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Tag: depression

  • Is It Holiday Stress Or Symptoms Of Depression?

    Is It Holiday Stress Or Symptoms Of Depression?

    A recent Forbes article explores the differences between holiday stress, holiday blues and depression and what you can do to contend with them.

    While the December holiday season is typically a joyful time of the year, it can also be a period of considerable stress over gift-giving, travel and visitors, workloads and a host of other related issues.

    Expectations of happiness can also result in the “holiday blues” – feelings of loneliness, loss or isolation that can be exacerbated by the pace and tone of the time period – which can be compounded by the clash between a negative or sad experience, like the loss of a loved one and the pace of the holidays. In some cases, these feelings may be indicative of an actual underlying depression.

    A new essay by Forbes contributor Jeanne Croteau attempts to differentiate between holiday stress, holiday blues and genuine depression that may occur as December winds down into the new year, and what you can do to contend with them.

    As Croteau noted, it’s normal to experience some holiday stress due to the sheer amount of expectations and obligations that happen, often at the same time, during this time of year. The shorter, darker days of the winter months can also have an impact on your mood and can result in Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which can take a toll on your mood, energy and ability to sleep. Treatment options for this condition can include therapy, medication or light therapy. 

    What’s important, according to the feature, is to be aware if you are feeling depressed or alienated during the holiday season and to take action when possible. It can be easy, as Croteau noted, to wait for others around you to take notice of your feelings, but in the hectic pace of the holidays, they may miss the often subtle suggestions of depression. As a result, individuals can feel that those whom they consider loved ones don’t care, or consider them a burden.

    Reaching out to friends and family during periods of holiday depression can be crucial. Letting people know what one is experiencing can be an important first step in receiving support that can lead to more substantive assistance. Face-to-face meetings, phone calls and texts can all be lifelines that are needed in the face of oppressive sadness.

    There are also professionals who can provide greater insight or assistance to those in need. Therapists and support groups can be useful options, depending on your location and financial ability; barring those, the article cited the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (1-800-273-8255) and Crisis Text Line as viable options for immediate assistance.

    The Forbes piece concludes with a call to readers to reach out to others – friends and family or otherwise – to reaffirm commitments and care. Calling or spending time with friends and loved ones and asking – and listening – to how they’re doing can be, as Croteau stated, “the biggest gift you can give anyone during the holiday season.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Sarah Hyland Talks About Depression That Came From Chronic Illness

    Sarah Hyland Talks About Depression That Came From Chronic Illness

    The Modern Family star suffers from kidney dysplasia, and she’s been battling it alongside the depression that comes with it.

    Sarah Hyland, who plays Haley Dunphy on Modern Family, has gone through serious trials and tribulations with her health. Now she’s talking to Self about how she’s been battling the depression that can come with a chronic illness.

    Hyland suffers from kidney dysplasia, an illness she was born with. Her kidneys weren’t fully developed when she was forming in the womb. (Dysplasia causes the kidneys to develop cysts, which stops the kidneys from filtering out waste from the bloodstream.) Hyland has had to endure about 16 surgeries, including six trips to the operating room in the last 16 months, and two kidney transplants.

    Hyland got a kidney from her father, but her body rejected the organ and she had to go on dialysis, which she had to do three times a week for four hours each visit. (Hyland also got another kidney from her brother Ian.)

    Hyland has been able to fit her dialysis treatments around her Modern Family shooting schedule, and as she told Self, “That’s why I’m so independent. In some areas of my life, I literally have no choice but to be dependent. I’ve been going through this for 28 years, and I still am learning how to let go of control and how to be patient.”

    Hyland’s health problems would eventually take a toll on her mental health as well. “I was very depressed,” she explains. “When a family member gives you a second chance at life, and it fails, it almost feels like it’s your fault. It’s not. But it does. . . . For a long time, I was contemplating suicide, because I didn’t want to fail my little brother like I failed my dad.”

    Hyland felt like she was a burden to her family, “always having to be looked after, having to be cared for,” which was a distortion because her family didn’t feel that way towards her at all.

    Eventually Hyland reached out and talked about her suicidal thoughts with a close friend. “It’s not shameful,” she continues. “For anybody that wants to reach out to somebody but doesn’t really know how because they’re too proud or they think that they’ll be looked upon as weak, it’s not a shameful thing to say.”

    In addition to finding comfort with her pet dogs, who give her unconditional love, Hyland also feels, “My work is my therapy. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my work.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ellen DeGeneres Reveals Depression Struggle

    Ellen DeGeneres Reveals Depression Struggle

    The week of the release of her new Netflix stand-up special, Relatable, Ellen DeGeneres is speaking openly about her struggles with depression.

