RIP Robin Williams

"You look at the world and see how scary it can be sometimes and still try to deal with the fear. Comedy can deal with the fear and still not paralyze you or tell you that it's going away. You say, okay, you got certain choices here, you can laugh at them and then once you've laughed at them and you have expunged the demon, now you can deal with them. That's what I do when I do my act."

Since this is a blog on depression and mental health, I see it fit to post a tribute to a man that many of us grew up with; an amazingly talented actor and comedian, a highly energetic and good humored man, someone who we could all count on to make us laugh - Robin Williams. 

On August 11, 2014 Robin Williams passed away due to apparent suicide following his struggle with severe depression. 

Williams has been open about his mental health issues, however his battle with depression came as a shock to many - how could someone whose purpose in life was to make others laugh, feel so sad inside? This just goes to show that we should respect each other and try to bring a little bit of happiness to other people's lives each day because we're all dealing with our own demons. Everyone has struggles that no one else knows about and we should be mindful of that in our interactions with others. 

I've read some criticisms online saying that Robin Williams was "too successful" to be depressed. This angers me. Depression is an illness and it can happen to anyone. Of course some people may be faced with a greater number of risk factors for depression depending on the quality of the life they live, but depression doesn't single out these people. Depression does not care about class, wealth, race, talent, etc. Nobody is immune from depression. One article I read mentioned a very good comparison - "Smoking may be a major cause of lung cancer, but non-smokers can end up with it." Likewise, poverty, homelessness, abuse, drug dependency, etc. may be a factor in depression, but people who are not faced with these issues can end up with it as well. Take myself for instance, I'm not a wealthy, successful celebrity, but I'm also not living on the side of the road scouring the garbage cans for food. I'm just your average, every day girl, and yet I have depression. Depression just is. Some people get it, some people don't and there's no way around it. As the same article pointed out - "a person’s lifestyle doesn’t automatically reduce their suffering. Depression doesn’t work like that. And even if it did, where’s the cut-off point? Who would we consider “too successful” to be ill?"

We should all remember Robin for the joy he brought to our lives, for his ability to make us laugh, for his talent in Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting, Jumanji, What Dreams May Come, Hook and many more films, but hopefully his death will also help send a message; hopefully it'll help change people's attitudes towards depression and mental health, make people more aware of the power of this illness, and ultimately, help end the stigma that surrounds the world of mental health. 

FROZEN

When I first started seeing my acupuncturist he suggested I watch the Disney movie Frozen. I had heard of the movie, but originally just wrote it off as a silly children's movie. But my acupuncturist convinced me that the movie was a good portrayal of a young girl dealing with depression and how she overcame it, so I decided to give it a watch. 

Be strong and brave like Elsa. Be positive like Anna. And be happy and kind-hearted like Olaf. 

Here are a few tips that I took from the movie and my discussion with my acupuncturist.

// Being cold all the time can lead to depression. When your body is a regular temperature, you feel better and happier and you're more likely to do things and have an easier time doing them because your body is alert and energetic. However, when you're cold for long periods of time your body starts to shut down and and all your energy is focused on trying to keep you warm instead of helping you be productive. When we're cold, we tend to have worse posture as we shrug our shoulders and fold our bodies up to try and keep the heat in. The problem is that when we're bent over like that, we have bad circulation so our blood does not flow through our body properly, thus reinforcing the feeling of coldness. Staying warm and, as a result, having better posture will improve your circulation and help you maintain a normal body temperature. This will give you more energy and will also help you breathe better since your airways aren't constricted from being bent over which will help you feel more relaxed. 

>>> Side Note: For those of you who know me, you know that I am constantly freezing cold. It's been a problem for years. It can be the middle of the summer and you'll still see me wearing sweaters and wrapped in blankets. This could be a potential cause of my depression because my body has simply depleted all it's energy resources by trying to warm me up and the lack of energy may be a contributor to my feelings of pure exhaustion. 

