part of the physician’s time will be spent having a simple discussion with you about what you are experiencing and discuss how to fight depression in a clear, straightforward manner.

It’s useful to understand a little about the purpose of lab work.  A standard part of an annual physical examination is to send a sample of your blood to the lab for various tests.   There are always scores of different tests that the doctor does NOT order the lab to do because of the added expense (for the insurance company or for you) and because many conditions represented by those added tests are relatively rare.

TIP: it’s best to ask the  question about depression near the beginning of the exam, especially before the doctor orders the routine lab tests. The reason for this is simple.  There are various conditions such a anemia or low thyroid that can produce depression symptoms.

Asking about depression near the beginning of the exam allows your doctor to order additional tests on the blood sample that is drawn from you. When you are thinking about how to fight depression, take one of the easier steps right away and ask for a photocopy of the actual numbers of your lab results.

Once it has been diagnosed, the challenge of how to fight depression becomes easier to map out.  This naturally leads to the next question to ask your doctor during your physical examination.  QUESTION 2:  Ask the doctor, “Do you know of a good psychologist or therapist that I could meet with for an evaluation?”   TIP:  although clinical depression is a medical condition, it can be caused by non medical factors that can easily escape the notice of someone lacking specialized training.

QUESTIONS 3:  Additionally, ask the doctor, “Can you explain which antidepressant medications seem to work the best for your patients?”  QUESTION 4:  “If medication is what your patients choose for how to fight depression, what have you found are the pros and cons of the main antidepressants?”  TIP:  ask this followup question, mentioning specific medications by name.  For example, “Can you explain to me the benefits and side-effects of Zoloft, Lexapro, and Cymbalta?

Mentioning the medications by name is important if you are in an HMO insurance plan because doctors are sometimes restricted from telling you about the more expensive medications unless you specifically ask. Also, keep in mind that when someone starts a course of treatment with medication, it will take some time (at least a few weeks) to start feeling the positive effects of the medication.

QUESTION 5:  Also ask, “Are you comfortable prescribing these medications?”  This is important because not all general practitioners have as much training as they would like in order to monitor medication for depression.

TIP:  Before you actually meet with your physician for the exam, make a short list of these questions and others.  Depression makes concentration and memory temporarily less reliable and more frustrating.  A simple list will ensure that you ask all the questions you had been thinking about beforehand.

A final question can be asked just before you leave.  QUESTION 6:  “Is there anything else you can tell me about how to fight depression?”  If you ask these six questions you will have made a good start in catching on to how to fight depression and as well as acting on what you have learned.

Does Self Help for Panic Attacks Make Therapy Unnecessary?

Self help for panic attacks provides a good example of the possible relationship between therapy and self help. The proliferation of self help resources in recent years allows many people the opportunity to learn information previously available only in the office of a mental health professional. This has raised the question of whether or not therapy is even necessary. Research the web, buy a book online, save money. Why shoulder the expense of therapy when self help information is so readily available?

Comparing Therapy with the Process of Self Help

To answer this question, it is necessary to clarify the respective roles of self help and psychotherapy. Good therapy should provides targeted knowledge and information, a process sometimes referred to as psychoeducation. But the face-to-face aspects of therapy support the process of positive change in a way that can’t be obtained from a web page, video or a book.

Self help for panic attacks offers a good illustration of how therapy and self help approaches compare and contrast. There are tools and techniques that can be extracted from information sources. Information and skills can be obtained using audio training and other types of media learning. But there are at least two important challenges that are difficult to meet without live therapy.

Two Feathers in the Hat of Therapy

First, therapy can save time in the process of change by utilizing the unique strengths of a person for maximum benefit. A good therapist is always listening and adjusting the direction of therapy based the personality strengths and needs of the client as well as the details of the situation. In contrast, a set outline of self help for panic attacks uses the same approach for everyone.

