Addressing Depression in a New Way (Not About Lifestyle Changes or Mental Changes, Not About Drugs)

By: J.A, Writer for Hope Instilled

Disclaimer:

The content within this blog is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, and/or treatment, but is for informational purposes only. I’m not a doctor, psychologist, or medical professional, nor do I claim to be. I’m simply sharing the resources and experiences that I have found. Please consult your doctor or another qualified health provider on any health situations and/or conditions you are experiencing. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it due to something you read on this site. Hope Instilled, Inc. and I, shall not be held liable or responsible for any misunderstanding or misuse of the information contained on this site or for any losses, damages, or injuries caused by any application or treatment of anything discussed in this blog.

Here are Ideas on Treating Depression Without Antidepressants 

Almost every article you have ever read about depression probably fits into one of these categories: medicine for depression, changing your lifestyle (eating better, more exercise, getting enough sleep, or changing your mindset (being more positive, improving your self-esteem, visiting a psychologist, and changing the way you see the world). If you have tried all those things and are still suffering this post will be great for you. This post doesn’t fall into any of those three categories, it’s about finding and fixing the source of the problem. It’s about natural solutions, even if they require some patience.

Two Main Types of Depression

I have come to my own conclusion that there are two different types of depression. When looking at actual treatment solutions, I think there are two basic types. This is what I have gathered from my own research and experience. I think it makes a lot of sense.

Here are my definitions for the two types of depression:

Situational Depression
Situational Depression is where you are depressed based on some situation in your life. You are both mentally and emotionally bothered by something in your life. You might be depressed because you have chronic pain because you are struggling financially, you lost a family member, you lost your job, got a divorce, or whatever the situation might be. Whether it's long-term or short-term it’s based on the situation you are in. In some scenarios, situational depression can actually turn into clinical depression.

Clinical Depression
The definition of Clinical Depression varies and often just gives a bunch of symptoms because people don’t understand it. This is my own definition of it, coming from someone who has actually dealt with it. Clinical depression is when you are depressed emotionally and not mentally. You can’t pinpoint why you are depressed. Maybe you have a reason, but it’s something small and insignificant that doesn’t really make sense for you to be depressed about. This is you trying to make sense of it. If you have dealt with it long enough, you might have started to think of it as situational depression (I know I have). But, sometimes everything is going well in your life and you still wake up depressed, but you have no idea why. Basically, you are depressed for no real reason.

Different Types of Clinical Depression
This could be seasonal depression, this could be depression after childbirth if it’s hormonal, it could be on and off depression, it could be associated with bipolar disorder, this may be the depression you have dealt with your whole life.

This isn’t the type of depression that can be fixed by changing your lifestyle or changing your mindset. Making lifestyle changes may have an impact if your problem is a lack of sleep or stress (which could fall under situational), or a very poor diet and limited exercise. Drugs will cover up the problem, not fix it. This is the type of depression many people don’t understand. People think they can cheer you up, and it’s annoying. Even if you feel slightly better, you don’t return to a state of normalcy.

This can be confusing when you are dealing with chronic pain too. I think it is important to understand the difference to get to the root of the cause. If your depression worsens with your pain, then it is likely situational depression but could be clinical, as well. You might even be dealing with clinical depression and it has become situational depression. Try to figure out which type of depression you are dealing with whether it is one or both. Meditation can help you to pinpoint the reason or lack of reason for your depression.

So let me tell you a little bit about my story. So you can understand my thoughts and definitions.

My Story of Understanding and Healing from Depression

My Experience: Situational Depression

Years back, I was severely depressed over financial situations, along with losing a job. The thoughts in my head were very negative toward me. I was very stressed out about the situation I was in. However, I did have days where my husband was able to cheer me up and I felt happy once in a while. Solution-wise, I did have some changes in mindset that helped me to get out of my struggle with depression. This is because it was mostly in my head (based on my situation). I wasn’t emotional for no reason. When life improved along with my mindset my depression disappeared with it.

