What Helps Depression During Major Life Transitions? #3
What helps depression, in terms of concrete practical steps you can take, when you’re “stuck in the desert” during major life transitions?
Here are 5 concrete observations about what helps depression of the kind into which major life transitions can often bring us.
1. The Best Way Out is Through
This may sound completely counterintuitive, but it’s essential to acknowledge the existence of depression, and to face it head on. Very often, people try to avoid the reality of their depression, or to talk themselves out of it. However, the only way to truly be able to come to terms with depression is to look straight into it, and to acknowledge, “Yes. I really am depressed.”
2. Work Concretely with the Depression
This extends point #1. Rather than just passively enduring depression, it’s essential to actively enter into it, to dialogue with it, and to try and understand what is going on with it. Journaling about what is going on, and about what one is feeling and thinking can be useful. So can the active use of techniques like painting; working with clay, and even creating pictures with collage. All of these techniques can yield important insight and awareness, although working with a good properly trained therapist to understand what is coming up or appearing in this work is essential.
3. Don’t Fall Into the Trap of “Self Help Alone”
This point is related to point #2. Many people adopt a “Lone Ranger” strategy, and rather than seeking out a good therapist, try to cope with the desert of depression during major life transitions using only self-help books. This strategy has an awful success rate. Recognizing that you’re human, and reaching out to someone who has the skills and compassion you need often makes all the difference in the world.
4. Believe That the Depression Has Something to Give You
I know that this idea might seem bizarre, even scandalous. However, it’s true: there’s something valuable at the heart of the depression. If you can find it, it will help you on the journey to becoming more yourself.
5. “If You’re Going Through Hell — Keep Going!” ~Winston Churchill
Churchill’s famous quote has a great deal to do with the realities of case studies for depression. If we can face the particular crisis and challenge created by major life transitions, and try to open each one up and engage creatively with it, it will not last forever.
Wishing all of us the strength and support to “keep going”,
[cta]
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