The Real Reason Behind Depression

Posted on September 17, 2018 by Tamar Salas, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Dear friend,

Thank you for arriving at this article xx

I don’t have to write a whole big thesis to share with you that a heart-break, financial loss, loss of a loved one and unresolved childhood traumas are real matters of life, these matters are indeed challenging experiences in life and can potentially have a huge impact on our psyche if not approached from the right mindset.

Beyond our mindset though, before we even take this blog to understanding how to shift our mindset to better understand how to deal with our difficult situations, I thought I’d start by sharing with with you one instance; one late balmy summer afternoon where I was having a conversation and a cup of tea with my mother, she is a highly scientific woman who has for her entire life held a high regard to western medicine and psychiatry, our discussion tapped into the subject of psychotropics or anti depressants and their dangerous withdrawal symptoms to patients, in this conversation the patient being herself in this instance undergoing heavy medication withdrawals and suffering from lightning flashes episodes, severe headaches, extreme tiredness, extreme sweats, physical aches, pain and discomfort, causing her much physical and mental stress.

When she was describing to me how she was feeling after deciding to stop the medication, with great empathy I said to her ‘Mum both you and I know that things that happen in life at one time or another are matters of the heart, life happens to us but life can also happen for us.

We both know that while psychiatry looks at one way of solving the normal human problems that we all go through with drugs, electroshock therapy and so on, we know that the the brain inside the body is not a brain alone, the human body comprises of 3 main elements, a mind, a body and a soul, and for matters of the mind and soul unfortunately drugs whether legal or illegal cannot solve the problem that an individual suffers when he or she experiences a heart brake, a childhood trauma, or is experiencing loss, or is experiencing a drastic shift in their journey through life, these matters concerning the self are all inclusive.’

Mum took a deep comforting sigh as she sipped her cup of tea and agreed with me with a deep sense of empathy and mindful compassion for her situation.

What we go through in life as individuals, all the misunderstood emotional pain when if in turn is not spoken about and dealt with in a manner that solves the individual’s spiritual concerns as well as their physical concerns can transform into what psychiatrists categorize as a mental disorder.

Most of the world’s population by now is aware of the numerous categories of behavioural misconducts according to the DSM or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the manual refers to most of the human states of being referred to as disorders, for example; if you lose your partner and feel down, or you’ve lost your job or purpose in your life one can suddenly by going to the doctor be labelled depressed, or if you lose a dear loved one God forbid and take a deep dive into mourning beyond weeks and feel at a loss soon depleted of energy and lacking purpose or even when we lose our business diving deep into debt losing a grip on reality or responsibility eventually falling into not wanting to live anymore suddenly also we get labelled clinically depressed and suicidal or if we are too energetic one is labelled anxious or manic or if we experience high and lows all in one day one is labelled bi-polar, all well and truly called mental disorders that can be chemically ‘treated’ with no cure.

What should be alarming to us is that since the birth of psychiatry, now in 2018 we scientifically know more about the workings of the brain than ever before and so out dated system analysis of human behaviour such as psychiatry will soon be obsolete.

Today and each day as it comes we expand our discoveries more and more into the area of neuro plasticity or the brain’s ability to adapt to change, neurological research into the workings of the brain in the last 10 years have been extremely remarkable, so why are we still calling depression, anxiety and mood swings mental disorders?

15 years ago, after going through an intense childhood and adolescence I woke up one day, not wanting to get out of bed.

I’d get up and start doing things and suddenly stop, sit and feel down, lost and energetically depleted.

Time went on and these symptoms kept happening, I’d be trying to get on with my day and at times I’d feel at complete loss.

I began to see images in my mind of me no longer being in this world, these images kept appearing more and more frequently, to a point where I began questioning the real reason why they were there.

I ended up at the doctors one day and told him how I felt, he sat with me for an hour and in that hour he told me all about depression and what was the suggested way to manage it.

I listened, I went home that day diagnosed with clinical depression and a packet of Prozac with a referral to see a psychiatrist.

A few months went on and a few different tablets and several different doses and several visits to the psychiatrist and nothing seemed to change.

I knew I wanted more, I wanted to live my life normally, and something said to me that this way of living my life was not it.

Experiencing life inside the scope of psychiatric treatment I felt like I was inside a mary-go round of doctors and new pills and new doses and nothing improved, I felt like I depended on others, doctors, tablets and I felt like I was inside a glass room where I was under the constant observation of everyone, where people talked and conversed about this ‘illness’ called depression and bi-polar.

During the time of my treatment what was irking me the most in the back of my mind was the notion that I was told from day one that there was no real cure for depression from a medical perspective.

During one of my visits to the doctor he asked me how I was feeling and if the thoughts of suicide had eventually lessened.

I told him the truth and said no, the very clear images of me not being alive were still there.

I did always question these images, and always thought for some reason that they were not real but looked indeed very real inside my mind, I never intentionally thought of them, these images happened inside my mind pretty much in the same way as someone would turn on a TV and switch to a random channel and there is horror movie playing. This questionable involuntary switch of thought images is the very reason why I knew they weren’t my thoughts and I never acted upon them, they were automatically happening and I just so happened to be sensible enough at the time to question them and not act upon them.

