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Hope and Healing for Anxiety and Depression

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The Natural Way to Heal Anxiety and Depression

When I first wrote “Change your Life! Hope and Healing for Anxiety and Depression” and before I published my article about my story and my struggles with anti-depressant medications, I knew very little about some of the more natural ways of improving mental well-being. What I am referring to is not the natural tools of counselling, exercise, meditation and getting good sleep at night. I am referring to a whole world of possibilities that have opened up to me through suggestions from readers or my own ceaseless research and experimentation since that article went online in October 2013. As of this writing, that article has now had over 100K views (although after a refresh of the Mad in America site it shows only those views since 2016) and due to this and providing my contact details to readers, I have received hundreds of emails from people from all over the world for the past four years asking for guidance for either themselves or for a loved one whether it is a parent, child, sibling or friend. These people are often at a loss, confused, afraid and wondering where to turn for help. A consistent theme that comes up is their frustration with the medical professional who is either treating them or their loved one as when the issue of the drug being the problem or a tapering off is suggested, these medical professionals respond with anything from indifference to outright hostility towards their patients or suggest that they need to try another medication or take an additional one to stop the side effects of the first one! This is not a couple of people folks, this is a percentage of the world’s population who are being put onto anti-depressant medications for very different reasons without any thought as to whether medications are the right path to take or what the potential impact could be if the patient did have to take them. The World Health Organisation predicts that by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability throughout the world, and its researchers estimate that

178 million people were suffering from depression in 2011. [1]

It is disturbing to note that in his book “Your Drug May be your Problem”, Dr Peter Breggin mentions that it was way back in March of 2004 that the FDA finally decided to acknowledge after years and years of professionals such as himself, Dr. David Healy, Dr. Joseph Glenmullen had been warning about the dangers of the SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) that anti-depressants have some major concerning side effects. They finally had to agree that anti-depressants were now “known” to not only cause agitation, anger and suicidality in teenagers but that in adult populations they were also now linked to: “anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia (my words: a big one I see with my clients and have experienced myself with SNRI’s when once being mistakenly placed onto a tricyclic anti-depressant by a senior chief psychiatrist who swore that he would give this to his own brother based on his 20 minute discussion with me), irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathasia (severe restlessness), hypomania and mania”[2]. Stunningly, the very things that the anti-depressants are often prescribed to help with!

I am certainly not saying that what I will discuss here is definitive in any way. Healing comes in many forms and there are a whole raft of healing methodologies that I am aware of but have not tried or researched in any detail including naturopathy, reiki, sound healing, Chinese medicine etc. What I am primarily focusing on here is what is believed to be the key issue when it comes to anxiety and depression and that is lowered levels of serotonin and the brain and body’s ability to communicate effectively using the neurotransmitters we need to help us cope and feel good in life. These lowered levels may come about for a variety of reasons as will be discussed and what I propose is a dietary approach and vitamin and supplement approach that is targeted at both increasing the actual levels of serotonin in the body and brain as well as increasing and facilitating the brains capacity to communicate effectively within itself.

Part of the reason that I have kept researching and learning more and more about psychiatry, anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications is my strong desire to get off anti-depressants completely but really a much larger reason is my drive to raise awareness not only within the general public but within our government health agencies and within the medical professions themselves – especially doctors and psychiatrists.

The natural health professions already know a lot (but certainly not all) of what I now know but I am consistently and very alarmingly shown how very little the medical profession really knows about the balance of pros versus cons of taking anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications. In addition, they know little or nothing about some of the things I am going to talk about in this chapter with regards to exactly what produces serotonin and dopamine in our bodies and brains, how our bodies convert certain foods and amino acids into other forms which then become our happy and joyful neurotransmitters – dopamine, serotonin and noradrenalin (noradrenalin has more of an energising/activating effect on us and is supposed to help remove the lethargy that comes with deep depression).

There are always consequences when it comes to taking psychiatric medications and I am referring to starting them, staying on them or trying to come off them when people feel they are ready. As an example, just one of so many, I had a client who recently came to see me after having had a breakdown due to his marriage being on the rocks and his wife being a functional but getting worse alcoholic. He had never been on anti-depressants in his life before and was now in his mid-forties. When I asked him how his sleep was he said it was very bad. I asked which drug he was on and he told me he was put on 75mg of Effexor XR (slow-release). Having had my own exposure to this wonderful drug (note the sarcasm), I asked him at what time of the day he took the drug. He said he had originally been taking it in the morning but had felt queasy and so had tried taking it at night. I went on to explain to him that Effexor is an SNRI (serotonin and NORADRENALIN reuptake inhibitor) meaning that it will artificially increase both of these vital neurotransmitters in your brain. I said, you are basically doing the equivalent of lying down to go to sleep and then giving yourself a shot of adrenalin! The look of surprise on his face showed me that his doctor had not even explained to him exactly what it was he was taking or how it would help – or not help in his case. Effexor is also known to be one of the most difficult drugs to come off because it only comes in capsule format and dosages of 37.5mg, 75mg and 150mg. These are incredibly hard if not impossible to breakdown into lower doses as you can with the tablet and water-soluble medications. I have had one client who successfully weaned off Effexor over two whole years by opening and counting the beads in each capsule and removing a couple each time! And she still endured some heavy withdrawal reactions.

I explained some of this to my client and mentioned that getting no sleep was only compounding his difficulty in staying calm and focused and that although people generally do have sleep disturbances during anxiety and/or depression, he was doing himself a huge disservice by taking it at night. I saw him two weeks later and he informed me that his sleep had improved. He could now get 4-5 hours’ sleep without waking. And that was an improvement! I know how it goes because I have been there, except when I was taking Effexor XR, which served a purpose for me but only for a very limited period, I had huge issues with not being able to fall asleep or falling asleep and waking two or three hours later and being “wired” and unable to fall asleep again. I transitioned myself away from Effexor and have never looked back.

In this chapter I will discuss exactly how anti-depressant medications work (supposedly) because even what we think we know as facts about the chemistry of the brain is being turned on its head more and more as time goes by. We used to think that it was a FACT that neurotransmitters are created and remain within our brains. We now know, that a large proportion of these neurotransmitters are created and can be found in the stomach and this has implications for a range of things to do with what we eat and drink as well as other medications we take such as anti-biotics. So, let us begin there shall we?

Antibiotics

It came as quite a surprise to me only recently whilst reading Dr.David Perlmutter’s brilliant books “Grain Brain” and “Brain Maker” to learn that anyone who has had to take antibiotics for a period of time may have lowered levels of serotonin due to the fact that antibiotics as we all know destroy good and bad bacteria in the gut, however, as it turns out, anti-biotics are also destroying and preventing the creation of serotonin in our stomachs as well.

As I was pondering this it suddenly occurred to me that when I turned 15 years old I got a really bad attack of acne. I tried all the soaps and just about anything I could to stop them but it just went from bad to worse. It didn’t help that I had recently got braces and glasses as well and so my poor self-esteem suffered something horrible during my teen years. But, more than that, I remembered that rather than being put onto Roaccutane the skin specialist recommended another acne medication called Minocycline. As an aside, the brand name Accutane (Roaccutane) was discontinued by its manufacturer in 2009 – Roche. A 2001 article in the New England Journal of Medicine linked Accutane to depression. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) study examined 110 people who took Accutane and were hospitalized for depression or attempted suicide. Their ages ranged from 12 to 47. By the time Roche stopped making the drug, people who experienced Accutane’s side effects – as well as their families – had filed nearly 1,000 lawsuits against the company

I took Minomycin (Minocycline) as a teenager religiously for approximately four years. And so, I decided to look it up online and was surprised to learn that it is a broad spectrum antibiotic! Every day, for four years…as a teenager. If what Dr. Perlmutter says is true, and I have no reason to doubt his credentials or over thirty years of research into the food brain connection – then my brain was being starved of essential neurotransmitters during a crucial time in my adult development. Now, I am not saying that it was exclusively the reason that I struggled with anxiety in my young adult life (although on thinking about it I do not remember being an anxious child or anxious prepubescent). In fact, I was quite a naughty risk taker and would often land myself in hot water at home for jumping off roofs, throwing fruits over the fences at friend’s neighbour’s windows or smoking behind an old oak tree at the age of 10 or so.

I digress, however, it is part of the story of me never really having any major anxiety issues as a child. I was as scared as your average kid of clowns or what have you and when I reflected on taking antibiotics for all those years and then seeing in black and white that they can either destroy or prevent serotonin from being produced in the stomach, it really gave me pause to rethink just exactly where my anxiety in my late teens and early twenties came from. Nature or nurture or something worse – medical science in the form of drugs supposed to help us but unwittingly doing more damage than they are worth. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It really makes me wonder how many teenagers are suffering needlessly from anxiety and/or depression due to this issue. Going through puberty is hard enough without antibiotics screwing up your neurobiology!

The end result is just to be aware that if you are taking antibiotics, you MAY have a problem with lowered levels of serotonin and dopamine and as such it is just good practice to take a high potency probiotic. One strain in particular that Dr. Perlmutter recommends is that you ensure that the bacteria bifidobacterium infantis is present in your probiotic.

Foods that can help and foods than can harm.