// Isolating yourself is a recipe for depression. Human's are hardwired to crave companionship, friendship and love. We need these social bonds in our life to form deep connections, to give us a sense of purpose and to make us happy and experience positive emotions. People may prefer different levels of interactions with others, but we all need positive relationships in our lives to help us grow. I know for some people it's harder than for others, but letting people in and forming some strong bonds will really help to alleviate your depression by having people you can count on and who you can talk to and who will help you get off the couch or out of bed and go outside and start doing things again. 

// Opening up and being truthful both with yourself and with those around you is a big step to overcoming your depression. It's not easy by any means. But allowing yourself to accept the situation you're in and talking to others about what you're going through is really a huge weight off your chest. This was so hard for me to do, but once I started opening up to others I realized how much support I had and people understood me better so it strengthened my relationship with friends, family, employers and co-workers. The hardest thing to do is to ask for help, but I promise you it's also the best decision you can make for yourself. 

If you haven't seen this movie, I suggest you check it out. I was skeptical at first, but now I'm in love! It's an adorable story and as this post confirms, there's lost of lessons to be learned from it. 

RAW Emotion

The following is an exert from a journal entry I wrote on Friday May 16, 2014. As you can tell from the entry, I was in a dark spot at the time and was really struggling to understand my life.

** Update: Since I wrote this journal entry I have stopped going to work completely as I found it too hard to focus on myself and getting better while also trying to force myself to work a 9-5 job where other people depended on me. How could I be there for others when I couldn't even depend on myself? I decided I needed some time to just figure out me. I also feel like my medication is starting to work a little better. It's taken a long time to truly start altering my brain chemistry, but I can say that within the past month or so I have noticed a bit of a difference. Remember, I started my medication in March and it wasn't until July that I really felt a significant change. That's five months! So medication isn't a quick fix option, this process takes time. I'm still by no means feeling fixed or better, but it is very encouraging to recognize some progress, no matter how small. 

RAW Emotion

"I really don't feel very much like myself anymore. I look like me, but that's really the only thing about myself that I recognize. Some days are better than others. Some days I know that the real me is hiding just beneath the surface, other days I feel like I'll never see her again. It's hard to look at myself in the mirror every day and to not really know who the person is staring back at me. It's upsetting. I act different than I used to, my mind thinks in a way that feels so foreign to me, everything I used to identify myself with, my education, my career choice, are gone; vanished, replaced by what, I do not know. Everything I used to enjoy feels distant; out of reach.

It's hard to tell whether I'm getting better. I suppose I am. I don't cry or break down as much as I used to, I can spend a night alone without panicking, I've been able to force myself out of bed in the morning and go to work more often than not - those are all good signs. But I'm not really sure that the medication is working. It certainly didn't last time Although I'm on a different type of medication this time, it seems to be the same story. I feel like it worked a bit at the beginning, my brain got a nice spike of serotonin and then it stabilized me a little, just enough that I was no longer going crazy, and then it plateaued, leaving me here, in limbo, stuck. 

Stuck. Not getting worse but also not getting any better, just staying the same. This 'sameness' is starting to agitate me, it's hard to push myself each day when I don't notice any improvements. I will never give up on myself, if there's one thing I am, it's determined. But the longer I stay in this one place, without seeing a meaningful change, the harder it is to conjure up the motivation I need to push myself forward. Why keep working so hard and get nothing in return? But I will, because I know otherwise I'll be swallowed up in a vicious circle - every time I miss work, every time I don't do something I had my heart set on, it'll make me feel worse and just continue to bring me down. 

Going to work seems to be the thing that stresses me out the most. I don't know why. I honestly enjoy my job, it's the type of work I've always dreamed of doing - working in an office, researching, writing reports - the old me would think I hit the jackpot, that I was given the opportunity of a life-time, and yet the new me isn't quite content. Again, I feel stuck in limbo, confused between the life I always wanted, which is the life I have now, and the life I now keep dreaming of. I'm not sure which path to take, which life I want more, I'm at a crossroads and I think that's really contributing to my depression. I always wanted the office lifestyle - the 9-5, the suits and briefcases, the desk, the business meetings, that was so appealing to me. Now, after living in England and travelling around Europe (especially Portugal) I'm confused. I want a more laid back lifestyle, more relaxing, I want to be in control. 

