Posted by sid on January 8, 2002, at 19:54:18
In reply to Re: fear of depression, posted by Noa on January 8, 2002, at 19:23:27
I know what you mean. I am taking meds for dysthymia, and 2 days ago I didn't feel good. I wanted to stop taking the meds or change to another, I was scared because I felt better with dysthymia but without the meds, and so I felt I needed to change something... It took a day for me to realize it was PMS and in 3 days everything would be OK. We are too aware of our moods perhaps after all this?
I also had longer term therapy, mixed with CBT. I may go back later on in my life, but for now I cannot stand telling my life to another human being who takes notes while I talk. It helped a lot, but it's time for me to live and stop talking and thinking about perhaps finally living some day.
> I think that cognitive approaches in therapy can really help with this, BUT, I think that this needs longer term therapy than is sometimes offered with cognitive therapy. I have been in therapy for years, and the cbt strategies do help, but wouldn't have if I were only in treatment for short term therapy. My therapist uses CBT approaches, but not exclusively.
>
> I think my learning to deal with the fear of depression also meant learning to accept that there are some bad days, low moods, etc.
>
> AND, to learn to understand the causes of some low moods, bad days. For example, if I haven't gotten myself to sleep at a reasonable hour, I am very grumpy in the morning. When I was in that fearful-of-depression phase, those grumpy moods really scared me--felt like the deprssion was returning. But slowly I am learning to draw different conclusions--I ask myself, ok, I'm grumpy, what is going on? Did I get enough sleep? is there some other reason, etc.? What can I do about it? Does it have to mean that the depression is back?
>
> And to realize that people who arent' depressed have grumpy moods and bad days, too.
>
> The panic about becoming depressied was potentially pretty paralizing for me. My therapist helped a lot--with the strategies I mentioned, but also with helping me to learn to not see it as so black and white, all or nothing--ie, depressed or not depressed.
poster:sid
thread:16440
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020102/msgs/16499.html