Deborah Does Navel-Gazing » depression treatment http://www.deborahgray.org (Preferably with a decaf mocha in hand) Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:54:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Don’t try to cure/heal/treat depression with a trip to your local bookstore http://www.deborahgray.org/2009/11/02/dont-try-to-curehealtreat-depression-with-a-trip-to-your-local-bookstore/ http://www.deborahgray.org/2009/11/02/dont-try-to-curehealtreat-depression-with-a-trip-to-your-local-bookstore/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:19:44 +0000 Deborah http://www.deborahgray.org/?p=423 I’m perusing the shelves of the bookstore, in the psychology section, looking for new books about depression and depression treatment. I know that I really shouldn’t be doing this, because it inevitably raises by blood pressure and puts me in danger of choking on my decaf mocha. The problem is, this activity exposes me to all the ways in which someone is trying to sell us a book that will cure/heal/or treat your depression – without doctors or drugs! Let’s see, there’s:

The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression without Drugs
Happiness is a Choice
Dealing with Depression Naturally
Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way
The Mindful Way through Depression

Let me just mention first that Happiness is a Choice has always made me froth at the mouth. I mean, seriously, maybe there are some people like beat poets and goths who think being depressed is preferable to being happy, but the rest of us disagree. We’re not choosing to be depressed, which is what the book implies, any more than someone chooses to be diabetic. I mean, come on, I was seven when I started suffering from depression. Can the author seriously think that a child of that age just was choosing to be depressed?

Read on

]]> http://www.deborahgray.org/2009/11/02/dont-try-to-curehealtreat-depression-with-a-trip-to-your-local-bookstore/feed/ 0 Why do people resist taking antidepressants? http://www.deborahgray.org/2009/10/31/why-do-people-resist-taking-antidepressants/ http://www.deborahgray.org/2009/10/31/why-do-people-resist-taking-antidepressants/#comments Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:23:49 +0000 Deborah http://www.deborahgray.org/?p=425 Over the years, since I started my depression site, I’ve heard (read) many people say that they want to treat their depression “but without antidepressants.” I always think, “Why?” It’s just incomprehensible to me that some people have that knee-jerk reaction to medication.

Oddly enough, I have to include myself in this group. At least initially, I refused to take medication for my depression. Nearly twenty years ago, when I was first diagnosed with depression, I was in a pretty bad way. I had had two major depressive episodes in the past, without knowing what they were, but this third one was the worst, and so far, of the longest duration. By chance I read a book that helped me to recognize that what I was going through, and I promptly made an appointment with a doctor at the mental health clinic attached to the local hospital.

Read on

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