What is depression? We think it is a feeling, as in “I feel depressed.” And yet depression is not really a feeling at all, but a state. We may be aware of one feeling, that of sadness, and yet sometimes we’re not even aware of that. We may feel like everything is gray and dull and that we aren’t really feeling much of anything at all. In reality, depression is actually a STORM OF FEELINGS that have gotten so big and overwhelming that we can no longer identify them.
In the state of depression, we may be sad, fatigued, irritable, overwhelmed, and often, excessively guilty or ashamed.
Many people believe that medications are the answer, and they are indeed helpful for some people. At Life Counseling Institute, we believe depression is frequently a problem of feeling excessively guilty and ashamed, a problem of delivering some really critical messages to ourselves. Frequently we learned to do this to ourselves in our childhood, or we have become overwhelmed by the demands placed upon us and our inner resources are depleted.
When we learn more about ourselves in counseling, we can stop beating ourselves up, become more kind and compassionate toward ourselves, become empowered, and find our way out of our pattern of depression.
We’ve seen people make amazing changes. They leave counseling feeling positive, empowered, and unashamed. If you’d like to find your way out, please call (630) 269-2886 or email us to get started.