    The talk show host and comedienne told USA Today that she was depressed and felt alienated after she famously came out of the closet, and she fought back against it through “meditation and being quiet. For a long time, there was a lot of fear that (being gay) was going to influence people’s opinions about me and so I didn’t ever have the confidence I should have had. Because whenever you carry shame around, you just can’t possibly be a confident person.”

    On the Armchair Expert podcast, DeGeneres said, “Because there was so much talk about [coming out] . . . Even Elton John said, ‘Shut up already. We know you’re gay. Be funny.’ I had never met him and I thought, ‘What kind of support is that from a gay person?”

    When her show, Ellen, finally went off the air, DeGeneres spiraled deeper. “I was looked at as a failure in this business. No one would touch me. I had no agent, no possibility of a job, I had nothing.”

    DeGeneres said, “It took a while to shake off that judgment and the attacks I felt . . . I was fully honest with myself and that gave me confidence. I think that helps with depression. Depression eats away at your confidence and you get lost in that, and forget that you’re enough just as you are.”

    When she moved out to the industry town of Los Angeles, DeGeneres felt more isolated and reluctant to reach out to others for help. “If you ever have experienced depression, you isolate yourself and don’t reach out for help. You don’t say, ‘I’m hurting, I need help’ – you kind of crawl further into that dark hole, so that’s where I was for a while.”

    In addition to meditation, DeGeneres told Good Housekeeping she “started seeing a therapist and had to go on anti-depressants for the first time in my life . . . I slowly started to climb out of it. I can’t believe I came back from that point. I can’t believe where my life is now.”

    DeGeneres says her new special is called Relatable because even though she’s a celebrity, “we’re all relatable. I didn’t have money for a long, long time. I’ve been doing this (talk) show for a long time and now I do have money, but I’ve always been the same person. Just because we have different experiences, at the core we’re all the same.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Pet Ownership Alleviate Depression Symptoms?

    Can Pet Ownership Alleviate Depression Symptoms?

    A new study examined the impact of pet ownership on people with treatment-resistant depression.

    It’s no secret that animals can bring people joy, but a new study indicates that adopting a pet could prove particularly beneficial for those with severe depression. 

    The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, found that for those with severe depression that was not easily treatable, adopting a pet could help lessen symptoms. 

    Jorge Mota Pereira and Daniela Fonte, two Portuguese researchers, recruited 80 study participants who had “treatment-resistant major depressive disorder.” They encouraged each one to adopt a pet. Of the 80 participants, 33 agreed to adopt, with 20 individuals choosing a dog and seven choosing a cat.  

    According to The Independent, over the following 12 weeks, the participant’s depression symptoms were studied during checkups at four and eight weeks.  

    The results at the end of the study implied that adopting the pet had been beneficial for some. More than 33% of the group, according to the Independent, had higher scores on depression rating systems like the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale, and the scores were considered mild rather than severe.

    According to the study’s authors, one reason for this may be that the level of care a pet requires could impact depression symptoms positively. 

    “By having the responsibility of taking care of an animal, people have to get up in the morning to take care of the animal, namely pet them and feeding them,” the researchers wrote, according to Bustle. “In the specific case of dogs, the need of taking a dog for a walk, hike and run promotes the increase of physical activity and could help its owner to meet new people that also have pets, sharing experiences and improving their social skills.”

    The researchers concluded that owning a pet could be an “effective adjuvant” to more traditional depression treatments.  

    However, writer Christian Jarrett pointed out in a blog for the British Psychological Society Research Digest that the improvement in patient’s scores and symptoms could have to do with more than adopting a pet.

    “So, although pet-adopters and the controls were matched for baseline depression symptoms, there may have been other ways that they differed,” he writes. “For instance, perhaps there was something different about the personalities or social circumstances of the pet adopters that contributed to their willingness to adopt a pet and to their higher remission rates (raising the possibility that the pet adoption itself was not the main ‘active ingredient’ in their recovery).”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Amanda Bynes Talks Being Four Years Sober, Reflects On Past Drug Use

    Amanda Bynes Talks Being Four Years Sober, Reflects On Past Drug Use

    Amanda Bynes credits her parents with helping her “get back on track” after her past issues with problematic drug use.

    Amanda Bynes is moving on from her past. The actress, now 32, was a popular target of the paparazzi during her twenties, racking up DUIs and a reputation for drug abuse and bizarre behavior.

    But she’s now sober and studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles.

    In a new interview with Paper magazine, the former Nickelodeon star relives her hectic past.

