Overcoming Depression and Finding Happiness - Finding Happiness

Written by Chuck T. Falcon, Counseling Psychologist

Research shows depressed people are more likely than other people to interact with their spouses and children in hostile or angry ways. Do you yell, sulk, bring up old resentments from the past, nag, insult or use negative labels, make demands or ultimatums, or criticize with overgeneralizations? Do you alienate other people with communication problems such as avoiding important issues, blaming, or assuming you know what another person thinks? Another communication problem is bringing up too many problem issues without focusing on solutions, one at a time. Of course, everyone does these things at times, but bad habits in these areas increase stress and can destroy intimacy with your loved ones. Learn about and practice good communications skills.

Some depressed people long for friendship and love but alienate other people with negativity or with clinging neediness because of lack of enough socializing or interests and activities. Many depressed people make the mistake of hunting for romance to satisfy their unhappiness, poor self-esteem, or other problems. A preoccupation with finding romance is generally frustrating and disappointing. Yearning for a romance to make you happy is looking in the wrong place for happiness. Although finding a mate can help make you happy, your best chance of finding a mate depends on developing a different set of priorities.

Looking for a romance to save you from your loneliness and unhappiness is a rather desperate, needy search that alienates other people. Your personality cannot sparkle with this kind of focus in your life. Instead, focus on enjoying the single life, meeting people, and making friends. Accept you may be single for a long time and get on with your life. You need a wide variety of interests and activities, and you need to enjoy and value your friendships. Having these priorities will make you more pleasant, give you practice in socializing, and increase your chances of finding romance. With interests and activities and a good network of friends and acquaintances, your painful longing will cease.

A common, very painful mistake in dating is to become completely engrossed in a person who shows little true concern for your needs and feelings. Perhaps your partner only wants to see you occasionally or when other relationships end. Perhaps your partner is selfish and repeatedly inconsiderate of your feelings or needs. Staying in any unfulfilling relationship ties up much of your time and deepest emotions. The danger in staying in an unfulfilling relationship is you become accustomed to unhappy situations, making you an easy target for people who will use you. Unfortunately, plenty of people will use you if you let them. Your time and emotional energy are better spent developing interests, activities, ways of meeting people, and a more suitable love relationship. Never settle for less in a relationship-hold out for what you really want.

If, despite an unfulfilling relationship, you sometimes resort to sexual activity to relieve negative emotions such as loneliness, boredom, depression, or anxiety, plan more constructive ways of dealing with these emotions. Keep busy, avoid the problem person, make new friends, find better ways to have fun and to relax, and practice rejecting the person's advances in behavioral roleplays. If lowered inhibitions due to drinking alcohol or using other drugs play a role in your continuing an unfulfilling relationship, plan ways to avoid this problem or work on your addiction.

Figure Out Why You're Depressed

If you don't know why you feel depressed, look for clues by comparing and contrasting your life now with a happier time in your life. The best way to understand your depression is to study it carefully. Use the scale of zero to 100 to rate your depression many times throughout the day, and observe and record all the thoughts, circumstances, and events associated with it. Ideally, you should make your observations and rate your depression hourly. If you think over your day and rate your depression at the end of it, you will tend to rate your moods more negatively because of your negative thought habits. Even if you feel you know your stresses and problems, you can learn from studying your depression in these ways. By frequently rating depression, people generally discover their moods are not always low. Depressed people usually feel better when they keep busy (at work, cooking, visiting, etc.) and worse when idle (weekends, evenings, etc.).

The fastest way to change an emotion is often simply to act the way you want to feel. Act happy, smile regularly, act friendly toward other people, and participate in plenty of interests and activities, including fun things such as dancing. Don't wait to be in the mood to do these things-you may never feel like it. Depressed people who keep practicing these behaviors find themselves feeling more cheerful. With practice, these behaviors gradually become more comfortable and natural. Other people generally respond in positive ways to these changes, so you receive more pleasure and satisfaction in your life from them. Work on improving nonverbal behaviors that convey depression. Don't use a slow, quiet, bored, monotonous tone of voice. Show some pitch variation and enthusiasm in it. Use erect posture rather than drooping posture with downcast head and eyes. Use good rates of eye contact with other people and don't frown.