Clinical depression sometimes isn't just a case of the occasional “upset” or sadness. Clinical depression means that you have depression at the clinical diagnosis level, i.e. you have such a diagnosis on a mental health basis. There are several diagnoses that include clinical depressive symptoms, including Major Depressive Disorder, Disruptive Mood Disregulation, Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia), and Premenstrual Stress Disorder. There are also depressive disorders that are caused by the use of certain substances or drugs, or because of a medical condition. No matter what depressive disorder you have, you can manage the symptoms by getting help, using coping strategies, and changing your depressive way of thinking.
Step
Getting Professional Help
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Keep yourself safe if you have thoughts of harming yourself. If you are currently having thoughts of self-harm or suicide, you need emergency help. If you've ever felt suicidal or have self-injurious tendencies and can't trust your own impulses, get help right away.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 1 - Call your local emergency telephone number, such as 112.
- Call the dedicated suicide prevention support phone numbers, for example 021-500454, 021-7256526, 021-7257826, and 021-7221810 (in Indonesia) or if you are in the US, use the online chat feature on the websites of such services, to get emergency assistance.
- Go to the nearest emergency room and explain how you feel. Tell them that you are feeling suicidal.
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Talk to a therapist. If you choose to seek help from a therapist, be sure to choose someone who is specially qualified to treat people with depression, and make sure that you are comfortable with them. The right therapist can't solve all problems instantly, but will help you to help yourself, refer you to a psychiatrist if needed (for medical treatment), and provide support when you are going through a difficult time.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 2 - Contact your health insurance company for information on clinics in your location that match insurance referrals. Be sure to include the type of service according to your planning budget.
- If you don't have health insurance, do an online search for information on affordable or even free mental health clinics in your area. You can also contact your local social service or government organization for financial assistance or enroll in similar programs that help low-income families.
- If you find a therapist that works for you, continue with him for as long as it's comfortable for you. Also know if you can call the therapist in addition to visiting, in case something unexpected happens.
- Seek or ask for group therapy referrals. For example, Coping with Depression (CWD) therapy is an effective treatment to relieve your depression.
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Consider taking medication. Treatment with SSRI anti-depressants can help treat deep-seated depression. Also find out if your therapist thinks medication can help in your case. Ask the name of a psychiatrist known to the therapist who has helped people with a history of depression similar to yours.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 3 - Even though you may be taking prescribed medication, don't think that taking certain pills will solve your problem easily. There are many other methods worth working on to fight depression.
- Accept the fact that every psychiatrist is different. Ask your psychiatrist about the treatment he or she recommends for people who are in a situation like yours. Know what type of medicine he will take, whether he will prescribe more than one drug, and how much of the dose he will give you. If he seems clueless, you should find another psychiatrist.
- If you decide to take medication as a way to help with your depression, be aware that each medication has a different effect on you. Some medications may worsen depressive symptoms over time or exacerbate suicidal thoughts and not help at all. If this is the case, contact your doctor or therapist immediately.
- Don't neglect your medication. Skipping medication routines will cause negative reactions in the body (shaking, chills, etc.) and can worsen depression. Change the prescription or stop taking the drug with the knowledge of a psychiatrist.
Getting Social Support
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Seek support from your family. Social support is a great source of help when dealing with depression. Social support can help increase feelings of worth, being loved, and having other people who want to help you and care about you.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 4 - Depression is a mental problem that is hereditary. Trace your biological family history. Does anyone in your family have depression? Observe them and see what they do to get over it.
- If some people in your family show greater support than others, seek help from these key advocates first. If you don't feel comfortable seeking support from a close family member (parent, brother or sister), seek help from your extended family, or from your grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins. If you still feel a lack of support, seek social support from outside the family environment, namely from your friends.
- If your therapist is the only person you can trust at the time to provide support, that's fine too. Your therapist may be able to put you in touch with a therapy group, which can provide social support if you don't have reliable friends or family.
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Share your feelings with others. Emotional support is a common source of treatment for people dealing with depression. Being around other people instead of keeping your feelings to yourself will help relieve your emotions, otherwise you could explode or even give up hope.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 5 - Talk about this with your friends. If you're feeling worse than usual, ask a friend to listen and support you, because even just listening can save you. Sometimes it's hard to start opening up when you're depressed, and there's no shame in taking your friends on this journey.
- Cry with a friend or family member, to relieve your emotional state.
- When you're ready to be entertained, ask your friends to do something fun with you.
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Get in the habit of having healthy relationships. Research has found that the quality of relationships with partners, family, and friends is an important risk factor for depression. People in unhealthy or undersupported relationships are twice as likely to develop depression as those in healthy relationships. Identifying and leaving unhealthy relationships will help you overcome your depression.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 6 - A healthy relationship is one of mutual respect, trust, cooperation, and acceptance. A healthy relationship has elements of physical expression of affection, open, and honest communication.