Matt asked me why Portugal was so special and as I told him, it's just because the people there live such a carefree way of life. It was a turning point for me, it was there that I realized that I needed to take life less seriously. It was there that I realized that there is so much more to life than all these daily hassles and work and stress. Life is an adventure, it is my adventure, mine to create, mine to live the way I want. Just because I have grown up in an uptight, serious society does not mean I have to continue to live my life that way. North American society has created these rules, these boundaries that we are to live within, these expectations that we are to live by. Everything is focused around who gets the best grades, who has the best career, who makes the most money. That's how I used to identify myself as well. But life doesn't have to be that serious, it can be so much simpler. I don't want to live within these confines that someone else created for me, that someone else decided was the way that we should all live. I want to be in control of my own life, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, without having to answer to anybody. Other societies have adopted this more relaxed version of life and the people just seem so less stressed, so much happier. I want to live a life that makes me happy. 

This life I'm living now seems lonely, hallow. I feel like I'm living the same thing from day to day. In fact, I don't really feel like I'm 'living' at all. It is all so mundane, I'm just doing what I need to get by. I feel alone. I have no one to share this life with. I have my family, I have Matt, but they can't be my everything. I love my independence until I realize how constricting it is, how much I'm missing out on since that's really all I have. It's hard though, for me to carry on friendships. The friends I did have treated me so badly in the past. I was bullied, I was walked all over, I was used. How can I trust that that won't happen again? I lost touch with so many people because I focused 100% of my time on school work, I had no personal life. Or I felt too depressed to do anything so I never saw my friends and they eventually just faded away. Then there's the few friends I thought I could trust with my secret, that I have depression, only to find out that some of them didn't want to be friends with someone who was 'broken'. I had to watch them walk away, ignorant to what I was really going through. I had to watch, helpless, as this illness defined the limits of my life..." 

My Experience: Part II - The Suffering That Depression Has Caused Me To Endure

It’s really hard to put into words how I feel when I’m depressed. There’s no words strong enough to do my feelings justice and if you’ve never experienced depression yourself, you can only try to imagine how terrible it really feels. No one can understand the true horror of depression unless they’ve felt it first-hand. If you’ve never been clinically depressed your body just isn’t programmed to feel such strong negative emotions, to hit a low that reaches deeper than any low you have ever experienced. Lucky you.

I have panic attacks, anxiety attacks, full on mental breakdowns that all occur just out of the blue. I can literally be perfectly happy and not have a worry in the world one minute and then all of a sudden this rush washes over me and I feel scared, although I don’t know of what, my mind is blank yet racing with thoughts at the same time, I forget everything I was doing, everything I should be doing, everything I am and I just become overwhelmed with negativity – it’s like I’m under water, drowning, being tossed around by a giant wave with no way of knowing when it’ll stop, if it’ll stop, if I’ll ever get the chance to come up for air. My chest feels tight, it’s hard to breath. I start shaking and crying, gasping and hyperventilating. I need to get somewhere safe immediately – my bed, the arms of my boyfriend, my mom or my sister. It goes on for hours like this. Every time I start to feel a little calmer and the tears have managed to stop flowing then another rush comes over me. There’s no trying to stop it, to get a hold of myself, my brain can’t even fathom how to go about doing that. All I have to do is wait; endure the pain of it all until it comes to its natural end. Needless to say, I feel off for the rest of the day. I can’t shake the feeling of what happened. I feel sad, down, lonely, tired. I just want to fall asleep and hope I sleep right through until the next day.

I cry a lot. I’ve heard that crying may mean you’re not dealing with depression but simply grief because as I explained in a previous post (Depression vs. Sadness), your mood produces emotional symptoms, whereas the symptoms of depression are more physical. But I’ve always been a very emotional person, I’ve always turned to crying as a way to release the feelings built up inside me and so I think my excessive crying now is due not to the temporary mood of grief, but to grieving for the loss of myself that depression has caused. I don’t recognize myself any more, and sometimes no matter how hard I try, I can’t get back to the way I used to be and this scares me. So whenever people ask me how I’m doing, whenever I’m forced to talk about my depression, I get a lump in my throat and the tears start swelling up behind my eyes and no matter how hard I try, it eventually becomes too much and I break down crying.

