Fear of Depression

-Ask the Expert-

Question:

After 6 years away studying, I came back to my city and living in a bad moment of my life. My moods are constantly changing, up and down, and I am nervous, and feels like my wing has been clipped… My morals are extremely low… will I sink into depression?

I now tend to isolate myself and not talk to anyone. I am scaring myself.

Answer:

Dear Manuela,

Having past 6 years away from the city that you live certainly means the construction of a social context in which you are comfortable in; the first of your young adulthood, it is important and significant because of the people that you’ve encounter as well as for the internal formations that took place. Because of this, having left everything can have a feeling of uprooting with a sense of emptiness and disorientation that can explain your constant up and down mood swings. Also due to having lost the strong anchor that you’ve had before and not having found that yet, you can feel like a fluttering balloon that has no control of where it goes and have the sensation that you’ve lost the right equilibrium.

There’s also the need to understand whether the environment that you’ve returned to is still suitable for you and how much you’ve grown in this 6 years somewhere else. Maybe you expected to come back and find everything how you’ve left them but instead they’ve changed, and the reason not being other than you’ve changed and you see things differently than you otherwise would. It can also be the disappointment that follows when you exit from childhood, when you have responsibilities, after studying, to compose yourself like an adult like looking for a job. And if you already have one, it would be the responsibility of having to work and make a plan for your life that is not based on dreams and desires. At this time, you are face with the limitations of reality and at the same time need to be open for possibilities because resources can present themselves at unexpected times and you need to realize it when it happens. Do not ever feel like your wings are clipped.

If the loss that we are talking about including a physiological effect, it is a sign and also a stimulus to pursue new guidelines to follow, create new relational networks with people, and even discover new places within your city that you were not aware of before. It was not mentioned that whether or not returning to your city also means returning to your family and this, on an unconscious level, can represent a form of regression that tends to destabilize you. Specifically if your parents, more or less knowingly, began to treat you like the child that they have then instead of the young women that you’ve become.

Consider the signals that your emotions are sending you, bring yourself to your actual current situation without fear, but instead, consider them important messages that you need to understand better and therefore to make choices more adequate to your purpose and to your goals. Listen to them, eventually through guided routines, you can rekindle your motivations and your resources will present themselves. Remember, both your motivations and resources are urged and they emerge with an incredible amount of strength when there is a destination, a purpose, and a goal to achieve. Maybe it is this that they are signaling to you the symptoms that you are describing: what you want in respect of what you already have and are they enough? What are the directions in obtaining what you want? With what means can you arrive to your purpose and your goal?

Best wishes.

Answer:
Patrizia Napoleone, Psychotherapist
Question:
Emanuela, 25 anni
Publication Date: 10/09/2006

Check out the original article here