advertisement

Coping with Depression

My name is Jennifer Lear, and I am the co-author of the "Coping with Depression" blog here at HealthyPlace. I am thrilled to be joining this community and am excited (and nervous) to be sharing my experiences with you. I started exhibiting symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) at age six. By 18, I was riddled with so many ticks and compulsions that I could barely function, and I finally took it upon myself to seek help from my family doctor. I was diagnosed with chronic OCD and depression and placed on medication. There was no offer of counseling, no reassurance that I was not alone, and I was left feeling more depressed, more ashamed, and more terrified to publicly acknowledge how I was feeling.
Birthdays are supposed to be exciting. Unfortunately, for many of us, birthdays trigger depression, anxiety, and stress in general. Given that I happen to be one of those folks who suffer from birthday blues, I can tell you that just like clinical depression, birthday depression too is real and not a choice.
It's a common assumption that depression affects those who aren't strong enough, also known as people with depression are weak. What's worse is when people with depression themselves blame their lack of strength for being the reason they are depressed. But the truth is that depressed people are strong, not weak.
Yesterday evening, I physically and emotionally disconnected from myself for some time due to depression. I felt like I was watching my meat suit cry because she could no longer take being locked in at home with no physical escape. That's right; I was having a meltdown because of COVID-19's lockdown restrictions since March.
It is no secret that good company is crucial to fight boredom, loneliness, and even depression. However, there is a common belief that good company can only be found in another person. I believe that anything that keeps you engaged and/or entertained is good company. While the ideal situation is to spend time with someone you care about; well, inanimate objects are the next best option. 
Overthinking is often held responsible for causing anxiety and vice versa, and it should be. However, I recently realized that overthinking and depression can be problematic too.
On June 14, Sushant Singh Rajput, a rich and famous Bollywood actor killed himself with seemingly no reason to be depressed. The man was only 34 years old and was on prescription drugs for depression. As we fans grieve, multiple questions are being raised, from the expected to the sensational. And there is one question that is being asked over and over: what drove him to commit suicide? Being rich and famous, he had everything going for him. Surely he had no reason to be depressed in the first place.
If you have depression, consulting a therapist is the smartest move you can make to learn healthy coping mechanisms to deal with it, but self-therapy for depression can help you in a pinch.
Going by my conversations with friends and readers, COVID-19 has given rise to a new kind of depression: quarantine depression. As the term implies, it is a direct result of the quarantine. But like most things in life, there are ways to manage it so that it doesn't consume you. Here are some tried and tested tips that I am using to reduce the intensity of my quarantine depression.
This is my final post as a blogger for HealthyPlace. Over the years, I've written for both Coping with Depression and Speaking Out About Self-Injury, and had the opportunity to interact with readers generous enough to share their experiences and opinions with others. I appreciate each and every person who visited these blogs, even just out of curiosity.