Sometimes I’ll be sitting by myself and I just start crying out of nowhere. All of a sudden this feeling of frustration over takes me and I can’t escape it. I bring my knees to my chest, put my forehead on my knees, and grab at my hair with both hands, pulling on my hair because I feel so overwhelmed, so frustrated, so broken.

I get irritated a lot and lose my temper. When people do things that I used to find funny and playful, I now have no patience for them and they cause me to be annoyed. The littlest things set me off and I argue a lot more than I used to. I also can’t concentrate – my mind either feels overwhelmed and jumps from one idea to the next, making it impossible for me to make up my mind or I stare blankly ahead while my mind is off in la-la land, thinking of absolutely nothing, just wasting time away.

Most of the time I have zero motivation to do anything. There’s lots of things I’d like to do, and often I’ll sit there staring at things, willing myself to just pick them up and start doing something, but I just can’t. There’s no explanation for it. There’s just this force within me that is holding me back. It’s terrible, because I’m so bored, but no matter how strong the boredom, I can’t bring myself to do anything. Sometimes I can’t even read or watch TV or do mindless tasks. I just sit there, staring off in the distance. Sometimes I go days without showering because it just seems like such a huge chore. I love to cook but I barely eat decent meals anymore because I just don’t feel like making them. I live for nature and the outdoors but most of the time I can’t bring myself to get dressed let alone leave the house, even to just go sit in my back yard for a bit. It takes me hours to fall asleep at night, usually I’m not asleep until 4am and then I never want to wake up and get out of bed in the morning. By the time I’m up it’s almost lunch time and I’ve wasted half my day just lying in bed. I used to be extremely active (sports, gym, yoga, zumba) but now I do none of that; it’s just too much effort. I’ve become lazy, but not a kind of laziness I can control. It’s not like I don’t want to do these things and rather sit around doing nothing, definitely not! I would love to be my active self again, but I just can’t. Again, there’s that imaginary force holding me back.

Most days I get out of bed and go sit in my recliner, I drink a tea and spend the whole day reading. I only get up to go to the bathroom, snack on something that doesn’t require time to make or to refill my tea. I feel like each day just blends right into the next one, it’s all a blur. My life is passing me by. Days have turned into weeks, into months and now into years of me doing absolutely nothing with my life. It saddens me that I’m missing out on so much, that I’m missing out on being a regular 24 year old girl, that I can’t hold on to a job and don’t even have enough money to live off of let alone go out and have a good time with my friends doing all the activities I dream of one day doing again. I try to get things done each day to change my situation, even if just a little, but it’s terribly hard to notice any progress. I’m determined to turn all this around and be my happy self again but sometimes I just feel stuck. 

My Experience: Part I - My Story

I haven’t posted in over a month. I didn’t forget about my blog or give up on it but I was going through a down period and I needed to focus on me for a little while. I also knew the next couple of posts I wanted to write were to describe my personal experience of getting diagnosed and dealing with the effects of depression and it was hard to work up the courage to tell this story.

In 2010/2011 I went on an exchange to England for a year. It was the best year of my life! I experienced a new culture, I met so many amazing people and made some of my best friends, I travelled all the time. It was perfect. Then I returned home to Canada and things got hard. I was thrown back into a more strict society with higher expectations; it was like culture shock in my own country. Friendships had dwindled over the year as people’s lives continued on without me while I was gone. It was my last year of university and for the first time ever I found school work to be a chore. It wasn’t hard, I had just changed. I used to be the person who identified myself by my grades and focused only on school work, to the detriment of all other aspects of my life. But now I had experienced a different way of life, a more relaxed way of life; I felt alive. I wanted to travel and explore and meet new people and socialize; school just wasn’t as important as it used to be. But I had gotten straight A’s throughout my past 3 years of university and I knew I’d be very disappointed in myself if I didn’t get straight A’s in my final year, so as hard as it was to concentrate, I pushed myself to give it my all. In the end it paid off and on graduation day I was happy when I received a medal for graduating at the top of my class. It was worth it. But I was burnt out.

