Plan for mood symptoms
It’s hard to build up the motivation and courage to keep trying when tension, stomach aches, lethargy, and panicky sensations get in the way of living how you want to be living.
The symptoms of your emotional disorder may challenge your courage.
Your anxiety disorder itself tells you that it’s better to avoid. It says that the event isn’t worth the stress or it’s better to reassure the anxiety away than to risk it interrupting your life. The voice of depression might badger you with doubts about your own worthiness and whether it is worth it to keep trying. Anxiety and depression are exhausting to cope with and exhausting to overcome.
Viktor Frankl, the esteemed psychiatrist who survived a concentration camp during the Holocaust, believed that one who has a ‘why’ to live can endure almost any ‘how.’ Anxiety and mood disorders often result in people questioning, why did this happen to me? Another reaction to an anxiety or mood disorder can be, why will I survive and thrive with this?
To survive and thrive, you need a plan your symptoms and their triggers.
Anhedonia Anhedonia is the word for loss of interest in activities you usually find pleasurable and it is a prominent symptom of depression. It is not your fault. It isn’t a problem with your work or your loved ones. It isn’t your character and it won’t last forever. Anhedonia is the consequence of a chemical change in your brain. Your brain chemistry changes after prolonged strong, painful feelings plus secondary interpretations that you are helpless, hopeless and worthless because of them.
Understand and plan for the direction of your mood disorder. In some instances, biological factors change your mood first. Whether its sleep deprivation, hormonal factors, dietary factors, seasonal factors, or factors we don’t quite understand, biological mood symptoms can start to change your perception such that psychological, behavioral, and social factors also change. In other instances, psychological, behavioral, and social factors change first and the biological mood symptoms follow. Biological symptoms include bodily tension, headaches, stomach aches, vague pain, lethargy, and fatigue. Psychological factors include changes in focus, concentration, and motivation and painful feelings, such as guilt, despair, helplessness, irritability, anger, shame, and worthlessness. Behavioral factors include withdrawal and isolation, anger outbursts, and distraction from your internal experience. Social factors include trauma or catastrophe, discrimination, interpersonal issues, or chronic stress.
Act efficaciously. Your biological symptoms of tension, headaches, stomach aches, pain, and lethargy will make it hard to do anything. Days that you feel depressed don’t need to be your best days. Just do anything that challenges your depression. Most people naturally slow down when they are physically sick and don’t feel shame about it. Your symptoms of depression are real and you don’t deserve to feel shame about them. With your behavior, you have to do enough to show your body that what its feeling isn’t true and you have to give yourself credit for whatever you do.
Try making plans like:
No matter how I feel, I get up in the morning when my alarm goes off and I make my bed.
Whenever I feel worthless, I go for a walk.
When I feel hopeless, I cook this specific nutritious meal that I enjoy.
Depression is an illness. It’s the combination of biological sensitivities plus psychological and social factors that reinforce those sensitivities. It is treatable and you can recover. Identify the symptoms of your depression, plan for it, and act efficaciously despite how you feel. I hope your process shows you strength that you didn’t know you have.