You may be surprised to learn that eating a slice of whole meal bread could also be a contributor to lowered mood and changes in blood sugar levels and neurobiology. In fact, any food containing gluten has this possibility as our bodies were not made to process the kinds of grains we consume today – especially the wheat found in our breads, pastas, pastries and cookies. Since around the age of twenty four – about the same time I was put onto antidepressants for the first time – I started having trouble with dry skin. It seemed to just be something that I had to live with but it became embarrassing at times and the skin around my nose and cheeks would sometimes be red. It improved somewhat into my thirties but never really cleared up. It did seem to get worse in colder weather which is to be expected. It also appears to get worse if I don’t get enough sleep. However, none of these could account for the consistent red and dry skin. I tried once again any and every topical treatment I could find including cortisone creams which are really not good for you. But, after having read Dr. Perlmutter’s books, I went cold turkey on gluten. I had been thinking about doing this for some time as quite a bit of the research that I was finding had a consistent theme of avoiding too much gluten. It’s not so much carbohydrates that are the problem, we all need a good amount of protein and carbohydrates, it’s the gluten! When I started investigating exactly what I was eating in my diet that had gluten in it I was very surprised. Call me ignorant but I had no idea that oats are full of gluten and I would often have oats for breakfast thinking how healthy I was being. Out went the oats. Eggs on toast, out went the toast. I have found enough restaurants will now offer you gluten free toast anyway if you like so this is no biggie. To be honest, it really wasn’t that hard giving up gluten. You start to focus on getting more protein into your diet which as you will see in a moment is critical, but you also just start to think of meals that are fairly easy to prepare – such as baked fish with veggies and some roasted potato chips or rice (rice is safely gluten free – hooray for rice. As is all corn/maize based meals and snacks). However, do be aware that white rice in particular has a high sugar content. So, all in moderation.

What I found literally within two to three weeks of stopping gluten is that my skin cleared up. The angry red splotches just magically disappeared. No ointments, no medications, just no gluten and good enough sleep. I also notice that even after eating a meal such as spaghetti bolognaise with gluten free spaghetti (made from soy and rice flour), I never feel bloated the way I normally would.

Another reason I chose to go gluten free (even though I still cheat here and there and have something naughty – I don’t believe in the deprivation method of changing your habits) is that Dr. Perlmutter indicates in his books that gluten is now linked to higher incidences of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and diabetes.

A study that he mentions in his book “Grain Brain” mentioned a research study about a little island village in the Mediterranean that had the most centurions in the world (people who lived to see 100) as well as the lowest incidences of Alzheimer’s and dementia in both men and women. When looking for what caused this amazing outcome in this population the only thing they found radically different in the lives of these people was their diet. They drank red wine and coffee and had plenty of protein based meals such as fish and meat but very little if any breads. I’ll leave you to ponder that and also to think about whether your own little gluten free experiment is in order.

Dr. Perlmutter also indicates a direct link between gluten and inflammation in the body and brain. We can feel and see inflammation in the body with conditions such as gout and rheumatoid arthritis but we cannot feel or see (without a brain scan) inflammation in the brain that may also be caused by gluten. Either way, I decided to get off the gluten and my skin clearing was actually just a nice side effect. Way too many people in the western world are now dying from dementia and Alzheimer’s and I really don’t think our faster pace of life or higher stress levels can account for this phenomenon.

In addition, I’m going to tell you something you already know about your diet. Cut the sugar, reduce caffeine to one drink per day (preferably in the morning) particularly if you suffer with anxiety or sleep problems and certainly nothing with caffeine after 2pm.

Ensuring that you eat your fair share of green leafy vegetables is also advice as old as the hills in terms of diet and well-being advice but it’s funny how few people actually follow through on this. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of buying and chopping veggies every day then cheat by getting the super green veggie powders that are now commercially available in most major supermarkets and health food stores and make yourself a berry, banana, protein powder and super green veggie smoothie. Brilliant for your brain and energy levels.

And of course, drink loads of water, at least two liters per day (I can usually manage about one and a half per day easily), which is easily done if you carry around one of those 500ml bottles and just make sure you are refilling it a few times a day. This will be even easier and more necessary when we go through the section on supplements and vitamins as you will need to have your water with you anyway.

The last thing that I will recommend in terms of actual food intake or changes is to try and add more protein in the form of fish, eggs, milk (lactose free if you can get it) and meat. The reasons are many. One of the reasons fish is on that list is because certain fish are high in Omega 3 essential oils. When I tell friends or clients about the need to be taking Omega 3 every day some will say “But I eat fish in my diet!” Unfortunately, the amounts of fish you would have to eat to get the benefits we will talk about in terms of your brain are not reasonable or desirable for anyone.

This is where I end the discussion on diet and I believe this covers the essentials you need to know in your quest for removing anxiety and depression from your life naturally through diet. There are plenty other good books to be read completely dedicated to the subject.

Vitamins and Supplements that Can Help

This section will detail some of the most important vitamins, minerals and amino acids that you can take to assist you staying away from taking anti-depressants in the first place, feeling better while being on them or supporting you during a tapering programme. This has been, as I mentioned earlier, a four year odyssey for me both personally and professionally as I have tried various options as I learned about them, avoided others due to fear mongering online (only to find out there were other reasons certain amino acids were not commercially available), and am still in the process of investigating some others.

What I have learned and shared with my clients and those who write to me from all over the world has helped many people cope better with anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drug withdrawal. When I think of the needless suffering that hundreds and thousands of people have gone through across the globe due to a lack of understanding and awareness of other viable alternatives to taking psychiatric medication for anxiety and depression I get pretty fired up as you could possibly tell from my writing. The number of young teens being put onto anti-anxiety and/or anti-depressant medications prematurely in some cases and completely unnecessarily in other cases makes me really angry. As they say, if only I knew then what I know now, and if I could magically have gone back in time to my twenty three year old self back in March 2000, I could have possibly saved myself 20 years of the difficulties of being on and trying to come off these medications. It’s not only what I have had to go through but what my family and some friends have had to go through too, and I know I am certainly not alone when it comes to not only medications but mental health in general when people struggle with anxiety and/or depression.

5-HTP (5- Hydroxytryptophan)

So, let us begin at the beginning, with the first supplement that was brought to my attention very soon after I published my story online in 2013 by one of the readers of the story. This particular person mentioned that once off the medications, a person could/should take an amino acid called 5-HTP. I had never, not once in thirteen years of experiencing anxiety and depression personally and as a mental health professional, heard about 5-HTP. Have you heard of it? I’m willing to be a lot of money that you haven’t and that your doctor and definitely your psychiatrist haven’t either. Why is that? What is 5-HTP?

5-HTP is a chemical by-product of the protein building block L-tryptophan. It is also produced commercially (and this is what you would be taking if you chose to try it) from the seeds of an African plant known as Griffonia simplicifolia. 5-HTP is the last step in the process of converting protein in your stomach into the essential neurotransmitters – serotonin and dopamine. Protein is the key building block required in your diet which your body uses to synthesize (using a combination of vitamins) into L-tryptophan and then 5-HTP. Having high levels of 5-HTP should lead to higher levels of serotonin and dopamine which should lead you to feel calmer, happier, more focused and generally more optimistic about just about anything in your life. Note that it can take a number of weeks to be effective and – once again – the dosage is variable (a typical dose of 5-HTP is in the range of 300-500 mg, taken either once daily or in divided doses. Lower doses may also be effective, although usually when paired with other substances). 5-HTP is used as a supplement (rather than tryptophan itself) to increase serotonin levels as tryptophan can be diverted into niacin production or protein construction whereas 5-HTP has the sole fate of serotonin synthesis. 5-HTP also crosses the blood brain barrier easily. [3]

Although this may seem like a scary way to approach taking something to help with anxiety or depression, I would prefer trialing various dosages of 5-HTP any day over playing around with an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. It’s certainly, in my opinion, worth trying the 5-HTP first.

Even though it is becoming more widely known that the chemical imbalance theory of mental health problems is actually no more than psychiatry’s little green man behind the curtain or the emperor with no clothes, rather than the objective-scientific truth, these neurotransmitters do exist and are responsible for many of the cases of clinical depression and debilitating anxiety (and in some cases panic attacks) in most people.

However, it is one thing to say that serotonin levels have been lowered and possibly caused by stressful life events which led to increased cortisol – a chemical in the body released during times of stress which may also reduce production of serotonin in the body – but it is quite another thing to tell a person that he or she has a “chemical imbalance“ in their brain and that they therefore have some sort of “disease” that is as incurable as diabetes. “Just keep taking your medications the same way a diabetic needs insulin” and shut up and don’t you dare challenge the established order of psychiatry’s control of medicating anxiety and depression or worry about the links between some in the psychiatric professional communities and the huge pharmaceutical companies which are making billions of dollars a year. Surely it can’t be as easy as getting their sales representatives to buy our doctors lunch and explain to them why this new wonder drug is good for their patients with depression and has even fewer side effects than the previous products or versions? You get the picture. If you want to know a lot more about all of this please visit Robert Whitaker’s brilliant site www.madinamerica.com and better yet get a copy of his seminal book “Anatomy of an Epidemic” as well as another book written as far back as 1988 (the very year Prozac was introduced into the market) by Dr. Elliot Valenstein called “Blaming the Brain”.

