Online Therapy for Depression in New York
Whether you experience severe bouts of hopelessness or suicidal thoughts, or you have a general sense of worthlessness or sadness that persists throughout your days, therapy can make a major difference.
Depression affects how you think, feel and act. It’s exhausting, and while the good days may be average, the bad days are often unbearable.
What Is Depression?
Depression boils down to imbalances in the brain, whether it’s an imbalance in mood regulation skills, neurotransmitters or even genes. More simply, the way your brain is currently working may be causing you unnecessary sadness.
How it Affects You
Depression can make you lose interest in activities you previously enjoyed, coupled with profound feelings of sadness, hopelessness and melancholy. It often affects your mental health while also affecting your physical well-being.
External Triggers
Depression can be caused by stressful life events—stress has a powerful effect on your body’s hormones—as well as earlier trauma. Traumatic events can lead to psychological damage in the long run, which in turn can be a catalyst for depression.
Internal Triggers
The causes and solutions to depression are complex and depend on the individual. However, it’s pretty clear that depression stems from a variety of imbalances in the brain. Many of these imbalances can be inherited, but some can be a product of chance.
Sadness is Natural.
People often confuse sadness for depression. Sadness is normal, experienced by everyone at some point in their lives. Many events can trigger feelings of sadness, like losing a loved one, dealing with unmet expectations or failing an exam.
But often, the biggest difference between sadness and depression is that sadness goes away. Depression lingers, and the symptoms become more acute and limiting.
When depression begins to interfere with daily life, therapy can be very helpful.
When Depression Becomes a Problem
An episode of depression can become diagnosable if the symptoms last longer than two weeks.
Loss of Interest
People with depression find they do not enjoy activities they used to love, like hobbies, sports or sex. Realizing you’re no longer interested in certain activities can make you desire to withdraw from others and increase symptoms of depression.
Recurring Sadness
Depression can cause problems with your work performance, strain relationships, and leave you feeling empty, stuck with an aimless sadness that pervades every aspect of your daily life. Oftentimes, a person may feel an inner sadness but present an outward smile, hiding their symptoms from those around them.
Negative Thoughts
Uncontrollable thoughts that veer on hopelessness and a feeling of being stuck are common in people with depression, along with an arbitrary sense of guilt. Withdrawing from others and feeling worthless are common among those with depression, and it can be difficult to realize that you do indeed have value.
Fatigue
Depression makes you feel constantly tired and lacking in energy. If you have a demanding job, every little task becomes more difficult and excruciating. When you finally arrive home, the daily chores like cooking and cleaning are left behind.
Sleep and Weight
Depression can change your eating habits, making you eat too much or too little, and it can do the same to the quality and quantity of sleep you’re getting each night. Drastic changes to your weight or sleeping deficiencies can have serious effects, like insomnia and heart and stomach problems.
Suicidal Thinking
Depression can sometimes lead to thoughts of death and suicide. In more severe cases, you may find your thoughts wandering into planning a suicide attempt or believing that those in your life might be better without you. Studies show that with quality therapy, people can gain hope for the future and overcome these thoughts.
If you are actively considering suicide, there are other options.
It Can Be Tough to Recognize You Have Depression
You may have the impulse to hide your depression from those around you in fear that they will judge you for it. Below are some reasons why admitting you have depression is difficult.
Stigma
Most of the issue with admitting you might have depression comes from the erroneous idea that people with depression contribute to their mental illness, that having depression is somehow their fault. The fact is, most people don’t understand how depression works, or how it can affect someone.
High-Functioning
Some people with depression are high-functioning. In other words, you may seem to lead a “normal” life from the outside when in reality you are struggling internally. Because you’re able to fulfill your duties at work, school and home, telling others about your depression might be met with surprise or disbelief.
Accepting Help
It’s always difficult to admit that you need help, especially when you have many things in your life that “should” make you happy and healthy. It takes great strength and courage to ask for help—don’t let the fear of getting labeled play a role in your decision to seek help. Things can and will get better with treatment.
Do I Have Depression?
Depression can be caused by many different internal or external factors. It’s important to get a medical diagnosis in order to rule out medical causes.
Signs and symptoms of depression include:
Difficulty concentrating, making decisions and remembering details
Feelings of despair and hopelessness
Feelings of guilt, worthlessness and helplessness
Fatigue
Sleeping too little (insomnia) or sleeping too much
Irritability
Loss of interest in things and loss of libido
Changes in eating habits, like overeating or loss of appetite
Persistent pains, aches or cramps
Gastrointestinal issues
Persistent sad, anxious or empty feelings
Restlessness
Suicidal thoughts or attempts
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression
As its name suggests, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy aims to examine how our thoughts and our behaviors cause depression. Our thoughts and the way we see the world are actually the biggest influences on how we feel, not external pressures or events. Studies have shown that in mild to moderate depression, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is just as effective as taking antidepressants.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy aims to restructure our thought process in order to help us get out of a vicious circle of depression.
Identify Negative or Unhelpful Thoughts
In order to understand your thought process, it’s important to go through a specific scenario and identify any negative thoughts that arise from the given situation.
What It Sounds Like
Example Situation: “I’m worthless and everything is hopeless.”
Challenge Thoughts
Once we have identified a negative thought, we can evaluate it’s veracity. And sometimes, we gain insight about where these patterns of thought first originated.
What It Sounds Like
“I may often make mistakes. However, I also have good qualities.”
Replace Negative and Unhelpful Thoughts with Realistic Thoughts
Finally, the goal is to arrive at a much more manageable place with your negative thoughts and replace them with realistic thoughts.
What It Sounds Like
“I may not be perfect, but I am learning. My value as a person is not determined by my imperfections.”
Of course, this is easier said than done, but the goal here is to practice the skill that goes into restructuring your thoughts—a skill that you can use daily to help you control your depression.
Depression can feel like a rain cloud you just can’t shake. It dims the good things in life and affects your overall perspective. Whether you experience severe bouts of hopelessness or suicidal thoughts, or you have a general sense of worthlessness or sadness that persist throughout your days, therapy can make a major difference.