Why Depression Hurts – Understanding Why You Feel Depressed
Filed under Depressed Help, Help
When depression hurts its really painful. Almost too painful. Feeling depressed can be as bad as the loss of a loved one. A feeling of total worthlessness, of hopelessness. It hangs in the air like a thick gloomy fog, piercing our thoughts, feelings and emotions. Depression keeps us in bed in the morning, makes life only a fraction of what it once was, and creates within us the most soul destroying question of all – Why me?
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Why depression hurts
The why question is at the heart of all depression in some shape or form. Its endless spiral into oblivion takes no prisoners. Like a black hole, it sucks the life out of anything and everything that dares to cross in its path. If you are depressed, then you are asking this question somewhere in your subconscious. The trigger could have come from anywhere and usually involves some sort of failure or something beyond the realm of our control. Depression starts to appear at this crucial moment, when after the event, or mind begins to search for answers. For a healthy mind, a cascade of thoughts occur, with the ultimate conclusion that acceptance and moving forward must occur. This is not so for a depressed sufferer.
Depression Sinking Feeling
The depressed subconscious arrives at the relationship between the event and his place in its outcome, and never moves beyond it. Instead of exhausting the energy of the question, a new relationship forms between the question and the search for the solution. In a short space of time, there becomes a bond, creating an inexhaustible supply of new thoughts and actions. This is why depression hurts, as the movement of the mind is no longer in the direction of progression. This relationship between our place and the event becomes a feedback loop, and escape becomes like fighting quick sand.
Beating Depression – How do you fight quicksand?
We have all seen quicksand in the movies, sucking the victim into the ground as he squirms and writhes helplessly. Depression is just like quicksand. And whats worse is that to everyone else, you aren’t even trying to get better. They think that you are just sitting there feeling sorry for yourself. If only they knew the level effort you are putting in to overcome this infliction. They don’t see your arms waving or hear your voice shouting for help, but that is exactly what you are doing and the reality of the situation. In this kind of situation, depression hurts everyone – your family, your partner and your friends.
However, what you may not be aware of is that if you are doing this, you are probably hurting yourself further. You must try a new approach.
If fighting depression makes the depression worse, then logically embracing depression will ease its symptoms.
Remember that the source of all this is the need to know why. As long as you ask yourself that question, you will suffer. That question is your quicksand, your achilles heel, and can never be answered. To accept this is the key to understanding depression and the path to freedom.
The only way to win the fight, is to surrender to it. The very thing that you feel that you must not do, is the very thing that you must do. That is the challenge that you face and the war that exists within you.
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