Fear of Depression

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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

How Depressed People Think

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Question:

Hi, It is 3 years that I am in a relationship with a man that suffers since about 10 years of depression and anxiety disorder. He is continuously drowning in his guilt feelings, he does not give any importance to himself or to his existence.

He often speaks about suicide, and, according to him, he would like to die. He alternates hyperactivity periods with ones of complete apathy.

Without any explanation or apparent cause, he passes from being extremely happy and joyful to being depressed and wanting to die. Even when he has been cured with drugs the situation did not improve. He feels always bad.

Now, though, this is affecting me too. 

He told me: “you look for happiness and joy, you would not be happy with me, look for someone that is less complicated.”

I did not answer. I took time to think. I would like to understand, and I ask help to you.

Is he asking for help, or he wants to be left alone? How does a depressed person think?

Thank you.

Answer:

Dear Simona, it is interesting that you ask about “his” mind, that you want to know “how does a depressed person think”, and you say nothing about yourself.

It is 20 years that I am a psychotherapist and I have to confess you that I do not know. I do not know how does a depressed think, because before to be “depressed”, or “euphoric”, or “paranoid”, or “psychotic”, etc.. we are all human beings, and therefore unique. 

So I do not know what or how does he think, I should meet him to know it. And I do not know how to diagnose his depression either (if it is really depression.) Is it reactive? Does it have biological origins? Is it the “down” of the borderline disorder? Is it caused by something buried deep in the past, or it is an existential crisis? I do not know. If I do not speak to him, if I do not see him, if I do not meet him, I do not know.

You ask if he wants to be left alone or if he is asking for help..I do not know. Maybe both. I am sorry that I cannot be more reassuring in a moment in which you clearly need some certainty, but what I think you should do is to move the “subject” of your sentences from him to you.

What do YOU want to do? How do YOU feel with him? What void does his presence fill and what ghosts does he awake? Why did YOU accepted, during these 3 years, to be with a “depressed” person, since this clearly does not help your self-esteem? To understand what does he think, you should first realize where are you in this situation. You should also ask yourself what do you think not only of him and your relationship, but also of your life and what do YOU want to do with it.

My best wishes.

Answer:

Livia Tedaldi, Psychotherapist

Question:

Simona, 22 years old

Publication date: 11/07/2007

For more informations on the topic, check out the article Is Depression a sickness?

Check out the original article here

Hypochondria: fake sickness?

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Question: 

My wife, 68 years old, always had an unnatural inclination to magnify any pain she perceived. This thing worsened with aging and now, after 40 years of marriage, it has become a real problem for my daughter and me.

My wife absorbs illnesses like a sponge, she continuously visits doctors, but she does not trust any of them, especially if the diagnoses are good. Anyone that dares to say that her pains are not real, or at least are magnified, becomes her enemy. She constantly talks about her sicknesses, and she would like to be assisted as sick.

I tried to tell her that she should be checked for hypochondria, but she told me that I am selfish, self-centered, and that I am the one who need psychological cures. I do not know how to handle this anymore; my life is becoming really hard. Please help. 

Answer:

I will not tell you the definition of hypochondria, since in few lines you made a great description of this problem. Hypochondria come from a wrong interpretation of non-pathological physical sensations, and it persists even when the subjects affected are reassured that no sickness has been detected.

Obviously, a complete medical evaluation needs to exclude any organic condition that might explain the physical symptoms of your wife. Sadly we know that this evaluation will not be sufficient to reassure the subject, but it is necessary for a psychotherapist to begin a therapy.

The problems come now, as you already experimented, since the subject will almost never accept the diagnosis of hypochondria. Almost always the subject will get mad when someone tells him that “there is nothing wrong”, or that their symptoms do not have a serious cause, because this contradicts what the subject actually feels. It is often more useful to tell this patients that they have an increased level of sensitivity of their physical perceptions.

There is also the risk that these subjects, with a history of whining, sometimes in life receive a wrong or superficial medical evaluation for sicknesses that actually exist. It is always better to be careful.

Hypochondriacs are actually sincere, they do not try to fake their symptoms; they actually feel them. Two thirds of the hypochondriacs are affected by multiple coexistent psychological disorders: Major depression, panic attacks, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Anxiety Disorder.

According to the psychoanalytical theory, the subject is scared to die because unconsciously wants to die. Hypochondriacs want to feel sick, because as long as they are sick, there will be someone out there that want them alive; as long as they are sick, they do not risk to die.

One of the most indicated therapies for hypochondria is the “behavioral cognitive therapy”. In this therapy, the patient learns new thinking paths and more functional behavioral modes, trying to get rid of the vicious circle that is hypochondria. Sadly, to cure hypochondria can be pretty difficult, since the subjects almost never fully believe that the origin of their pain is only psychological. Most of them do not want to start a therapy, since they feel accused of making up their symptoms, or because they believe that their doctor or family want to get rid of them.

In conclusion, hypochondriacs need their symptoms because they need attentions, so unconsciously they do not want to heal because they are worried that they will be abandoned when this will happen.

I do not know which are the deep, new and old, motivations that your wife has to feel sick. Of course, telling her that she is crazy is not going to help. It would be useful to try to make her understand that “some of her sicknesses” can be cured with the help of a psychotherapist. Not to cure the mind itself, but to help the mind to cure the body, and to be reassured that, even when she will feel better, she will not be alone.

Answer:

Giovanni Iustulin, Psychotherapist

Question: Joe, 69 years old

Publication Date: 06/26/2006

Check out the original article here

Is it Depression?

