Link – Dealing with Depression: Why ‘Get Over It’ Doesn’t Work

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

“So what happens when we say “get over it” to someone with depression that is driven by unconscious repression? Here, the “get over it” confronts the depressed mind with an impossible task: (1) gain conscious control of an unconscious process that is currently operating out of your awareness, or (2) do a thing you simply can’t do (yet).

When people, especially people we love, challenge us to do something that is impossible, it triggers anger, and in the depressed mind where instant repression is still active, that anger will deflect right back onto the self. Instead of lovingly reducing the person’s symptom burden, then, the “get over it” would actually make symptoms worse by activating anger that will be sucked back in via repression.”

So, you’re not helping someone when you tell them to “get over” being depressed. That helps when someone is simply making a poor choice, but when they are dealing with a mental health concern, you are simply making it worse when you tell them to “get over” something they have no control over.

Don’t you think if every depressed person could simply choose to not be depressed the statistics on mental health would look a lot different? Yet they are what they are, for a reason.

Dealing with Depression: Why ‘Get Over It’ Doesn’t Work

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