    As a child, Bynes landed a place on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy show All That, alongside Kenan Thompson and Nick Cannon, and quickly became a fixture of the network. As a teenager, Bynes appeared in films like Big Fat Liar, What a Girl Wants, and She’s the Man.

    Despite her success, Bynes began having issues with her self-image. She recalled being thrown “into a funk” after seeing herself in She’s the Man. In this 2006 film, Bynes plays a teenage girl who disguises herself as her brother in order to play on the boy’s soccer team. “When the movie came out and I saw it, I went into a deep depression for 4-6 months because I didn’t like how I looked when I was a boy,” she said.

    Still, she continued to churn out hits on the big screen like Hairspray (2007) and Easy A (2010). But she couldn’t shake her self-image issues. While watching herself at a screening of Easy A, Bynes said, “I literally couldn’t stand my appearance in that movie and I didn’t like my performance. I was absolutely convinced I needed to stop acting after seeing it.”

    Bynes “never liked the taste of alcohol” and “never really liked going out that much. I [only] started going out around 25 years old,” she said.

    While she couldn’t stomach alcohol, Bynes did start using marijuana when she was 16. “Even though everyone thought I was the ‘good girl,’ I did smoke marijuana from that point on.”

    However, this progressed to molly, ecstasy and Adderall. The combination of drugs that she was abusing did not agree with her.

    Bynes announced that she was retiring from acting, and found herself out of work with not much to do. “I just had no purpose in life. I’d been working my whole life and [now] I was doing nothing. I had a lot of time on my hands and I would ‘wake and bake’ and literally be stoned all day long,” she said.

    This cycle of being “just stuck at home, getting high, watching TV and tweeting,” eventually spiraled out of control. Bynes began “hanging out with a seedier crowd and I isolated a lot… I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.”

    She explained that her bizarre behavior was truly “drug-induced, and whenever I got off of [drugs], I was always back to normal.”

    Bynes, with her past behind her, is now looking forward to earning her fashion degree and returning to acting. “I’ve been sober for almost four years now.” She credits her parents with “really helping me get back on track.”

    “Those days of experimenting [with substances] are long over. I’m not sad about it and I don’t miss it because I really feel ashamed of how those substances made me act,” she said.

    With everything she has been through, magnified by the relentless pursuit of the paparazzi, Bynes says she’s now able to live fearlessly.

    “I think that’s kind of how I go about [life] now—like, what’s there to lose? I have no fear of the future. I’ve been through the worst and came out the other end and survived it so I just feel like it’s only up from here.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Paramore's Hayley Williams Talks Mental Health, Social Media Break

    Paramore's Hayley Williams Talks Mental Health, Social Media Break

    Paramore’s Hayley Williams opened up about mental health in a candid Instagram post.

    Hayley Williams is taking a break from social media. The lead singer of Paramore announced Saturday that she will be focusing on her side project, Good Dye Young, a line of vegan and cruelty-free hair products, in lieu of posting on Instagram and Twitter.

    “Hey friends. It’s holiday season… but I’m working a lot from home,” she said in a lengthy collage-style message on Instagram. “There’s… a lot… going on. It’s exciting and it’s also a lot.”

    While she is taking “another extended break” from social media, she will be managing Good Dye Young’s social media accounts, she assured fans.

    “I am careful not to sensationalize issues around mental health as it’s such a sensitive and very layered conversation for every individual,” she continued in her Instagram post.

    Williams confessed that she “could never fully admit to nor bring myself to go get a true diagnosis for my own issues until recently.”

    “I’m working really hard on getting strong for myself. I am so grateful to people who have kept this conversation safe and sacred for me in the last couple of years.”

    With the release of the album After Laughter in the spring of 2017, after a dry spell since 2013, Williams revealed that her mental health had suffered for a while as a young artist in the public eye.

    “I don’t feel as hopeful as I did as a teenager. For the first time in my life, there wasn’t a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel. I thought, I just wish everything would stop,” she said in a Fader interview.

    But with the release of After Laughter, Williams said she’s moving on from feeling hopeless. “[After Laughter] helps me mark this time as a significant turning point in my life. I’m noticing similar movement in my friends’ lives too,” she said in Paper Magazine earlier this year. “More presence and awareness. More tenderness. I’m alive to both pain and joy now. I have my old laugh back, as my mom says… And only a couple years ago, I had hoped I’d die.”

    Williams urged fans to take mental health seriously. “It’s important to do what you can to find a solution that works for you. Be it therapy, medication, fighting the tendency to isolate and asking people you trust to keep you accountable,” she said in her recent Instagram post.

