Feelings
of depression and anxiety are the two most common emotions that people
experience when major crises happen in life. Then, anger follows. Depression
and anxiety are the most common reason for seeking therapy, and are highly
treatable. If you have recently gone through a major life crisis and are
experiencing problems with depression and anxiety, know that you are not
alone and that what you are going through is very common. But, depression
and anxiety are feelings that can become debilitating if your life circumstances
overwhelm your ability to cope normally. It is important that if you are
having problems with depression or anxiety that you seek out help from
a therapist. If you are already having major problems functioning in your
day-to-day life, treatment is a must. If you are feelings suicidal or
planning to hurt yourself,
contact
me immediately or call the suicide
hotline.
In mental health terms, feelings of depression and anxiety are not symptoms of a mental illness. Feelings are important physiological cues to us, like a warning light in your car. When the light goes off, you know you need to tune up your car. In people, when you experience emotions, anger, sadness, nervousness, etc. it is a cue that you need to "tune up" something in your life.
All humans have feelings;
animals have feelings as well. Feelings are what make us pay attention
to when things are not going as they should be and require our attention,
or the opposite, things that are happening are going well and feelings
act as a signal us to continue doing what we are doing. It is no mistake,
for
example, that having sex, eating, laughing and loving feel good. They
feel good because mother nature wants us to do these things. It is important
for people to have sex so that more humans enter the world and the species
continue. In addition, sex keeps people connected to one another, which
is important to our survival. It is important to eat so we keep living.
Laughing is curative and boosts up your immune system. It, along with
loving other helps in our overall survival. Humans are social animals
and depend upon one another. We need one another because our lives are
complex. If you lived totally isolated, it would literally harm your physical
being. Studies done on babies who were deprived of human contact in war
torn countries showed that if babies were not held and interacted with
constantly, they failed to develop and died! There is a good reason babies
are cute - it keeps us coming back for more!
Anger, depression, and fear or anxiety are emotions that tell you something is wrong and needs to change. They are your "DO SOMETHING!" feelings. They are meant to motivate you. For example, if a person on the street pulls out a knife and demands your wallet, chances are you are going to feel scared, maybe even angry. Your feeling is protecting you, so you will live through the situation. You will either do what the guy says and if he tries to hurt you, either fight him or run. Or, believe it or not, you may just become paralyzed, like you are "playing possum," a very important survival strategy that humans have adopted. You "play possum" when you feel extremely threatened. Many people get really frustrated with themselves after a traumatic event if they feel like they "just didn't do anything to stop it, or to save her, or to protect him." What people don't know is freezing up is a primal survival response. You do it because it is in your genes. It is what helps you stay alive. It is a normal fear response.
Another example of how feelings get you to take action that is more obscure. Lets say someone criticizes you, you might respond by feeling angry and hurt. Why? Why from a survival standpoint that is? That person is threatening your wellbeing on a primal level. They are triggering your survival emotions. Lets say your boss criticizes your work. If your boss doesn't like your work, he could fire you. This could threaten your survival - if you can't work, you can't support yourself, so you can't buy food and put a roof over your head. Make sense? The hurt and anger are warning signs trying to tell you to do something so you survive. So our feelings are very important to us. They let us know what we need to be paying attention to, for survival sake.
But, what happens when
our feelings are reacting so strongly that they are interfering in our ability
to make things happen - to take action for our survival? For example, if
depression gets really out of control,
you won't be able to get out of bed in the morning. You may even have thoughts
and fantasies about dying. If you are too anxious, you won't be productive and
will end up making a lot of mistakes. In extreme, you may start having panic
attacks on the freeway while you are driving. That isn't going to help with your
survival, in fact just the opposite! This happens when you are too overloaded by
stress and crisis in your life, or if your brain chemistry or hormones are out
of balance.
When you have too much of one emotion and it is no longer helping you, there is a chemical overload or underload in your body. This is when medication may be helpful and you should consider talking to you doctor or seek out help from a psychiatrist. Therapy will be very helpful too because therapy also helps create a chemical change in your brain! That's right, you read that correctly! Therapy can change your brain! Wild isn't it? But it is true! Many people have found that therapy alone has been able to cure their depression or anxiety, because your brain develops new neurological pathways all the time. However, for some people, therapy won't make enough of a change and this person will need medication to relieve these symptoms. For you, therapy plus medication is the best treatment. Also, if you have gone through a major crisis or ongoing high stress circumstances, medication can be used temporarily to help support your body and brain. Stress causes chemical changes in your entire body and if the stress is ongoing, it can cause damage to your body and brain. The medication can help to get you through these times and help your prevent the stress from doing physical damage. For many people this is very helpful. Also, eating right and exercising during these times is very important in protecting your body and brain - along with your sanity!
