For most of my life, I would have told you that I was indeed depressed. Today, I would tell you that it is not that simple. Perhaps I am depressed, perhaps I am not. But this ambiguity, for me, was a huge step forward.
As someone who has struggled with depression for many, many years, psychology has always been an area of interest for me. I have formally studied many fields of psychology, from the concrete, physiological forms to the more abstract, social forms. That, to me, has given me the ability to more accurately assess the nuances of my depression. I am currently in the process of becoming a clinical psychologist, and as a result of that, I've spent the past few years studying depression. I've treated it like a science, and I think that has helped me come to terms with my own ailments.
What I've realized over the years is that things are rarely so clear cut that one could categorize something like depression as completely cognitive or completely physiological. Depression is a mixture of both. Yes, there is an aspect of it that deals with the way you abstractly interpret your life. But depression also manifests itself in a very physical way. As in, a person's depression can generally manifest itself in tangible ways. Measure the electrical activity in a depressed person's brain, for instance, and you will most likely find an imbalance between the left and right hemispheres.
If you are depressed, you have to understand that there IS a way out of it. Just as a person can recover from the flu, one can recover from depression. Maybe the solution is cognitive, maybe it's biological, maybe it's both. But if you study the science behind why some people are depressed, you will find that depression, like any other disorder, can be beaten.
That's step one.
The next part becomes a little bit more personal. What I mean by that is that it may not work for everyone. It certainly has worked for me, but perhaps other people need something else to heal themselves.
Once I realized that depression was not infallible--that because there is a biological manifestation of it, just like any other disease, it can DEFINITELY be beaten--I had to train my mind to combat it. There are some amazing treatments out there that work on a physiological level that have some remarkable success in treating depression. If you're curious, you should look up TMS. It stands for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. Basically, it is a new technology that can inhibit or excite parts of the brain. This is significant because we now understand that depressed people have an electrical imbalance between their right and left hemispheres. With TMS, we can reduce the electrical imbalance, and it has a success rate of roughly 30%. But even if TMS doesn't work for you, there are many, many other treatments that work at a biological level to treat your depression.
These options have always been available to me. And should I require them, I would definitely try to get treated in such a fashion. However, over recent years, I have fought my depression from a cognitive standpoint. Meaning, I tried consciously to change the way I interpret my life to fix my depression. I cannot honestly say that I am really happy right now. Nor can I tell you that I am no longer depressed. But I am SO much better now than I was before. And here's what I did COGNITIVELY to fight depression:
Study the brain. Study depression. Understand the disorder as a scientist. You have to understand your enemy before you can beat it.
Challenge the truth. Basically, I believe that there is only one truth in this world: that one can only grow if they learn to discern between reality and falsehood. We, as people, wrap ourselves in "truths". It's normal. A young boy, for example, may believe with all his heart, that all adults who smoke cigarettes are bad. That's completely normal. Eventually though, this young boy will probably cast aside this "truth". And it will open up an infinite number of alternative ways of thinking that he did not originally know existed. Depressed people, like myself, often wrap themselves around such pseudo-truths. They may believe with all their hearts that they are worthless, that no one could be attracted to them, that they are stupid...etc... If you want to overcome your depression, you must learn to question these "truths" that we wrap ourselves in. It's hard, but if you honestly try to think about yourself and your life in logical terms, you will probably find that a lot of these "truths" that hold you back are completely false. Challenge the truth.
FIND HELP. There is no shame in turning to others. Find a psychologist you can talk with. Try antidepressants. Consult someone who can recommend a treatment. Maybe TMS. Maybe electric shock therapy (which gets a bad rep from movies and the media--but in reality, it is an effective treatment for many people today).
I am not cured of my depression. Sometimes, I feel like the happiness I feel from day to day is fake. Sometimes, I feel so low that I think about killing myself. But as a scientist, I can remind myself that depression is like measles, or the flu, or herpes (weird example, I know. I'm drunk--sue me). It CAN be cured. But it won't be easy. It's going to take time.
I BELIEVE IN YOU. Why? Because you are human, and you have the capacity to beat this. I am by no means a certified counselor or anything like that, but this is something that I believe with all my heart. Never give up.
If anyone needs anyone to talk to, or would like to hear more of my thoughts about depression, shoot me a message. If you'd like, we can even exchange numbers and talk about this. I don't know you, but if you are depressed, then you and I are comrades. And I will do everything I can to convince you that depression can be beaten. That you are stronger than you think you are, and that life can be better than you might believe at the moment.