How to cope with depression for 10 years?

Hello and thank you for your question,

I will attempt to answer the question the best I can with the information you provided. Ultimately, I may be missing many pieces to this story. I still recommend completing an intake session with a therapist in order to better understand your depressive symptoms.

Depression can vary a bit. Some individuals can have depressive episodes on and off throughout their life. There are others who feel they are generally in a low mood most of the year. This is usually referred to as “functional depression” by some people. There are also depressive episodes specifically related to pregnancy. The reason I give this information is because people can have different opinions on the type of treatment to receive based on the way depression is presenting itself in your life. I will still give the therapeutic techniques I would use in therapy with someone having depressive symptoms.

One way to begin coping with these depressive episodes is through some techniques from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). These are just a few techniques to help you cope a little more. In order to continue to cope with future depressive episodes, you would likely need to keep practicing. Unfortunately, there will not be one or two tools to manage depressive episodes for multiple years.

This technique is referred to as “Your mind is not always your friend”.

Let’s talk a little bit about how our minds work and whether or not they are always our friends. Our minds seem to be especially good at spotting problems and figuring out how to fix them. It makes some sense because our ancestors needed to problem solve for survival.  However, most of us don’t have to worry about things our ancestors did like running from animals on a regular basis etc. That’s the good news. The bad news is that our minds continue to do what they evolved to do even if it means looking for, finding, and trying to figure out how to solve problems that may not be there to begin with.

For example, sometimes our minds are so used to worrying about things that they worry if we don’t have something to worry about. So, our minds then create something else to worry about. At other times, our minds seem to stubbornly try to solve problems that simply can’t be solved, such as why we can’t be perfect in everything we do.

Another thing our minds are very good at blaming ourselves for something because it needs to find a reason for a problem, for instance, when they conclude that we must be stupid or incompetent if we forget something. How often does your mind blame and criticize you for problems it’s identified? What I’d like you to consider is that when this happens, your mind is simply doing something it was biologically programmed to do. There’s nothing wrong with your mind, and so our challenge here is not in fixing it. You can’t live without your mind, but it’s also not your friend.

Another technique is becoming distant from the thoughts that go through your mind. For example, your mind tells you that you’re too stupid to go back to school. Can you thank your mind for that? Can you go ahead and actually say that out loud to your mind right now? The idea with this technique is that it is slowing down the thoughts and making you recognize that the thinking is either unhelpful or does not always make too much sense. 

The emotion will come and go. The important piece is you continuing to focus on your values even if your sadness is making it hard to do so. For example, still spend time with family even if it hard to do so because of the depression. If you sit and wait for the sadness to leave, you can lose out on doing activities that will likely make you feel better. 

Thank you!