- An unhealthy relationship is usually fraught with elements of intimidation, humiliation, threats, domination, judgment, and blame. This type of relationship is also fraught with various forms of harassment (verbal, physical, sexual) and possessiveness.
- Explore friendships and other relationships in your life right now. Are there people who tend to bring you down or always blame you? Maybe these people are putting your life in danger instead of bringing you good. Consider whether you need to distance yourself in this unhealthy relationship, or build a new relationship with someone else.
Using Handling Strategies
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Educate yourself. A good place to start on a journey to problem solving is through research or education. Knowledge is great, and knowing what's causing your depression has put you in the middle of your victory. Informational support can help a depressed person cope with difficult situations.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 7 - Psychoeducation is a special term for a person's learning process to gain knowledge and understanding about the particular disorder he or she is experiencing. You can ask your therapist about psychoeducation about your disorder and plan how to deal with it.
- Read books, research articles, watch documentary videos, and do online searches to learn more about your condition.
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Make targets. Targeting is an integral part of any therapy for reducing depressive symptoms. In order to reduce depression, you must have a plan.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 8 - Ask yourself what you want to achieve in the face of your clinical depression. How would you like to deal with your depression? Do you want to make progress? Would you like to learn specific strategies for dealing with it? Try to set more specific targets and set a time limit (eg, one week, one month, or six months) and the targets to be achieved. For example, being completely free of depression in one month is an unrealistic goal. However, reducing the severity of your depressive symptoms from one to ten (ten is the most depressed, and one is not at all), from nine to seven, may be more realistic to achieve.
- Make a plan to reduce your depression. Use the coping strategies discussed in this article as a guide for setting more specific targets. For example, one goal is to successfully conduct research on your mood disorders at least once a week.
- Double check if your plan is working. Change your plan if necessary, so you can incorporate new strategies that haven't been tried before.
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Add fun activities that can help you. How each person chooses how to deal with depression depends on the stressor, culture, personal resources, and unique social situation.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 9 - Some examples of good activities are reading, watching movies, writing (in a diary or writing a short story), painting, sculpting, playing with animals, cooking, playing music, sewing, and knitting.
- Schedule this fun activity into your daily routine.
- If you tend to be comfortable with spiritual and religious activities, these things have been shown to reduce depression, especially for those who are older.
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Try to solve the problem. Sometimes there are special events in life and certain situations that cause stress, thereby contributing to or adding to depression. Problem solving as one of the efforts made in cases like this can help relieve depression. If you're faced with a situation, focus on what you can control (for example, your reactions or thoughts about it), instead of worrying about what you can't control (for example, other people's reactions or reactions).
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 10 - Sometimes personal conflict can increase depressive symptoms. Resolve the conflict if you do have a personal problem with the other person. For example, discuss your feelings openly but not in an aggressive way. State clearly how you feel by using words that refer to yourself, namely “I” and “I”. Say, for example, "I was sad when you forgot to call me."
- Avoid constantly seeking new information to delay actual action. This is very common for those who suffer from depression. Try to accept the fact that if you want things to change, you have to take action. Gather information for yourself about options that will help you make a decision, but at some point you have to step forward and make that decision, whether it's about ending a bad friendship or trying to find a new therapist.
- Focus only on the things you can control. Refocus yourself on planning and solving modifiable problems, instead of thinking too much about the wrong behavior of other people or things going on in your environment (traffic traffic jams, noisy neighbors, etc.).
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Exercise. More physical activity is very helpful in reducing the level of depression. Exercise can help with depression, regardless of medication problems and negative events in the sufferer's life.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 11 - Do whatever exercise you can, including walking, jogging, biking, mountain climbing, or lifting weights.
- Try fun sports like you've never done before, like Zumba, aerobic dance, yoga, Pilates, and rowing.
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Do mindfulness or meditation. Meditation that focuses the mind will help increase self-awareness and relieve depression. Concentration is to see the state of the self at that time and in that place. This is a way to focus on what you are doing, instead of reflecting on the past or worrying about what will happen tomorrow.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 12 - Mindfulness exercises are a great way for beginners to have self-awareness. Try doing a mindfulness exercise by eating a piece of fruit (apples, bananas, strawberries, or whatever fruit you like) in your mind. First of all, observe the fruit. What colors and shapes did you notice? Then, touch the fruit. What's the texture like? Is it soft or wavy? Enjoy the taste and pay attention to the texture of the flesh as much as possible. Then, smell the fruit and enjoy the aroma. Next, take a bite of the fruit. What does it taste like? Is it sour or sweet? What's the texture like in your mouth? Eat slowly while thinking, and focus on the experience of eating the fruit. Pay attention to any other thoughts that may come to your mind and bother you, and without judging those thoughts, let them disappear.
- Another example of a mindfulness exercise is to think that you are walking. In your mind, imagine that you are walking in your neighborhood (if that is safe for you) or a local park. Like the exercise with fruit, pay attention to what you see, smell, hear, and feel on your skin and body.