    The singer-songwriter said that she’s done feeling “okay” and ventured to want more for herself. “I know it is very popular to say ‘it’s okay to not be okay,’ but please give me the grace to admit that as I am quickly approaching 30 I am just not okay with not being okay anymore,” she said. “I am interested in living out a much more fulfilling life than just ‘okay’ could ever offer. I think that you are worth more than ‘okay’ has to offer too.”

    “Please take care of yourselves and try to believe that you are worth more than just ‘okay’ or ‘been better’ or ‘can’t complain.’ I think we are all worth experiencing joy. We are worth feeling hope.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Modest Mouse On Medical Marijuana For Mental Health

    Modest Mouse On Medical Marijuana For Mental Health

    “After taking the antidepressants, I started to realize cannabis was probably the better way to go,” Modest Mouse drummer Jeremiah Green says about his medical marijuana use.

    Some members of the band behind the album The Moon & Antarctica are turning to marijuana to help deal with anxiety.

    Jeremiah Green, the drummer of Modest Mouse, was forced to temporarily leave the band due to his depression. He’s been trying to treat it over the past few years with marijuana.

    “I went on antidepressants, and I got all manic and weird,” Green explains to High Times. “I just blew up one day. I was acting hella weird. I ended up in the hospital for six hours and realized pretty quick I didn’t want to be there.”

    Green never intended to quit the band, it just kind of happened that way, he says.

    “It basically took me a long time to call them because I was embarrassed,” Green confesses. “All of a sudden all of that happened, and within a week or so, I was off antidepressants and I figured out what the fuck had gone on. I got back to normal and was like, ‘Holy shit, I ruined my whole life basically.’ [Laughs] I sat around depressed for like a year. I didn’t do shit. Luckily, those guys were cool and got me back in the band.”

    Despite Green’s absence, the band moved forward with Benjamin Weikel in his place. With Weikel on the drummer’s stool, the band found commercial success in their 2004 album Good News for People Who Love Bad News. When Green finally did return, his bandmates weren’t sure what to expect.

    “It was a good opportunity for him to see if he wanted to be a part of the band,” said Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock.

    Things were rough with Green self-medicating with marijuana all the time.

    “When he got back, he was getting super-high all the time. He had normal-people weed-smoking abilities at that point. It was super-weird, because he’d be [drumming] super-slow or super-fast. It was never right. Then he got super-good at weed smoking, if that’s a thing—and I think it is,” Brock recalled. “Master-expert level is where he is now. He can walk on tight ropes and do trigonometry with it and shit. He’s always Jeremiah. I love the guy. Even when he was crazier than a shit-house rat, I had patience for it. His crazy was kind of interesting.”

    Nowadays, Green’s bandmates, including Brock and Tom Peloso, sometimes smoke with him. However, Green still does most of the smoking.

    “I smoke regularly,” Green said. “After taking the antidepressants, I started to realize cannabis was probably the better way to go. I’ve smoked for so long I don’t really get high anymore. I just sort of smoke on a low.”

    The band is currently on tour for their album Strangers to Ourselves.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ashley Tisdale Reveals Depression & Anxiety Struggles On New Album

    Ashley Tisdale Reveals Depression & Anxiety Struggles On New Album

    “This is the first time I’m being super vulnerable. This is me sharing my journey through anxiety and depression.”

    Ashley Tisdale, who first broke through starring in High School Musical, is now confessing her years long battle with anxiety and depression in a new album, aptly titled Symptoms.

    Tisdale told People that with Symptoms, “This is the first time I’m being super vulnerable. This is me sharing my journey through anxiety and depression. I didn’t know the anxiety symptoms I had in the past while touring. Before, I would freak out before going on stage. That was a panic attack. I had no idea what that was until I started reading about it.”

    About the lead single from the album, “Voices in My Head,” Tisdale explains, “There are so many times I’m at an event or even just a social party and I feel like I’m not good enough to be there, and I feel that a lot of us struggle with that. That negative thinking, that little voice in your head…”

    Tisdale hopes her new album will help erase the stigma around mental health issues. “The reason I wanted to do this album was because I wanted to make someone at home not feel so alone in what they go through. They could look at me and go, ‘We’re all human. We all go through things.’”

    Tisdale adds, “It’s so easy for people when someone goes, ‘Does anyone have anxiety?’ Everyone at the table will go, ‘Yeah, I do.’ If someone says, ‘Do you have depression?’ Nobody really wants to talk about it.”  

    She also told AOL, “I feel really vulnerable talking about it, and it’s weird to talk about it, but if I could make someone at home feel less alone, then I’m doing my job as an artist. I’ve gone through a journey. It’s obviously painful and hard, but it’s also the most beautiful thing.”

