WITHDRAWALS SYMPTOMS: DEPRESSION
You may feel delighted that you have managed to cut down or stop taking your pills, but be puzzled by how down you feel. This is another temporary state to endure. It will improve or disappear altogether when you are through withdrawal. Many people who have loving families and no financial worries, or stress of any kind, feel guilty about being so down.
Withdrawal blues do not single out people with life problems, many people have a temporary ‘down’. Sometimes the depressive symptoms are delayed and appear when the sufferers feel they are coping well. Try not to get discouraged if this happens—it will pass. If it gets too much for you to cope with, your doctor may want to give you an anti-depressant for a short time. Many find this a help, but realize it is a temporary measure. Gradual reduction from these drugs is advisable.
Depression may manifest itself in ways other than extreme sadness. Here are some of them: sighing; sluggishness; headaches; nausea; constipation; heavy limbs; feeling bloated; needing more sleep; time passing slowly; losing interest in people; feeling that people do not want to see you; isolating yourself; losing interest in appearance; loss of appetite; compulsive eating (particularly sweet foods); being annoyed out of proportion to the situation; feeling a black cloud or shape over your head or on your shoulders; finding mornings are worse and having to force yourself from the oblivion of sleep; people you love seeming far away—you know you love them but cannot feel it—you feel guilty and worry about this; the smallest task seems beyond you; you feel worthless—how could anyone love you; you feel a burden.
Many people are slow to accept the physical symptoms they have as depressive symptoms. That is not to say that it is ‘all in the mind’—far from it. It usually starts in the mind and then affects the body.
Suppressed emotions such as fear, anger, hurt and jealousy, actually cause chemical changes to take place. It is the altered body chemistry that is responsible for the physical changes. It can happen the other way too. A physical change can cause depression. Influenza, anaemia, bad nutrition, food allergies, certain glandular disorders, and hormonal changes such as at puberty, the menopause, and after childbirth, are all common causes of altered emotional states.
So often the sufferer will say ‘If I did not feel exhausted, sick, heavy-limbed, etc. I would not be depressed.’ In fact, it is often the other way around. If they were not depressed, they would not have the physical symptoms. So until you recognize that you are depressed, you cannot do anything about it.
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