Throughout the year I also diagnosed myself with Seasonal Affective Disorder. After being in England for a year I was certainly sun deprived. Then came the cold Canadian winter (which I usually love because I ski/snowboard/skate/snowshoe) but for the first time, I hated it. I started sleeping a lot, stopped trekking to the gym, went outside as few times as possible and eventually started skipping most of my classes (which I NEVER did before!) I think the lack of sunlight, the endlessly long, cold winter, and my pure exhaustion from school just did me in. My body gave up, it didn’t want to try and fight anymore.

After my year abroad I had also gone through a break up. The break up itself didn’t contribute to my depression, but there were consequences to that relationship that were now fairly evident. For 3 and a half years my life had revolved around one person and now that he was gone, I was alone. I had given up most of my hobbies and we had spent all of our time together so I now realized that I really didn’t have any friends. This certainly affected my mood – I had no support network, no one to share stories with, no social life. It was just me. I love having alone time, but when all my time was spent by myself and I had no one to do anything with it got incredibly lonely.

In May 2012, right after I finished my last year of university, I was officially diagnosed with depression. I went on a dopamine medication and immediately had a bad reaction so my doctor switched me to a serotonin medication that seemed to have more promise.  But despite having just gotten diagnosed with depression, I still decided to move back to England for law school. In hindsight, that was probably a bad idea. I loved England, I made more awesome friends, but being in another country, so far away from my family, at a time when I was really struggling made things worse. I was fine for the first semester, the change and the excitement was enough to boost my spirits. But then second semester came along and I was 100% burnt out. I couldn’t focus on school; I had no interest in it anymore. The grey, rainy weather in England put a damper on my already low mood. I had no motivation to do any of the fun activities I had planned to do, and I barely saw my friends any more. I stopped going to class, even though I was on a VISA and could get kicked out of the country for not showing up. I stopped going out with my friends. I didn’t travel anymore. I didn’t even get dressed or leave the house. It also didn’t helping that I was dating (and living with) a guy who turned out to have zero aspirations in life – his negative outlook on life really brought me down. I decided to break up with my boyfriend, take a leave of absence from law school and return to Canada. Packing up and getting myself to the airport was an enormous task for me, I’d say it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. It was so hard for me to gather the motivation to actually do something and to leave the house and catch a train to the airport seemed impossible. I almost didn’t get up the morning I had to leave because I couldn’t coax myself to get out of bed and face the day. The only thing that got me moving was knowing that I was going home and that I could then get into my own bed and not have to move again for as long as I wanted.

Being home actually made a huge difference. It was nice to see my family and my dog. It was summer time and I live on the lake so I could just relax and soak up the sun. I was happy. And I thought I was cured. I had stopped taking my medication while in England, a few months before I came home. I found it really wasn’t helping me and I actually thought it was making me worse. Now that I was home, I was glad I wasn’t on any meds, I don't like the idea of putting all these unnatural chemicals into my body, I much rather find my own personal, natural ways of healing, so I was happy that all I needed to cure me was to come home and be with my family in the sun.

So I had dealt with depression (officially) for just over a year – May 2012 until June 2013. And then I was fine. I was still struggling to get back into a routine of working and moving out of my parents’ house, but I was happy. I eventually moved to Toronto in January 2014 and started working in February. I then got a second job in March and I loved how busy I was. After so long of doing nothing and being bored of doing nothing but not having the motivation to do anything else, a full schedule felt like heaven! Until the end of March, when it all came crashing down again.

March 2014 – I had been free from depression for almost 10 months and all of a sudden I felt my world spinning out of control again. Maybe I was never really completely free from it the first time. Maybe it was just a false sense of happiness from switching up my routine. I’m not sure. But I was certain that I was dealing with a relapse.

