DEPRESSION CLOUDS

by:  Amy Manuel, Counsellor

Q: I am depressed and have constant thoughts of suicide. I'm only 21 but feel hopeless about my future. Can I get better and if so how?

A: Dear Hopeless,

First I would like to encourage you to take a step back before you do something you can’t change or take back. Suicidal ideation is more common in people your age than you probably think, however, I would like to give you hope because there is some. Twenty one is a time in people’s lives where there is a lot of change and what seems like a lot of uncertainty. What is it that you are feeling hopeless about? Is it a career, doing more education, being in a relationship, or family life? There are so many different stressors we all go through and at the rightful age of being in our early 20’s. There is hope if you look for the hopeful situations and seek out experiences that can add fulfillment to your life. If you are really concerned about your life I would highly recommend you seek out a professional counsellor or even your family doctor, both may have options for you to help you get through this low period in your life.

There is a saying that I always say to my friends and even myself and that is that ‘life cannot always be this way forever, there will be a time when things don’t suck’. We definitely all go through times in our life when we feel like life just sucks for us, but I can assure you life will not always be that way. It is hard to see the happy in all kinds of sad and uncertainty but I assure you if you look you can find it.

In order to work through some of your depressive thoughts I would first ask you to recognize the negative thoughts you are thinking and the beliefs you are telling yourself. Depression usually stems from us telling ourselves negative thoughts and beliefs. We need to know what we are ‘feeding’ into our minds, just like how people watch what they feed into their bodies. When we want to be healthy we eat healthy; the same goes for our minds, when we want to have healthy and happy minds we need to tell ourselves positive and healthy things. Once you recognize your thought and belief pattern we need to then challenge the negative thoughts and beliefs, we can even put those thoughts or beliefs to the test and see what happens when we don’t listen to that negative self-talk. Challenging those thoughts and beliefs can come about when we look for the evidence to support those negative statements. I have a feeling you may believe something that is not true or something that is not supported by facts, but rather your own mind or even one situation that started this thought process.

The thing about depression is that it is totally curable and you can go on to live a very happy and successful life, you just need to do some things to get there first. Life can be very hard and when you are at an age when things are always changing it can be even harder; my hope for you is to find hope in the situations that occur even if it’s something you have to really dig into.

I want you to know that what you are feeling is very normal and many others go through the same thing, and you asking this question are allowing others to feel ‘normal’ because someone else feels the way they do. If you are really struggling with suicidal ideation I highly encourage further help, but please do take note of your thoughts and how you can change the negative into positive. It is a very popular belief that if we think negatively we will feel negatively, and the same goes with positive thinking. So I encourage you to start thinking positively and know that feeling down is very normal, but I hope happiness for you for the times to come.

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