Emotion

Emotion

When I do my talks I talk about emotion I talk about the good the bad and the downright ugly emotions we all have. How they can guide us and how they can destroy us.. They make us say things we don’t mean to say when times are tough and stress full. They can motivate change in good ways but they can keep us trapped and unable to move forward in life. Learning to deal with emotion is one of the hardest things I had to learn do and I still struggle to this very day.

One thing that I noticed the most about myself and emotion was the way I dealt with it when I was depressed. I would pull back and act as if everything was okay even when it was not. In doing so I thought that I was dealing with it in a good way because it was the only way I knew how to deal with it at all. But over time pulling back became such a natural thing and sooner or later because of the way I dealt with it I no longer felt anything at all. It became a way of protecting myself from the negative emotions in life but at the same it cut me off from the positive emotions because of the negative thinking that grew from withdrawing into myself.

A Part of depression that a lot of people don’t get and don’t understand is that when you train yourself over time to not deal with emotion in a positive way you just don’t feel emotion at all over time. You cut yourself off and it leaves you with an empty feeling , a feeling of urgency, a feeling of true loneliness. Feelings that if you are not in control of everything around you that bad things are going to happen and the only way to control that is to not feel at all. When friends and family members try to help they say things like snap out of it or suck it up and get over it. They mean well, but the truth is they don’t understand what depression really is. They want you to get better because they love you but they don’t know how to help.

Today is family day and I know that it is a little late in the day but the day is not over yet!! So if you know someone in your family or even one of your friends who suffers from depression reach out and give them a call talk with them and listen and learn because just being there for them is learning what depression is all about. Let them know that they are not alone and help is always just a call away! Remember only with open conversation can we kill the stigma behind depression, Let’s all start talking and kill it together! Happy family day!!