How to build a relationship if one of you (or both) has a mental disorder

Content:

• Depression: what is it?
• How do you know if you are depressed? Common symptoms of depression
• Forms and causes of depression
• Is there a difference between male and female depression?
• How is depression expressed in women?
• How is depression expressed in men?

Symptoms of depression

Depression is diagnosed by a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist or psychiatrist. But you can determine the presence of depressive tendencies yourself. For this purpose, tests created by professors of psychiatry are used - the Zang (Tsung) scale or the Beck scale.

Main symptoms of depression:

• Persistent feelings of depression, anxiety, hopelessness, emptiness
• The desire for self-isolation, limiting contacts with loved ones, the desire to stay at home all the time
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness
• Tearfulness
• Feeling lonely
• Loss of strength, lethargy
• Problems with memory, concentration
• Vulnerability: a person with depression is easier to hurt and offend
• The feeling that no one understands, sympathizes, or loves
• Feelings of inferiority compared to other people
• Sleep disorders: insomnia, interrupted sleep or high duration of sleep, constant drowsiness
• Difficulty making decisions
• Feeling like thoughts are slipping away or getting lost
• Excessive overeating or lack of appetite
• Feeling that it takes a lot of effort to do simple things
• Loss of interest in activities and hobbies that previously brought pleasure
• Thoughts of death or suicide, suicide attempts, self-harm, desire to harm oneself, to “punish” oneself
• Symptoms of poor physical health that cannot be treated: headaches, digestive disorders, nervous tics, heaviness in the chest, heart pain, etc.

If you observe several symptoms simultaneously for 2 weeks or more, this is a reason to consult a specialist.

Depression: what is it?

Depression can be described in dozens of ways, using professional and clinical terms, statistics, artistic comparisons, and the patient's point of view.

William Styron (novels “Get Dark,” “Sophie’s Choice”), who had the opportunity to experience the dark sides of the disease, said well about depression: “In severe depression, the suffering is completely unimaginable for someone who has never experienced it. They sometimes kill because they are unbearable.”

Depression does not choose between rich and poor, unknown and famous. The paintings of Vrubel and Filonov, Van Gogh and Picasso are painted with alarming shades. Acute emotions can be heard in the music of Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Bach.

Depression is a disease that takes away the joy of life and makes people childishly defenseless. At least that's how patients describe it. “I don’t feel anything, I get up in the morning and don’t know what to do with myself. And if I start things, I can’t finish them. I cry for any reason. “I have absolutely no strength,” says the young woman.

Depression is a timeless and age-independent disease. This is a mental storm that covers, taking away strength and desire to act. The size of this storm is frightening. In the world, according to various estimates, up to 350 million people .
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that in 2021, depression came in second place after cardiovascular diseases.

How to deal with apathy and depression on your own

The best ways to combat depression are psychotherapy and treatment as prescribed by your doctor. However, there are several ways to deal with stress and depression on your own.

Any work, including psychological work, is not easy when you are depressed, but taking care of yourself will significantly speed up recovery.

Record your condition

A person prone to depression is not always able to express his feelings in words. In this regard, problems may arise in communicating with loved ones (when you want to share your problems, but they do not understand you) and in understanding yourself.

An exercise with a 10-point scale will help you understand what happens to you when you are depressed.

Idea taken from Learning Solution-Focused Therapy by Anne Bodmer Lutz.

Draw a line and mark it with divisions from 0 to 10. This will be a scale of your state, where 0 is the worst feeling, and 10 is the best possible feeling, a state of absolute happiness. Assign each division a list of “symptoms,” feelings, and thoughts. You can use metaphors and images that are close to you personally. Here's an example:

When you feel changes in your condition, ask yourself questions:

1. How am I feeling now? Where am I now on a scale of 10?
2. Is there something that could cause me to move left on the scale? What should I be afraid of? Can I protect myself from this shift?
3. Is there anything that will allow me to move up the scale by at least one point? How about two points?

