I must begin by giving my deepest condolences to family and friends of Robin Williams and address the true sadness that the world felt when learning of his suicide. He really was an incredible actor, and last week his life and many achievements were celebrated and many tributes poured out mourning his death. It’s safe to say that he will never be forgotten and I can only hope that his legacy as an actor will live on through our children and theirs after.
The Mental Health Organisation reports that Anxiety and Depression are the most common mental disorders in Britain, and that 1 in 4 Britons will experience a mental health issue in a year. It also comments on the fact that women are more likely to have been treated than men. This brings me to the issue of treatment; if so many people suffer with depression, why do so many suffer in silence?
If you go to a GP in Britain with symptoms of depression or anxiety, they may offer counselling treatment. Since there can be a long waiting list, there are alternative options. In my opinion, this is extremely beneficial and people shouldn’t pump themselves with anti-depressants and think this will solve all their problems. There are hundreds of Self-Help Books, DVDs, and CD’s in order to better your mental state. There are many websites which teach you to increase your happiness, feel more comfortable, and understand what it is you’re feeling and how to change it. For example, No More Panic is a website encouraged by many sufferers to help you understand your anxiety issues and resolve them as much as possible.
One of the first steps when dealing with depression is to seek help. If you don’t, it will eat you up inside and possibly get worse. Obviously, everyone is different and some depression is circumstantial. However, for others, feelings of depression or anxiety can lay dormant and manageable, until it simply doesn’t anymore and you can’t face work, seeing friends or going out in public. My GP advised me to go on an Australian website called MoodGym and I cannot sing its praises louder. I think some of the most common reasons for depression are low self-esteem, anxiety and lack of confidence or a negative self-image.
MoodGym provides examples of ‘problem’ emotions or thoughts (including those above), possible circumstances in which they arise and the thought processes involved. It then teaches you to identify your own. Then it suggests alternative ways to tackle the situation or alternative thought paths. Make no mistake however, this website can only help you if you want to be helped and are willing to make the effort to help yourself (it’s not a miracle worker). When I was first recommended this nearly two years ago, I tried it once, as well as counselling and gave up. In my head it was pointless, it wasn’t going to work, and it was a waste of my time. Like I said, you have to be willing to try anything, and after walking out of work this week and not going back for nearly a week now, I’ve come to the realisation that this isn’t going to fix itself, and I’m no longer ashamed to say that I need help getting myself out of this mental state. I need help adapting my thought processes which make me feel depressed and anxious to turn them into positive ones.
Each module on the site is to be completed fully for maximum success and it states honestly that this alone will not fix all of your problems, nor is it a one-time fix. This, like other forms of treatment for mental health are long, slow, on-going and could last your whole life. As my mum told me this morning, “there are no quick fixes here, and you have to be willing to follow through”. There are six modules; Assessment, Feelings, Thoughts, Unwarping, De-stressing, Relationships, and the Final Quiz. In all honesty, when I looked at this nearly two years ago, I found it cheesy, patronising and childish, with its characters who each have a set of feelings and thought processes which you must identify or relate with. I’m in a more determined state than I was then, possibly due to leaving the security of University and being thrown into a frenzy of desperation to stop feeling these feelings as an adult.
This training programme is an interactive way to track the progress of your treatment. You can do it as many or as few times as you like, and the feedback enables you to understand your thought processes. The quizzes you take allow you to work through your current mental state, with the option to view other people’s responses who may have different or similar thoughts. I found this particularly useful in erasing my original fears of being the only person suffering.
Sometimes, it takes the growing numbers of people’s lives taken by depression around you to realise that you need to overcome this ridiculous stigma around counselling. It can no longer be thought of as ‘weak’ or ‘crazy’ to admit to having mental health issues, nor can treatment be considered embarrassing or be belittled by those who don’t understand it. Everyone’s lives, situations, and brains are so complex and varied that it’s difficult to categorise mental health, but awareness must be raised in order for people to feel like they can and should seek help and support. Furthermore, I’d like to add that I am not discrediting the use of anti-depressants or other medication; in fact there are people in my life whose medication saved them from times of desperation. I aim to promote alternative self-help methods and assert my belief that medication is not the entire solution, nor is it a useful method of maintenance of positive mental state, people should try self-help methods and counselling also.
I started this training programme today, and have just completed the third module (the thoughts module). One incredible assertion the page made, which made the programme personally worthwhile was this:
It’s not the event that causes me to feel depressed, since the event itself is not depressing, it is my interpretation of the event that in turn makes me feel depressed. The words that I create and the thoughts I tell myself about that event are the reason that I am feeling depressed about it. This may not even make sense to you readers, but for me, this was an important revelation, and a teeny, tiny step of progression – but I’ll take it.
I hope the site is as helpful to everyone else as it is for me.
Some self-help book lists:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Top-10-Self-Help-Books/lm/R305MDM57HGEIY
http://www.greatmindsinspire.com/archives/221
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