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Depression – Misery loves company
As a boy, when hearing adults refer to depression, I used to hear expressions like. ‘misery loves company’ and wonder what it meant. Then one day it struck me what it means. When depressed and in a low mood it can often feel like being stuck. The things we love doing seem like to much effort, we can’t be bothered with the people we like being with. We isolate ourselves or withdraw from our usual activities. It’s almost as if misery doesn’t want us to lift our mood. Quite often we can feel so low that we want to bring everyone else’s mood down too – misery loves company. Advice like ‘force yourself to have fun’ or ‘think yourself better by being positive’ can often add to our unhappiness as there’s no acknowledgement of what we’re truly feeling.
So why do we get depressed?
There is a school of thought which believes depression is anger which has been turned inwards and internalized. I believe there may be some truth in this. Counselling can help explore what lies behind current feelings. Depression can also be triggered by an event such as a bereavement, redundancy, separation, illness or trauma. It feeds off itself. The lower our mood the more we withdraw and then feel even lower. Some of the symptoms of depression are low self esteem, lethargy, fatigue or guilt. Some people may have thoughts of self harm or that life’s not worth living. They may self medicate with drugs or alcohol.
Depression is manageable though. Although there is no quick fix it often passes with time and good support.
Contact Sentient Counselling if you would like more information or to make an appointment
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This article was written by sentientcounselling