Posted by sid on January 29, 2002, at 13:08:27
In reply to Re: CBT and other experiences, let's talk, posted by Emme on January 29, 2002, at 11:46:21
Thanks Emme for sharing your experience. I'm glad you are finding ways to cope with your illness.
I have a question for you, and anyone else who might have an answer. I have decreased stress to help deal with my depression, as you suggest. I am an introvert, that is people take energy away from me instead of giving it to me, as would happen with a more extraverted person. Hence, people are a major factor of stress for me. So over time I have become relatively isolated, and I am well enough now to want to be around people more. But I do need some time alone each day, to "regenerate my batteries." So at this point I kind of want to expand my social activities, but I am tentative about it... not sure how, not sure if, not sure that it won't be detrimental either.
Have you felt that? It is one thing to push people away to get better, but then when you're ready to see them again, they may not be too open to it anymore. That's still a sore area of my life. And I am ambivalent about what to do about it.
Depression takes a toll on relationships. I am much better now, but I'm not back on the relationship train (family, friendships as well as romantic relationships) and I feel like I should probably give it more of a try, but it seems like a lot of work for the introverted that I am.
Rings a bell, anyone? And Emme, keep posting and letting us know how you are doing.
- Sid
> Hi there. I'm back after a few days of not reading posts. I agree with the idea of a multi-pronged approach to managing mood disorders. My therapist uses the word "manage" as it is a chronic illness for me. Her job, together with my psychopharmacologist's job, is to help me keep symptoms in remission as best as possible and to help me find the way to recover as rich a life as possible. She quakes in fear at the very thought of me being without medication because she sees the profound change - when I'm off or between meds - it's not pretty.
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> So...the components of the multi-pronged approach? When the chips are really down, minimize stress and responsibility as much as possible. Don't feel bad about not making it to things I just can't get to. If I can't manage to wash dishes, uses paper plates for a short while, splurge and pay for laundry drop-off service once in a while if I can't handle doing laundry, etc.
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> Then, when I perk up a bit...get back to exercising as soon as possible ( which I willingly do), do yoga, play my violin, get out of the house as much as possible, initiate contact with friends as best I can, etc. Yeah, all this is totally obvious. But for a while I wasn't really doing the most helpful things for myself at the right times, feeling stress over not keeping up at times when I just couldn't. I don't find all of this easy. But the encouragement helps.
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> And in active therapy, she uses her own style of CBT (she's certainly familiar with Burns' book, and with Beck's work). She doesn't get into breaking it down into which of the 10 categories a though falls into. But she'll say "that's a cognitive distortion", explain why, and we work on it from there. Many of my fears and worries have some elements of cognitive distortion, and can be tackled with *concrete examples* of how things can be different from the way I perceive them. We've found that I'm helped a lot by being given specific examples of how things have worked for other people to offset the negative examples I've seen and internalized. And we've gradually evolved a set of what we humorously call "mantras" for me to keep in mind.
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> So...taking my medicine is crucial, and I'm not aruing against an organic source of brain illness by any stretch. I feel the most dramatic help from the medication when we find something that works. Right now I don't think about whether I'll ever go off meds. That's to think about sometime in the future and if the answer is ultimately no, then so be it. The multi-pronged approach gives me some other tools to help things along the way.
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> Emme
poster:sid
thread:17445
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020125/msgs/17470.html