Second, the underlying causes of panic are significant in determining how to proceed in therapy.  If a person is anemic and never engages in exercise, then stopping panic attacks may be quite simple. If the anxiety attacks are primarily due to a long-standing depression, then the therapy takes an entirely different direction.  The relationship between past trauma and present anxiety attacks (and depression, for that matter) is often not recognized by the man or woman seeking relief. Self help for panic attacks and self help for depression become  hard-pressed to provide the kind of emotional intelligence to understand subconscious forces giving rise to recurring panic attacks or the signs and symptoms of depression.

Changing the Question

So, is self help for panic attacks worth the effort? It is worth it and here is the main reason: the more that knowledge, skills, and tools can be acquired via self help for panic attacks, then the less these same basic tasks need to take up the more expensive time of therapy sessions. This has the advantage of freeing up more time in therapy for the conversations that cannot be obtained any other way. On the other hand, the benefit might be that fewer therapy sessions are necessary.

Men can experience the signs and symptoms of depression in many different ways. A man may be grumpy or irritable, or have lost his sense of humor. He might drink too much or abuse drugs. It may be that he physically or verbally abuses his wife and his kids. He might work all the time, or compulsively seek thrills in high-risk behavior in order to cope with the boredom and lack of pleasure. Or, he may seem isolated, withdrawn, and no longer interested in the people or activities he used to enjoy.

One of the more important signs and symptoms of depression for a man is changes in sexual desire.  He might a lot more interest in sex because it’s one of the few things that make him feel alive. Or, he may much less interest in sex because of the anhedonia (difficulty experiencing pleasure due to the brain changes caused by depression).

For men, it’s important to understand that there is a brain disorder called depression that may be underlying these feelings and behaviors. It’s real: scientists have developed sensitive imaging devices that enable us to see depression in the brain. And it’s treatable: more than 80 percent of those suffering from depression respond to existing treatments, and new ones are continually becoming available and helping more people.

The Signs and Symptoms of Depression Need to Be Translated into Male-Speak

One of the reasons men are less likely to seek help for depression than women is that they often believe they should be able to shake it off the way an athlete, a rugged firemen,  or a soldier might shake off an injury and keep going.  Telling him, “Getting help doesn’t mean you are weak,” may make him less likely to get help.  It’s important to talk about depression in language that makes sense in terms of the particular male culture with which he identifies.  It might be better to tell a man that you hope he will find the courage to face what’s going on inside him so that he can be happier and more fun to be with.

Or perhaps this man sound like someone you care about. Try to talk to him, or to someone who has a chance of getting through to him. Help him to understand that depression is a common illness among men and is nothing to be ashamed about. Encourage him to see a doctor and get an evaluation for depression.

For most men with depression, life doesn’t have to be so dark and hopeless. Life is hard enough as it is; and treating depression can free up vital resources to cope with life’s challenges effectively.

When a man is depressed, he’s not the only one who suffers. His depression also impacts the lives of his family, his friends, virtually everyone close to him. If he has an intense need to succeed it may be helpful to point out specific ways that the signs and symptoms of depression are holding him back.  Getting him into treatment can send ripples of healing and hope into all of those lives. Depression is a real illness; it is treatable; and it darkens the lives of both men and women.

When do the signs and symptoms of depression become a medical condition that needs treatment?  For the signs and symptoms of depression to have clinical significance these two important criteria must both be true:

1. The signs and symptoms of depression last for several days (at least 2 weeks)
2. Depression symptoms become disruptive to major areas of a person’s life;  and depression symptons negatively and noticeably impact relationships, work, or school

Major Depressive Disorder,  is usually defined as a combination of any five of the following signs and symptoms of depression that persist for more than 2 weeks:

1. Sad mood most of the day, nearly every day
2. Noticeable loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities most of every day
3. Significant change in weight not due to dieting (weight gain or loss of more than 5% of body weight in a month)
4. Sleep problems nearly every day (excessive sleeping or insomnia)
5. Agitation (irritable attitude and physical tension) or marked slowing of one’s thoughts and actions (e.g., much more difficulty getting started on something than usual)
6. Fatigue or loss of energy every day
7. Feelings of worthlessness or excessive (or inappropriate) guilt nearly every day
8. Diminished ability to think or concentrate or indecisiveness, nearly every day
9. Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurring thoughts about suicide, or a suicidal gesture (deliberate carelessness in dangerous situations) or an attempt, or specific plans.

