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

Fear of exams

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Question:

Hello, I am a 20 years old student that currently studies at a university. My problem is that I am experiencing blocks with my study. I study, I prepare, but I am terrorized by exams. When I know that an exam is imminent, whether near or far, I start to sweat and I feel a heavy weight oppressing my stomach. 

The closer the exam, the worse I become, sometimes I even break down in tears. I’ve re-arranged all of my exams for this but the last incident was evident. I prepared great before the exam, but when I arrived at the university to take the exam I felt pretty much absent-minded. I could not bring myself close to the classroom and I went away tearing. What can this be? Is there a cure? 

Who can I turn for help? Thank you for responding.

Answer:

Dear Emanuele, I want to reassure you immediately that there is a solution for what you are going through. Your problem, specifically the mental block before taking an exam, enters into the categories of disorders, or anxiety neurosis. However, it can also be attributed to low self-esteem, or lack of trust in self. I would like to suggest to you to not focus all of your attention, your worries, your life, and yourself only on the problem: “how do I overcome this mental block with my study.” Instead, I think, it is important that you ask yourself, if the study block might be hiding something other problems. That it is trying to hint at something unconscious.

Therefore, choose to site with a psychotherapist that can facilitate a solution not only for the study block but also so that you can live knowingly, with better self-esteem, trust, and self-determination. I hope in this hasty response I was able to help. In any case, I hope you find the best way to live and to make your life function. 

Best wishes. 

Answer:

Silvano Forcillo, Psychotherapist

Question:

Emanuele, 20 years old

Publication Date: 05/19/2008

Loneliness in Relationship

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Question:

Dear Doctor Zampiron,

I ask genuinely for you to take a look at a husband that repeatedly visited sites from swingers to those for homosexual regardless of consequences. Every time that I discover him continuing this foul act he assures me that it is only a virtual contact and he promised me he would not do it again… but instead he repeatedly violates this promise. 

He tells me that he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I am very disappointed that I lost trust; I feel nothing besides full of rage. From one of your TV interviews, you’ve said that it is necessary to communicate but I continue to ask for clarifications while he stays in deep silence in a way that it offends me. 

I am known to be an intelligent person that since the first offense, I tried to have an open mind without being judgmental. Please help me because I want to save this relationship… to the point that I would like to have a direct consultation. Thank you.

Answer:

Dear Stella,

I understand your delusion and the rage that you have when you knew, when you realized and feels “loneliness” in a couple’s relationship. I am on the understanding that, the most important aspect for a good, complete, satisfying, and serene communication between people is principally based on the ability to listen openly for comprehension and to support each other in case of great difficulties. 

It is necessary that between the people themselves to stabilize a relationship based on trust and on security and the transparency in certain situations when it comes down to feelings and emotional experiences. 

In this case, the person who is betrayed of trust and transparency of feelings usually suffers from rage and delusion from the offense, the betrayal that is received from the other.

Rage, delusion, and betrayal comes, like this, lives in even and especially in the relationship of couples when the emotional stability, for some reason, needs to change. Referring to your situation, Stella, I can deduce that your husband, while loving you, discovered an interest, a sexual desire that he wants to satisfy but he is ashamed or have negative feelings and emotions within himself. 

These can be the main reason for your partner to act through denying the problem itself and not allowing for a cleared and transparent conversation with you on this topic, compromising instead the stability and the feelings of the relationship between a couple.

Best wishes.

Answer:

Maria Zampiron, Psychotherapist

Question: 

Stella, 42 years old

Publication Date: 02/16/2009

Check out the original article here

Fear of the Dark

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Question:

Dear Doctors,

I really need help! I am 22 years old, an age too old to be afraid of the dark I would say!

I am thinking for my future, of when I have to go and live alone… I can’t constantly be going around with a torch in my pocket! Every time that the lights go away, I begin to cry, becomes frightened, and I sit on the floor and possibly with my back to the wall. 

I become incapable of moving.. not even to go look for a torch or a candle! I am afraid that there is someone or that someone will enter. When I go around the house, I need to first turn on the light before entering the room. And if I turn off the lights in the room that leads into my bedroom, 

I always look over my shoulders because I am worried that someone is following me. I must always sleep with a little light (unless there is someone else near me that makes me feel safe) and with my back to the wall! I am already constantly frightened, but it triples if I have bad dreams!

What can I do? Is there a therapy good enough to take away this phobia?

Thanks for the Help!

Answer:

Yes dear Valentina, There is.

Because you see, fear is not something that happens and that’s it; it has deep roots and always a meaning for us and for our life. You can say that it is the way that our consciousness, when it’s not heard, expresses itself. Of course that at times it will make us uncertain, we don’t understand it and we can’t find a reason that explains it all, but that is how it functions. 

Fear serves as your defense. From who? Well… this is what you must find by yourself because no one else can tell you: only you can understand it with some help from a professional that can give you the tools to help you succeed.

It’s not easy to simply take away the fear of the dark, because In this case you could be not afraid of the dark anymore but immediately become terrorized by seeing a dog, or entering into an elevator, or in a million of other situations that can project your fears. 

Try to understand why you’ve chose (unconsciously) this type of defense and why you’ve expressed it in this way and how can you overcome your fears. But remember that we cannot disregard or throw away a defense before understanding what it serves… or we can find ourselves in worse danger! So dear Valentina, I believe it is time to think about getting help also because at 22 years old, it is much easier than how much you believe.

I wish you the best. 

Answer:
Livia Tedaldi, Psychologist 

Question: Valentina, 22 years old
Publication Date: 03/31/2006 

Check out the original article here