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Do the “grounding” method. The grounding method, or diversion technique, is useful if you need to temporarily distract yourself from emotional pain. The grounding method allows you to take a break from feeling depressed and reflect and focus your attention on something else.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 13 - Try the mental grounding method by naming all the provinces, colors, or animals that come to mind (from A to Z).
- Do some physical grounding exercises, such as running in cold water with your hands, taking a bubble bath, or petting an animal.
- There are many different types of grounding exercises that you can browse online.
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Avoid negative ways to deal with depression. Negative ways of dealing with depression will actually make depression worse. Dealing with depression in negative ways includes isolating oneself from the social world (avoiding social relationships), using aggression (such as yelling, violence, or harming others), or consuming alcohol or other potentially harmful substances.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 14 Avoid drugs and alcohol when dealing with a depressed mood or other symptoms of depression. The use of illegal drugs is something that is generally done by those who suffer from depression
Changing Depressive Thinking
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Perform an automatic restructuring of your mind. The way we approach and think about ourselves, others, and the world creates our unique reality. The thoughts we have are directly related to our feelings. Negative thinking will make us more depressed. Cognitive restructuring is changing negative and destructive thoughts, which can exacerbate depression, and replacing them with more realistic ideas. If you consciously change these thoughts, you can successfully relieve your depression in general.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 15 -
Fight thoughts that are "black and white". It means you think something is completely bad or completely good. Try to provide a "middle room". If you think something or someone is really bad, mention at least a few positive things about it and focus on these aspects.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 16 -
Reduce self-blame. Self-blame is thought forms such as, “This is my fault. Nobody loves me, because I'm not a good person. This kind of thinking is not true, because it can't be all your fault, there are always other factors in the situation.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 17 However, don't always blame other people either. Accept your responsibilities and try to be realistic in assessing the situation
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Prevent yourself from creating disaster. Creating a disaster is meant here is thinking that the worst will happen and trying to predict the future.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 18 - Work thinking of alternative ways that the situation will improve. For example, if you believe you won't get the job after the interview, try thinking that the person interviewing you likes you and that you still have a chance.
- Try to estimate how likely the worst thing will happen. If you think logically about it, the chances of the world ending because of that are very small percentages.
- Another option is to think about the possible worst-case scenario and decide that you'll be okay in the midst of it. However, if the worst thing is that you will not pass that extraordinary test, the truth is, you have a high chance of surviving. You will not die for not passing the test. You will continue to progress and learn to achieve better results in the future. Maybe the situation will not look as bad as you think.
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Cut down on perfectionist thoughts. Perfectionism, or the thought that everything needs to go your way, can lead to depression. If you have unrealistically high expectations of yourself, others, or your environment, you are positioning yourself for disappointment. Chronic disappointment can definitely put you in a depressed mood and lead to other symptoms of depression (difficulty sleeping, excessive weight loss or gain, etc.).
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 19 - Set realistic goals and expectations for yourself. If you're hoping to lose 8 pounds in three days, you're setting yourself up for failure. It will be very difficult and be unhealthy for your body. However, if you set a more reasonable goal of losing 8 kg in one month, this is a more achievable option and can reduce your perfectionist mind.
- Try to broaden your point of view to include your positive accomplishments, and not just what you didn't do or think you could have done better. Don't just find fault with your actions, but also find all the things you did right or well.
- Give yourself a break. Think, “I don't always have to do the best I can at every opportunity. Sometimes, I could be sick or tired. I purposely took time off to recover my strength.”
- Set time limits on certain projects and stick to them. If you plan to spend an hour or two on light schoolwork, work on it within that time and stop when the time limit is up. That way, you don't constantly analyze and re-examine your work, as perfectionists often do. However, make sure that you allow time within your means (for example, not an hour to complete an entire difficult essay).
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Believe in yourself. Be confident in your ability to deal with negative situations and feelings. Positive thoughts about your ability to deal with depression can actually relieve your depression overall.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 20 If you have negative thoughts like, “I can't handle this. This is too much. I can't deal with it," consciously change your thoughts to something more positive and realistic like, "This is hard and I'm feeling depressed, but I've been through something like this before and I can get through it again. I know I can handle this feeling.”
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Accept a sad and depressed mood. A person who is depressed may rarely think that the situation requires acceptance. However, many situations can be dealt with more easily simply by accepting them. For example, when you feel a negative emotion (such as a depressed or sad mood, accept these emotions as normal and natural, then this can help you deal with them in a healthy way. Sometimes not accepting these negative emotions hinders your ability to cope). process the emotion so that it naturally disappears. By not allowing yourself to process the emotion, you will experience a longer period of sadness and depression.
Deal with Clinical Depression Step 21 Try to accept it by saying or thinking to yourself, “I accept that I am depressed. It hurts, but my feelings actually provide valuable information that something needs to change. I will find out what needs to be changed so that I can feel better.”
Warning
If you have suicidal thoughts, call the emergency services for suicide prevention assistance, the local emergency number, or go to a hospital
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