I missed work one night because I suffered an awful panic attack and couldn’t stop shaking and crying for hours. The next day I quit that job. I started struggling to wake up to get to my 9-5 job downtown and I either missed days or came in late. Eventually we worked out a revised schedule where I worked 11:30-5 instead. That helped for a while, but as time went on that also became too hard. I wasn’t falling asleep until around 4 or 5am, so waking up in the morning was actually impossible. Even when I managed to get to work, I couldn’t concentrate and it took forever to get anything done. I eventually just stopped going to work altogether. I reluctantly went back on medication (a different kind then the previous 2 I had tried). It’s working better I think. I also started seeing an acupuncturist (more on that later) and he really helped me deal with some of my issues. I’m still struggling with the relapse. But I can definitely say I’m on the rise again. And this time I’m not going to assume my recovery. I’m going to work hard and make some serious life changes so I can hopefully eliminate depression from my life altogether.

I know this post is incredibly long!! But whether anyone reads this to the end or not, I thought it was important to tell my background story of how I got to where I am today, if not for anyone else’s benefit, then at least for my own, as a record of my past and what I’ve been through. In my next post I will discuss all the feelings and emotions I have experienced when in my states of depression to give people an understanding of what I go through, and to help those of you dealing with depression see that you’re not alone in experiencing these troubling feelings. 

Feelings You May Experience If You're Dealing With Depression

Below is a list I created for myself of how I feel on a regular basis. I experience most of these feelings daily, although the severity of the feelings varies from day-to-day. I found it helpful to write all my feelings down – getting everything out of my head and on to paper made me feel less overwhelmed. It’s also great to be able to look at this list from time to time and remind myself that even though I’m struggling, there’s nothing wrong with that, the feelings I’m experiencing are normal for the situation I’m in, and I think recognizing that is an important step in recovery.

I encourage you to make your own list to help yourself better understand the different sensations your body is dealing with. For some of you, creating this list may be easy. Personally, I struggled with it because it was hard for me to accept that this is what I was going through (normally I’d just sweep all my emotions under a rug and forget about them) so this was definitely a good reflection exercise for me. Just remember that there may be things on my list that don’t apply to you and likewise you may be dealing with certain feelings that I haven’t experienced. That’s okay. We’re individuals and that means even though we’re in the same situation we may have slightly different experiences, that’s what makes me, me and you, you. We’re all unique, and you should be proud of who you are.

How I Feel (in no particular order)

• Anxious
• Stressed
• Sore (all my muscles feel heavy and are in physical pain)
• Sad
• Down
• Lonely / alone (even though I know I’m not)
• Like no one understands (even though I know that’s not true)
• Irritable
• Upset
• Indecisive
• Unable to concentrate / distracted
• Like I’m letting people down who are depending on me
• Guilty
• Depressed
• Nervous
• Tired / exhausted
• Burned out
• Unconfident
• Not like myself
• Confused
• Lazy / lethargic
• Overwhelmed
• Unable to sleep at night but then can’t wake up in the mornings
• Restless
• Shy / timid / soft spoken
• Vulnerable
• Easily frustrated
• Scared of conflict
• Emotionally unstable
• Scared
• Lost
• Like my mind is fighting against me every step of the way
• Angry (at other people and at the fact that I struggle so hard at everyday tasks that come so easily to others)
• Trapped

Depression and Stress

One of the major causes of depression, like many other illnesses, is stress. Stress can be defined as our body’s response to a threat, whether it be real or merely perceived.  Stress can be positive such as getting married or having a baby, or it can be negative such as losing a job or the death of a loved one. Both types of stress can overwhelm us and cause health problems if not properly managed.

Being constantly exposed to stress can lead to something called the General Adaptation Syndrome. This includes three stages that people may go through when dealing with a lot of stress and if the stress is not managed properly at the beginning stages, it can lead to depression.

The first stage is the alarm stage. This is your body’s response to a threat. In this stage, your body releases an increase in the hormones cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline which leads to the fight or flight response.

The second stage is called the resistance stage. Here your body uses up a lot of cortisol in order to produce more energy so your body can resist the stressor. The problem is that if you’re in this stage for a long period of time then your body is producing an excessive amount of cortisol. This can cause you to feel anxious, tired and have difficulty sleeping since all your energy is devoted to dealing with the stressor.