In blaming the brain, Dr Valenstein states the following in his opening chapter: “Throughout this book I will argue that the evidence and arguments supporting all these claims about the relationship of brain chemistry to psychological problems and personality and behavioral traits are far from compelling and are most likely wrong. The claim that psychotherapeutic drugs correct a biochemical imbalance that is the root cause of most psychological problems also rests on a very shaky scientific foundation. These ideas are simply an unproven hypothesis, but for reasons that will be explored, they are heavily promoted as a well-substantiated explanatory theory. Because these ideas have enormous implications, there is a great need to examine the evidence and basic assumptions much more critically than has been done up to now”.[4]

Coming back to 5-HTP, it was banned in America until only recently due to some bad batches that came out of a dodgy manufacturer in Asia which led to some major government concerns about its properties. I believe that it is now available in the USA and is certainly available in Australia through online purchase. However, interestingly enough, you will not find it in any pharmacy or even health food store because it just isn’t widely known. And I just have to ask why? Why would a naturally occurring food derivative (amino acid) that can help to increase serotonin in the least disruptive and invasive way not be on the shelves in pharmacies and heavily promoted by doctors? I’ll leave you work that one out. There are different opinions online about the efficacy of 5-HTP as there are about just about any product when it comes to mental health or well-being. And, we are all different. We all respond differently to different products and food substances so there is no one size fits all here of course. But, wouldn’t you say it’s worth trying something natural FIRST with no known side effects or major withdrawal issues before medically tampering with our body and brains neurobiology with so many unknowns?

One caveat here and this is where the story gets a little thorny. You are not supposed to take 5-HTP if you are already taking an antidepressant (SSRI or SNRI) just in case you end up with a case of serotonin syndrome which is where your brain/body overproduces serotonin and this can lead to potentially some harmful outcomes and even (as some sites will say) fatal results. There are very specific signs of potential serotonin syndrome though and so if you are starting to experience any of them you would just immediately stop taking the 5-HTP. It’s only our lack of knowledge of what is happening that is the problem. Once you know what to look for you are responsible to monitor how you are reacting to anything you take whether it’s 5-HTP or an aspirin. And ensure you have the support of a trusted medical doctor but only one who is willing to support what you would like to do with your own body, mind and life.

L-Tyrosine

L-Tyrosine is another amino acid supplement that assists with increasing – through natural means – our levels of dopamine and to some degree norepinephrine. I came across it while searching for natural ways to increase dopamine levels as I had discovered that serotonin could be increased using 5 HTP so I wondered whether something similar was the case with dopamine – and sure enough, if you seek you shall find.

L- Tyrosine is one of the amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. The body makes tyrosine from another amino acid called phenylalanine. Tyrosine can also be found in dairy products, meats, fish, eggs, nuts, beans, oats, and wheat. However, trying to get the amount of tyrosine you would need from food has the same issue as trying to get all the Vitamin C you need from oranges or all the Omega 3 Fish Oil you need from eating fish. Way too hard.

Several studies show that tyrosine improves mental performance under stressful conditions, such as military training, cold-induced stress, or noise-induces stress. In addition, tyrosine improves memory under stressful conditions, such as cold-stress or multitasking. Taking tyrosine seems to help people who have lost a night’s sleep stay alert. Also, early research suggests that tyrosine improves memory and reasoning in people who are sleep-deprived.[5]

Anecdotal reports from people who have tried L-Tyrosine that it helps increase energy, concentration and mood. Well worth giving it a try I would say. I have used it myself and have found it to be of benefit along with the other dietary changes and supplements mentioned here.

St. John’s Wort

I am not going to say too much about St. John’s Wort, firstly because I have not really had much experience with it other than to note it is widely prescribed in Germany rather than antidepressants. Apparently, German doctors and the German public in general prefer to use St. John’s Wort as a first line treatment for depression and various studies in Germany have shown it to be more effective as placebo, and other anti-depressants. Secondly, I don’t think it is easy to get results from St. John’s Wort as it takes longer to work and it is not clear exactly what dosage one would need to take for it to be considered “effective”. I suppose this would be the case with most medicines – medical or alternative – when it comes to healing anxiety and/or depression. Anyone considering using alternative methods for healing anxiety and depression or coming off anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medications needs to be prepared to do their homework and then undertake a bit of experimentation. With regards to St. John’s Wort, anyone suffering from mild to moderate depression should probably consider trialing it for themselves but expect it to take a few weeks to work and to play around with different dosages to see what dosage is right for them. The best thing about St. John’s Wort is that there are little to no side-effects and it is a natural herb, therefore it is safe compared to taking any psychiatric drug.

Vitamin B6, B12 and Vitamin C

Most people are aware of the need to take a Vitamin B supplement. I remember as a teenager taking a multi-vitamin B during exam times as I had heard that it was good for stress. I have always equated the need to be taking a good Vitamin supplement with good stress management. However, I only found out in the last four years that they are also very important in the process of your body converting protein into Tryptophan. Most people are aware that Vitamin B12 is a key vitamin that should be checked if they are suffering with extreme tiredness or having difficulty with their moods. B6 is also important in this process. The same goes for Vitamin C. We should all be taking a good vitamin C supplement on a daily basis. I personally take 1000mg per day. In addition, taking a high strength multi-B complex is also highly recommended due to the body’s need for these vitamins during the synthesis of protein into tryptophan and then tryptophan into 5-HTP, serotonin and dopamine.

Omega 3 Fish Oils

I had heard about the benefits of taking fish oils in terms of it being good for joints as well as being good for the brain. What I never really knew was that Omega 3 and Omega 6 play pivotal roles in helping the brain function as well as ensuring a healthy environment for your brain cells and neurotransmitters to communicate with each other. Omega 3 Fish Oils are also helpful in reducing one of the withdrawal effects of tapering off an anti-depressant which is the very unpleasant electric “zap” like sensations that commonly occur when attempting a withdrawal. I still cannot believe how few doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists are aware of this. In terms of dosage, Fish Oils come in all shapes and sizes and it was through reading some of information from The Road Back Programme created by James Harper that understood that not all omega 3 fish oils are created equal. Jim is a very caring pharmacologist who has been helping people reduce or taper off anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications for over 16 years. Dosage recommendations vary and Jim mentions that the best Fish Oils are derived from fish such as salmon, herring and trout as opposed to tuna. Effective dose recommendations can range from 400-800mg per day. In order to avoid having to take 4-6 capsules, I just ensure that I buy fish oils from credible brands which have high EPA potency such as 240mg or more per capsule as opposed to the standard 180mg in most commercially available products. Ensure that the product is also mercury tested and says that it does not have a reflux effect. I wouldn’t enjoy smelling like fish breath all day long and I’m sure you don’t want to either!

Passionflower

This is another naturally occurring remedy that I found out about from James Harper. James not only researched products that could assist people with drug withdrawal but also sourced and created a range of his own natural products. I did try taking some of James’ other products at one stage and there may have been some benefit in taking them but I found the most useful was the Body Calm Formula which is essentially passionflower mixed with the skin of a very specific cherry called – the Montmort cherry. In addition, Jim has created a proprietary product called JNK, which he has trialed again in a recent study in 2016 showing very positive results for both anxiety and depression. For more information you can visit his site at www.theroadback.org

Magnesium

Most of us know the sage advice of having a glass of warm milk can assist us with sleeping better or falling asleep. One of the biggest reasons for this is the magnesium in the milk.

“Magnesium is an essential dietary mineral, and the second most prevalent electrolyte in the human body. Magnesium deficiencies are common in developed countries. A deficiency increases blood pressure, reduces glucose tolerance and causes neural excitation. Magnesium deficiencies are common in the western diet because grains are poor sources of magnesium. Other prominent sources of magnesium, like nuts and leafy vegetables, are not eaten as often. It is possible to fix a magnesium deficiency through dietary changes (or supplementation). If magnesium is supplemented to attenuate a deficiency, it acts as a sedative, reducing blood pressure and improving insulin sensitivity. Maintaining healthy magnesium levels is also associated with a protective effect against depression and ADHD.” The standard dose for magnesium supplementation is 200-400mg per day. It is best taken in the evening as it helps to relax the muscles and assists with sleep. When looking at the diets of persons suffering from depression, there appears to be an inverse relationship between dietary Magnesium intake and depressive symptoms.[6]

 Zinc

Zinc is one of the 24 micronutrients needed for survival. It is found in meat, egg, and legume products. Oysters are particularly good sources of zinc. It is an aphrodisiac and testosterone booster, but it will only raise testosterone levels if the user is deficient in zinc. Zinc is also very important for the functioning of the enzyme, hormone, and immune systems.[7] Zinc has two standard dosages. The low dosage is 5-10mg, while the high dosage is 25-45mg. The low dose works well as a daily preventative, while the high dosage should be taken by anyone at risk for a zinc deficiency. Secondary to an improvement in overall mood, aggressive symptoms have been noted to be reduced with low dose zinc supplementation.

Staying Active (an absolute must)

Bolster your internal resources with good nutrition, stress-reduction techniques, regular sleep — and especially physical activity. Exercise has a powerful antidepressant effect. It’s been shown that people are far less likely to relapse after recovering from depression if they exercise three times a week or more. Exercise makes serotonin more available for binding to receptor sites on nerve cells, so it can compensate for changes in serotonin levels as you taper off SSRIs and other medications that target the serotonin system. (http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/going-off-antidepressants).

Summary

The above dietary and lifestyle suggestions are the ones I would most highly recommend regardless of whether you are still on or thinking about tapering off anti-depressant medications. In addition, I would say that anyone who is suffering with stress, anxiety or depression should go down the road of counselling, meditation, yoga, a gluten free diet with lots of protein, vegetables and probiotics, mild to moderate cardio-vascular exercise, supplements and counselling. Finally, connecting to those around you and building a strong network of supportive professionals, friends and family would also be something that I would say is a requirement for good mental wellbeing and enduring recovery from anxiety and depression.

