[THREAD] I want to revisit depression. It is really fitting given that we are going through a global depression, loss of jobs, and being stuck at home. Depression is everywhere. Why do we get depressed? Can we prevent it? And how much is it linked to other mental health issues.
There are multiple stressors happening right now. From worrying about ourselves and our loved ones, to either not working or working too much, wondering what the future holds, depression is a crisis that is happening globally right now at very high levels. We often think that
we can prevent it but in some cases we can’t. Losing loved ones to a pandemic, being stuck at home without seeing friends, extending our mental capacity to be there for others when we don’t have any energy. At the beginning of the pandemic, the theme in my DMs was around anxiety.
Everyone was feeling anxious because we didn’t know what all of this was. Everyone was worried about what the future would look like and that translated to increased anxiety and panic attacks. Right now, we are feeling more depressed because of the exhaustion.
We had to endure long lockdowns, loved one getting COVID-19 and many other obstacles and frustrations. For many, all of this translated into helplessness and hopelessness. As I mentioned in a previous thread, anxiety and depression are highly linked to each other. Whenever one
is present, there is a 60% that the other one will be there as well. While we certainly can’t prevent a lot of what is happening right now, we can do our best to increase our self-care to the max. Many people message saying they feel guilty about engaging in self-care but
it is an important step that allows our minds to take breaks. It recharges us. We need to establish better boundaries when it comes to work as well. No answering emails or doing work after work hours. There is no mental capacity for that.
Establishing boundaries with friends and loved ones will help in terms of not being triggered by sad events or crises at any moment of the day/night. We have to be available for ourselves first. More importantly, if depression affects our daily life, we need to get help.
Whether it is through medications, therapy, or a combination of both, it is crucial that we get some form of help for what we are experiencing. Our minds are sounding the alarm that what is happening is too much and it is hard to get out of this by ourselves.
Investing in our mental health and recovery is crucial whether it is for a better quality of life, to be more productive at work or our projects, to be more available for our loved ones. No matter what it is that we want to do, it would require our mental health to be doing well.
If you are feeling depressed or feel that your mental health is impacting your day to day life, reach out to others, get support from your social circle because one of the first things that depression does is isolate us and making us think that we are alone in this.
