Dealing with Depression

The past few days has been a very difficult time for me. I don't know if you can relate to the feeling like you're just standing on an abyss and with just one step you'll fall right over the edge... And i can't even sleep properly anymore or eat. When i do sleep, its only in a fitful doze and i will wake up in the middle of the night, just wishing the sun would come up soon and free me from the darkness... when i eat, a few tablespoons that after a eating i only feel like throwing up... Sometimes, i feel like the weight is just becoming too much but i don't want to sink into depression again... so i began browsing online for some helpful tips/articles that can help... The following paragraphs are lifted from www.allaboutlifechallenges.com. The last paragraph has been especially helpful for me...

Coping With Depression - Medical OptionsCoping with depression is possible and there are many options. Depression can sometimes be caused by a chemical imbalance and medications are often used to correct this imbalance. A physician can prescribe the appropriate medications or refer you to another doctor who is more knowledgeable. There are several antidepressants available and sometimes more than one medication may be suggested. Your physician may prescribe which medication to use based on several factors:
How has depression affected your activity patterns?
Have your eating patterns been affected?
How have your sleep patterns varied since the depression began?
Have your interest patterns changed?



Other components, such as anxiety, will also help determine which, if any, medication to use. Sometimes a trial and error method may be used to find the most effective medication for you which can often result in greater emotional distress.


Coping With Depression - Therapy OptionsThere are also therapy options for coping with depression, such as talking with a qualified counselor who can talk through problems with you, teach coping skills, and provide support systems. I went to a Christian therapist. At times, this was a challenge for me. He would tell me to look to my faith for answers and I wanted to scream. I was looking to my faith, but I was not finding the answers. Or perhaps, I was getting answers, but I wanted different ones! We were able to discuss circumstances and I learned how to cope in various situations. My depressed feelings began to lift and I began to cope with challenges in my life. I began finding strength in my faith.


Coping With Depression - Finding True Self Worth - A big means of coping with depression came through finding my true self worth. I had previously based my self worth on the approval of my friends and on my ability to perform in my job. When I could no longer fulfill my work responsibilities due to injury, I felt worthless. Over time, I began to realize that my true self worth does not come from within me. It comes from God-my Creator. God loves me. Through this tremendous love, I have once again found worth and significance in my life. He is my significance! 1 Thessalonians 2:12 says, "...walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory."

Where To Belong?

Work has just started, i haven't even made a headway with the proofreading/editing that i have to do. Garbled thoughts are just running throuhg my head and I just have to write them down and make sense of them. So if anyone's reading this, just be patient...

Today is the 20th of June, and the day after tomorrow is going to be my birthday. Wow, im turning 25 then, it's kind of overwhelming ... mixed emotions of happy, anxious, sad, its hard to expalin. But really how am i supposed to feel? It's like i've been alive in this earth yet its always making me think, so far what have i achieved in my 25 years? Not much that's for sure. Somehow it feels like time if running our on me ... and its like everyhting is just so unstable at this time. A lot of changes is going to take place in a few weeks especially in my family..

My brother is getting married next month. This morning when i was on the jeepney on my way here it just sunk in that both my siblings will already have a family of their own... They'll have their own family circle, somewhere that they can belong for the rest of their life ... it just makes me wonder within myself "where does that leave me?" Just thinking about it makes me think and feel like a displaced waif. Like a fledgeling that must leave the nest and find her own...

Can you make sense of what I'm saying here? troubled thoughts are really hard to fathom. Maybe this is really what you call the quarter life crisis (QLC) as researched by my friend dexter. But i know it's not only me who's in this stage right now. I just hope the pieces fall in their right places soon, soon soon!!!!

Feels Like Home To Me

This song says all that I feel at this very moment ... It's all here . . .

Somethin' in your eyes, makes me wanna lose myself

Makes me wanna lose myself, in your arms

There's somethin' in your voice, makes my heart beat fast

Hope this feeling lasts, the rest of my life

If you knew how lonely my life has been

And how long I've been so alone

And if you knew how I wanted someone to come along

And change my life the way you've done

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me

It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me

It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

A window breaks, down a long, dark street

And a siren wails in the night

But I'm alright, 'cause I have you here with me

And I can almost see, through the dark there is light

Well, if you knew how much this moment means to me

And how long I've waited for your touch

And if you knew how happy you are making me

I never thought that I'd love anyone so much

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me

It feels like I'm all the way the back where I come from

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me

It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

Thoughts at Twilight

There comes a time in a person’s life when things just seem to come to a standstill. An episode where there could be no turning back yet no moving forward. It’s like being caught in a whirlpool of circumstance that you feel so helpless, you just keep on moving around in circles. Everything just swirls in a dazzle of color but with no appreciation of what and how they are, only a source of more bewilderment. And amidst this perplexity, you can’t help but feel alone. Even though surrounded by a number of people, deep inside is a void that nothing and no one can fill.

