The Panacea for Depression

A couple of weeks ago I decided I was going to work more actively on getting over depression. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I have always known the Lord doesn't want me to sad and depressed. I know that the negative thoughts and feelings aren't part of who I am, but sometimes it is hard to remember in high-stress moments. The gospel of Jesus Christ is filled with light and hope and happiness and as much as I knew it, I struggled to live it. When I really took a step back from everything going on in my life, my first thought is that I had stopped doing the things that could really give me the Lord's help and the spiritual and emotional strength to get over depression.

Step 1: Personal scripture study
Knowing that I would struggle to read just scriptures at first, I decided to read a General Conference talk a day starting from 1971. I can tell you the 70's were not like today, but the messages from the apostles, prophets and other leaders still gave messages that are just as relevant now. This is such a simple thing, but I truly believe that I wasn't getting better because I was pushing spiritual nourishment away. Reading talks is just the first of many things I hope to improve spiritually.

Step 2: Depression bibliotherapy

This is a huge step! A part of me doesn't want to get help on my depression because I can use it as a justification for my laziness. I need help and so I searched for a good self-therapy book using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and committed myself to read it. I chose Feeling Good by David Burns (click here for his website) after reading the amazing reviews. I'm positive I chose a good book and I just need to commit to reading it little by little and doing the exercises. I really struggled when I took the depression test and I scored "Severe Depression." Somehow I kept thinking that my depression wasn't that severe and that was a hard reality for me. Nevertheless, I am doing something about it!

Some may not understand my choice of a book versus counselling and medication. I have a BS degree in Psychology and in my classes and research I gained a strong belief in cognitive behavioural therapy. Instead of rushing to drugs why not learn what causes you to get depressed in the first place and prevent it from happening? Basically cognitive behavioural therapy whether through counselling or self-help therapy through books or online resources helps you analyse your thought processes that leads to negative thinking. Over time you can learn to develop positive responses to negative events and thoughts. The trick is just to actually work at it!

Step 3: Remove possible stressors
The next thing I have been working on is just trying to find ways to remove the stressors and help myself to work more effectively. I've known for a while that I am actually more productive at home when working on my research project, but I constantly felt that I had to be at the university. There are a lot of stressors that contribute to that environment. So, I have been spending just a couple more days at home and my mood is a lot better and if I need a little break I can do that. I can't avoid going to the university, but as long as I balance at work and home time it's easier to get through the week.

All of these are helping me and I feel confident I will slowly get better. I will still have major downs during this process, but I just have to stick with it. I learned the word panacea in the Feeling Good book. A panacea is a "cure-all" which the author of Feeling Good constantly reminds how the book is not a panacea. I started thinking about it and I decided that in a way The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a panacea. I'm not going to go into detail, but I believe with all my heart that there is NO problem that the Lord cannot solve.