Depression

We’ve all known someone who can never seem to find joy in anything that they do. They somehow always stay unhappy and struggle to see the good in any situation — even in the best of times, they find something to worry about, or they only talk about the negatives. We don’t mean those people who have one or two bad days at school or work; people affected with depression have these sad, anxious and lonely feelings inside of them for weeks, months or years at a time. It becomes a burden that weighs them down every day and casts a shadow over everything they do.

Depression can be dangerous because those affected by it truly believe that they may never escape the dark cloud in their lives. They may be in danger of giving up on themselves — or giving up on life. Over 90% of people with serious mental illnesses like depression will attempt suicide, which is why treatment is so important. If you or your loved one is showing symptoms of depression, has been diagnosed with depression or believes they might be depressed, you should seek professional treatment right away.

What is depression, and why does it affect people so severely?

Depression is an emotional and mental health condition that is more common than most people know. Major depression affects nearly 16 million people in the United States and 350 million people worldwide. Depression can start in a variety of environments and situations, and there are also several factors that can influence the development of depressive symptoms, such as your upbringing and home life, chemical imbalances in hormones and stress levels. Depression isn’t something you should take lightly, or something that should be overlooked as a simple, passing condition.

It’s multidimensional, impacting mental health in many different ways and causing long-lasting changes in a person’s outlook, motivation and confidence. This mental health condition can impact everything in a person’s life, putting a damper on everything from work and family time to the personal activities they once enjoyed. It’s more than just a bad mood or pessimism; it’s deeply seated in the brain and doesn’t go away without specific treatment that’s designed to help rebalance the nervous system.

Holistic Depression Treatment

When you visit a doctor about your depression, their first recommendation might be antidepressant medications. These medications might be a solution for some patients, but they don’t offer a long-lasting fix. They can correct chemical imbalances in the brain, but once the effects wear off, the patient is not personally equipped to handle the symptoms that may return. Side effects from these medications can also cause problems like weight gain, insomnia or intimacy problems. At Enlightened Solutions, we aim to offer people struggling with depression a better and more sustainable way forward.

We bring together a variety of treatment modalities to help people suffering from severe depression, so they can find balance in their whole being and learn to live beautiful lives. We don’t rely on medications to balance these thought processes, but instead offer experiential therapy, herbal supplements, acupuncture and family constellation therapy. When the body is free of chemicals, we can think clearly and feel good from the inside out — and we can be able to maintain happiness on our own, without relying on other sources to mask the symptoms.

Depression can physically affect your body, causing immune system dysfunction and other changes such as weight gain or loss. When you’re unhappy, you’re unwell in the body, mind, and spirit. At Enlightened Solutions, we heal you completely — we help you regain your physical strength, fortify your mental health and restore your spiritual foundations. With this holistic approach of treating the whole person, we can offer solutions to depression that come from within you, so you can access them at any time and never fear symptoms again. Whether you have been unable to find answers to depression through medication, or you are seeking an alternate, sustainable route to healing, Enlightened Solutions can offer the treatment you need.

Identifying Depression in Yourself or A Loved One

Depression can set in slowly — so slowly that you might not notice it happening at first. But one day all the symptoms together will add up, and it will be clear that something is wrong. There are some signs you can watch for if you suspect that you or a loved one may need help for depression, including:

• Change in sleep patterns or development of insomnia
• Disinterest in things they once loved
• Change in family relationships and interaction with loved ones
• Withdrawal from events and activities
• Reduced appetite
• Begin drinking heavily or taking drugs
• Suicidal thoughts, or suicide attempts
• Unbalanced moods
• Intense thoughts about the past and inability to let go and move on
• Confusion and difficulty concentrating
• Body aches
• Anxiousness

For many people, depression can affect your thought processes and make you feel unworthy of love and respect. When you don’t feel you’re good enough to be loved or respected, that means you won’t give yourself these things either. Whatever we feel on the inside is displayed on the surface, and it’s present in everything from the way you look and behave, to your interactions with your friends and family.

Depression and Substance Abuse

If you’re struggling with depression, it can be very tempting to numb yourself with substances like drugs or alcohol. The feeling of being drugged or high can drown out the negativity and sadness of depression, if only for a short while — but it quickly becomes much more complicated than this. Alcohol and addictive drugs are actually chemical depressants that will worsen your condition with continued use. You’ll begin to feel even more hopeless and depressed as you start to rely completely on drugs or alcohol to feel good — and then, you won’t be able to stop using them, even when you know it’s not good for your mind or your body. It’s known that one in five people have some type of mental health condition, and that a little over ten million people have an addiction that lives alongside a mental illness like depression. It doesn’t matter which of these co-occurring conditions came first, but they both need to be treated to make progress in recovery.

Contact Enlightened Solutions

Depression holds fast to the past, and it’s important to be able to move forward so that we can work through these experiences. The past serves as a developmental tool in finding the key to our feelings, and why we feel the need to abuse alcohol and drugs, but we cannot focus on that forever. Once you’ve addressed the past, it should stay where it is, and you have to let it go. The Serenity Prayer tells us to accept the things that we cannot change and focus our strength on building the courage to change the things we can. This is how we heal. We work with mood enhancing therapies and create new experiences in recovery that can heal depression and change your outlook on life, so that when you’re done at Enlightened Solutions, you know what peace will come your way in recovery.

Depression can change everything you love, and it only gets worse with addiction clouding your mind. Contact Enlightened Solutions at 833-801-LIVE to help you remove the fog and finally see the light that’s inside of us all.