Help for Depression * Help for Depression * Help for Depression * Help for Depression * H

"Depression is as old as the human race, and rare is the person who has not felt its touch.  Sometimes, suddenly, without apparent reason we feel unbearably sad.  The world turns grey, and we taste a bitterness in our mouth.  We hear an echo of the bell that tolls our passing, and we reach out for a comforting hand, but find ourselves alone.  For some of us this experience is no more than a fleeting moment, or something we can dispel with common-sense thoughts and practical actions.  But for some of us this experinece becomes a ghost whose unbidden presence mars every feast, or worse, a prison whose walls, though invisible, are quite impenetrable.

Depression has been called an illness and treated with pills.  Some people are greatly helped by this treatment.  Their depression vanishes never to return.  However, for some people, pills bring only temporary relief or no change at all.  For these people something more is needed, and this is not surprising, since being depressed is something more than being ill..."  An extract from Depression, The Way Out of Your Prison a book by Dorothy Rowe.

Do these words resonate with you?  Some doctors and therapists believe that people choose to be depressed.  I believe that a time of depression is a time of self healing.  Many things can lead to the depressive state, prolonged stress, delayed grief - depression can be bought on when we live a life that does not 'fit' our personality - when we don't feel comfortable with who we are and what we are doing with our lives.

 We have an overwhelming urge to retreat from the world, wrap ourselves in the folds of the duvet and stay there for as long as it takes.  People who have never suffered from any form of depression find this behavior hard to understand, they say things like 'pull your socks up and get on with it!' 

 Depression is a syndrome that should be treated with respect - there is something in your life that is not working for you, there is a reason why you feel the way you do.  It is not always easy to speak to those closest to you about how you feel, indeed, do you really know how to put it into words?  Only you know when you are ready to seek help that will enable you to step  into the light and live your life once more.