Link – Why Self-Care is Hard for Depressed Individuals
Anyone who has dealt with major depression has dealt with this at some point:
“In short, self-care is care provided for you, by you.
But when you live with depression, self-care can sometimes feel unattainable. You’re tired, listless, with feelings of despair and corrosive thoughts that push and shove in an endless tug-of-war within you. Often, depression leaves you feeling like your physical and emotional reactivity has been siphoned off, draining you of the ability to look after yourself.
Research says there’s a neurobiological reason for this—and it has to do with the brain structure known as the frontal lobes. This area is responsible for executive functioning—a set of skills that involves problem solving, judgment and reasoning, just to name a few. Depression has long been associated with dysfunction of the frontal lobes, so it’s not a surprise that people with depression find it hard to self-care.”
The interesting thing to me about this though, is that not all hope is lost. Once we understand what is going on in our brains a little, we can also start to understand why the first step to overcoming this is to start small. It’s almost like exercising those frontal lobes when you can set a goal and meet it. Then on to the next one, and so on.