 

 

 

[1] White, Ian. Beat Depression the Drug Free Way, 2011

[2] [2] Breggin, Dr. Peter R. Your Drug may be your Problem. Da Capo Press. 2007

[3] https://examine.com/supplements/5-htp/

[4] Valenstein, Elliot. S. “Blaming the Brain”, Free Press (1988).

[5] http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-1037-tyrosine

[6] https://examine.com/supplements/magnesium/

[7]https://examine.com/supplements/zinc/


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Lesson 8 – The Sun is Always Shining behind the Clouds 

Jerry walked into the MacDonald’s, went to the counter and ordered himself a big mac meal with a large bottle of Coke Zero. He waited while his food was being prepared and looked around at the other customers coming and going. There were some mothers with their little ones jumping up and down with excitement asking for a Happy Meal because (as he knew all too well) they wanted the toy more than the meal. He thought, so clever those buggers in the marketing department at MacDonald’s. He had read somewhere that their marketing strategy for decades had been called “from the cradle to the grave” and he could see how it was working like a charm. With his own children though both he and his now estranged wife at least agreed on something and that was to avoid junk food as much as possible even though they still allowed it as a treat on occasion.

Jerry had recently turned 27 and was feeling very frustrated with where life had taken him so far. He had tried to get into studying after high school and had enrolled in a college course in electronics but had found that he just couldn’t make sense of all the diagrams and mathematics needed to pass the course. He knew he was intelligent and had enjoyed maths at school (much to the surprise of both his parents and his friends), but when it came to the college course and studying electricity, he just wasn’t getting it or just not inspired enough to really focus himself into succeeding. This had all occurred between the ages of 19 and 21. After that, Jerry had drifted into doing some construction work and had enjoyed the physical aspect of it and it was then that he had met his wife – April.

They met at a barbeque one evening at a mutual friend’s house and starting talking about some of their favourite movies and found that they had many similarities. The chemistry was certainly there and so they agreed to exchange numbers and went on their first date which was remarkable because he had never felt so at ease talking to a woman and they ended up talking on a bench overlooking the sea until 1am in the morning. He felt his excitement growing as each date passed and was somewhat concerned about whether she felt the same as he did and he didn’t want to open up too quickly because he had been hurt in the past. However, after a few dates he decided to tell her how he felt and to his amazement she said she felt the same. His heart exploded with joy. They continued to date for another few months and then moved in together. After another year, which was mixed with a few up and down experiences, he proposed and they were married soon after. A number of his friends and family had asked him, “aren’t you a bit young to be getting married?”, but Jerry knew how he felt about April. He knew she was the one he wanted to be with for the rest of his life.

Today, as he sat eating his MacDonald’s meal, thinking how he should be following his own advice to his children but not really caring at the moment, he found himself in a state of misery and frustration. Over the past few months, things between himself and April had been quickly sliding down a slippery slope towards marriage failure. He couldn’t quite believe that she was the same person that he had met and in addition, he didn’t recognise the person he had become when they were having an argument. Jerry really didn’t like conflict and did as much as he could to do the right thing by April but it just seemed to him that nothing he ever did was quite good enough.

As their arguments became more frequent, the negative feelings became more intense and it seemed to Jerry that every minor incident now seemed to flare up in way that got out of proportion very quickly.

In addition to this, Jerry was being bullied at work by a few of the bricklayers on the construction site. He was not the tallest or strongest man around although he was very lean and muscular. However, Jerry was never one to engage in silly childish arguments like it was a school playground and he had been using his intellect and wit to try to avert the behaviour of the bullies and he had had some success but things just seemed to getting worse.

Financially, Jerry and April were not in the best position either. His wages weren’t that bad, and she worked as a nurse doing rotating shifts but together they were still struggling to make ends meet. This additional pressure was not helping their relationship and neither was the fact that they often worked different hours and so did not seem to spend much quality time together. These days, when they did have time off at the same time they would invariably end up in an argument. It had gotten to the point where Jerry was starting to feel very depressed about his situation and was struggling at times to get up and go to work. He had even had some ideas of just ending it all and that had scared the living daylights out of him as he had never contemplated such a thing in his life before.

Jerry stirred when he heard some teenagers laughing while they ate their meals at a nearby table and felt irritation flowing through his mind and body. They have no respect for the people around them he thought. He was dimly aware however that teenagers having fun and making a noise at a fast food outlet would never have bothered him in the past and he started to wonder if he was losing his mind altogether.

He picked up the remains of his meal, which he had hardly eaten, and threw them in the bin on his way back to his truck in the parking lot. He had never had problems with appetite before but he was not feeling much like eating lately and had realised that he had begun to lose weight and he wasn’t even exercising at the gym anymore.

As he got into his car to head back to the construction site, Jerry realised that he felt very alone. While he did have a circle of family and friends around him, when the issues had begun with April as well as the bullying at work, he had found himself withdrawing further and further from any social outings or offers by his friends to spend time together. Usually, he would have jumped at the opportunity to head to the golf range and hit a bucket of balls or to play soccer with his friends in the park after work. But lately he had just been going home, having a few beers and drifting off to sleep in front of the television. Sometimes he woke up at 2 or 3am and went to bed to find April turned over and sleeping away from his side of the bed. Realising that she didn’t bother to wake him or to try and engage him in conversation just made him feel worse. His friends had slowly stopped asking him and this made him feel even more isolated.

Jerry arrived back at the construction site, parked his car a block or two away and grabbed his hard hat and bright orange vest. He walked into the site having some images running through his mind of what it would be like if he was accidently crushed by one of the massive concrete slabs that were being hoisted above him by the huge cranes in the middle of the building site. He shook the thought off and headed to the lunch room or “mess hall” as his fellow workmates liked to call it. He wanted to grab a quick cup of coffee before heading back up to continue the installation of piping in the men’s toilets on the 7th level of the building.

When he walked into the lunch room he noticed one of his supervisors, Ed, standing making himself a cup of coffee at the counter. He tried his best to compose himself and headed over to the counter.

“Jerry, how’s it going mate?” asked Ed routinely.

Jerry didn’t know how to respond or what his voice was going to sound like but he just responded with, “Yeh, I’m ok thanks” as he grabbed a mug out of the cupboard, saw how dirty and disgusting it was and put it back and grabbed another one, hoping this one wouldn’t look like it was likely to give him a major case of gastro. He generally avoided having coffee in the lunch room for that very reason and he was not a big fan of instant coffee either but he just felt he needed more time to gather himself before heading up to work. He was also aware that he was going to have to walk past the bricklayers who had been calling him names and giving him grief over the past few months. He was worried that today he may actually snap and do something he would regret if they asked him one more time where Tom was and whether he was tired of the mean old cat chasing him around.

Jerry found a mug that looked relatively unlikely to cause major vomiting and made himself a cup of coffee with two spoons of coffee and two spoons of sugar. He felt like he needed a pick me up to feel better, even though he was aware that caffeine can make you feel more anxious.

Ed was watching him carefully out of the corner of his eye and when Jerry went to sit down at a bench on his own, Ed walked over to him and asked if he could sit down.

“Sure”, said Jerry, getting a little worried that he would have to engage in a conversation when that was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

“It’s been really hot these last few days, hasn’t it?” asked Ed.

Jerry looked up briefly and said, “Yeh I know, hasn’t been fun out there”.

Ed was a man in his mid-forties who had been working with the company for over ten years. He had been promoted to supervisor a few years before and although he could be really stern with the workers on site, he was also known for his ability to engage with staff at all levels. In addition, he had a strong interest in mental well-being at work and had requested training in how to support workers who were struggling as he had seen too many young men trying to self-medicate their problems away with alcohol and things generally ending up badly for them at home and at work.

Ed had been noticing that Jerry’s behaviours had changed over the past few weeks. He would usually walk around with a smile and was always ready with a joke or two. He enjoyed the banter with some of the other workers on site and was generally well liked. He generally prided himself on his appearance and would be clean shaven and yet Ed had noticed that there were quite a few occasions where his beard was starting to show and he looked like he hadn’t slept much. He was also one of the more reliable workers that Ed had worked with but Ed had noticed that Jerry had come to work late a few times in the past few weeks and was often trying to avoid talking to anyone, especially a senior.

“Mate, do you mind if we talk openly for a minute?” Ed asked.

“Um…yeh. Is everything alright? Hope I didn’t make a mistake with that piping this morning” said Jerry looking quite concerned as to why Ed was wanting to talk to him.

“No, the piping is fine. It’s just that I’ve noticed some changes in your behaviour lately. You don’t seem to be yourself mate. I’m just concerned that’s all”, Ed said. He had ensured that there was nobody within earshot who may overhear their conversation.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”, Jerry attempted to be relaxed and composed but something in Ed’s expression made him feel that he wasn’t going to be able to hold onto the façade for much longer.

“Well, Jerry. I can tell you that I’ve been in this business a long time. I’ve seen how tough it can be on a young fellow, especially a married one with little ones like yourself. Sometimes, things can get overwhelming and we don’t know where to turn and in our environment, it can be even harder, can’t it? Because everyone here has got all their stuff together, right? Nobody here feels any emotions? That stuff is for weaklings. We’re all tough strong construction workers, we do it tough and we don’t complain. And if we do then we are weak right?”, Ed said.

Jerry was taken by surprise to hear Ed speak about emotions so openly and to acknowledge the exact thing that he – Jerry – had been concerned about. Others finding out and thinking there was something wrong with him and that he was weak. He wasn’t sure how to respond and so he just shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his coffee which he could feel had started to get cold.