If you were abused as
a young child, you may need medication because your brain may have developed
with chronic chemical over/under-loads that became a lasting part of your
brain's
anatomical structure. Think about it this way, lets say that you are constantly
on edge because your life is unpredictable. What is happening in your
body? If you know what it is like to be really scared, you can start to
guess what is happening: your heart rate goes up, you become very alert,
your breathing changes, and you feel tension in your muscles, your entire
body is ready to respond to whatever threat you may encounter. There are
major chemical and physiological changes happening throughout your entire
body. For example, your pupils dilate, your blood vessels expand and
dilate so that more blood flows to your vital organs and limbs, your digestion
slows down, your bowels and bladder may empty, and your brain shifts into
a partially automatic reactive mode. You find yourself acting without
thinking, just responding automatically, before you even realize what
you've done. These changes all happen as a result of what is known as
the fight/flight response. Look at all the things that happen inside your
body when your body is in fight/flight mode.
Your body is in a survival mode, ready to protect yourself if you are
to be attacked. If you were to be attacked, you would need to be prepared to
either stand up and fight to defend yourself, or you would need to run. In an
abusive household where there is a lot of
upheaval,
constant tension and unpredictability, you naturally remain in a chronic state
of fight/flight mode. The stress is too high. When this happens, your body
begins to break down because the chemical changes required to create this
survival response is very powerful. You are not built to sustain that level of
physiological response. When you are a developing child, your brain is also
developing and forming nerve pathways that will create your emotional responses
and reactions throughout your life. Again this is a survival response. But the
pathways created are damaged due to chronic stress. Thus, as you become a
teenager or adult, you may experience problems with ongoing depression and/or
anxiety because of the damage done to your brain in childhood. Medication is
needed to correct these problems, and are very helpful to survivors of childhood
abuse.
Some folks are also
born with a tendency towards having depression or anxiety. It is just a part of
your genes. If your family tends to be depressive or anxious, it is likely that
you may have inherited this from them. In this case, medication or herbs may be
helpful to you if anxiety and depression is a problem. In addition, paying
attention to what you eat is also very important because this will impact your
moods. For example, if you eat a lot of sugar or foods that have starchy
carbohydrates, like
breads and cereals, your body tends to have sugar dips. When this happens, your
mood is impacted. If you have caffeinated drinks or foods, like coffee, soft
drinks, or chocolate, this also will cause anxiety, and then a sugar swing,
which will impact your foods. The other thing about these foods is that they
have a significant impact on your hormonal system, that regulates your entire
body. Your hormones also impact your moods so if you are not eating balanced
meals with regular healthy snacks, you are more likely to have hormonal and
sugar instability, which cause problems with moods. Good things to eat are
fruits, vegetables and protein regularly. If you have a protein and fruit or
vegetable at each meal, and then nuts or a glass of milk for a snack, you will
find that your moods may improve significantly, because your body is able to
work better overall. This is especially important for girls and women, because
this type of diet is the healthiest on your ovaries. Studies are showing that
females are currently at a high risk for ovarian problems due to diet and
environmental toxins. The purer the foods you eat, foods that are not processed,
the healthier your ovaries will be and the less likely you will develop
reproductive and many other non-reproductive diseases.
I recommend the book, "Its My Ovaries Stupid," by Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet for all girls and women because Dr. Vliet has done a significant amount of research on women's ovarian health and has found a tremendous impact on female health caused by chemicals and environmental toxins that are harming women tremendously. By the time a female realizes the extend of the damage, it is very difficult, if possible at all to correct the damage. It is extremely important to understand what is happening to our bodies now, because for the first time in history, girls and women are showing tremendous ovarian diseases that are not being recognized or correctly treated by an under-educated medical system on ovarian health. And, ovarian health is directly linked to mental health and mood stability. The more PMS symptoms or Perimenopause Symptoms or Menopausal symptoms you have, the more your body is trying to tell you something.
For more information about specific problems with anxiety and depression, check out the links below.
