PW05. Understanding Feelings of Depression

Aug 15

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Welcome to Self Care: Session 05.

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UNDERSTANDING FEELINGS OF DEPRESSION HANDOUT

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Session Digital Version

Entering your name, email address and hitting “Submit” after you complete the session sends a digital file, including all your responses, to you within the hour. Having a record of your thoughts will increase your understanding and help you learn. As you progress through CRAFT Connect you will be able to measure that progress.

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1. Sadness is a normal human emotion. It is a difficult, yet essential element in our growth that we’ve all experienced and we will experience again. Sadness is usually triggered by a difficult, hurtful, challenging, or disappointing event, experience, or situation. In other words, we tend to feel sad about something. This also means that when that something changes, when our emotional hurt fades, when we’ve adjusted or gotten over the loss or disappointment, our sadness usually diminishes.

2. Depression is different. Depression is an abnormal emotional state, that affects our thinking, emotions, perceptions, and behaviors in pervasive and chronic ways. When we’re depressed we feel sad about everything. Depression does not necessarily require a difficult event or situation, a loss, or a change of circumstance as a trigger. In fact, it often occurs in the absence of any such triggers. People’s lives on paper might be totally fine—they would even admit this is true—and yet they still feel horrible. (Psychology Today, The Important Difference Between Sadness and Depression, 2019)

Discuss: How are sadness and depression different?

3. Depression does not have a single cause. Becoming aware of the causes of these feelings can help us try to prepare for them. It can be triggered by a life crisis, physical illness or something else—but it can also occur spontaneously. Several factors can contribute to depression including:

• Trauma. When people experience trauma at an early age, it can cause long-term changes in how their brains respond to fear and stress. These changes may lead to depression.

• Genetics. Mood disorders, such as depression, tend to run in families.

• Life circumstances. Marital status, relationship changes, financial standing and where a person lives can influence whether a person develops depression.

• Brain changes. Imaging studies have shown that the frontal lobe of the brain becomes less active when a person is depressed. Depression is also associated with changes in how the pituitary gland and hypothalamus respond to hormone stimulation

• Other medical conditions. People who have a history of sleep disturbances, medical illness, chronic pain, anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to develop depression. Some medications can also cause symptoms of depression.

• Drug and alcohol misuse. 21% of adults with a substance use disorder also experienced a major depressive episode. Co-occurring disorders require coordinated treatment for both conditions. (NAMI, 2019)

Discuss: How can knowing what causes feelings of depression help us be more compassionate to ourselves and others?

4. It is often difficult to describe what we feel, but as we learn this skill, we become more mindful of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Words matter, words become labels, and words are powerful. If we use catch-all words to describe a wide range of emotions, it may feel descriptive, but may not be accurate. Research suggests that the clearer and more accurate we are in describing our emotions, the more effective we can become in regulating these emotions. When we feel an emotion, we can often fall into the thinking error of “emotional reasoning”. Judging yourself or your circumstances based on your emotions or how you “feel.” “I feel sad and miserable, therefore I must have depression”.

LABELS ACTIVITY

You share with a friend that “I am feeling depressed”. What does that mean to you? What does it mean to your friend? In reality, you could be experiencing a number of different emotions that get labeled as “depressed” or “depression”.

Complete the following:

Step 1: List as many words as you can that describe being “depressed”. (If you get stuck look at the "Depression Handout". Step 2: Not only do these words more accurately describe what we may be feeling, but each of them comes with an “intensity level”. We may label our feelings as “depressed”, and to us that may be very intense, but often the things we feel, when labeled accurately, have lesser intensity. Step 3: Go back over the list you just created and write down a number below the word that describes the intensity of the emotion to you. Use a 1-10 scale, with 1 being very mild, and 10 being extremely intense. For example, “heartbroken” may be an 8 or 9 to you, with “dismayed” being a 2 or 3. There are no right or wrong answers.

Word that describes being depressed: Heartbroken

Level of word's intensity