My Experience: Clinical Depression

Then, I’ve also dealt with clinical depression. For quite a few years, I have suffered from seasonal depression. I blamed the cold, the snow, and the darkness. In my mind, it was situational depression. I couldn’t imagine ever being happy in winter. I thought about moving someplace warmer. I took more Vitamin D. I tried heat lamps, but I didn’t feel like those things helped. I blamed myself to some degree for being depressed. When I got chronically sick, it got worse because I had situational depression too. When I was healed a great deal it got better (another story). At some point, I was finally really happy with my life. But, when winter came again I was depressed. Mentally I was really happy with my life, but emotionally I still woke up wanting to cry. If you have never been clinically depressed, this is really hard to understand. Everything that was normally fun for me, didn’t seem fun anymore. There was no cheering me up, but I wasn’t stressed or bothered by anything going on in my life.

Finding a Solution to My Clinical Depression
So I went to my holistic doctor, who has been helping me with my chronic pain. I asked for a supplement to help. My doctor used Muscle Testing and found an all-natural safe supplement that my body approved of. This is the same testing that was used to find the problems with my chronic pain that brought me from a 6-8 ongoing pain level to a 0 on the pain scale.

I took it for two days and noticed I felt normal, happy even. I would look at the snow and it wouldn’t bother me. Then, I forgot to take it for a full day and went back to being depressed. It was literally crazy! A night and day difference in how I felt. I took it every day throughout the winter and I felt like my summer self emotionally for the first winter in my lifetime. I literally didn’t believe it was possible to be so happy in winter. It had nothing to do with my thoughts. I still don’t love winter, but I don’t get emotionally bothered by it to the point where I can't be cheered up. I spent so much time feeling guilty about being depressed in the winter, and it wasn’t my fault. It had everything to do with some problems in my physical body.

My Hormonal Depression

During my cycle, I would get extremely depressed even if mentally nothing was bothering me. I found out I had hormone imbalances, allergies to my hormones, and other imbalances. That has been improved now too. I went to a hormone specialist and was prescribed all-natural supplements, drops, and cream to fix all the imbalances in my body.

TREATMENTS

Depression from Chemical Imbalance

So I learned depression can be largely caused by toxins in the body, imbalances, or nutritional deficiencies and there are all-natural supplements that can take away these problems, and possibly fix them for good. Muscle testing can help find chemical imbalances, toxins, parts of the body not functioning right. It can also help find the issues causing your chronic pain, which may help with situational depression, as well.

But, that’s not all!

Depression can also be a Neurological Condition 

My doctor told me about a treatment he just started doing at his office called Neurofeedback. After some research, I learned a lot of times depression is caused by irregular brainwave patterns.

Neurofeedback is a non-invasive treatment with a ton of scientific backing that treats neurological conditions. Neurofeedback examines brainwaves, it finds the abnormalities, and then creates a signal to fix the abnormality and send the brainwave back to normal patterns. After many neurofeedback sessions, the brain will be trained to stay within normal, healthy patterns without the help of a computer.

I was so fascinated by this, so I did a ton of research on it to help all of you who suffer from depression. But, it doesn’t just treat depression. It has been known to help with anxiety, bipolar disorder, and many other chronic illnesses. This may reduce and possibly even eliminate neurological symptoms for good.

Dealing with lingering depression from past trauma or life event along with physical health problems

If you think you have trauma from childhood, or from any event that took place in your life, a certified trauma therapist is worth looking into! Not any therapist can help with trauma, a certified trauma therapist has therapies specifically for trauma, and they understand how trauma can impact a person.

Also, consider Integrative Psychiatry! An integrative psychiatrist can prescribe medication but will focus first on finding the cause of the psychological issue, and then using the best conventional or complementary treatments (complementary include homeopathy, naturopathy, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, acupuncture, herbs, dietary supplements, etc.)  The goal of integrative psychiatry is to provide safe and effective treatments, and only to prescribe psychiatric medications when absolutely necessary. 

In Conclusion

What I believe is if you have depression that is clinical something is wrong with your body, and it can be found and treated. It doesn’t have to be covered up with medication that gives you all sorts of side effects. If you are depressed for no reason it could be; a chemical imbalance in your body, a nutritional deficiency, irregular brainwaves, a hormone imbalance, or toxins in your body. These problems may be found through muscle testing, neurofeedback, naturopathic medicine, or visiting a hormone specialist depending on your condition. You might need to make some lifestyle changes, as well. It’s a matter of evaluating your mind and body to get an idea of the source of the problem.

Consult your doctor or another qualified health provider about any treatments you are considering.