Have you suffered from cut after cut in life, leaving you broken down and emotionally depleted? Do you struggle to get out of bed each day? And is the motivation you used to feel for life no longer existent?
Maybe you’ve started to feel numb and notice that you’re just going through the motions. Or perhaps you feel stagnant as the world moves at high-speed around you. You may have once felt confident about your choices in your work or relationships but now question if they have made you happy. As a result, these conflicting emotions may have led you to pull away from friends, family, and others you once felt connected to in life.
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Depression can leave you feeling heavy, overwhelmed, and confused--like you’re stuck in a deep hole with no help in sight. You might also feel hopeless, angry, irritable, and fatigued. Maybe you eat less, sleep erratically, or experience unexplainable aches and pains in your body.
No matter the symptoms, depression can seriously affect your life. And if you simply wait for time to heal your pain you are disappointed and left feeling powerless in overcoming depression on your own.
But the truth is that depression is complicated and requires professional help from someone who understands its complexities. And a therapist can help you live more freely, find meaning, and foster reconnect with the relationships, activities, and goals that keep you happy and engaged.
Many of us have felt the pain of depression, and according to the CDC, nearly 10 percent of physician visits include symptoms of depression in their visit notes1.
Depression can occur for a number of reasons. It may be offset by a lifetime of stressors or a genetic predisposition to depression and anxiety. It can also result from stressful situations that pileup and cause us to break: losing a loved one, separation or divorce, estrangement, bullying, social isolation, trauma, and more. Additionally, childhood experiences can also contribute to the emotional weight we carry daily. And as much power as we like to exercise in our lives, we can’t always control how factors like these can accumulate and make us more susceptible to depression.
Once we fall into the depths of depression, finding our way out can feel impossible. Not only do we feel alone and think that no one understands our pain, but we may also self-isolate as we struggle to connect with others from this place of hurt. Consequently, we end up lacking the support base and energy to reach out to others.
Despite these feelings of isolation, you are not alone. Depression treatment can allow you to take steps forward in acknowledging your story so that a therapist can meet you halfway and help you heal. In treating your depression, you can gain the strength to find your way out from sadness to live the life you deserve.
If you’re experiencing the effects of depression, chances are that you are also dealing with pain you haven’t fully processed yet. Depression treatment can help you move beyond your experiences, emotions, and even genetic makeup to live a life where you’re more in control and happier, too.
Cedar and Oaks Counseling PLC offers a compassionate, supportive space where you can explore the intricacies of your depression including distorted thought patterns, triggers, and symptoms. We’ve helped many clients develop coping skills so that they can effectively manage and overcome their depression.
Treatment starts with an intake session during which we will ask you to fill out a few questionnaires to learn more about your background and experience with depression. We will also ask questions to learn more about your story and your goals. How you respond is entirely your choice, but we do believe that starting from an honest and vulnerable place is the best way to ensure a more accurate baseline for therapy.
Using this information, we will develop a plan with a few major treatment goals in mind. Our individualized, solution-oriented approach can help you reach these goals by identifying the problems you face and finding answers.
In addition, depression therapy will also help you to:
Participate in life again (i.e. exercising, socializing, partaking in enjoyable activities)
Use coping skills such as breathing techniques to better manage emotions and symptoms of depression
Identify root causes of your depression
Get customized treatment based on the type of depression you’re experiencing
Treatment is likely to draw from various modalities to help you work through your depression. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help you identify negative thoughts and change them to react more constructively to issues you face. Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) can be a powerful tool for accepting your feelings and understanding that they don’t have to prevent you from accomplishing goals. And Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) allows you to tap into stored traumatic experiences and release them so you can live life from a healthier, less reactive space.
In sum, depression therapy can help you take ownership of your feelings and experiences, build skills to work through them, and attain the relationships, job, and life your heart desires.
For 17 years--including three years as an EMDR-Approved Consultant--Cedar and Oaks Counseling has helped clients reclaim their lives through depression therapy. We have aided our clients in building tools that lead them closer to their goals and away from feelings of loneliness, sadness, and rejection.
With depression therapy, we believe that you, too, can experience greater self-acceptance and motivation for life.
Like many things that add value to our lives, depression therapy is an investment, and it is your choice to decide if it’s right for you. But let us ask, is your depression affecting your life? If so, what is it costing you now? Are you less productive? Do you struggle to connect with family or friends? Do you make less money than you used to? If the quality of your life has been impacted by depression, then it’s likely that treatment could benefit you and even save you money in the long term or enhance your earning potential.
Admitting your struggles forces you to face the reality that others might not struggle with the same issues—and this can make life feel unfair. Yet in seeking therapy, you have a chance to empower yourself and address issues head-on.
Depression might not be everyone’s struggle, but everyone still struggles with something--whether it’s with other aspects of mental health, finances, relationships, or daily stressors. And not everyone will be strong enough to seek the therapy needed to get better. But in seeking depression therapy for yourself, you take action toward making yourself better. Reality can be a saving grace if you allow it to be.
Acknowledging weakness is difficult because it leaves us vulnerable and open to the judgments of others. Moreover, the negative stigma often associated with mental health—that something is wrong with us—can make us even more afraid to seek help.
But by being vulnerable, you will build a real support base of people to lean on during this time. And because mental health is becoming progressively more normalized--with professionals, celebrities, and public figures admitting their struggles--now is a good time to seek help, as therapy gains more social acceptance and support than ever.
With the right support, you can overcome your depression. If you’re ready to develop the skills to grow a new foundation of emotional regulation and control, we invite you to schedule a free 15-minute consultation to see how we can help.
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