I was reading a post on Facebook a little while ago where the poster was trying to give comfort to people with depression and anxiety by saying that they needn’t be too harsh on themselves as they did not choose to be so affected by their emotions. A nice comforting sentiment but not totally true.

Depression is called the illness of the past because we become depressed about something that has happened to us. Anxiety is the illness of the future because we become worried/anxious about something that is going to happen to us ‘We think’ .

Anger is the illness of the present as we become agitated about something that is happening to us in the here and now.

In my experience both as a Therapist and a sufferer of depression it is by our own choice that we endure it ,and the same goes for anxiety, it is our choice to put up with it.

The best, although difficult way to treat these inflictions is to accept that you’ve got them but to decide that they are no longer helping you, thank them then ask/tell them to go.

Depression is a reaction to an upsetting or distressing event and as such shuts down the brain and body to give you the chance…to force you to take the opportunity…to withdraw from life around you and to sit quietly whilst your mind works out how to cope with the outcome of the negative event that you’ve just experienced. The process of the mind adjusting to the loss takes about 2 weeks; not 2 weeks from the tragedy or whatever but 2 weeks from the time you tell yourself, or behave as though, you are depressed. Some people, most people can stay in the depths of depression for years by continually reminding themselves that they are depressed. Stop saying it, stop behaving like it, and it will go within 2 weeks.

Anxiety is trying to protect us from danger and threat, particularly from a threat that may take us off guard. It pays special attention to our peripheral vision, physical, social and psychologial, where. it assumes, threats lurk around and loom over us.

The reasoning for this is that if something is in our central vision, dead ahead of us, we can work out how to deal with it , either fight it or run away from it (interestingly in the jungle and other wild places lions , tigers and other carnivores know that only food runs, so flight is not a real option, we would have to find a more effective way of dealing with the danger.

We can do this by bringing the ‘threat’ or anxiety provoking situation into our central vision ; focus on it, although doing so could increase or sense of harm in the short term once the object is in full view it becomes less of a threat and becomes a problem which we have to deal with.

To be continued…