Mika is walking down the street
She notices one of her friends
walking towards her on the busy pavement.
She raises her hand to wave to her friend,
but her friend doesn’t acknowledge her.
How does Mika react in this situation?
Immediately a thought pops into her head:
"She’s tired of me,
she doesn’t want to be friends anymore"
And it really feels true,
because Mika is now deeply sad and angry
Naturally, she decides to cancel her plans
and go home and lie in bed for the rest of the day,
thinking about what went wrong in the relationship.
Maybe you’ve had similar thoughts and feelings,
and reacted in a similar way to Mika, or maybe not.
But most of us tend to react automatically
in everyday situations
And since some thoughts and feelings are especially strong,
we tend to regard them as absolute truths.
Maybe you can think of another reason
why the friend did not greet Mika?
Yes. Perhaps she didn’t even see her on the busy street
Actions are often triggered by emotions.
You could say that humans are emotionally driven creatures,
and we tend to automatically react to the first thought
that pops into our heads.
Stressful and overwhelming events in your life
can trigger depression
– like an engine breaking down after too much strain.
A common indication of depression is feeling “blue”
for a long period of time
Also, you experience a lack of energy and enjoyment,
and these feelings don’t disappear as you would expect them to.
In general, people do things when they feel like doing them,
but with depression this feeling of enjoyment fades away
So, when you don’t feel like doing anything,
you stop doing things that usually make you feel better
Sounds logical, right?
But when this happens, you start missing out
on positive experiences, which increases
the “blue” (or depressed) feelings
This is a common vicious cycle of depression
These “experiences” can be anything:
getting out of bed, meeting your friends,
saying no to irrational demands.
The good thing is that when you know how the cycle works,
you can reverse it!
Doing things, even though you don’t feel like it right now,
can actually get you out of depression
So, here’s a tricky thing about depression:
you can’t wait for those feelings of enjoyment
to emerge before you do something
You do first!
And in time, the feelings of pleasure and confidence
will grow stronger.
But please, don’t expect too much of yourself