Some people think depression and sadness are the same thing. Or depression and grief. Like you’re sad your kid made a bad choice at school and you wish he didn’t have to spend recess “on the wall.” Or you’re grieving because your aunt died, and she was your favorite, and you cry sometimes when you think about her. Those things are different from depression.
Depression is more about wanting to disappear, become tiny, curl up in a corner and stay that way forever. You can’t sleep but once you do you can’t get up. At all. And you feel like this pretty much all day every day.
Read MoreThink back to the past week. Think about the positive, negative, and neutral events that happened. Did you have a bad day? Did you feel abandoned or panicked when the person you turned to wasn’t available? Do you want to feel better when it happens again? Because you will feel let down, disappointed, or abandoned again someday. We can control of our feelings of sadness, abandonment, grief, rage, and anxiety by changing our thoughts with a simple activity called cognitive restructuring.
Read MoreEye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) is one of the great counseling techniques to lessen the triggers and flooding that can come with anxiety. It works on the stuck memories that come out with physical sensations when you are confronted with smells, sights, people, places, or sounds that are similar to trauma, pain, or fear you experienced in the past.
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