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depression can be fun

Don’t leave problems that could have been addressed in your waking hours unresolved and unexpressed until bedtime.

Your Questions About Depression Answered


Question

Anxiety

Hi

How can I rid myself of this dreadful feeling and also destress. The two together are crippling!

Many Thanks

Answer

If you wake up feeling anxious it’s because you are thinking negative thoughts
along with seeing negative pictures.  You need to keep telling yourself positive
things and focus on positive images and the more you do this the easier it becomes
so stick with it.  When you wake up play positive music and find one little
positive song that you can hum to yourself over and over as it been proven that
doing this changes your state. Your mind can’t hold conflicting feeling so while
you are humming a happy positive song you can’t feel negative. Marines sing in
times of stress as it changes their state immediately so do the same. Also take
Astralagus as it eases stress and cut sugar out of your diet as sugar increases
anxiety. Caffeine makes us anxious it’s not enough to give up coffee you need to
switch to caffeine free tea and avoid coke and diet coke as they are packed full
of caffeine that can cause and increase anxiety. I do hope this helps and please
persist as often we don’t realise we are getting better because change is
retroactive and cumulative.
Very best
Marisa Peer
Psychotherapist, Hypnotherapist, coach and behavioural expert
Author of ‘Ultimate Confidence’ and’ You Can Be Thin’

Question

Always live in depression

Hi
I am very irritating because i live in alway depression of anything…if one depression finish i will start next one.
I will be never happy in my life. I am very sensitive person. If some one tells me that i dont like the i am starting thinking on this for next many hours & getting depressed.
I have addictions of eating gutkha & drink wine. I want to get rid from this habit. I tried for this since last 3 years but still not got success & this is the major reason of my depression.

Answer

Hi
Thanks for your question and I apologise for the delay in replying to you.  First of all you have taken a great first step in reaching out for help.  Have you been to the doctors at all and spoken to them about your feelings and your depression to get a diagnosis?  If not, then I would suggest this is one of the first steps as speaking face to face to someone could really help.  Your doctor should be able to advise if it is indeed depression that you are suffering and if appropriate maybe prescribe some drugs and talking therapy that can help.

I would also suggest that you speak to your doctor to see if he /she can help you in finding someone who can help you to get rid of your addictions of wine and gutkha.  As you have already tried to overcome them you are probably already aware of the unpleasant and unhealthy effects of these addictions and finding a professional to help you could mean that you can easily and quickly let go of these destructive habits.  In the meantime - I wonder if you can consider what it is that these things (wine and gutkha) get for you - i.e. what need do they satisfy in you?  For example - do they make you feel more confident?  Do they make you feel more relaxed?  Do they ease your sensitivity?  Once you have discovered what it is you believe you get from these - I wonder if there is another (more healthy) way to get the same outcomes?  Is there a sport you could do?  Could you take walks outside?  Could you do yoga?  Could you swim?  Could you take a class in something unrelated to your work that would give you another interest and focus?  What are your dreams?  What have you always wanted to do but haven’t done yet?  What are you passionate about?  What makes you excited?  Is there a way that you can make the decision now to make a step towards that thing?  When you have that excitement / that direction it could be that you will no longer want to do self destructive behaviours?

Please believe that you can and you will be happy.  Everyone has the right and the ability to be happy - and it doesn’t need to depend on what we “have” - it is a state of mind and how we allow ourselves to be.  I wonder could you allow yourself to be open to the possibility that you could be happy?  That would be a step in the right direction?  What would be one tiny step you could take today towards that?  And then having done that what could be another tiny step you can take tomorrow?

With best wishes - and please do go and consult a professional face to face as soon as you can!