If a person is having thoughts about death that keep returning, this is almost certainly an indicator of clinical depression, whether or not the person can recognize any other signs and symptoms of depression.

With clinical depression, “our brain starts working in a different way and gets stuck in a mode that displays the signs and symptoms of depression,” says Dr. Greg Hamlin who addresses this topic in more depth.

Anger, moodiness and arguments happen in all marital relationships. Every couple has arguments and disagreements. Every couple gets angry now and then – sometimes with each other, sometimes with circumstances of life. When anger is due to hypoglycemic symptoms, then eating a snack becomes more important than marriage councelling. Everyone gets moody now and then and may snap at their loved ones.

But what about when anger or marital arguments boil over into something far more serious?  Uncontrollable anger could be a result of hypoglycemic symptoms and if you or your spouse suffers from bouts of uncontrollable anger, or your arguments get out of hand, it’s possible that hypoglycemic symptoms are messing with your relationship.

Hypoglycemia is a condition where the brain isn’t getting enough of its main food – glucose. Glucose is a sugar that’s produced by the liver and is delivered in steady doses to the brain. This enables the brain to function correctly and to oversee the functions of all of your body’s systems. When the brain isn’t getting enough glucose, it can’t handle its many functions well, and you begin to notice hypoglycemic symptoms. They are:

• Dizziness
• Sweating
• Headache
• Hunger
• Shakiness
• Irritability
• Paleness
• Moodiness
• Clumsiness
• Confusion or lack of concentration
• Tingling around the mouth

You’ll notice that irritability and moodiness are two of the hypoglycemic symptoms on the list. If you add a pounding headache and confusion to the mix, you have the perfect breeding ground for anger. Because the brain is already not functioning well, it doesn’t have the capacity to regulate moods and reactions as well as it would if it were getting enough glucose.

You can see how hypoglycemic symptoms may lead to an angry outburst. Over-the-top anger is bad in any situation and can cause damage well beyond just the immediate outburst. In a marriage, if there are severe outbursts of anger and arguments, the outcome could be damage that is simply not repairable.

It’s important to be checked for hypoglycemia if angry outbursts are common. If the diagnosis is positive, treatment is fairly straightforward and fairly easy. Watching for hypoglycemic symptoms is your first step to ending anger and marital arguments that are just too much to take. Ask for a glucose tolerance test if there is suspicion that you or your partner are suffering from hypoglycemic symptoms.

Even if hypoglycemia is diagnosed and treated, you’ll still have times of irritation and some arguments – this is normal in any marriage. But if you treat the hypoglycemia carefully, you’ll find that the worst of the anger and arguments subside, as do the other hypoglycemic symptoms, leading to a happier, healthier life for everyone.

Know Your Blind Spots

Adult children of alcoholic parents are wise to figure out their own blind spots when they become parents themselves. Although you grew up in a home with one or both of your parents being alcoholics, you want to be certain that you provide a better atmosphere for your own children to grow and thrive in. Adult children of alcoholic parents share certain blind spots while parenting their own children. You know the pain of growing up in an alcoholic home and you know the ways you learned to cope with growing up in that situation. You may have become a miniature adult, a caretaker, and a super responsible little person.  Adult children of alcoholic parents often play the role of the “parentified child.”

