Ever feel like you're always going backwards with your depression?

You were doing so much better... Starting to see a glimmer of hope. Now all of a sudden, you're feeling like an avalanche has dropped you way back down to the bottom.

And then there's the pressure...

You might have just been able to ride this storm if not for the pressure...

Pressure to perform... To appear interested when people want you to do stuff with them. Pressure to be entertaining.... When you feel pretty useless and boring because you have nothing to say. And just want to go home, lay on the carpet and stare at the ceiling.

Feeling torn inside because... On one hand, you want to hide away and avoid dragging everyone down. At the same time, you feel like you're a disappointment to your loved ones for feeling this way.

It's a strange contradiction that makes it hard to know what to do with yourself.

That's why in today's article, I'll be revealing 2 tips  to lift this feeling of disappointment. Because not having to grapple with this will make it easier to dig yourself out. This will give you the strength to carry on and can recover better.

Is this something you'd find valuable?

Then let's dive in...

I'll start with this flu analogy.

You see, when you catch a flu, you'd naturally expect certain things to come along with it…

You’d expect to get a fever…

You’d expect to get a runny nose…

You’d expect to get body pain…

Now, when you feel these symptoms, how do you react to them?

You’ll tend to give in to them and accept that you are going to feel rubbish and just do what you can to reduce the symptoms.

If your body needs rest, you rest… If you feel the need for tablets, you take some meds… and all this support you into getting better.

Now Imagine this...

Imagine that flu has the power to limit your ability to accept things. How would this impact your recovery? You'd probably try to plough on and fight against it. So, it would likely wear you out and make you more ill.

And then imagine that as you are getting more ill, your ability to accept the symptoms of flu got increasingly limited… What would happen to your recovery?

You'd probably stop recovering and dig yourself into a deep illness.

A similar thing happens with depression...

How depression tricks you into a disappointment pit

Depression obscures itself from your view so you end up digging deeper into darkness.

This is because of the way depression works. Depression saps your ability to accept things. It colours your perception so that you only remember the negatives. And it does all this on a biological level.

Hence…

As you get increasingly depressed, you lose your ability to rationalize anything positively.

But it gets worse…

Because depression intensifies the sensitivity in the emotional parts of your brain, it makes your negative feelings linger longer than they normally would.

You can recognize this is happening when you feel like all the connections to everything that’s terrible are amplified. So, suddenly one problem becomes every problem all at once.

In essence, we have a number of facts here…

The reality is that before you started feeling depressed on this occasion. You were already carrying massive amounts of burdens.

Yes…

You were working really hard to get through these burdens, but they would naturally still take a toll on you, whether you like it or not.

Yes…

You might have been feeling like you were finally making some progress with dealing with all your emotional struggles, but you were most likely still battling with some of the thoughts and feelings of inadequacy because of your moods.

And although you were experiencing some success, you’re still on a journey, with a lot of hard work to do in your learning to cope better with the difficult emotions you’re experiencing.

Bottom line…

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The danger of believing depression

For a mind that's not under the weight of depression, all the burden I described above is already way too heavy to not feel downtrodden occasionally. But then add depression to the mix, and all that suddenly feels like you are getting nowhere.

Because on your best day, at your strongest, you’re just about managing to keep all the demons locked in the cupboard. But then you have a wobble and they all come out at once and ruin you.

Essentially, this means that you need to go easier on yourself? Because the disappointment you feel is from a discoloured judgement of reality… And not the true reality.

Your rose-tinted glasses have fallen off and been replaced with brown smeared glasses.

And the danger…

If you treat this coloured view of reality like it’s the true reality, you'll give depression the power to dig you deeper into darkness… just like with our flu analogy earlier. This will bury you under a massive feeling of disappointment.

So, the 2 big learning points from this is that…

A simple 2-point process for extinguishing the feeling of disappointment caused by depression

Point 1:

In order to stop experiencing that soul draining disappointment that comes with depression…

You’ve got to stop all assessments of how you’re doing at life when you feel depressed. And wait until you feel better and stronger to do any such assessment if you still feel the need to.

Your brain only ever sees things from the state its currently in. It forgets that it’s ever been in any other state So it’s wise to mis-trust your desolate bleak outlook on things during these low points.

Point 2:

Whenever you feel 100% certain that your dark low mood is never going to pass...

Like you’ll have the flu forever…

Remember that this is just those brown smeary glasses talking.

Remember that you have felt like your depression is not going to pass before...

But then it did pass…  In fact, you may have felt so much better at that point that you considered lowering your dose of antidepressants.

So please go easy on yourself...

Don’t expect everything to feel peachy and then get frustrated when it doesn’t. Doing this will help to burn away the dreaded feeling of disappointment.

And this will give your brain the space it needs to bounce back and support you into recovering fully.

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