{"id":643362,"date":"2023-04-30T20:06:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T01:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/30\/how-i-plan-for-episodes\/"},"modified":"2023-04-30T20:06:16","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T01:06:16","slug":"how-i-plan-for-episodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/30\/how-i-plan-for-episodes\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Plan for Episodes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Dan Collins, as told to Hallie Levine<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been living with major depressive disorder since I was 16.\u00a0 My moment of critical mass was in the spring of 1991. I was 28 and still living at home. My life revolved around getting up, going to work, and returning to my house. I fell down a rabbit hole of extreme depression and anxiety. I felt like I was being devoured by waves of despair and panic that would never end.<\/p>\n

I finally ended up at the local hospital\u2019s ER. I was told it would take a few weeks to get me in to see a psychiatrist, and I was horrified. The idea of waiting a month or two for this appointment, when I felt that I could barely last another minute, was terrifying.<\/p>\n

My only refuge was sleep that provided no rest and left me without any appetite or humor. To try to escape, I\u2019d jump in my car and drive to malls to purchase books on mental health. I had decided that if I could understand what was happening to me, I\u2019d be able to overcome it. Eventually, my father told me, “You are not going to think your way out of this,” and I realized he was right.<\/p>\n

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Thankfully, this depressive episode happened right around the time a new drug, Prozac, was gaining steam. I like to joke that I was the original Prozac nation. I was one of the lucky ones who responded well to this medication, and quickly. One morning I woke up and realized that the cloud of despair wasn\u2019t hanging over me anymore.<\/p>\n

That was 30 years ago. I\u2019m still on Prozac, but I\u2019ve also learned many ways to manage my depressive episodes, so I\u2019m not caught off guard when they happen. Depression isn\u2019t like a cold in that you recover from and it goes away. It can happen at any time, sometimes without any apparent reason. I\u2019m sharing what helps me in the hope that it will help you.<\/p>\n

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I stay active<\/strong>. Soon after my diagnosis, I took up competitive fencing. It was very uplifting. I\u2019d always been the fat kid picked last for dodgeball. It felt good to be out there being active. But fencing also helped me manage my depression because it honed my focus. It\u2019s the kind of sport that when you do it, you can\u2019t think of anything else. I might be in the eye of the storm with a depressive episode, but I\u2019d have to push those feelings to the back of my head to avoid getting clobbered by my opponent.<\/p>\n

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The social interaction helped, too: I\u2019d hang out with the other members of my fencing club after practice and on weekends. During the pandemic, I think one thing that helped prevent me from sliding into another depressive episode was the fact that I was on my elliptical machine every morning for an hour to get those feel-good endorphins going. (Research bears me out on this: Exercise has been shown to have a strong antidepressant effect among people with depression.)<\/p>\n

But it goes beyond just exercise. When you have depression, the worst thing you can do is just sit and stew in it. When I was going through the worst of my depressive episodes in my 20s, I\u2019d stay home and stare at the wall. But once I started Prozac, I felt good enough, and confident enough, to sign up for an acting class. I realized that I needed to change my solitary lifestyle because that had played a big role in how depressed I\u2019d become in the first place. Even when I feel my worst, I force myself to get out of bed and go to work. You need to get your focus away from your mood and emotions and on something else.<\/p>\n

I have strong social relationships<\/strong>. When you\u2019re depressed, it\u2019s almost impossible to lift yourself out of it alone. You need other people to help drag you out. I was lucky when I was diagnosed to have amazing, supportive parents. My father prided himself on being an amateur psychiatrist. He wanted to understand how I felt and encouraged me to get help and get better.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m also very lucky to have an amazing wife, Tina. She understands my condition because she has schizoaffective disorder. We monitor each other. We look for warning signs in one another. We remind each other to take our medications and seek out therapy when the going gets too tough. I like to say that we don\u2019t give depression a front seat, even though it\u2019s our traveling companion.<\/p>\n

Tina in particular also has a caretaker personality. She\u2019s always sending me articles with interesting research about depression. If she senses I\u2019m about to experience an episode, she encourages me to go back to therapy. Many people with this condition don\u2019t have that level of support. It doesn\u2019t help someone with depression to come home if they\u2019re coming home to the wrong person. I found the exact right person, which is why I took me until age 51 to get married.<\/p>\n

I have the right treatment<\/strong>. I hit it out of the ballpark when it came to medication. I found a drug that worked for me right off the bat. Therapy was more challenging. Unfortunately, finding someone that you click with can be more difficult than even finding the right primary care doctor. It took me years to find a therapist who understood me, only to have him pass away unexpectedly. I miss him every day, but thankfully he\u2019s provided me with skills that help me get through my toughest moments.<\/p>\n

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You have to tell yourself, when you are in the throes of depression, that you cannot give up. You may feel terrible for a few weeks or even months, but you will get through this. We are all stronger than we sometimes think.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, it also helps to be open about my depression. There\u2019s still a lot of stigma surrounding the condition, especially among men: It\u2019s seen as a sign of weakness. But you need to talk about it in order to feel better. There\u2019s no shame in it. It\u2019s like any other chronic condition such as type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure. Just like these diseases, it\u2019s OK to admit that you need help managing it.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2022 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo Credit:\u00a0E+ \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

SOURCES:<\/p>\n

Dan Collins, depression advocate, Baltimore.<\/p>\n

Journal of Psychiatric Research<\/i>: \u201cExercise as a treatment for depression: A meta-analysis adjusting for publication bias.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Read More<\/a>
\n Arden Schewe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dan Collins, as told to Hallie LevineI\u2019ve been living with major depressive disorder since I was 16.\u00a0 My moment of critical mass was in the spring of 1991. I was 28 and still living at home. My life revolved around getting up, going to work, and returning to my house. I fell down a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":643363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3852],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-episodes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}