Allison
Allison Kelsey,
Therapist, Coach, Trainer
http://www.inspirenow.co.uk

Question

Blood pressure

I am a 36 year old male nursing student who is currently battling my own depression. Recently I have had my blood pressure read by multiple students and tutors revealing that my systolic bp is at 130 and my diastolic bp is at 92. I know there is alot to be said about the correlation between hightened bp and depression, I was just wondering if you could sum it up for me? Thanks, Jason

Answer

Dear Jason

Doctors have often associated “stress” with increased blood pressure. Anxiety can raise blood pressure temporarily and this is known as White Coat Hypertension when some patients have an increase in blood pressure whilst being taken. There is evidence that relaxation therapies can reduce blood pressure, but to my knowledge there no high quality studies looking at the relationship between depression and hypertension.
When looking at these studies definitions for depression and or anxiety are vague. Depression is a broad and heterogenous diagnosis and so is anxiety. Blood pressure is inherently variable and furthermore recently the threshold for diagnosing hypertension has changed. In addition it is now recommended that doctors should arrange for 24 hour (ambulatory monitoring) before making the final diagnosis of hypertension. Therefore for studies published so far it is difficult to be sure whether the patients were diagnostically depressed and/or anxious. Also as the blood pressure was not diagnosed/defined using the latest guidance the study participants might not have been suffering from hypertension in the first place. Furthermore one has to take into account other factors (called confounders) which might unknowingly cause high blood pressure. These may include lifestyle factors including smoking, recent exercise (or lack of it ), obesity, diet, caffeine, alcohol and drugs. Certain antidepressants may also exacerbate hypertension, especially venlafaxine and duloxetine. Tricyclic antidepressants (e.g.amitryptyline) may cause episodes of low blood pressure (postural hypotension).
Therefore, to date there have been no adequately and large enough studies to give an evidenced base answer your question. However, to help your studies I suggest that you look at the updated NICE Guidelines on the Diagnosis and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (hypertension) developed in partnership with the British Hypertension Society http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG127. The guidelines recommend that if clinic blood pressure is 140/90 or higher then 24 hour monitoring should be performed. Perhaps you should also discuss this question further with your tutors-it would be an interesting project! You could do a review of all the literature (a systematic review) and draw your own conclusion from all the available evidence.
On a personal note, according to these guidelines your diastolic blood pressure is only slightly raised .This is unlikely to be clinically important. However you cannot fully rely on the accuracy of blood pressure measurements taken by your fellow students and tutors. For reassurance, I think that you should go to see your GP who will take a history, examination and arrange any investigations.
I hope that this helps and thank-you for your interesting question.

Dr Rhinds, BM (Soton), BA, BSc (Hons), M.Med.Sc., MRCPsych. Consultant Psychiatrist

Question

depression

Can you help i am depressed and anxious all day and every day and suffer chest pains due too anxiety.

Answer

Hi Alan.  Thank you for your question and I am sorry that you are feeling so bad so much of the time.  Before I go any further I wonder how long you have been experiencing these symptoms and have you been to visit your GP?  If not, please do go and see your doctor as the first port of call - as a diagnosis of depression and / or anxiety can be one step on the road to recovery and he or she maybe able to prescribe medication to alleviate the symptoms whilst you start to look at other things you could change, stop or start that may help on your road to recovery.  Also if you are suffering chest pains, please do go and visit your doctor or call NHS direct to get it checked out to ensure it is a result of your anxiety and not anything else.

You say you suffer anxiety and depression all day and every day.  Can you remember when it started - how long have you felt like this?  Are you aware of any event that happened just before that could have triggered it?

When we feel down it is easy sometimes to use generalisations (and negative ones) and say we feel bad ALL the time…....so I wonder if you can look back at yesterday only and think - did you really feel bad all day long - or was there maybe one or 2 minutes, perhaps when you were watching a TV programme or saw somebody when you didn’t feel bad?  If that is the case, then start to write down those moments.  In this way you are training your brain to start to look for more positive experiences or moments in the day and hopefully seek out more of those.

If there are moments in the day when you did feel OK -I wonder if you can ask yourself what was it that was present in those moments that is not in your normal waking state (when you feel bad) or what is it that was missing in those OK moments that is usually present in your normal waking state.  What is the difference that makes the difference.