    When recording the album, Tisdale called the studio “my happy place,” and “my safe place” where she could be creative, and she called recording Symptoms “therapeutic. I feel like it saved me from just dwelling in what I was feeling.”

    And through the process of recording Symptoms, Tisdale learned to accept and embrace herself. “I think that when you struggle with those things, instead of being like ‘Oh I hate that stuff,’ I really accept it. I think that’s what makes you beautiful, that you’re not perfect.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could Limiting Social Media Use Improve Your Mental Health?

    Could Limiting Social Media Use Improve Your Mental Health?

    A new study examined whether excessive use of social media contributed to feelings of depression and loneliness.

    The more time you spend scrolling through social media, the more likely you could be contributing to your own feelings of depression and loneliness. 

    A new study from Penn State researchers has determined that social media use correlates with both depression and feeling lonely. 

    The study was led by Melissa Hunt of Penn State’s psychology department and involved 143 students from the university. The students were broken into two groups—one being told to limit social media use (Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat) for 10 minutes per app, the other instructed to continue using it as normal—and then monitored for three weeks. 

    Over the course of the study, students were assessed each week through testing for depression, social support and more. Their social media use was monitored through the iOS battery use screen.

    According to the study authors, levels of loneliness and depression decreased significantly over the three weeks. 

    “The limited use group showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression over three weeks compared to the control group,” authors wrote. “Both groups showed significant decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out over baseline, suggesting a benefit of increased self-monitoring. Our findings strongly suggest that limiting social media use to approximately 30 minutes per day may lead to significant improvement in well-being.”

    On the other hand, areas such as self-esteem and social support did not increase over the three weeks. Following up with the students was difficult, so authors were unable to fully determine if prior feelings returned or habit changes were implemented. 

    According to TechCrunch, Hunt states that by taking time away from social media, people are likely to instead focus on more fulfilling things in their lives. 

    “Some of the existing literature on social media suggests there’s an enormous amount of social comparison that happens,” she said. “When you look at other people’s lives, particularly on Instagram, it’s easy to conclude that everyone else’s life is cooler or better than yours. When you’re not busy getting sucked into clickbait social media, you’re actually spending more time on things that are more likely to make you feel better about your life.”

    The researchers did point out that their study was limiting. In future studies, they state, it could help to have a more diverse group of participants, include more social media outlets, extend the timeframe of the experiment and allow for more comprehensive follow-up with participants. Researchers also state that the set time for social media use could sway results.  

    Whatever the case, Hunt says, it’s important to take time away from technology to connect with others in your life. 

    “In general, I would say, put your phone down and be with the people in your life,” she stated. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Michelle Williams Talks Depression, Getting Treatment In New Interview

    Michelle Williams Talks Depression, Getting Treatment In New Interview

    “For months, I was slipping and slipping and slipping [and] before you knew it I was at the bottom of the pit looking up.”

    This past spring, Michelle Williams reunited with Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland for a Destiny’s Child reunion at Coachella. Not long after, Williams checked into the hospital to deal with her depression.

    Williams sat down with Good Morning America to give the world an update on her mental health.

    Williams appeared on the show with her fiancé, Chad Johnson. She told Robin Roberts, “I am just sitting here and fighting back tears. I’m just thankful to be here to tell this story.”

    Williams fought her depression as hard as she could, but she eventually realized she couldn’t do it without help.

    “I was like, ‘Just fight it, you’ve been here before. I’m identifying it… I just didn’t do enough,” she said. “So for months, I was slipping and slipping and slipping [and] before you knew it I was at the bottom of the pit looking up like, ‘Am I really here again?’ And I suffered by myself. I didn’t want to tell anybody.”

    Williams had struggled with depression since she was 13. “I didn’t want anyone to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, here we go again. I thought you were over it.’”

    Johnson knew something was wrong, but he confessed that he didn’t understand what was going on with Williams at first. “The relationship just seemed to be slipping out of my hands. I could see [her] spiraling, but I had no idea that it was depression.”

    Once Williams decided to get help, she announced on Instagram, “I recently listened to the same advice I have given to thousands around the world and sought help from a great team of healthcare professionals.” She also vowed to “always lead by example as I tirelessly advocate for the betterment of those in need.”

    As a celebrity in the public eye, Williams also wants to help reduce the stigma many have with mental health that often prevents them from getting treatment.

    “When I was in the mental health facility, I didn’t see anybody that looked crazy,” she says. “I didn’t see anybody strapped up, I didn’t see anybody doing crazy behavior. And literally since then, I watch my mouth. I don’t call people crazy anymore. Some people… they just need help.”

    View the original article at thefix.com