WEEK 1
What If You Had a Broken Leg Instead?
Our first step is to discover what depression is â and what it isnât. (You might be surprised!) Youâll learn why you may need to take a temporary break from some of your activities and how to talk to the important people in your life about what youâre going through.
A womanâs life had been turned upside down by a car accident. She was coping with a lot of pain, had given up her successful business, and was struggling with depression.
âWho have you talked to about what youâre going through?â Ron asked her.
âNo one,â she answered. âI donât want to burden my friends. If they saw me like this, theyâd be shocked. And Iâd be embarrassed. Iâll just wait until I feel better, and then Iâll talk to them.â
âWhat if you broke your leg instead?â Ron asked. âWould you still go out for coffee with them?â
âSure,â she said.
âHow would it make you feel if you went out for coffee with them even though you had a broken leg?â
âIt would feel awkward and like a hassle and a little painful, but Iâd probably feel better for having seen my friends,â she said.
âAnd how would you feel if you didnât go out?â Ron asked.
âIf I stopped socializing, Iâd feel isolated and lonely,â she said. âItâd be depressing.â
Bingo. If we donât see our friends and family, we feel worse. If we do see them, we feel better.
But Ron wasnât done. âAnd what if you did go out? How do you think your friends would feel if they saw you with a broken leg?â he asked.
âTheyâd probably be happy to see me,â she answered. âIt wouldnât bother them that I had a broken leg.â
âSo how is that different from going to see your friends when youâre feeling depressed?â Ron asked. âTheyâll be happy to see you, and youâll feel better â so everybody wins. But if you donât go out to see your friends, youâll feel socially isolated and theyâll miss you. Everybody loses.â
TRY THIS: Use questions to explore how youâre feeling. Ask them of yourself, or get a friend to help you!
Thatâs why we need to look at our mood difficulties as if we had a broken leg â so everybody wins.
Itâs hard to do. When we have a broken leg, people line up to sign our cast, but when weâre depressed, thereâs no cast to sign â so we sign out of our social lives, ashamed and embarrassed by our invisible illness. Itâs way better to take a risk, reach out, and break the silence. And weâll show you how.
Diagnosis: Depression
You donât have to be diagnosed with depression to benefit from the strategies weâll teach you. If you feel bad or down or stressed, we can help you feel better.
Understanding what depression is â and what it isnât â is important, though. Depression is a highly treatable medical illness that negatively impacts how we feel, think, and act. It comes in all different shapes and sizes. Sometimes itâs short-lived (though according to most authorities on mental health, it always lasts more than two weeks). Sometimes itâs mild. Other times itâs severe.
Sadness is part of being depressed. So is losing interest in things that used to get you jazzed. But thereâs also a whole list of symptoms that people donât usually associate with depression: trouble concentrating, indecision, loss of appetite, irritability, difficulty sleeping, and even body aches and pains with no apparent physical cause.
PEP TALK: Depression is a highly treatable medical illness. Yes, highly treatable.
One in six people will experience depression at some point, and the numbers are even higher for women. In fact, some studies show that one-third of women will experience a major depressive episode during their lifetime. So even if you feel alone, you definitely arenât. Half of those who have one episode of depression will have another if they donât get treatment. Eighty percent of those whoâve had two episodes without treatment will have a third.
Those last two stats arenât meant to make you feel worse. Quite the opposite. Studies have shown that the techniques weâll teach you, which are based on the treatment model called interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), can help you avoid experiencing this soul-crushing illness again.
Depression goes by many labels: disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, major depressive disorder, dysthymia, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, persistent depressive disorder, clinical depression, postpartum depression, perinatal depression, seasonal affective disorder, and even unspecified depressive disorder.
PEP TALK: If you find it hard to believe youâll ever feel better, thatâs probably the depression talking. Itâs common to feel negative and pessimistic when youâre depressed â but stick with us.
Some labels you may have heard. Other labels you may have been given. It doesnât matter whether your depression is chronic and mild, related to your hormones, tied to the low light of winter, or anything else. We can help you with them all.
Only a trained health professional can diagnose depression, but as far as trusted, validated self-administered assessments go, we like the World Health Organizationâs Major Depression Inventory (MDI). It only has twelve questions, and you can access it online for free. Just remember, a questionnaire canât diagnose depression. If a diagnosis is important to you or your score on the quiz has you concerned, see your doctor.
Depression Debunked
Depression is not a sign of weakness, proof that youâre a bad person, or a form of punishment. You donât deserve to be depressed. And you didnât bring it on yourself. No matter how many times your mom tells you to buck up, your buddy tells you to get off your butt, or that little voice inside you says, âSuck it up, buttercup,â itâs not a matter of simply trying harder and â poof â bye-bye depression.