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Question:

Hi, mine is not really a problem, it is more like a worry. I do not understand if what happens me is depression or just part of my personality. At times I have a very enhanced sensitivity to the emotions that life offers me. This causes me to cry, sometimes a lot, but without feeling any pain (physical or emotional.) It happens, for example, when I listen to some songs that I really like, even if they are not related to any past experience. It seems to me like the need to express something too beautiful to be kept inside me.

Other times, instead, I feel the need to go vent praying, or better, talking to friends and family members that are no longer with us. I do not really suffer from the void they left in my life, but I get sad thinking about the pain of the people that they left, and about the years of this wonderful life that they could not experience by dying young.  I am one of the most optimistic people I know, in my life I had plenty of freedom to make my own choices, I am mechanic and I love my job.

Of course I too had to face some personal problems, especially health-related, that are now pretty much solved. I do not think that my behavior is something negative (or at least I hope!) also because I noticed something similar in my mom and my grandfather, they cry at family-birthdays or in other joyful occasions. Sometimes I cry just by watching the news, if it happens something very unfair or tragically unlucky.

What do you think? Can it worsen and become depressions or it is all under control? Thanks!

Answer:

Fabio, you surely are a very sensitive person, and so easily touchable by emotions. This is not a problem itself; on the contrary it is a great tool to fully understand people and relations. Although carefully reading your question, I noticed here and there some sadness related to the loss of important persons of your life. I do not have enough information on your life or on the events that characterized it, but maybe your cries are somehow related to a feeling of emptiness. A beautiful song or a birthday can make you cry because someone that you love(d) is not present. This can be perceived as a tremendous unfairness. And similar emotions can sometimes be felt listening to the news.

Dear Fabio, your optimism is itself one of the best cures out there for these kinds of situations. I understand that you fear falling into a depression, but I think that the whole matter has to be read based on the present rather than on the hypothetical future. You are happy with your life, you solved your health issues, you like your job. Maybe you feel the need to share this joy with someone that is no longer here, or that you miss. If this is the case you might want to try to establish some new relation, and if you still feel this emptiness, do not hesitate to ask for help. Not because affected by who-knows-what sickness, but just to be helped to better handle these emotional outbreaks.

Answer:

Antonino Gallo, Psychotherapist

Question: Fabio, 29 years old

Publication date: 02/28/2007

Interested in the topic? Check out the article Is depression a sickness?

Check out the original article here

Is depression a sickness?

-Ask the Expert-

Question:

I want to know if depression can exist at 20 year’s old and how to cure it. Is depression a sickness? Or is it just a frame of mind? I am worried about whom I will become once I grow up, and I cannot find the way out of this tunnel. I spend most of my time in front of my computer alone, and I have almost no relations with the outside world. 

My depression is creating me troubles while looking for a job, and I believe it is changing my personality. I meet with a psychotherapist once a week. I want to change and to grow up. I want to start over. Am I still in time? I think and hope so. 

I will be waiting for your answer.

Answer:

Dear Max,

Yes, depression at 20 year’s old can exist and it is curable! I believe you already knew this, since, as you said, you meet with a psychotherapist.

Depression is both a sickness and a frame of mind. It is a sickness that manifests itself with a frame of mind, but it can also be a frame of mind that becomes a sickness. Depression is a very complex pathology, and its origins are many, like many are its cures.

Before to talk about depression, it is important to understand that psychic pain is part of human nature. Sadness and emotionally painful events will always happen sometimes in one’s life. Like joy, pain is proof of our humanity, of our ability to love and live following out wishes and projects, with the risk to meet suffering in the path.

Today we tend to call depression every sadness, every disappointment, every bad day. This creates a great confusion. We are talking about depression only when the sadness becomes deep and dark and come with anguish, low self-esteem, loss of desires and interests toward the world, or intense fatigue while doing daily routines (just to mention some of the symptoms of depression.)

Even when pain is the consequence of a loss or a big trauma, we talk about sickness only when one is not able to recover autonomously after a certain amount of time. In that case, it becomes necessary a psychiatric or psychotherapeutic help.

Depression is often cured with drugs, but to heal is almost always necessary a help that is not only medical. Since it is a pathology that deal deeply with feelings, thoughts, emotional experiences, and how the subject perceives its identity and psychic health, the cure goes trough reanalyzing past experiences and traumas looking for ways to create new starting points in one’s life.

When you are twenty year’s old, you just left adolescence and you are beginning your adulthood. It is normal that you are asking yourself many questions, and that doubts are coming up. It is important that these doubts do not become obsessive thoughts that may prevent you to new decisions and actions. You are aware of the risk that you take by spending most of your time in front of a computer. I do not know what kind of activities you do there, but the excessive use of the Internet, like of anything else, can become addicting, just like a drug. In some cases it can restrain the abilities to relate to others, or, in severe cases, it can deform the perception that one has of his identity, especially in those subjects that have a negative perception of themselves. This is not about demonizing the Internet like often happens in medias, but it is to understand the risks involved in the excessive use of this great resource.

“Am I still in time?” you asked. Of course yes, not just because you are very young, but also because there is no time limit to take a look into yourself, or too look outside and take important decisions. It is always possible to wake up in the morning and say: “today I am going to change.” My suggestion for now is to keep meeting with your psychotherapist and choose everyday the time to turn off the computer and organize some external activity.

Best wishes,

Answer:

Patricia Calabi, Psychotherapist

Question:

Max, 20 year’s old

Publication Date: 01/19/2007

Check out the original article here