“Look, Jerry. I know something is bugging you. You can’t deny it. You’ve been coming to work late and that’s not like you at all. You’ve stopped joining in for anything social at work and I’ve noticed you’re just staying in the background and that just isn’t you. I’m not saying you need to spill the beans to me right here and now and you certainly don’t need to tell me but I want you to tell someone. You know we have an employee assistance counselling service that is free and offers you six hours of counselling over the phone or face to face?” Ed asked, as he pulled a card out of his top pocket and it handed it to Jerry.

Jerry took the card as a tear started to roll down his cheek.

“It’s ok mate. We all go through rough times. We’re all human beings and anyone who pretends that they are just sailing through life with no downs and only ups are either lying or the luckiest bastards in the world”, Ed said with an encouraging smile.

Despite himself and even how he was feeling at that moment, Jerry found himself utter a brief laugh and immediately started to feel a little better when he realised that Ed was not judging him and was only showing genuine concern.

“Thanks Ed. I’m not sure if I will go to the counselling, I may call them to have a chat or maybe come and see you in your office at some stage”, said Jerry as he turned the card over to see the phone number and services being offered by the counselling service which he hadn’t even known existed.

“That’s great Jerry my door is always open… unless it’s closed,” said Ed with a wink as he got up to put his mug in the dishwasher. He turned around just before he got to the counter and said, “Remember mate, the sun is always shining behind the clouds”, and he put his mug in the dishwasher and walked out of the lunch room into the bright September afternoon.

Jerry thought he had heard that saying somewhere before and wondered why Ed had chosen to say that particular one to him at this moment. He didn’t quite understand the meaning of the saying. So what if the sun was shining behind the clouds? If we are stuck underneath them, what good does that do us?

Jerry got up, feeling a little more hopeful than he had when he woke up that morning, and headed to the 7th floor to complete his work for the day.

As he lay in bed that night with April once again turned over facing away from him, Jerry stared at the ceiling and went through his options in his mind. Either he could tell April that it was over and that he couldn’t stand feeling like this anymore or he could first try and talk to the employee assistance people. He also needed to talk about the bullying and see if there was a way to get that to stop. The main thing that he was struggling with was how his thinking had changed and how different he felt from who he knew himself to be. Being down, negative and not finding enjoyment in life was just not who he knew he was at the core but he was worried that he had somehow been fundamentally changed by the ongoing stresses and pressures of the past few months.

 

As he eventually drifted off to sleep he remembered Ed’s words and the saying seemed to play on a continuous loop in his mind, “The sun is always shining behind the clouds…the sun is always shining behind the clouds…”

Jerry slept but his sleep was fitful and full of nebulous people and “things” that seemed to be after him. Each dream he slipped into seemed to involve his need to defend himself against an attack and he called out and even kicked out once or twice in his sleep, which woke April up and gave her quite a fright. She still really loved Jerry with all her heart and had been feeling terrible about how things had disintegrated between them but she just hadn’t seemed able to find a way to allow her negative emotions to subside long enough to allow her feelings of love towards him to come back to the surface. She tried to soothe Jerry as he had another fitful moment and he seemed to calm down.

The next morning, when Jerry woke up, April was lying on his chest with her arm around him. He was quite surprised and gave her a hug. She stirred and looked at him, “You were yelling out and thrashing around a bit in your sleep”.

“Oh really? I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb you too much” he said, feeling a bit guilty but very happy she was lying next to him and that their conversation seemed to be more gentle.

“It’s okay….” she said and after a pause, “what’s happened to us Jerry? Why can’t we be like this all the time? What’s been happening with you because you don’t seem to be the same person I married and I want my Jerry back” she said as her eyes became watery with tears.

“I know babe. I’m not sure either but all the pressure has been getting to me and I have been feeling very down. I just don’t know who I am anymore and it scares me”, he said as he stroked her arm. It felt good to be lying there together talking in a way they hadn’t for ages and he felt the stirring of how he truly felt about April returning.

“I remember one of my dreams last night”, he said.

“Tell me about it”, said April, enjoying the feel of Jerry’s arms around her.

“I was running away from something terrifying and it was during the middle of a storm. The rain was coming down pretty hard and I was getting soaked. There was lightning and thunder every couple of minutes and I couldn’t make out who or what it was but something was coming for me and so I was just running down different streets to get away. I tried to ask a couple of people for help who I passed but they didn’t seem able to see or hear me. It was late afternoon but the rain and wind was fierce. As I turned down one more street I stopped and for some reason had this feeling that if I wanted to, I could fly upwards. I felt the certainty of this inside myself and I just pushed off and flew straight up at such a speed that I was almost terrified as I looked down at the street falling away below me. I went into the storm clouds but kept going through them and then very suddenly I was above them and the sky was an absolutely brilliant clear blue and the sun was shining on me. I felt its warmth and the air was cool and crisp. It was such a contrast to what it was like below the clouds I couldn’t believe it. That was when I woke up and felt you lying with me” he said, tears now slowly rolling down his cheeks.

“Wow, that’s an amazing dream. What do you think it means?” she asked.

“Well, it’s funny because yesterday Ed came and had a chat to me in the lunch room and mentioned that he was worried about me. He gave me a card for the employee assistance programme and although I was very embarrassed that he had noticed how I had been feeling, I was relieved that he understood and was willing to help me. Before he left the lunch room he told me to remember that “the sun is always shining behind the clouds”. I know my dream was my mind playing around with that but it was such a real experience and I think I understand what the saying really means now”.

“What do you think it means?” April asked, very surprised but also very pleased to hear Jerry talking about himself more openly than he had in months.

“I think it means that sometimes in life we can get really bogged down by the events and situations we are faced with and that sometimes those situations can start to press down on us and even alter how we think, act and feel about ourselves and our lives. I know that is how I have been feeling a lot lately and I have even thought that maybe this is now my reality and that I was somehow changed forever because I was feeling so bad I couldn’t see a way out of it…” he trailed off at that moment realising that April was looking at him with a lot of worry in her eyes.

“It’s ok,” he said, “I wouldn’t do anything like that because I would never do that to you or the kids but yes the ideas had started to cross my mind. But what I guess I am starting to understand is that life can throw us a lot of curveballs all at once sometimes and that this can change how we are but it is temporary and our true selves, who we are deep down, is just waiting for the storm to pass and then it will come shining through again. What I felt in the dream when I broke through was a sense of coming home, of realising that who I am has not changed and it was only the clouds and the storm that was making me feel a bit hopeless. And you know what, it made me remember another saying I heard ages ago that even nature cannot create a storm that lasts forever”.

“I like that”, said April with a smile. “Maybe we just need to put up better umbrellas or try to rise above these clouds we have been living under for the past few months and do our best to go back to how we were before?”

“I would like that and I think that’s exactly what we need to do. I want to find myself again and be the best version of me that I can and I want to be that person again for you and the kids. I will call the employee assistance service and I am going to speak to Ed about the bullying at work. Enough is enough” said Jerry with a growing feeling of hope and conviction that things could and would be changing for the better. He felt his spirits lift and decided that he was going to really focus on the fact that he knew deep down that he was a good person and that he deserved to be happy. He resolved to not allow the storms of life to ever again make him feel that the sun wasn’t right there waiting for him to rise above the clouds.

April laughed and gave him a kiss on the cheek, “You got all that from a one silly saying and a dream?!”

“I guess so…who would have thought it hey?” he said smiling.

Jerry turned towards April and pulled her closer, holding onto her and not wanting the moment to end. “I love you”, he said.

“I love you too”, said April.

 

 

 

 


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Lesson 7: Life is a Journey, not a Destination

You’ve heard it all before, life is about being in the moment. And you may be thinking: “Blah blah blah, and if one more person says ‘stop and the smell the roses’ to me I’m going to shoot them – including you Mr. Fox”.

But have you really contemplated what this means and what the saying “Life is a journey, not a destination” is all about? There is so much wisdom packed into those seven little words that if you were able to truly dig deep into their meaning and live by just that one saying every day of your life, your life would be transformed before your very eyes. As my favourite author and psychologist, Dr Wayne Dyer, used to say, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. Every time, without fail.

Our world is one of perception, interpretation and meaning. We first perceive something; whether it is a sound, a smell, a communication, an image, or our own thoughts and emotions. We then have to interpret these and finally provide meaning to them. When we are down and struggling with life and our minds are in anxiety or depression, our ability to objectively and rationally interpret the reality and experience of our lives becomes severely compromised. It is precisely at these times that we need to learn to disengage from our focus on the destination of life i.e. “where is this all going?”, and reengage with the experience and knowing that life is to be lived right now. And that if you can find something, anything to focus on – even if that focus is the blissful nothingness of meditation, then you will find the relief you are so desperately seeking from the pain and the struggle. Training the mind to find anything that will distract it from its own misery is a skill and something that we should all be practicing every single day of our lives. And the more we practice it, the more we find the great law of attraction bringing more thoughts, experiences and emotions like the ones we are deliberately trying to create. And as my new favourite inspirational speaker Esther Hicks would say: we are then building the kind of momentum that we would really want in our lives.

This is all certainly about our ability- or usually lack of it – to live in the now. To live peacefully with whatever is happening in our lives right now. I have often counselled people struggling with stress or anxiety to practice mindfulness. This word and practice is becoming as much as cliché to people these days as meditation but there is a reason that it has caught on and we now see endless adult colouring-in books in all the shops. It is because it works people! It is an eternal truth. We spend so much time looking at our lives analysing it to death that we completely miss the experiences we are having literally right before our eyes, ears and noses.

