Unfortunately, I had a pretty traumatic childhood. My parents were always fighting, and I was faced with trying to decide what to do about my own personal feelings. When I got older, I knew that I needed to do something to relieve the stress that I was feeling even many years later, so I started focusing on going to counseling. My first few appointments were a little nerve-racking, but the counselor worked hard to make me feel comfortable. I was really impressed with how gentle and kind she was, and I felt really great about the progress I was making. This blog is all about benefiting from counseling.
Benefitting From Counseling
Ways To Manage Your Major Depressive Disorder
Ron Henry
If you struggle with major depressive disorder, you know that every day can be a challenge. Trying to manage and deal with major depressive disorder often feels like an uphill battle and you might find yourself at a loss as far as what you can do to try to make your situation better. Get to know some of the ways that you can manage your major depressive disorder. Then, you can give these methods a try as soon as possible to improve your major depressive disorder management as soon as possible.
Counseling Services
One of the best ways to manage your major depressive disorder is to seek out adult counseling services. Going to counseling can do a great deal in improving your depression and your secondary depression symptoms. In counseling, for example, you will have a place to simply open up and talk about your issues and your feelings. This can be cathartic in and of itself.
However, the main idea of therapy and counseling is to help you develop strategies and skills that you can use to improve your mood and to fight against your depression. One such strategy is to do "opposites." For example, if your depression makes you want to stay in bed all day, the opposite would be to get up and get moving. Even if you just make it to the couch, it is an improvement from being in bed all day. And if you can do more like exercise or get out of the house, even better.
Counseling can include cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, and more. These strategies take different approaches to help you learn to manage your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors as related to your major depressive disorder.
Psychiatric Care and Medications
Another way that you can begin to manage your major depressive disorder better is through psychiatric care, specifically through the use of medications. There are many antidepressant medications available today. Each of them works in slightly different ways to try to correct chemical imbalances in the brain related to major depressive disorder.
The thing to keep in mind about medications is that they will not necessarily "cure" your major depressive disorder, but they can help to make symptoms more manageable. It can also take a while to find the right antidepressant for your depression. Every person reacts differently to medications, and you and your psychiatrist will need basically use trial and error to choose the right medication for your unique brain.
ECT
ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) is a treatment option for major depressive disorder as well. Unlike the ECT that most people imagine from old movies and horror stories, modern-day ECT is actually a very controlled and effective treatment option. It is generally reserved for cases of major depressive disorder that shows little to no response to standard medications.
When a person gets ECT, they are under full anesthesia. Brief electrical currents are sent through the brain. These treatments often occur a few times a week for several weeks (generally no more than 12 treatments total).
Now that you know some of the ways you can manage your major depressive disorder, you can schedule a counseling appointment and contact a doctor as soon as possible for help.
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