- What is it and what can we do about it?
Everyone it seems is vulnerable to depression! Current research shows one in four women and one in six men in Australia experience clinical depression during their lifetimes. At some point or another most of us have or will express feelings of depression.
At its worst, severe depression leads us to suicide and is more a feeling of complete numbness than just a feeling of sadness. We experience depressed mood, anxiety, indecisiveness, indifference to pleasure, inability to get out of bed, feelings of guilt and worthlessness and find ourselves in a heavy, dark and hopeless place.
And whilst depression can be triggered by a single event like the loss of a loved one or job or home, it can also occur for no apparent or obvious reason/s we might recognize or explain. All we know is we are overwhelmed by depression!
However, regardless of what might trigger an individual’s depression the source or cause of that depression is always the same thing…‘The loss of that individual’s well-being!’
Well-being is determined by many aspects of life that come together to provide us with our own personal sense of security, purpose and happiness. Well-being can be determined by health, affluence, job satisfaction, standing within a community, relationship with loved ones, our looks or even the ability to play a sport well or have private time for self interests. All these things and numerous others contribute significantly to an individual’s well-being! We could say they are… the foundations of our happiness.
However when these things are eroded away, when they are taken from us or begin to slip through our fingers, our personal well-being often goes with them! We can then find ourselves stressed, lost, fearful, anxious and depressed, often unaware of what is happening and unable to stop it.
When we come to understand that chronic depression is the consequence of…‘The loss of the individual’s well-being!’ we become aware of how to properly treat depression and importantly how to prevent its recurrence. So the question becomes… >> How can we regain our wellbeing?