We live too much in the past and certainly too much in the future. We spend way way WAY too much time on the future in our minds. If what we are doing when thinking about the future is imagining a desired state or outcome then that is all well and good and it will lead you to what you want to be and where you want to go in life. However, where are most of us spending our mental time and energy? On pictures and words and imaginings of some terrible fate that may await us or our loved ones just around the corner or even in five, ten or twenty years from now. Can you see how unproductive and how “unwell” this can make you? Do you know that there are two specific distorted categories of thinking from cognitive behavioural therapy that are called “Fortune Telling” and “Catastrophising” and that we ALL get caught up in them? Yes, those with anxiety and depression get caught up in those mental traps more frequently and find it more difficult to break out of them or dispute those thoughts with more objective and positive reality. However, I know from my 40 years on this planet, and 17 years as a psychologist, that we ALL do it to some extent, every single day. And you know what, it doesn’t serve us one little bit.

I am not talking about thinking prudently ahead, watching for signs and perhaps taking some preemptive action to avoid an actual problem or danger. That is productive and what another author called “signal thoughts”. Thoughts about something that we actually need to do something about like complete our tax returns. But, what I am describing to you is more about what that same author called “noise”, every other thought that surrounds the reality. “Oh my God, what if I owe the tax office a huge amount of money?”, “What if I go bankrupt?” “What if I can’t make my mortgage payment or rent payment and land up on the streets?” “What if I can’t afford to send my kids to a good school?” “What if I end up lonely and alone for the rest of my life!?”

And I hear you saying, “But David, it COULD happen!” Yes, and you COULD also be knocked over by a bus in the street in an hour from now! And North Korea COULD decide to start a world war beginning with the invasion of South Korea and then they could launch nuclear missiles at all of us!

Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic for you. Well, how about this: “What if I stuff up at that interview next week and never end up getting a job?” “What if I go on a date with this woman or man and they don’t feel the same way I do and they reject me?” You get the point. The world is full of “what ifs” and I am here to tell you to CUT IT OUT OF YOUR LIFE! If you are going to play the “what if” game, why don’t you try something radical like: “What if he likes me and we hit it off and he ends up being the man of my dreams?” or “What if I just be myself at that interview and relax and feel confident that the job is mine and they see in me what they have been looking for and I get one of the best jobs I have ever had, working for amazing people!” or “What if I didn’t look at my age as a reason to stop this path I am on that isn’t working for me and head down a different road?” Meaning: a different career, a different relationship, or taking up a long held desire to learn to surf or study financial planning or whatever else you have felt you wanted to do deep inside you but just haven’t allowed? WHAT IF… you thought about, imagined and achieved those things? How would that make you feel? What would your life experience look and feel like then?

Enjoying your dreams and plans even before they have manifested and doing the best you can not to become disillusioned if they don’t happen “on time” when you expect them to is so important. You don’t plant seeds in the ground to grow a pumpkin and then immediately stamp on the ground demanding to see it grow and appear right now, because you know there is ALWAYS a time lag. And thank goodness for that because can you imagine what would happen if every thought and desire, good or bad, manifested immediately for you? One little thought of illness and you’re dead. One little thought of not enough money and you’re bankrupt! Of course it would be nice if you had one little thought of becoming a millionaire and then poof you’re a millionaire! That would be pretty amazing, but that is not how this Universe works. Somewhere deep down we already know that it is our own repeated patterns of thought and emotion that we practice, and have been practicing since you were young, that start to produce the outward manifestations of our lives. Haven’t you seen evidence of people who just seem to “attract” one calamity after another, one terrible relationship after another, one failure after another? And why is that? Are these poor souls so horribly unlucky that the source of all things decided they should live this way and others would thrive and be happy? How ridiculous! But, we somehow believe this don’t we? This nonsense that something is intrinsically wrong or “bad” about us and that is why we don’t get what we say we want.

Having goals is all good and well, but becoming a slave to your goals, or worse, not achieving something you had set down and then becoming frustrated and disillusioned will only hold it away from you even more. The key is truly to appreciate every moment, every step of the journey. It is in the process of creation that we find our greatest joy. To paraphrase Dr Wayne Dyer again, the point of dancing is not about where you end up on the dance floor, it’s about savouring that moment and enjoying your “beingness” with the person you are dancing with – even if the only person you are dancing and singing with is just you!

This doesn’t only have to apply to the fun things in life like dancing, singing, going on holiday or winning some great accolade for your work. Those are the obvious ones that would naturally make most people feel their enjoyment of life. However, it is in your moments of frustration when your path does not seem to be leading to the manifesting of your desires that you most need to learn to stop and refocus yourself into your NOW. We all have access to both what is wanted and what is not wanted. There is an abundance of negative things to focus on in your life or about the world around you or about the city you live in or your partner or your spouse, but there is a much greater and endless supply of things that are positive and just as real as the things that you perceive to be “bad” about your life experience. You truly have the most powerful capability in the world, the capability to choose what you focus on and what meaning you give to everything in your life. And in addition to this, you have the capability to choose to find something, anything to feel good about to help lift your emotional state upwards. And then just keep going and keep practicing that every single day. You cannot possibly do this and stay anxious. You cannot possibly do this and remain depressed. It defies law. You cannot simultaneously focus on two things at the same time. You may be able to flip very quickly between them but you cannot literally have two thoughts (good and bad) at the exact same moment. So choose which one you want to have. Do you want to feel good or bad?

Is it important to you to feel good? Then why aren’t you doing absolutely anything and everything to get you there? “Because I don’t deserve to feel good!” is what I hear you say. What a load of nonsense! You were born to feel good. God/Source/Spirit or whatever you want to call it did not manifest you into this world to feel bad. And if you have done things in your life that you are not proud of and are using that as a reason to withhold feeling good then you need to hear something and hear it well. NOBODY IS PERFECT. FORGIVE YOURSELF. Most of the saints started out doing things that we might refer to as “bad” or went down a path that was less than saintly and realised through their life experiences that they didn’t want to feel that way ever again and so they made up their minds to be “better than they used to be”. Dr Wayne Dyer himself stood up and apologised in public to his first wife for being less of a husband than he should have been. A man who I consider to have been one of the most advanced souls on this planet in our time – psychologically, spiritually and as a human being – and who has done more good through his books, talks and audio programs than we could possibly conceive, admitted to his own wrong doings earlier in his life. What would have become of Wayne Dyer if he had decided that he was inherently a bad person because of some past errors in his judgement? What if he chose to see himself as an unworthy person who didn’t deserve to be happy or successful? I will tell you what would have happened. Millions of people all around the world would have lost out on learning how to change their own lives for the better. They would never have been touched by his kindness, his generosity (he ended up donating millions), his amazing ability to write books that inspire and his talks and lectures that have elevated the lives of so many people. All of that good would have been lost if he had decided that he was not worthy. So, let us do our best to remove the “I am not good enough, worthy enough, smart enough, talented enough, good looking enough” from our lives forever.

It is also interesting to note how people like young Olympians can focus so intently and single-mindedly on a achieving a goal – winning the gold medal. And when they actually achieve it they find – at an age where most people are still trying to figure out who they are and what they want from life – that they are stuck because they believe they have achieved their greatest goal in life at the age of 17 or 18. This can happen anyone who achieves a significant life goal.  But if you can understand that there is always more to be done in life, and I am certainly not speaking about the achieving of material possessions but the eternal growth of who you are as a human being, then you would realise there is nothing to ever be bored about, nothing ever to be frustrated about due to the lack of something not having manifested in your life at this moment.

When you focus on this moment and make this moment the most enjoyable one that you can in whatever it is that you are CHOOSING to do, your life will become one of enjoyment of the ride and not so much about the destination. That doesn’t mean to wander around in circles aimlessly and not actually achieve anything that you deem to be worthwhile. It means set your intentions and ensure you remove the thoughts that would hold you back and enjoy this wonderful ride we call life. Enjoy it today, not tomorrow, or next week, or when you get that pay rise, or when you find that partner you have so desperately been wanting, or when you finally have a child or when you finally buy a house. ENJOY IT NOW. That’s all you really have anyway.


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Lesson 5: Birds of a Feather Flock Together

NOTE: This is the 5th and final FREE chapter from David’s upcoming book called “The Top 10 Sayings that can Change your life! – Life Lessons for teens and young adults”

To receive notification of when the final eBook with all 10 sayings/lessons becomes available please email me at david@foxpsychology.com.au. I hope you enjoyed the stories and welcome your feedback!

Angela

Angela swiped her access card and walked into the call center at exactly 7:55am and was at her desk and logged in by 7:59am and the day’s work began. She was now in her second month at her new job in a call center and was starting to enjoy her new environment and getting to know some her new colleagues.

At the age of 22, it hadn’t been an easy life and she had been through quite a few harrowing experiences including child abuse, experimenting with and struggling with illicit drugs as well as a few failed and abusive relationships. Some of these has been physical, some emotional – but either way it just seemed to her that life just didn’t want to give her a break or allow her to find a decent guy, who didn’t either end up constantly putting her down, cheating on her, or abusing her in some way.