I wonder too - if you work or spend any time outside your home in the day?  Without knowing any more details it is hard to say - but if it is possible please try and get outside for at least 10 mins every day - ideally a minimum of 30 mins to be outside in nature.  Maybe you have an animal you can walk?  Or if not, perhaps you live near the coast or a safe open place / forest / wood where you can spend some time in nature?  Even if that is not possible and it means walking along the pavement of a busy road - even that is better for you to do so than to stay in all day.

Can you think of the kind of things you used to enjoy when you were a child, or the kind of things that you used to enjoy before you started to feel anxious and depressed - is it possible that you can start to do one of those things again?  As I have said on here many times - remember just baby steps consistently in the right direction will start to make a difference.

I hope this helps and take care.
Allison
Allison Kelsey,
Therapist, Coach, Trainer
http://www.inspirenow.co.uk

Question

Agoraphobia and Social Anxiety

Hi, I am an 18 year-old girl and I have been suffering with depression ever since I was about 10 years old. Over the years unfortunately I have never bothered getting help, I just don’t see the point. Now it is so bad that I have ended up becoming reclusive, basically staying indoors day after day without socialising or communicating with anyone. I feel like I am trapped and I just don’t know what to do. When I was 16 I isolated myself from all my friends because I didn’t feel good enough to be around them and it was like when I was around them I wasn’t really myself. It was like I was constantly trying to impress them and instead I just decided to opt out because if they knew what I was really like they wouldn’t like me. Now I have no friends, no job, no education and day after day I just feel like ending it all. What is the point? I just don’t see the point in going on anymore, I seriously have nothing going for me in life. I just wish I could leave the house everyday and think nothing of it, and have friends like a normal person. What can I possibly do other than commit suicide to get out of this horrible situation? :(

Answer

Hi Tricia
Well done for taking the first step and reaching out to this site and asking for help.  I realise that took a lot of courage to do.

It is a shame that you have waited so long before getting help and I can understand from reading your post how you must be feeling - oh what’s the point - how can this change….......?  However you may feel about yourself right now - or even for the past 8 years - you are good enough and you have just as much right as all of your old friends and acquaintances to be here and to be happy.  I wonder if are aware if anything triggered this depression when you were 10 years old?  Sometimes we can look back and see that an event that happened about that time may have triggered depression and sometimes we cannot.

However, the main thing right now is PLEASE do go out there and get some help right now.  One of the first things you will notice is that you are not alone, you are not a “failure” for feeling like this - think of it in this way - if you had had a broken leg for 8 years and limped around without getting an medical help - then yes by now your leg would have healed to some extent - but not in the “correct” way.  It is the same for an emotional or mental illness - if we don’t get expert advice, some people do find the right path and can heal themselves, but others need a helping hand from a professional.  It is not weak in any way to admit you feel like rubbish and would like some help- in fact it is a very brave step.  If I were you, one of the first things I would do is make an appt to see the doctor.  If you don’t feel that you can get out to see the doctor, then insist on a home visit and tell the person who you are making the appt with that you simply cannot leave home right now - and that is part of the reason why you need an appt because you realise you need emergency help.

If you do feel suicidal then please do call the Samaritans who are always there, will always listen to you and will not put the phone down on you.  Their website is:http://www.samaritans.org/

You haven’t mentioned your living situation - do you live at home with your parents / siblings / or do you live alone?  Do any of your family know how you feel?  If not, do you think that sharing how you feel with one person could help at all?

Lets take one step at a time, you say you have no friends, no job and no education - and all of that together can seem overwhelming….....so first steps - please seek help from a professional.  Once you have started on a course of treatment (possibly a combination of drugs and talking therapy) and you are starting to feel a bit better and can see the light at the end of the tunnel - then you may feel that you can restart your education, going to college, have dreams and plans for the future and start to make new friends.  All of that and more is entirely possible (even if it seems impossible right now) but lets take baby steps to start with and please start by phoning the Samaritans and / or making an appt to speak with your GP.  Do you think you can do that?

Please make those phone calls today
Take care and look after you
Allisonx

http://www.samaritans.org/

Allison Kelsey,
Therapist, Coach, Trainer
http://www.inspirenow.co.uk