Or you might have become the troublemaker or clown to compensate. Maybe you were the peacemaker or the one who never made a fuss and just went along with the program. You may have suffered – not only mental and emotional abuse – but also possibly physical or sexual abuse. You might have felt the disappointment of lies and broken promises or been scared of abandonment. You may have avoided getting too close to anyone for fear that they would go away or neglect you. As tough as it was to grow up like this, you know that’s not the way you want your own children to live. Good for you! You’ve committed to giving your kids a better, healthier, happier life. In that case, it’s important for you to seek out alcoholic help for families and to know where your blind spots might be. What might be your stumbling blocks to giving your kids the best life possible? Adult children of alcoholic parents may find it difficult to break their childhood patterns of coping with life. This is something that you’ll need to pay close attention to when dealing with your own children. Adult children of alcoholic parents carry a heavier load as moms and dads, but they can also discover that they have a lot of support in striving to create a better home atmosphere. You need to look at your current patterns of behavior. If you were the clown or the troublemaker, are you still carrying around those characteristics, and if so, are they causing problems?

Mark the Clown

Little Mark as a 4th grader learned to be a clown to diffuse Dad’s anger when he was about to explode. Mark also learned to be hyper alert to changes in Dad’s facial expressions so that he would know when to start entertaining his Dad. People like Mark as adult children of alcoholic parents often find that their coping mechanisms become obsolete or downright dysfunctional when they trying to navigate parenting themselves. A clown can be fun to be around, but are you also irresponsible? A troublemaker who hasn’t learned to stay out of trouble may be leading a life of legal troubles – not a good example to set for your kids, and certainly not nice for them if they can’t see you because you’re incarcerated.

If you’re a perfectionist as a result of being the responsible “parent” in your childhood home, are you demanding too much from your little ones, who are still learning about life through play and fun? Or have you become an adult doormat who just goes along with the program because you don’t want to make waves? None of these methods are terribly healthy for you or your children. Certainly a dose of humor, responsibility and ability to go with the flow is important for everyone. Even raising Cain once in awhile is probably something that everyone does, even the most emotionally healthy people, now and then.

It Helped You Cope Then;  It’s Dysfunctional Now

Your blind spot might come from still being that person that you were as a child of an alcoholic household. That worked for you then, but now, as a parent, it might be more detrimental than anything. If you are an adult child of an alcoholic and you have children yourself, don’t be afraid to get help. Because there are so many adult children of alcoholic parents, it’s usually possible to find resources and help. Making use of help for adult children of alcoholic parents is an important step in recovery in creating a healthy, happy home. Your family is depending on you to do what you can to help yourself deal with your childhood in a way that makes you into a happier, healthier person – for your sake and your family’s.

Many people try self help for panic attacks and don’t get very far. The reason is that they try to run before they can walk. If you can’t use self help anxiety control methods on mild anxiety, how do you suppose you will be successful with self help for panic attacks which involve the most extreme forms of anxiety.

There are numerous methods involved in the reduction of mild anxiety. For this article, I shall look at the simpler ones. Yoga, Tai Chi and sport may not be something you are accustomed to doing each day. Other than exercise and hitting the pharmaceutical cupboard, there are even simpler remedies to relieve mild anxiety. Here is a checklist of items to action each day.

Tips for Reducing Mild Anxiety to Prepare for Self Help for Panic Attacks

1.  Early to bed, early to rise. The expression fits well into a balanced day though its more about the controlled sleeping patterns. It’s not a good thing to have only a few hours of sleep each night. Have a good night’s sleep; 7 hours each night fits well into a mild anxiety relieving pattern.

2.  Don’t drink vast amounts of caffeine as this disrupts your daily balance. If you are prone to drinking too much caffeine, try cutting down and fit some decaffeinated coffee and tea into your day. Yes, caffeine gives you a burst of energy to enable you to feel more alert but the effect is short. This is especially true with self help for panic attacks. Caffeine increases anxiety.

3.  Eat lots of fruit, get the needed daily vitamins. Apples and bananas are very healthy supplements as part of your daily food intake. Bananas are not fattening and apples help the immune system. Don’t eat too much processed food; concentrate on drinking and eating the required vitamins.

4.  Exercise can help particularly because you need to be well-rested for the rigors of self help for panic attacks. It’s important to get sleep and 1 hour of cardio-vascular exercise per day will help improve your sleep, making you stronger for self help for panic attacks.

