I awoke early with a strange feeling. My belly was tight, tensed, surrounding a swirling pool of deep nothingness within.“That’s strange” I thought “what’s going on here?”
But as I concentrated on the feelings trying to pin them down they moved away and the more I looked the more distant they got. Then they were gone.
So I went back to sleep and as I did so I realised something - what a difference to six months ago. Back then the anxiety and dread, for that’s what the sensations were, would have overwhelmed me absorbing me into the darkness leaving a quivering wreck unable to face the world out there.
But this time without even thinking I had seperated myself off and looked at what was happening from the outside. From this perspective it was clear that the feelings had no foundation. Well no, that is not strictly true they probably arose from my current worries about money. But like the scariest horror stories it is the unknown that is most frightening. As soon as I had exposed my worry to the light of my mind and could see what was really happening they shrunk and like the monster in Scooby Do or the Wizard of Oz were revealed to be a slightly laughable old man.
And that I think is what therapy for depression is all about. Most of what you see and feel during an attack are false, but you cannot see that because you are trapped within and everywhere you look is coloured by the fog of darkness surrounding you. Therapy show you how to understand what is going on, how to step outside and look back and decide what is real and what is not, for what is real can be dealt with. It still will not be easy, problems are problems after all, but the first step is to recognise them for what they are.
Ther are different types of therapy depending on how badly affected you are, your personality, what the cause may be and how deep your pockets are. I am not a professional of course but I can talk about the route I took . . .
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