That day though after telling the doctor my thoughts I went home with a prescription of anti-psychotic drugs.

The doctor felt that just in case I ever felt like acting upon the images inside my mind and attempted suicide that these new drugs would prevent such scenario from happening.

I began this new treatment, took the pills and once they began to work they were absolutely awful, I couldn’t use my hands for anything, they were numb and any walking that I did was in slow motion, eating an enjoying my food was out of the question and showering was a day’s work.

The objective of an anti-psychotic drug is to prevent brain motor signals from working, so the messages from the brain to the limbs is slowed down and numbed by about 90% this is meant to prevent someone from harming themselves, from picking up any objects and causing personal harm.

I never in my life thought to cause harm to my self, I had an awareness to the images in my mind, they felt separately activated from my normally initiated thought process so I could indeed observe them and question them rather than act on them as they appeared.

After being on these tablets and experiencing life from the lens of a heavily brain numbed patient I had enough, I asked my self if this is how I wanted to live my life? from the point of the doctors the was no cure for this ‘Illness’ so whatever I tried to do was going to end up being either more medications, more experiments, more clinics and who knows what else or where I would’ve ended up, the psychiatric sentence was a life sentence so I had to come to terms with either living in a ‘manageable state of being’ or reach inside my full potential.

I changed my life from that day on 360 degrees without medication and with no doctors, I went cold turkey from anti-psychotics with a hunger for healing and a hunger for spiritual and personal success.

The one thing I knew was that I had to change everything and once I put a clear picture in my mind of I needed to change everything began to shift. I came to understand that the real reason behind depression was that I hadn’t ever come to terms with my definition of purpose. So….

I made a decision.

I made probably one of the biggest decisions in my life and that was to begin taking care of me, to start really paying attention to my life.

I made a tonne of lists with clear definitive purpose of what I wanted and what I didn’t want, who I wanted to be with and who I didn’t want to be around and I made no excuses, after that day I did exactly what I set my self out to become with no pills and no doctors and no settling for less than my full potential.

All the days and nights I spent feeling lost, depleted and with tremendous lack of energy I realized were because I was at a stage in my life where I hadn’t defined my reason for being in the world and something was missing, my own desire, a connection to contribute to the world beyond me.

If there’s one important thing I can share with you here that will help you redefine for yourself what your purpose is, is this: Ask yourself are you giving your all to you, to developing your self at levels beyond what you already know? If not and you’re finding your self depleted, flat, lacking of energy and perhaps even confused, I reiterate you’re not ill and you do not suffer from a mental illness, you are going through a shift in your life that needs your attention, love and compassion.

The same goes for if you’re indeed going for all you desire and yet you still find confusion in your day to day, you’re not suffering from a mental illness rather a dis-alignment from your truth.

Feel free to reach out to me at any time to discuss your potential avenues in your journey away from medication.

Today in 2018, 15 years into my career, I’m am grateful for this experience I lived to be able to see the world from two different spectrum’s, I’ve immersed my self into the teachings of neuro linguistic programming becoming a master practitioner, holding also specialization in wing chun kung fu instruction, I have written 3 e-books and I’m also the founder of my own holistic coaching system helping people better understand their mission in life free from fear, depression, anxiety, addiction and overwhelm being the first person in the country to offer a complete life transformation in just 4 weeks with lives being changed every week of the year.

Depression,
The feeling of being de-pressed,
without energy, a feeling of loss of a natural pump,
is a matter of the mind, the heart and the spirit all combined
that must be attended to with an open heart and an honest truth
to help reveal one’s purpose in life for our purpose in this world
is not merely to be numbed of emotion but to
unravel the confusion of someone’s shifting stages in life.

In my philosophy we are both flesh and bone and very importantly we are also spirit with a transcendent journey where laboratory chemicals alone cannot balance matters of the heart, these are soul matters and soul matters are discussed, are taken care of in a humane, soulful way where by the affected person feels in control, feels safe, and importantly they feel in charge of their lives with a solid strategy, a plan of inspired action to reach their full potential, to shine and not shy away not ever understanding the inner workings of their soul.

This is what matters to me the most; to live in a world where each person is validated as a spiritual being with a unique process to discover in their journey through life and to freely explore himself or herself outside of labels and categories. To live in a world where a human being is not stamped with a label and scrutinized but helped to unwind from personal trauma, helped to release, clear and deconstruct behavioural patterns that prevent them from reaching their potential. It matters to me to live in a world where human beings can live free from fear of the unknown, where every person can live their lives having the tools to live in the experience of abundant new founded joy.

My vision for a new world is where every human being is awakened from suppression and lives beyond their human potential to do great in our world for generations to come.

This quest starts with all of us as a conscious awakening to better human kind.

Suppression (Noun)
Definition: the action of suppressing something such as an activity or publication.the conscious inhibition of unacceptable memories, impulses, or desires.