Anna suffered from severe depression and had been on anti-depressants since her teens. She tried counselling, psychotherapy, CBT and hypnotherapy but none of them helped. As she said: “Life feels worthless, nothing makes me happy, what’s the point of anything?”
The symptoms of depression:
- Disturbed sleep (decreased or increased) compared to usual. Waking up early, having difficulty sleeping, or sleeping more
- Weight fluctuation (decreased or increased appetite)
- Fatigue, lethargy, loss of energy.
- Slowing of movements, irritable, restless and agitated
- Indecisiveness and poor concentration
- Feelings of worthlessness, low self-confidence and self-esteem
- Excessive and inappropriate guilt
- Suicidal thoughts and acts
- Crying a lot or feeling numb, empty and despairing
- Memory problems
- Feeling low-spirited for much of the time, every day
- Getting no pleasure out of life or things you usually enjoy
- Loss of libido
- Distancing yourself from others and not asking for support
- Taking a bleak, pessimistic view of the future
- Experiencing a sense of unreality
- Self-harming
The underlying causes of Anna’s depression were repressed emotions of anger and self-hate. They felt like a hidden volcano, burning away her life from the inside, constantly attacking and resulting in her feeling empty and lost. Anger is an extremely damaging emotion which can cause devastating health problems and self-destruction. It can be the source of numerous difficulties and expose you to countless problems. It can be dangerous and debilitating in its effect.
Many of us assume that the only ways of handling angry feelings are to either act them out, (e.g., by shouting at someone or using violence), or alternatively to suppress them completely. As a result, we can become (at the extremes) either bullies or door-mats: perpetrators or victims of aggression and abuse. Depression is not a thing outside that needs fighting, but rather a harmful seed forming a psychological problem inside one’s mind.