Anxiety & Depression

Both Anxiety and Depression are such common language now a days that you often can’t go a day without someone saying ‘i’m a bit depressed’, ‘it made me feel so anxious,’ or ‘it’s so depressing.’

I think this makes getting support around these areas all the more difficult – what makes this person’s depression different from another person’s feeling a bit depressed?

Well I often see comparison as a block for people accessing support; until i’ve met someone and they’ve let me into what there experience is actually like (not an easy thing in itself), how do I know. And how could i say this is worse than that.

When someone’s experience of Anxiety or Depression gets in the way of them getting some satisfaction out of their life, when relationships aren’t fulfilling or sustainable, when most days feel like an up hill battle. That’s where i’d say get some support.

But it’s tricky because lets say you do get some satisfaction, you’re happy with your relationship status, and yet you still feel that you are depressed or anxious, or both. Well therapy can be about getting more of what works for you, whether that’s 1% or 99% there’s still something to work on.

What I do know is that states of Anxiety or Depression are not fixed, and when we learn about what creates those states we can un-create them.

I don’t have simple bullet point answers (you’ll find them elsewhere) because that old favourite – it’s better to travel than to arrive, comes to mind. It’s relatively easy to change a state (chocolate usual works for me) but making it a sustainable and living possibility for you, is a unique and personal journey. Which doesn’t go away, and lasting change is important, or you might just run out of plasters, bars of chocolate, or worse; that these add to your problems.

Anxiety & Depression are natural parts of the human condition, i don’t believe being stuck in them is. Using an Integral framework for psycho-therapeutic work can give on-going ways to be different in the world.