Addressing mental health challenges often requires recognizing that “reality” is actually subjective. That the way we see the world and what’s going on in it – indeed, our very thoughts – are affected by our brain, and so if something were to affect how our brain functions, then the world can appear different than it would normally or to others.
This is especially an issue with depression.
Depression changes how our brain processes information. It disrupts the normal flow of information and alters the way that we process it to be more negative and hopeless. It reduces and can even eliminate feelings of joy or pleasure, so that a person’s experience with various activities no longer feels positive or enjoyable.
An extreme – yet common – example of this is with taste. Depression can affect what food tastes like in our mouths. It can dull positive flavor and reduce positive feelings from taste while enhancing negative tastes like bitterness. That means that the food we eat – food that we would normally like – becomes significantly less tasty. The food has not changed, but we can no longer taste its full flavor.
Depression Causing Hopelessness
An issue that affects many people with depression is that depression itself creates hopelessness. One of the issues that depression causes in the brain is a feeling as though nothing can change or will change.
Depression is very treatable. It responds well to psychological intervention. Yet these can take some time, and during that time, depression may lead to someone having thoughts like “this isn’t going to work” and “how I feel is normal, and won’t change.” This type of thinking can cause people to give up on treatment too early, or even talk themselves out of feeling better.
What This Means for Psychological Treatment
Part of treating depression is recognizing that the way we feel can be misleading. We have to see and acknowledge that what we are experiencing may not be what is really happening. We’re taught at a young age to trust how we see and feel, but when we have depression – and other mental health challenges – we have to reframe this thinking.
While it’s fair to validate emotions and feelings, we also have to understand that the emotions and feelings that we experience may not be “real” in the sense that they may be the result of depression altering our thoughts. We have to recognize that the way that we see and process the world may not be accurate, and that our thoughts may be altered by the way our mind is functioning.
It’s a challenging task, but it’s one that may be especially important for those that are looking to address depression and manage it in the future. Depression is an example of an issue where we cannot necessarily trust our thoughts, and so if our goal is to get rid of depression, we have to make sure that we’re recognizing the way it affects us.
