Depression Therapy: Signs You Have Depression

Everyone gets sad or blue occasionally. This is a normal part of the ups and downs of life. However, if your feelings of sadness or emptiness become more frequent, you may be suffering from depression. If you have depression, you may also notice other signs such as feeling hopeless, guilty, angry, or irritable. Many people with depression also report trouble with concentrating which they may notice when they are reading or watching TV.

You also may not be enjoying the things you normally enjoy and you may feel less interested in being social with family, friends, and co-workers. In addition, you may also find that you are not taking care of yourself in ways you used to or would like to. Feeling down and exhausted can make you feel like you’re not showing up for your job or relationships the way you would like. You may also have thoughts about death or suicide. For professionals in stressful jobs, depression may be part of or related to burnout.

Physical Symptoms

Fatigue is common among people experiencing depression. Your sleep may be affected as well, whether that is sleeping too much or sleeping too little. Appetite changes are common, including eating more than usual or reduced interest in eating. Some people with depression may also have chronic pain, headaches, or stomachaches. 

Negative Thoughts

Depression is a condition that is characterized by persistently negative and cynical thinking. These negative thoughts apply to the world, other people, and to oneself. You may find yourself having thoughts such as:

• “I’m letting everyone down.”

• “I’m a failure.”

• “I’m never going to feel better.”

  When depression remains untreated for years, the negative thinking becomes more automatic and increasingly difficult to change.

Depression Therapy: Healing and Moving Forward

Depression is a complex condition that can be triggered by childhood experiences and trauma, stressful work, and/or dysfunctional family dynamics. In my experience, depression is also the result of a combination of high stress levels and lacking a skillset to cultivate happiness. The good news about depression is that research indicates that therapy improves depression just as well as antidepressants.

Identifying Triggers

It’s often not clear if a person was highly sensitive before their first episode of depression or if the depression made them highly sensitive over time by focusing their attention on the negative thoughts and ideas that reinforce depression. In either case, it becomes important to identify specific triggers of negative emotions and thoughts so that these triggers can have less of an impact on you in the future. Some common triggers for depression include stressful life events, such as moving, a divorce, or losing a job. As adults age, a new diagnosis of a health condition or disease can trigger depression. For women, giving birth can trigger postpartum depression. For some individuals, depression can be seasonal with some people experiencing it in the winter, while others experience it in the summer.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

So much of depression involves practicing more balanced thinking to counteract the overwhelming negative and cynical perspective of depression. Because of this, in my experience, mild to moderate depression can be managed well through a handful of techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This is an approach to psychotherapy that emphasizes awareness of thoughts and practicing more realistic and less distorted thinking. Over time, just as practicing negative thoughts eventually makes that automatic, practicing balanced thoughts becomes more automatic as well. This, in turn, has a positive effect on mood and emotions because balanced thinking leads to fewer negative emotions and crises of self-worth.

Creating Routines

With almost every client I’ve treated with depression, it’s been necessary to make changes in everyday routines or relationships. Why? Well, the answer is twofold. One reason is that depression tends to erode healthy and helpful behaviors that may have supported a person’s mental health before their depressive episode. To restore a person’s mental health, it may be essential to bring back those behaviors as a way to boost mood, cultivate a sense of accomplishment, or activate self-care. The second reason is that depression is highly susceptible to being changed by behavior. For instance, if you’re in a foul mood and you go for walk for just 10 minutes, it’s virtually impossible for you to have the same mood. Even if you’re still grumpy, the intensity of your bad mood will have come down a notch.

What the routines entail is unique to each person and their interests and needs. Even though conventional wisdom tells us that waking up early and eating a healthy breakfast and exercising is the best morning routine, that’s not necessarily desirable or realistic for each individual. The key to a helpful routine is that it’s doable and interesting to the person doing it.

Working Through Trauma

Research indicates that depression in adulthood is often associated with Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs). ACEs include the following experiences:

• Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse

• Physical or emotional neglect

• Parent or other family members with a mental illness

• Mother treated violently

• Divorce

• Incarcerated family member

• Substance abuse in the family*

Research suggests that a person who has experienced 4 or more ACEs is 4.6 times more likely to develop depression compared to a person with no ACEs. In my experience, people struggling with depression often are not aware that some stressful even in childhood may be impacting them as adults. Depending on the nature of an individual’s childhood experiences and what else comes out during exploration, it may be helpful to engage in a specific type of trauma therapy (such as EMDR) to process traumatic events.

*Although the studies on ACEs do not specify this, I would include gambling addiction with this. In many Asian diaspora families, there may not be substance abuse but gambling often impacts children in similar ways.

Depression Therapy: An Opportunity for Change

When people have depression, they may want to feel better but they often don’t feel motivated to enter therapy. This is normal and understandable. After all, if your brain is hijacked by this condition that makes you think negatively most of the time, why would you feel hopeful or inspired or optimistic about the idea of entering therapy? That said, depression is so common that it’s one of the best researched mental health conditions in our field and it is treatable. There’s a lot of help for people who are ready for it.

What has surprised me about treating depression is that depression treatment isn’t just about getting rid of depression. It’s also a really valuable and rare opportunity to step back and take stock. People have to ask themselves, “What brings meaning, peace, and contentment to my life? How can I work towards those things? What are the things that are not serving me?” When you think of it that way, depression therapy takes so much courage and willingness to be honest. But the outcome is always worthwhile. Making changes that provide a higher quality of life — this is what makes life worth living.

Depression Therapy: Sacramento, San Francisco, Bay Area, and Los Angeles

I provide depression therapy via telehealth to adults everywhere in California. I have over 12 years of clinical experience and a research background in BIPOC mental health. If you’d like to learn more about me, go to this page. Here’s some information about my schedule (including Saturday hours) and fees. If you think I might be a good fit for you, start by booking a free consultation with me.