Previously published in Examiner
If you are a Montrealer who is trying to recover from depression, you know all too well how hard it can be. Depression is not something that can just be willed away. Staying alone and isolating yourself only makes the depression worse. Reaching out for support is important, whether it be to family or friends; or if you have severe depression, you must seek therapy to help you through these trying times.
Here are some centers in Montreal for the treatment of depression
The Montreal Center for Anxiety and Depression
Montreal Clinic for Therapy Services
Interested individuals can seek hospital services and outpatient clinics around the city
Tips to help you through your depression and onto a better life.
Get involved
Everyone one needs a goal or purpose in life. The psychologist Victor Frankl, lived through the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. He saw more slaughter and human suffering than most people will ever see. Through it all he noticed that his people clung to life and keep their spirits up rather than die in defeat. He rationalized that the reason for that was that they had a meaning in life, and a purpose for living which was the survival of the Jewish race. They refused to think about genocide. Their people would survive.
You don’t have to be a Victor Frankl, survive the holocaust and go on to be a famous psychiatrist. However, you can get involved with your community.
Another famous psychiatrist, Milton Erickson had a severely depressed client who lost touch with the world around her. She isolated herself and brooded in her home alone. He got her involved by growing African violets and offering them to community for their weddings, birthdays, graduations and other special occasions. This gave the African Violet lady a purpose in life.
You can do something too that would give you purpose and meaning in your life again. Find something that really appeals to you, care for the sick and elderly, read to children in your local library, teach a young people at the local community center a skill that you have such as playing the piano and so on. You too can find joy, purpose and meaning in your life once again.
to be continued
Sources
WEBMD