You arenât selfish, lazy, self-centered, a whiner, or to blame â which is hard for a lot of depressed people to believe, since feeling ashamed and worthless are key symptoms of depression. Depression isnât a curse. And it isnât a blessing either (even if a well-meaning person tells you itâll make you stronger). But it is a very treatable illness.
Depression can affect anyone â even therapists. During the weeks after my first child was born I was a mess of emotions. Even now, decades later, itâs still hard to admit. I remember pacing the hallway in my apartment, wishing I wasnât so tired, wishing my husband understood how I was feeling, wishing I knew what I was doing. Iâm not sure who was crying harder, me or my daughter. I was a therapist. Wasnât I supposed to have all the answers? My feelings of incompetence were overwhelming.
PEP TALK: Depression is not something you deserve. Donât let anyone â most of all you â tell you itâs your fault!
When my mother-in-law was in palliative care, I experienced mood difficulties again. It was probably while eating my twentieth bag of cookies that I realized it wasnât just my mother-in-law I was grieving â it was my mom.
Youâd think Iâd have figured it out sooner. My mother-in-law was in the same hospital that my mom had been in twenty years earlier, and every time I visited I had to walk past the room where my mom had been so ill. Back then, I was too busy being the strong one, the capable one, and the one everyone admired to really grieve my momâs passing.
Trust me, this is a journey. Iâm still learning that experiencing feelings is okay. And I still sometimes turn to the bag of cookies.
PEP TALK: It takes guts to acknowledge you have a problem and work on making things better. You are one brave, smart, and courageous person!
Depression may not be the only thing on your plate. If you have anxiety, a concussion, a learning disability, an eating disorder, or any other physical condition or mental illness as well as depression, you may find it takes longer to feel better. You may also need some extra help from your family doctor, a therapist, or a support group. Think of it as having two broken legs instead of just one. Youâll need some extra time to heal, and a wheelchair, not just crutches. Be patient and youâll make progress!
Depression definitely has a cultural component. Some languages donât have a word for depression as we use the term in English; if thatâs true of the language you learned to speak first, thereâs a greater likelihood that youâll express your depression physically, as pain, digestive problems, headaches, and more. There may be a strong taboo against talking about mental illness in your culture. It may be seen as bringing shame on your family, as evidence that youâve sinned, proof youâve been cursed, or simply that youâre British â stiff upper lip and all that. Be aware that these forces will influence your attitude toward depression and affect who you can feel safe talking to about it.
Depression can be so severe that you feel like harming yourself. First, you need to tell someone how youâre feeling. Then you need to see a doctor. You may worry that youâll scare the person you tell. You may feel as though thereâs nothing a doctor can do for you. But Iâm telling you, help is available. Depression is very treatable. Donât do something you canât undo. Ask someone for help. Your safety is more important than anything else.
THIRTEEN SIGNS YOU MAY BE DEPRESSED
If you find youâve been experiencing a number of the symptoms on this list for at least two weeks and theyâve been affecting your relationships and your day-to-day functioning, you could be depressed:
1. I feel sad a lot of the time.
2. I just donât care about things anymore.
3. Iâm overcome with feelings of guilt.
4. I feel worthless.
5. I canât concentrate.
6. Iâve gained or lost weight (without dieting).
7. Iâm having trouble sleeping, or I sleep all the time.
8. My performance at work or school is suffering.
9. Making decisions seems harder than it used to.
10. Iâm experiencing physical symptoms that donât have a physical cause.
11. I avoid seeing my friends.
12. I think about hurting myself.
13. I just canât seem to see the positive side of anything.
Asking Why
Itâs not common, but mood difficulties can have a physical cause, such as a vitamin deficiency, Addisonâs disease, multiple sclerosis, pancreatic cancer, traumatic brain injury, or Lyme disease. Depression can even be a side effect of some medications. Ron is still embarrassed to admit that one of his clients, who had been working hard in therapy but wasnât making any progress, ended up having hypothyroidism. As soon as her doctor started her on medication, all of the skills sheâd been practicing with Ron worked like a charm. Visit your doctor to rule out any physical illness or condition that could be causing your depression.
Outside of a biological cause like a disease, deficiency, or medication side effect, no one knows exactly what causes depression. Is it a biochemical imbalance? Is it about serotonin levels? Genetics? Is it something we pick up from our parents growing up? Is it our personality? The reasons for depression are controversial and complex. This is one way depression differs from a broken leg â in most cases thereâs no defining moment or single event we can point to as the cause of our emotional pain and malaise.
But that doesnât stop us ...