She had also been struggling financially with some credit card debts and had done a few jobs as a waitress but had decided she wanted something more permanent and a career which could offer her some more financial stability and independence in her life. Her father had left her mother when she was very young and she did not know much about him or whether he was in fact living or not. At the moment she still lived at home with her mother and things between them weren’t going particularly well either. Either it was constant bickering or her mother would often moan and complain about her various physical ailments, how terrible her estranged sister was – Angela’s aunty who Angela was actually quite fond of – and in general how men could not be trusted and so she should be very wary of them. And, up to this point in time it did seem that her mother was indeed right – although Angela was aware in the back of her mind that she didn’t really want this to become her own belief system too about men.

Coming into work was generally something Angela looked forward to each day. She was learning new skills and she enjoyed the interaction with customers over the phone, even though she sometimes really struggled with the ones who would get really rude or abusive.

The call center that she worked at was a debt collection call center in the Western Suburbs of Sydney. This was not an easy environment to work in, and you needed to have the gift of thick skin to handle not only the customers but some of the staff and team leaders who worked there too. Typically, if an employee got rattled by a customer some of the more abrasive staff would mock them and Angela had seen that happen so many times that she would try and not show her emotions and would sometimes have to run off to the toilets to cry in solitude.

Aside from these difficult issues, Angela had started to make friends with some of the employees and they would on occasion go out together for a drink after work. She wanted to be popular and well liked and so she would often go out with some of the women and men who seemed to be very outgoing, exciting and who often seemed to win favour with the team leaders.

Invariably, after a typical night of excessive drinking, someone in the group would pull out some ecstasy or cocaine and pressure the others to have some.

Angela had been clean for the past year and it had taken her going into a drug rehabilitation center to get her back onto the path she was now trying to go down. However, the temptation was just too great – and wanting so much to fit in and be well liked – she would often give in. Needless to say, this started to affect her emotional well-being, her relationship with her mum deteriorated, and then her performance at work started to suffer too.

She found it harder and harder to handle the difficult customers. However, she was a very attractive woman and had caught the eye of one of the team leaders and he had been covering for her with management when she didn’t handle a call well or if she came late. Angela had become anxious and concerned as she moved closer to the end of her three month probation period as this was a crucial time for her because she could obviously lose the job if her performance or conduct was not satisfactory.

At the same time that Angela had started in the job, a new human resources manager had also taken up his new position overseeing the 100 or so employees at the call centre. Word had it that the previous HR Manager had left after only a few months because she couldn’t handle the culture in the company. The new HR Manager, Ray, had said hello to Angela and chatted briefly to her every now and then when they were in the office lunch area and he seemed to her to be a genuine and caring person.

One morning, after another long night out with her new circle of friends, Angela was late for work yet again and when she sat down at her desk at 8:30am, she was chastised by Brett – a team leader who she was not very familiar with. Brett took his role as a team leader seriously. He was known by others in the team as someone who was firm but fair and who would be willing to support you as long as you were open with him and put your best effort in.

Already feeling quite rough from the night before, with a headache and the stress brewing from her tardiness and then the dressing down by Brett, Angela was starting to feel quite anxious and emotional, and felt her confidence and insecurities began to unravel.

Thoughts started to rumble in her mind about how her life once again seemed to be moving in the exact opposite direction from the one she had intended herself to go down.

She had made such a firm commitment to herself after coming out of the drug rehabilitation clinic that she was going to turn her life around. Now, she started mentally beating herself up for being so weak and stupid. She couldn’t believe how quickly she had let herself go sliding down the old familiar pathway. As these thoughts began to swarm around inside her mind, she found it almost impossible to focus on her work or concentrate on what she had to say to the clients.

When an angry customer call came in at 10:30, she simply couldn’t handle it anymore. Angela cut the angry customer off mid-sentence, put her head-set down and ran off in the direction of the ladies toilets, barely able to hold back the river of tears.

Brett, immediately noticed her running off and went over to an older female team leader named Tahnee and asked if she wouldn’t mind going to have a check on Angela. Tahnee gave it a few minutes and then went into the toilets. She could see one stall door closed and could hear muffled sobs coming from the cubicle.

“Angela? Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m… fine… thanks. I will be out in a second”, said Angela trying as hard as she could to sound confident but not doing a very good job of it.

“It’s okay if you’re upset about something honey, you don’t have to hide in the cubicle. Come on out”, Tahnee said, hoping Angela would hear that she was being sincere and trust her enough to come out.

Angela decided it didn’t matter now, if she was going to get fired then too bad. That’s just the way her fate-filled life always seemed go, no matter what she did. She wiped her blotchy eyes with some toilet paper, stood up and slowly exited the cubicle.

Tahnee could see immediately the sadness and fear in Angela’s eyes as she opened the door and stepped into the main area of the toilets.

“What’s going on honey? Brett and I are concerned about you” she said.

“It’s nothing. Just something going on at home that has put me off today”, she Angela.

“We all have things that affect us that we bring with to work sometimes. We’re only human. Brett and I have noticed that you started off so well and seemed to be enjoying it here but then something changed and you have been coming in late a few times and also running off to the toilets every now and then” said Tahnee.

Angela recognised the genuineness of the look of concern on Tahnee’s face and made a snap decision that she would trust her.

Tears again welled up in her eyes and she told her a bit about what had been going on. She didn’t say anything about the drugs but told her of the late nights drinking, trying to fit in and struggling with the myriad of rude customers.

When she was finished, Tahnee gave her a quick hug and advised her to take the rest of the day off but that she must first ensure that she made an appointment to speak to Ray, the HR Manager.

Tahnee explained that she had had a few discussions with Ray since he started and was very impressed with his way of handling people and situations. She also felt he would be a good source of support for Angela.

Still feeling embarrassed, Angela said “If it’s okay with you I will try and stay at least until lunch time. I don’t want the team thinking there is something wrong and then we can say that I had to go home because I wasn’t feeling well?”

“That’s fine. I will let Brett know. But just pop past Ray’s office. I am sure he was free when I walked past earlier” said Tahnee and she turned and went out of the toilets.

Angela felt quite relieved and surprised at the response she had gotten. She was really thinking that she was going to lose her job and was still very worried that this would be the case given her recent drop in performance and now admitting to Tahnee that she had been going out drinking with the others quite often.

Angela went out of the toilets and walked straight to Ray’s office.

Ray was focused on his computer screen when Angela walked into the office. The office had a bookshelf filled with human resource and psychology books and an L-shaped desk with two chairs in front of it.

“Hi Ray. Tahnee suggested I come and talk to you. Can I chat to you for a minute… or make a time to come and see you?” she said.

Ray noticed her demeanor and immediately got up and motioned her to sit down as he closed the office door. “Of course Angela, that’s what I’m here for. Have a seat”.

“Thank you” said Angela and sat down in one of the chairs while Ray went back around and sat in his chair.

“What’s happening?” asked Ray.

Angela hesitated for a moment, looking down at her hands and twisting the tissue she had been holding around and around. “I am struggling with a few things at the moment and I’m worried about passing probation. Some things have been happening and I’m not sure how to handle them or change them” she said.

“Well, why don’t we talk about it? I will keep everything confidential and between us unless there is something illegal happening at work in which case I have a responsibility to take action. Is that ok?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s fine. It’s more personal and outside of work, but as I said it’s impacting on my emotional state and my performance” she said.

Angela’s eyes happened to look behind Ray for a moment to some of the certificates on his wall and she saw that one showed he had a degree in psychology. She immediately started to worry about how much to say.

Ray noticed where her eyes had gone and smiled, “Don’t worry I’m not going to psycho-analyse you or ask you to lie down on my couch. As you can see, I don’t even have a couch”.

Angela smiled for the first time that day. She relaxed a little more and again decided she would trust that talking about what was happening would be better than trying to pretend everything was alright.

“Well, things haven’t been easy for me in my life so far. I’ve been through a few things and the last few years I have been trying my best to straighten things out and get my life back on track. Getting this job was a huge step in the right direction for me and I was so excited when I got the offer. I  don’t have a lot of friends and so I also liked the idea of making friends with some of the others here and I did and started to join them socially when they would go for drinks after work. I have been trying to avoid alcohol and to exercise and stay healthy and fit but it all seems to be unravelling now. This has impacted on me at work. I’ve come late a few times and my performance hasn’t been what I know I’m capable of plus I have been struggling with some of the clients when they react badly” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to mention anything about the drugs at this stage.

“Well, firstly let me just say that this isn’t an easy work environment Angela. So number one, don’t be too hard on yourself. It takes quite a thick skin to not be affected by how some of the customers can react to the work we do. We do suffer from high turnover rates in the call center, it’s something that I was asked to address as part of my role here. Second, this is new for you and it will take time for you to get the hang of how to deal with these situations. We can definitely look into getting you onto a course on how to deal with difficult customers if you’re interested?” he asked.

“Thanks, that would help” said Angela.

“Okay I will speak to your team leader about it. So, what do you feel might be the best thing to help start turning things around for you, especially in terms of this group of employees you are spending time with after work?” asked Ray.

“I don’t know Ray, I want to make this work but I also want people here to like me and I have enjoyed being social again after withdrawing from people for a while” said Angela.

“Well, I get that. But here’s the thing; birds of a feather flock together and sometimes we need to take a closer look at the people that we are spending time with and think more carefully about whether they are the right sort of people we want to associate with. Does that make sense?” said Ray.

“Yes, it does. But I always seem to gravitate to people who aren’t good for me somehow. Even when I am trying to change my life, it seems these people keep showing up who at first seem right and then I end up in a bad situation” she said, looking a bit defeated.