The final stage is known as the exhaustion stage. This is where your body has produced so much cortisol that it can no longer produce any more, or can only produce a limited amount. Your body has essentially been over-worked and is too exhausted to continue functioning properly. As a result, you may feel fatigued, sluggish, burned out, irritable, cold, sore, more susceptible to illnesses and headaches, have a low sex drive, have a hard time coping, or suffer from depression.

People who reach the exhaustion stage are at risk of becoming depressed because they’ve been exposed to one or more stressors over such a long period of time that their body has depleted all its resources to fight and has essentially just given up, causing the person to feel burned out and depressed.

Another theory of how stress can lead to depression is known as learned helplessness. This is where a person experiences stressful events repeatedly to the point that they feel helpless to change the situation, like they lack the ability to control their own lives. When people start thinking in a negative way like this it can increase their susceptibility to developing depression.

Stress also affects people’s coping mechanisms. When you’re stressed it causes you to have a lower mood which in turn causes you to stop taking part in the activities that you enjoy which ultimately makes you feel worse and decreases your mood even more. This vicious cycle can lead you to feel depressed because the stress is taking over your life, it’s constantly on your mind and it has interrupted your usual outlet for coping.

Some examples of stressful events that may increase a person’s chances of becoming depressed are:

• being in an abusive relationship
• unemployment
• debt
• taking on extra responsibilities at home or work
• choosing a path in life that you aren’t entirely happy with but are scared to change
• going through a transition period in one’s life such as leaving your family home to move out on your own, having a baby, or retiring and having to learn to adjust your lifestyle since you have more time on your hands but a reduction in your finances

It is important to try and find ways to manage or reduce the stress in your life so you don’t start feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, out of control and/or depressed. Some tips are to:

• eat healthy (refined carbs like white bread and sugary foods release insulin which triggers the release of cortisol which causes stress)
• exercise (it helps grow new brain cells and maintain the health of existing ones)
• get at least eight hours of sleep
• do something that makes you happy or relaxes you so you can get your mind off of the stressor
• reduce your caffeine intake since it stimulates the same hormones that increase stress
• try to follow a daily routine to get yourself back on track
• practice deep breathing exercises, yoga, or other forms of meditation

Potential Causes of Depression

Depression can be caused by a variety of things. What causes depression brings up the nature vs. nurture debate, however, both seem to play a role in how people may develop depression. Life experiences, family history, and negative thoughts/attitudes/beliefs/behaviours can all lead to depression. In order to take the appropriate steps to recovery, it’s important to try and pinpoint the cause of your depression.

Here is a list of some potential causes for your consideration:

• Stress
• Genetics
• Lack of sufficient sunlight 
• Socio-economic factors (e.g. low income, prejudice)
• Negative and/or irrational thoughts
• Unhealthy diet
• Living in the past
• Life events (e.g. abusive relationships, traumatic events, divorce, starting at a new school or job)
• Lack of exercise
• Certain health conditions (e.g. stroke, AIDS, cancer)
• Hormone imbalance
• Thyroid imbalance
• The presence of toxic elements in your immune system (e.g. mercury, lead)
• Child birth
• Alcohol and/or drug use
• Side effects from certain medications

If you feel like you might be dealing with depression, you can check out my articles What is Depression?, Types of Depression and Symptoms of Depression for more info.

Other Mental Health Illnesses

In my last couple of posts, I’ve differentiated between the different types of depression and the different types of anxiety disorders. Here I’ll describe a couple other common mental health illnesses.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

OCD causes a person to have intrusive thoughts or urges (obsessions) that cause them a lot of anxiety. Many people then have to repeat certain behaviours (compulsions) to try and eradicate the anxiety. From my own experience, I often feel like I have to do my compulsion over and over again until it feels right.

