“Managing versus Curing” Depression

You may have noticed I have named my blog “depressionmanaged” and not “eliminating depression” or “curing depression”, not even overcoming depression. In my experience depression is something we can’t just get rid of. It has taken time to build up the depression to its present state and it will take time to control or manage it so that a normal life can be pursued. I have a friend who says that she just wants to take a pill or see a doctor and then the depression will be gone, or cured. Unfortunately things don’t work that way. Yes, there is medication that helps you manage depression better – see that word “manage” is there again – but none of them claim that they “cure” depression. Also I find that having the expectation of a cure for depression is setting my goal somewhere up in the sky and making it nearly unachievable, which in turn will just dishearten me and worsen my fragile emotional state.

However, if my aim is to “manage” my depression I set myself little, achievable goals along the way. For example I try to get through one day without feeling overwhelmed by my emotions. If one day is still too difficult, well then I cut it down to one hour. When I have achieved that goal, I will set the next one. Like this I can enjoy a sense of achievement throughout the day, every day and this will brighten my mood. However, if occasionally I can’t fight off the depression monster it’s not so tragic, because there is always another opportunity tomorrow. It is a bit like giving up smoking. You take it one hour at a time. The cravings are there but if we manage to distract ourselves and occupy our mind with something more interesting then the cravings – or in our case the negative emotions – will start to fade away. The more we can overcome them the more they will fade and with time depression only periodically raises its ugly head. But this does not happen within a week, it takes time and we must allow ourselves to go through this process of personal development.


By learning to manage my depression I went from being totally consumed by depression over 90% of the time, every day of the week, to dealing with depression maybe 10-15% of the time and this only periodically. I am not cured of depression, it is still there in the background and when it makes itself felt I still have to make an effort. But I can function normally nearly 100% of the time, just sometimes it is a bit more difficult.

Fighting the dark shadow of my depression has sharpened my empathy for other people and strengthened my belief in myself and given me the courage to live in the present and not in the past or in the future. I truly believe that I am a better person because of it.

Not another blog!

It seems that everyone and his dog has a blog these days and now I too have joined the ranks of the large army of bloggers. Don’t worry I’m not going to bore you with the intricate details of my everyday life. The theme for my blog is “depression”. Now why would I pick such a depressing topic? Well firstly, I have struggled with depression for most of my life and know a thing or two about it firsthand, especially what it feels like. Secondly, I have written a book on depression and how to manage it and thirdly, there are so many things that I also wanted to include in the book but there was just not enough room. So I thought I’d cover these extra thoughts here.

Why would I write a book about depression? I’m not a mental health professional. Well basically, when I was trying to get on top of my depression, using the methods of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and under the supervision of my therapist, I tried to find some literature on the subject. What I found was a lot of really thick books with lots of complicated texts not explaining anything I could understand. When you’re depressed it is hard to set the brain in motion. You want something easy to digest, maybe even something you just need to look at and still get the message, something that entices you to turn the page and read on, is uplifting and makes you smile sometimes, but it also has to be based on scientific facts. Since there was nothing like this on the market we had to create it ourselves.

Professor Tian Oei provided the scientific facts, Marco Schmidt drew the over 200 illustrations, of which 130 ended up in the book, so that the reader has something to look at if they can’t handle the text yet. And I wrote the book in such a language that everybody can understand it, even if they are going through a depressive episode. To explain the points I’ve drawn from my own experiences of living with depression. It took us two years to bring this book to publication. It has been favourably reviewed by numerous professional organizations in Australia such as beyondblue, the Mental Health Council of Australia and the Psychologist Society, just to name a few. If you want to look at some sample pages or read the reviews go to our website listed above the picture of the book.


Now what do I want to achieve with this blog? Well, I’d like to use it to record some of the experiences I’ve made in my fight to manage depression, some of the things that have worked for me. I would also like to bring this “hidden” topic into the open. Maybe someone who is also struggling with depression can relate to some of the issues mentioned here.

I don’t know how often I will be posting. I’ll just play it by ear, if I have something to say I will say it. I hope this will be an interesting experience for all of us.