There is a difference between “I feel terrible” and “I feel 2/10 bad.” By rationalizing your condition, you increase the chances of its improvement. The scale will tell you what to do if depression does not go away.

Remember what makes you feel better

If something makes you feel even a little better, write down the reason. You liked the taste of food, listened to a friend, watched a funny video with cats - any event that brought a smile or smoothed out the feeling of pain and emptiness deserves attention. You can record how many points the improvement occurred after each event. Even if it is only one tenth, any positive change is worth recording.

During depressive episodes, you should turn to the list of positive things you have created and try to implement any of them.

Track your needs

Usually when you're depressed you don't want anything. It is all the more important not to miss the moment when the desire to do something does appear. Suddenly felt like you wanted to go for a walk? Go outside. Want to chat with friends? Call them.

If you just want to lie on the couch, allow yourself that too. By coming into conflict with yourself over procrastination, you only waste your internal resources, which are already scarce in depression. Try to put things aside and allow yourself to rest without remorse.

Process destructive thoughts

Depression is characterized by destructive automatic thoughts. These are judgments that arise fleetingly and most often are not based on specific facts (“nobody loves me,” “I’m worthless,” “I’m all alone”). Often a person is not aware of these thoughts, but he feels the emotions that arise as a result of them.

Information and exercise taken from the book “Mood Management. Methods and exercises” by D. Greenberger and K. Padesky.

According to cognitive behavioral therapy, you can learn to catch such thoughts and reduce the intensity of negative emotions. The easiest way to do this is using a table.

1. When you feel a strong emotion, write it down and rate the intensity on a scale of 100. If you can’t determine what these feelings are, find a list of emotions on the Internet and listen to yourself, going through the concepts: which word resonates with you more strongly than others?
2. Write down the situation in which this emotion arose. Where were you at this moment? Was there anyone else nearby?
3. Try to isolate the thought (or several thoughts) that led you to the emotion.
4. Try to use cold calculation: write down objective evidence that supports this idea, and facts that contradict it.
5. Based on contradictory facts, formulate a new thought, more balanced and thoughtful. Rate how confident you are in her.
6. Rate the intensity of the original emotion after formulating an alternative thought. Has the emotion weakened? Has it become easier?

Try to confirm your thoughts in practice, conduct experiments. If you feel like no one loves you, conduct a survey among your friends and family and write down the results. If you are afraid that you are performing poorly and will soon be fired, ask for feedback from your superiors. By receiving “applied” confirmation of alternative thoughts, the brain consolidates the new experience as positive, and the intensity of previous negative feelings decreases.

It is unlikely that after completing the exercise you will stop experiencing negative emotions. Perhaps their intensity will decrease by only 5–10 points out of 100 or not at all. But by filling out the table every day for several months, you will learn to replace destructive thoughts with more thoughtful ones and manage your feelings.

Here is a table with an example typical for a depressive state:

Don't be shy to ask for support

The idea of ​​asking for help is often accompanied by fear: what if the person refuses, laughs, or devalues ​​the experience? Therefore, when dealing with depression, it is important to protect yourself and ask for support correctly.

1. Try to determine what support is needed.
   For some, these are supportive words (and you should immediately determine which ones), for others - a hug, joint leisure, just being nearby.
2. Identify people you can reach out to.
   People whom we consider close are not always ready to provide support. Analyze your experience of communicating with a person: were there any cases when he ignored you or joked inappropriately? If yes, don't risk it. At the same time, it is not necessary to ask for support from relatives or close friends. Strangers, friends or colleagues can also support (pat you on the shoulder, listen, say kind words).
3. Request support.
   People don’t know how to read minds, they may not know that you are feeling bad right now, and they may not understand what kind of support you need. Also, a person may be busy or immersed in his own experiences, so it is important to clearly formulate the request without pushing personal boundaries. For example: “I feel bad now and want to talk, can you listen to me, please?”

If asking for help is scary and uncomfortable, ask yourself: would I support this person if he turned to me? If yes, then why shouldn’t he support you?