Some common examples of compulsions are feeling compelled to continuously wash ones hands; to move things around until they’re ordered in a certain way; to touch things over and over; to check stoves, door or car locks, or light switches; or to constantly be cleaning things. OCD causes a severe disruption to a person’s life since they spend so much time focusing on and their mind is constantly dwelling on their obsessions. Many people dealing with OCD know that their compulsions are irrational and yet they aren’t able to stop these behaviours or routines.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD results from the occurrence of a previous trauma. Some common events that can lead to PTSD are: rape, abuse, natural disasters, fighting in the military or a serious accident. A person does not have to experience the traumatic event themselves in order to suffer from PTSD, sometimes witnessing a loved one going through such a distressing event is enough to cause this illness.

People who suffer from PTSD have an extremely difficult time getting over these incidents and it causes them to be anxious and depressed for months or even years after the event occurred. These people may experience flashbacks or nightmares of the event that reinforces the anxiety and depression they are experiencing. Others may avoid any type of activity that reminds them of the event. People suffering from PTSD often feel on-edge, disconnected, irritable, have a hard time feeling emotions and experience trouble sleeping.

Schizophrenia

People who suffer from schizophrenia tend to have disordered thoughts and speech, meaning they have a hard time communicating with other people. They often lose their train of thought and thus their sentences are not formed and instead come out like just a jumble of words. They feel strange and don’t really understand the world around them. People with schizophrenia may experience periods of psychosis in which they lose the ability to tell what is real and what isn’t. This is categorized by hallucinations (hearing, seeing or smelling things that aren't really there - e.g. hearing voices that aren’t real) and/or delusions (believing things that aren't true - e.g. thinking they have superpowers).

People with schizophrenia experience a loss of motivation, a hard time concentrating, a lack of interest in activities and exhibit trouble completing tasks. Schizophrenia causes people to feel isolated so they withdraw and it disrupts their social functioning, making it hard for them to carry on relationships, work or go to school. If someone suffers from schizophrenia, there is an increased chance that they suffer from other mental health illnesses like anxiety or depression as well.  

There are many other types of mental health illnesses that I have not mentioned here, such as eating disorders, personality disorders, ADD or ADHD and dementia. I have not gone into detail on these because I simply am not as knowledgeable on them as I am with the other illnesses I’ve listed. For more information on the different types of mental health illnesses you can visit the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) website. 

Anxiety Disorders

There are many other types of mental health illnesses besides the types of depression. Often, a person who suffers from one mental health illness may have an increased chance of suffering from another one as well, so I thought it might be helpful to give a breakdown of some of the other common mental health illnesses that affect people in our society.

In this post, I’ll give a breakdown of the different types of anxiety disorders.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

People with GAD worry excessively and continuously and in cases where there is no need to worry. They worry about everyday things and so it causes a disruption to their daily functioning. These people usually expect the worst in most situations, even when there is no reason for concern. This persists for at least six months.

Social Anxiety Disorder

People who suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder have a fear of being negatively judged by others in a social setting. Some people are afraid of being humiliated, some suffer from stage fright and some have a fear of intimacy and so find it hard to carry on relationships or friendships or dealing with the public. Because of this fear, these people tend to isolate themselves so they can avoid dealing with other people and public situations which they find extremely uncomfortable.

Phobias

A phobia isn’t simply being afraid of something; it is having an irrational fear of and thus avoiding a certain object or situation. This avoidance causes a disruption to the person’s daily life because the phobia may keep the person from doing things that are necessary to do. Some common phobias are: heights, going to the dentist, elevators, flying and insects.

Panic Attacks

Panic attacks occur suddenly, out-of-the-blue. Since they come and go at random, a person who suffers from panic attacks often lives in fear of when the next one is going to occur. These attacks are characterized by intense apprehension that causes a person to experience a tight chest and difficulty breathing, hyperventilating, crying, dizziness, nausea, shaking and confusion.

Agoraphobia

People dealing with agoraphobia have a fear of not being able to get help or escape a situation if they start feeling anxious or have a panic attack. This causes some people suffering from this illness to stay at home and avoid public places so they don’t have to risk getting themselves into that type of situation.


Keep in mind that everyone deals with some level of anxiety at one time or another, so the purpose of recovery should be to learn how to manage your anxiety, not eliminate it all together. There are many different treatment options for anxiety, so speak with your doctor to figure out what works best for you.