5.  Salt raises your blood pressure, so keep an eye on salty foods being consumed. Higher blood pressure will contribute to your mild anxiety levels and is a killer.

6.  Look back over the past week at the positive aspects that made you feel good. Did something occur that attracted an experience of joy and laughter? Send some time focusing on that moment as it will allow you to attract good feelings into your mind and smother any negative impact from the day.

7.  If you must reach for pharmaceuticals, try some antioxidants. Speak to your local pharmacist initially about remedies to relieve mild anxiety. There are various remedies that protect you from heart disease and lower your blood pressure.

Enforce these remedies to relieve mild anxiety each day to keep a healthy body and mind. Set a time that is convenient to perform the tasks, and stick to a schedule that works around your other daily commitments.

Self help for panic attacks starts with basic health practices and anxiety control techniques and then adding to those skill incrementally.

Panic Attacks Complicate Efforts to Get Rid of Depression

Fighting the signs and symptoms of depression becomes doubly difficult when a person is suffering from anxiety attacks.   This forcefully raises the question, “How to fight depression?”  Many people find that when they finally admit they are having panic attacks, they are surprised to find just how many people they know have also had them. Panic attacks make you feel crazy and yet they can leave as fast as they come. Many people have one or two panic attacks during a time of stress and then don’t have them again for a long time.  Depression has a particularly symbiotic relationship with self help for panic attacks.

On the other hand, there are many people who struggle with them frequently. One of the problems in coping with them is the way that depression supplies fuel for them. Panic thrives on the feeling of being off balance and depression does a real fine job of making people feel off balance.  Therefore, depression hinders self help for panic attacks.

Self Help for Panic Attacks or Depression:  Which to Tackle First?

One of the problems in overcoming depression in our lives is that it is aided and abetted by anxiety.  Consider the signs and symptoms of depression. Depression depletes our energy, robs us of the enjoyment of simple pleasures (and big ones), and often makes it difficult for people to stay asleep past 3 or 4 am.  Anxiety ramps us up with an adrenaline rush or it gives fake energy caused by low-grade stress response that doesn’t seem to have an off switch.

Furthermore, anxiety often makes it difficult to fall asleep.  Anxiety cuts our sleep short at the beginning of the night and depression cuts it off at the end of the night.  Finally, the steps for how to fight depression get stuck: we find that we are handicapped by these effects precisely at the moment when we need everything going for us.  It works the other way as well:  attempts at self help for panic attacks are deflated by depression

Now here is the kicker:  depression depletes us, makes us feel weak, unsafe, and vulnerable.  In other words, depression creates the precise environment in our emotional landscape that makes anxiety grow like a weed. Similarly, depression undercuts motivation, our follow-through, and getting started with self help for panic attacks.  One of the signs and symptoms of depression is difficulty getting started (for the day or for a task).

How to Fight Depression When Panic Attacks Pierce the Darkness Like a Shrill Car Alarm in Dead of Night

Panic attacks have a way of making us depressed because we begin to grieve the various losses resulting from our fearful avoidance. At the same time, depression in our lives is often aided and abetted by anxiety.

One of the reasons that anxiety attacks and depression make such a good team is that anxiety thrives on our sense of being unsafe, weak, and vulnerable to danger.   The danger can be real or imagined.  It can be tangible or intangible. Now here is the kicker:  depression wears us down, deflates our motivation, makes us feel weak, unsafe, and vulnerable.  In other words, depression creates the precise environment in our emotional landscape that makes anxiety grow like a weed.

The symptoms of anxiety attacks (panic attacks) make us feel vulnerable like no other type of anxiety. Not surprisingly, panic attacks can feed off of the “less than” feelings that depression so generously provides. The signs and symptoms of depression present roadblocks to self help for panic attacks because it drains away precious energy we need to learn new skills. But before we explore this interaction we need to review the symptoms of anxiety attacks.