Posts
It’s easy to think that all anyone has to do to get over depression is pop a pill. But not everyone who takes a pill gets happy. I’ve talked to numerous people who’ve tried antidepressants and felt only slightly better, if that. Which is not to say that antidepressants don’t work – they do. But it’s a matter of getting the one that’s right for you and there’s almost no way of knowing which one that is until you try it. Finding it can take months.
But there are more types of therapy out there than you can shake a stick at so if
drugs don’t work (the legal type) then something else probably will. It’s a matter of knowing what the therapies are and having the stamina to keep trying them until you find one that does the trick. It’s unlikely that every therapy will work for everyone. This is just common sense. Someone who’s too ill to exercise much (like me) or simply doesn’t like exercise is unlikely to find that useful. Someone (again, like me) who finds meditation boring and onerous isn’t going to do it, no matter how much they tell themselves it works and they ‘should’. And a therapy you don’t do is unlikely to have an impact on you!
Even if you make yourself do it it’s not necessarily going to work for you. Research on antidepressants show they work for over half of the people who try them. None of them work for 100% of people. Ditto cognitive and interpersonal therapy. It’s a case of different strokes for different folks. We’re all made slightly differently so it stands to reason that we are going to need an approach that suits our unique makeup, both so we will actually keep on with it and so it has the most chance of working.
But there are more types of therapy out there than you can shake a stick at so if
drugs don’t work (the legal type) then something else probably will. It’s a matter of knowing what the therapies are and having the stamina to keep trying them until you find one that does the trick. It’s unlikely that every therapy will work for everyone. This is just common sense. Someone who’s too ill to exercise much (like me) or simply doesn’t like exercise is unlikely to find that useful. Someone (again, like me) who finds meditation boring and onerous isn’t going to do it, no matter how much they tell themselves it works and they ‘should’. And a therapy you don’t do is unlikely to have an impact on you!Even if you make yourself do it it’s not necessarily going to work for you. Research on antidepressants show they work for over half of the people who try them. None of them work for 100% of people. Ditto cognitive and interpersonal therapy. It’s a case of different strokes for different folks. We’re all made slightly differently so it stands to reason that we are going to need an approach that suits our unique makeup, both so we will actually keep on with it and so it has the most chance of working.
You've brought up some really important things here again, Kaye. Like the 'shoulds' of exercise or meditation. I've told myself to do these two things, 'should' because it would be so beneficial and every doctor or therapist always brings them up - but at the end of the day my health isn't up to the exercise and I find meditation very difficult.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you're telling us we don't have to do these things, and reminding us not to beat ourselves up over not doing it. Because you can really set yourself up for failure when you force yourself to do something and then can't keep it up, which then makes you feel more depressed.
Good stuff, Kaye. A good reminder to me to do what I know works best for me right now, after all I know my body best! And maybe look for some other options that I haven't tried before. Cheers.
I'm glad this resonated. I am a terrible one for telling myself I 'should' meditate. I did it regularly for a while and found it really helpful but then went to a formal class which set off all my 'should'ing about doing it 'right'. It kind of killed my interest in it so however much I lecture myself I just don't feel like doing it.
ReplyDeleteSo it is easier and more useful for me to do things like noting the good things that happen, and getting bright light and planning enjoyable activities. There are SO MANY things that work to make people feel happier - there's no need for shoulds about any of it. And i strongly suspect that some things work better for some people than others, even though there's little research on this.
Feeling happy is an option and how you get there is up to the individual. In my experience it's really important to notice how doing different things makes you feel (e.g. pills, diet, exercise, therapy, journalling) and then do the things that work for you.