When Im Alone for a While I Get Depressed but Im Fine Again After I See My Friends Do I Hate Myself?

August 14, 2012 • Contributed by Cynthia W. Lubow, MS, MFT

You may know someone who is depressed and not know they're depressed. People expect someone who is depressed to cry a lot, stay in bed all twenty-four hours, mope, or audio similar Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. But depression isn't always this obvious.

Some people can totally fake it. They tin smile and laugh; they can act like everyone else, even while they are in excruciating emotional pain. Occasionally people who can practice this terminate up killing themselves, and no one tin believe it. People who are depressed only human activity like they are fine may not confide in anyone. Commonly they discover a way to spend time lone crying or letting down the facade and so go back to acting when they have to be with people. I've had clients who lived with their families and only found time to weep afterwards anybody went to sleep, and but in the bathroom. The rest of the time they were acting like someone who wasn't in pain. On top of the pain they already experience, acting happy is emotionally exhausting, and having this secret is isolating. So, faking it can even increase the depression.

Others funnel their pain into anger and people see them rage, corruption, shame, or react with badgerer or irritation to whatever happens effectually them. They may or may non themselves know they're depressed, but others often don't approximate how much devastating emotional pain they are in. People may fear them, despise them, or dismiss them as mean. It is very difficult to feel sympathy for someone who is hurting people, and it is difficult to see their vulnerability, so their depression goes unnoticed.

Notice a Therapist for Depression

Still others are fond to something, and the depression is obscured past the addiction. People with addictions spend most of their time and free energy relating to the addiction. They plan to do it, conceptualize doing it—these phases excite them and elevate their mood temporarily. Then they use whatever they are addicted to and information technology boosts their mood. But the thrill wears off, and they are depleted past the effects of the habit and may likewise feel remorse or shame, then the depression descends on them, pulling them downwardly like a cement jacket. They brainstorm the bicycle over again to try to experience meliorate; they programme and anticipate. Their whole life is about running from depression, but it becomes centered effectually the more dramatic force of addiction, and the low can be unrecognized. I am not saying that all addicts are driven by depression—depression tin can as well be acquired by addiction. But addiction can exist a form low takes that is not easy to identify as depression. I include eating disorders in this category. I also include people who work most of their waking hours.

Depression isolates people. Whether they are hiding from the earth in bed, preoccupied with an addiction, pushing people away with anger, or keeping their real thoughts and feelings within while pretending to be okay, people with depression usually feel very lonely.

Depression isolates people. Whether they are hiding from the globe in bed, preoccupied with an addiction, pushing people away with anger, or keeping their real thoughts and feelings inside while pretending to be okay, people with depression usually feel very alone. Low likewise has a congenital-in isolating fog quality that makes it very difficult to feel connected to people. Even when people feel safe to express exactly how they feel, it is very difficult for people who oasis't experienced a deep depression to sympathise how that feels. How tin anyone who hasn't experienced it sympathise a pain that is as intense every bit any open-heart surgery without anesthesia, with no cuts or bruises to show? How can anyone who hasn't experienced it sympathise the complexity of pain that is not only unbearably intense itself but also complicated by many painful factors similar the stigma of mental illness and the confusion of the fact that unlike other illnesses, low causes behavior changes. People attribute behavior to the moral character of the person, rather than to the illness.

The pain is also complicated past the fact that depression attacks a person's thoughts and feelings, rather than liver or lungs. Depression can crusade a person to think she hates herself or is unhappy in her relationships. Information technology can crusade someone to believe anybody would exist better off without him, or even that others would exist better off dead. It can cause people to experience deplorable, aroused, guilty, numb, or rageful, even when none of this is how they feel when they aren't depressed.

And so what can you practise to help people y'all honey who are depressed, if you tin't tell they're depressed? Inquire questions very kindly and mind to the answers very advisedly. Sympathise with their emotional hurting—even if you lot take to approximate at what it might exist. Let them know yous are at that place to listen and empathise for every bit long as it takes, and y'all aren't taking no for an answer. Of course if you aren't trustworthy—if you judge them, or talk to others near what they tell you, or interrupt, go impatient, or misunderstand them, then information technology is better for them to talk to someone who can really listen without any of this. Being a reliable, trustworthy, patient, nonjudgmental listener is the best thing you tin can exercise in virtually cases with someone who is depressed.

A couple of caveats: I am talking well-nigh adults—children and teens require some variations. Too, addictions deject the film of depression and require their own, very dissimilar intervention. Nonjudgmental listening is still essential simply may need to exist combined with some firm boundary-setting and professional treatment for the addiction.

© Copyright 2012 GoodTherapy.org. All rights reserved. Permission to publish granted by Cynthia West. Lubow, MS, MFT

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Source: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/hidden-depression-among-us-0814124