As time passes, fear and negativity resides in that void. Even though effort is exerted to combat the feeling, it lies there, waiting for its chance to consume your whole being. And things just don’t seem to matter anymore. People whom you expect to be there suddenly seem to disappear one by one. And there are some you consider friends that when you get close to their presence instead of being uplifted, you get the feeling of worthlessness even more. Maybe it’s not their intention to make you feel that way but all same that is the feeling they generate in you. In this situation, who’s to blame? Is it you, for feeling that way or is it them? What to do so as not to get that kind of feeling, turn away and leave them all behind maybe? Some would find it easy to say deal with your feelings . . . but how when the people you expect to help you and understand you are not there? It’s really a lonely world when things turn out like this.

It’s really even harder when the people you are close to fails to come up to your expectations in terms of support and understanding. Maybe this reasoning is unjustifiable since people say that you give something you shouldn’t expect anything in return. Maybe some people are just takers and some are givers, but doesn’t it count, that you gave all to them yet they couldn’t even give back the support and understanding that you so badly need at some point? This will make you think that are you so unworthy that at the lowest point in your life there is no one to turn to for comfort, no one to give reassurance in times when courage fails you or just someone who will simply be there when you break down and cry. It’s a sad truth that all of us are alone, we came out into the world alone, we walk the world alone and we will go into the darkness alone.

Half-Life

If you've heard the song "Half-Life" you'll know what i'm talking about. This condition not only pertains to love but to life in it's totality. Living a half-life is not how our life should be, it must be lived at it's fullest with all the joys and the sorrows, but sometimes it seems that there is only sorrow.

There are times and days when all we see is just an endless void of darkness and it's just so hard to see the light. And there are times tha no matter what you do, the feeling of worthlessness and just won't subside, and it is at this instance when you amost wish that you're numb so that you won't be able to feel the pain that life keeps on handing down to you. It's like living in a limbo unable to go back yet powerless of moving forward.

This especially true when all that you have ever held dear and what you have used as inspiration seems to be vanishing out of sight. What used to be possible and feasible suddenly just seems to fall into an impossibility.

Life's like that, in the blooming of youth everything seems easy and you have a clear goal and direction of where you want to go. But as we grow older circumstances change - suddenly we are besieged by endless concerns and responsibilities and because of this priorities also change. Due to these pressing issues we forget about ourselves putting first the needs of others and one day we find ourselves alone, with no purpose, no clear direction for the future.

True Though

People are so alike in many ways especially in terms of expriences and feelings. No one has the monopoly of those in this world, so you can never say that other people don't know what you are going through because it just isn't true. The only difference there is, lies in the magnitude of those feelings and experiences.

It is for certain that most people have things and experiences in their lives that they want to change if only there is a way to do it. Sometimes this is the way I feel too. If only it is possible to go back to the time when I was still child, I would like to change some of the decisions I made back then so that ghosts wouldn't haunt me today and there would be no room for regrets. If only time machines and time travel were for real, I'd like to be the first to use it. But this is just not possible, it's all make-believe. To those who feel the same way as I do, what's true is here and now, you just have to make the best of what's before you now. It's no use hankering for what can never be and no use thinking of the what-could-have-beens, it will onlybring grief and frustrations.

Despite mistakes and blunders that you have done in the past, what counts is that you are still being given another chance in life in the path that's right before you now. Your past and my past is what makes us who we are today, it's what makes us unique. It adds depth to our character, making us more appreciative of things that are worthwhile and we know better than to dwell on shallow things. And now older and wiser, there won't be an excuse for making the same mistakes... choose wisely for who knows if there will yet be another chance after that.

To Change or Not to Change

Have you ever wondered why things go the way they do? It seems that change is all there is in this world and sometimes I can't help questioning why things just can't go on as they were before. Change is something that happen whether we want it to or not, and as one poem I read said "When the wind of change come calling, you just have to do its bidding", and it's really true. Change is a requisite in order for a person to grow and become more mature. I know this is true, and even I crave for change especially in my life so that I can be happy and feel more fulfilled. I long for a major change but still I hesitate. I feel hesitant and afraid because of what that change might bring for me, whether happiness or disappointment, no one really knows. And I know that it is a risk I must take sooner or later in order for me to grow and be all that I can be.

However, there are always two sides to the coin and sometimes I just can't help questioning why everytime I make a change, some things that I have grown comfortable with and the people I have come to love just changed all of a sudden. In my pursuit of change certain things have to be sacrificed and sometimes this is something that frustrates me and gives me so much pain, having to choose between the two-edged sword of change and familiarity.

There are times when I can't help but wonder, maybe I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe all I am and what I will be is not here and now but in another world and another time. But since I am here I just have to do the best can in order to cope and deal with the things that fate, if there is such a thing, hands down to me. Deal with them and use them to my advantage in order to find the life that I want and the life that I need in order for me to find out who I am in a world fraught with change.