Complete the Relief from Depression online course

I would have wanted more individualized attention if I’d paid for it, but it was useful as an introduction to Cognitive Behavior Theory. And to start catching myself having unhelpful and untrue thoughts (“I’m starving.”—> “Well, no, I’m not starving, just a bit hungry and I can take care of that.”).

Still need to do my pleasurable activity for the week.

It’s been very useful – and it is refreshing to focus on how to
manage depression, instead of endlessly seeking its origins. I am going to keep going with the Thought Records – I’d like to try to go try the whole thing once a month (perhaps if I tried to do it on the 1st of each month?).

Anyway, I am pleased that I did it because I normally bomb out of courses and don’t see them through to completion. I already have another online course to replace it with (this one: http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/index.htm – there is a free course that they email to you, I can’t find the link right now, but I have received the first 3 emails).

Well, I’ve gone through it all – from beginning to end – and made a copy on MSWord. I’ll do it once more tomorrow then tick it off as complete. It was a very useful exercise, and I feel a lot better about things now that I have learnt these useful tools.

Today, after doing Part Three, I started right at the beginning again. I didn’t quite finish the whole thing – as it is late and I am tired. I am copying everything into MSWord, so that I have a copy of the course (in case I want to do it again, after I finish it).

But not really. The challenge is to consistently perform the exercises! It’s frightening how precisely I could identify with the examples they used. The damaging types of thinking? Yeah. I do that. Regularly. I’m a bit astonished to discover that this isn’t normal. I can’t remember a time in my life when I’ve not routinely thought in similar patterns and fashions.

I also realized, while listening to the program, why antidepressants are both helpful and harmful. When you’re in a crisis state, the meds can do a lot to help you through it. Whatever the mechanism, it does make you hurt less, and sort of clears your head of the fog of sadness, so that you can stop yourself before you’ve done something bad. But the meds don’t change the mode of thinking. And that’s why I’ve been cycling. I feel better, then eventually I go off the meds, and in time I find myself crucified by my own thoughts again, which means more meds. This time I’m going to try to do it differently. I’m not going to go off meds until I’m able to control and direct my thoughts sucessfully, and not before I have my system in place for engaging in positive, pleasurable, activities regularly. It doesn’t take much, I’m finding. I finished a dishcloth I’d been knitting and laughed at my cat, and spoke with some friends. That wasn’t a bad day. And I had cake. And cake is happy, isn’t it? The day had serious potential to be horrible, and it wasn’t. I’d expected it to be harder than it was, honestly. I had trouble sleeping the night before because I was worried over it. That’s the sort of thing I have to stop doing. Overgeneralising and magnifying. My reasons weren’t unreasonable. The situation truly did call for some sadness, but you can be sad and move on still. It wasn’t crushing. And now the day is past, and I don’t have to fret for those exact reasons anymore, until perhaps, next year.

Today I timed how long it takes: 30 minutes. Now that my main goal is to get 8 hours sleep I need to be sure that doing this goal doesn’t affect that! Whilst I am getting better at identifying my Negative Thinking, the exercise is becoming a worn record because the same Negative Thought comes up every day. And it’s not stopping me doing it! But they do tell us that you can change the way you think, and therefore the way you feel – and it does get easier with practice!. Super!

I’ve not been keeping the Thought Records, even though I know that they are very valuable.

I’ve just listened to the programme again, and have written a Thought Record. I am going to listen to it every day until the programme ends in 5 days’ time. I want to make sure that I take away as much from it as I can.

I really think that this can help me stabilise my moods.

The point is to do the exercises. I’m not doing them though, so listening to it is bringing it to the front of my mind. I might listen to it yet again, tonight. I need to actually do the exercises. However it is getting through. Today when I was feeling crap I fleetingly noted that I was having a Thinking Error (black and white thinking).

..it’s taken me 24 hours to actually finish the first section. It seems kind of cool, and it’s made me understand why my last attempt at therapy, many years ago, was doomed to fail. (Psychoanalytic therapy is not all that suitable for depression, who knew?) I hope to get my feet underneath me again, then maybe I can find a therapist on a sliding-scale to work with.