“Well, I know this may sound weird but you know this is a very common occurrence that we keep attracting the same kinds of people into our lives because maybe we haven’t learnt a lesson from before about who we are and what we really want and deserve. Sometimes it is because we have some belief that we can only attract certain kinds of people into our lives” said Ray, wondering if Angela was now thinking he was the one who should be analysed.

“I guess I have heard stories about women who keep leaving one abusive relationship and think they have found someone different but that person ends up being abusive too. Or people attracting partners with similar character traits”, said Angela. She had read a bit about these kinds of cycles after having gone through her previous relationships.

“Exactly. So it becomes really important as we go through life and start to understand more about ourselves and who and what we seem to be attracting that we think and believe about ourselves is a big part of who and what keeps showing up.

“In some way, we are attracting or even just allowing those kinds of people into our lives. Sometimes, we think we have figured it out and then someone shows up and we start to see, or mostly refuse to see, the same issues we had with someone else before. But we still allow those people to be in our lives or for a relationship or friendship to develop with them. And somewhere down the track we realize we are right back where we started or we are living the same relationship over again” said Ray.

Ray continued watching Angela closely – he suspected there was more to her story and it was not merely friendships she was concerned with, but potentially impacts from a negative or abusive relationship from the past. Angela continued to listen intently to what he was saying and he could see she was relating it to her own experience.

“So are you saying I need to end the friendships with the group that goes out drinking?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not saying you have to do anything. I am saying that you need to think about the kinds of people who may be good for you and who can support you on the new path you say you want to go down and also the kinds of people who are likely to be the opposite of that. I’m not saying you have to just cut them off, you could still be friendly to them at work but maybe not go out with them too often. Cut back on it and start to look around and see if there may be others in the call center you can start to build friendships with” said Ray.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s going to be hard though and some of them might start to avoid me or treat me differently” said Angela, thinking about the team leader who liked her and had been covering for her.

“I know it won’t be easy but you have support here too. You have Brett and Tahnee and you have me too. I have the feeling this might apply not just to your work but other parts of your life too. So maybe it’s a good lesson to learn now that will stand you in good stead for the future. Especially in terms of your work and career” said Ray.

“Yes, but I don’t want to feel uncomfortable at work. What if they say something to me or do something to me?” she asked.

Ray considered her question for a moment.

“You know, we all want to be liked – well most of us anyway. Most people want to be accepted and liked and this is why high school can be such a difficult time for so many people. Trying to find out exactly who you are, going through changes and moving from your youth through your childhood to an independent adult is challenging. Throw in trying to deal with peer pressure and fitting in and you have a recipe for disaster for many people’s self-esteem and ability to be individuals” said Ray.

Ray continued, “Seems to me that once people leave high school and go on to other environments they come into their own and feel much more able to just be who they are. University or College is usually a good place for that. But sometimes, people go into work environments and the same dynamics play out. You can’t avoid the dynamics of human interactions in groups. Hierarchies, politics, who is seen as “popular”, unfortunately this does still happen in the workplace. But you don’t have to conform to this Angela. There was a famous psychologist named Abraham Maslow who studied people who were seen to be very successful in their chosen fields. He called these people ‘self actualisers’ and said that those people who self-actualise in life – in other words they become the full potential of who they can be – are mostly people who are ‘independent of the good opinion of other people’. Notice he said, the good opinion of other people because they don’t even care if people think they are good or right in what they are doing and they certainly don’t care if people think negatively about them. This is not an easy thing to achieve but you can see examples of these types of people all over. Steve Jobs was one of them” said Ray with a smile, lifting up his iPhone.

Angela was absorbing all that Ray had been saying to her and felt a lot better about herself and the relief now showed in her face. She could see how she had fallen into the trap of wanting others to approve of her and how that had often just led to frustration, heartbreak or worse. She also realised that if it’s true that birds of a feather flock together then she should probably think more carefully about what kind of bird she was or wanted to be.

“Thanks Ray. I really appreciate your help. Going to try my best to think about what you have said and start implementing it more in my life” she said.

“You’re welcome Angela. I’m here if you need moral support while you make these changes. You have potential and talent. Brett and Tahnee have both said this to me” he said.

Angela looked quite surprised and she smiled. “That’s really nice to hear, thanks again. And thanks for not judging or analysing me Ray – God knows I’ve had enough of that in my life”.

“Like I said, no couch to lie on here and besides if there was I may end up on it myself and you may have to counsel me so best I stick to a desk and chairs”.

Angela smiled and walked out of the office with a feeling of hope that maybe, just maybe, things could finally start to work out for her.

 

David Fox is a psychologist and the author of Change your Life! Hope and Healing for Anxiety and Depression.

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Lesson 3: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink!

“I’m really worried about my friend Amy, I think she is getting more and more depressed and doesn’t seem to realise what’s going on.”, said Gwen.

Her school counsellor, Mrs. Wright looked at her with some concern and asked, “What makes you think that she is depressed Gwen?  Have you noticed something different about her lately?”

“Well, she used to be very outgoing and social. She would come to all the school parties and loved going out on the weekends but lately she just says she doesn’t feel like it and is staying at home a lot”.

“Ok, that is a possible sign of depression, but is there anything else you have noticed?” Mrs. Wright asked, sitting forward in her armchair and writing down a few notes from the conversation.

Gwen was a very intelligent sixteen year old girl with ginger hair and bright green eyes. She had a kind and caring nature and was quite sensitive to the behaviours and emotions of others and so had come to see Mrs. Wright originally because she was suffering from some social anxiety. She had a propensity to really worry about what other people thought about her and spent hours agonising over whether she had said the wrong thing or looked or sounded stupid in front of her friends at school.

It always amazed Mrs. Wright over the past 16 years that she had worked in counselling how many people would do this – both teenagers and adults – and never question the validity of their own assumptions about what other people were thinking. It so often led to feelings of poor self-esteem and disengagement with people socially when there was no real reason for it. So many people at the core of their psychological issues seemed to her to have the underlying negative belief that somehow they aren’t good enough.

Mrs. Wright had been teaching Gwen some CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) to help her challenge her thinking and to engage with people without worrying about what they thought about her too much. This had allowed Gwen to express herself more and she had begun to enjoy socialising again and had indeed developed some close friendships in the school.

“Well, you know last year when I was feeling quite depressed about my social circle and you told me about some of the signs of depression?”, Gwen asked.

“Yes, I remember us talking briefly about it”, replied Mrs. Wright.

“Well, Amy has lost a lot of weight lately, I hardly ever see her eat at school. She brings lunch but takes a few bites and that’s about it. I think she has lost about 5 kilograms at least. And it isn’t from exercising or netball because she has pulled away from that too. She used to run two or three times a week and I asked her the other day how the running is going and she said that she hadn’t been feeling up to it lately”,  said Gwen, her concern for her friend showed clearly on her face.

“Yes, another possible sign of depression. As we discussed last year, generally people’s weight can fluctuate up or down with depression but when it gets to be moderate or close to severe it tends to lean more towards people losing weight because they start to not bother and that can be very concerning. You also mentioned a loss of interest in activities that she used to enjoy and this is another major sign of depression. When people withdraw from life and that withdrawal can be from exercise, social activities and very importantly from things that they usually gain enjoyment from then this is a sign that something is wrong and we need to be on the alert for the possibility of depression. Has anything happened in her life recently that could have caused her to feel this way?” asked Mrs. Wright.

“Well, she broke up with her boyfriend last year but she seemed to be recovering okay from that but then her grandfather passed away quite suddenly a few months ago. I know she was very close to him, they would talk on the phone almost every day and she confided everything to him about her life, he was a big support to her”.  Gwen looked down at her hands, a tear began to roll down her cheek.

“I guess you know how that feels Gwen and I can see how much you empathise with her,” said Mrs. Wright moving the box of Kleenex closer to Gwen who took a few tissues and wiped her eyes.

Gwen had lost her mother when she was 9 years old and although that was now 7 years ago, she would still struggle with the loss from time to time and be triggered by certain events or situations. They had discussed this as part of the counselling process over the previous few months and although Gwen had had some previous counselling before she had still needed some more closure as part of her counselling. This had also helped Gwen with some of her social fears as she came further out of her introverted shell and began to engage with the people around her without fear of judgement. She was now becoming quite popular with her school friends and building a strong social circle.

Gwen continued, “Yes, it does touch on that place of sadness inside me but I feel I am handling that better now and I want to reach out to Amy and help her. I can see that she is spiraling and it’s really hard to see her going through this. I have suggested to her that she come and see you but she won’t do it. She says counselling is for crazy people and she’s not crazy. I did laugh at that and say ‘thanks for that’.  When she realised and remembered I had come to see you she laughed a little and apologized but still won’t come”.

“You know Gwen, as hard as it is sometimes to accept, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”, said Mrs. Wright with a look of understanding and concern for Gwen but also for Amy.

“What do you mean?” asked Gwen, not quite sure what the saying actually meant or how it applied to this situation.

“Well, it’s a saying that has been around a long time and like most of those simple sayings we’ve heard so many times before, there is a power in them. If we take the time to really understand what they mean and apply them to our lives they can help us cope better with some of the events and situations that life can throw at us sometimes. I can’t tell you how many people have come into counselling and told me about a friend or a relative who really needs help and support but who for some reason or another won’t go and get that support. Men are usually worse than women when it comes to this as they think counselling is for sissies, or they have grown up being told real men don’t cry. But we know that it’s the opposite and that real men can access and understand their emotions and know when to reach out for help before it’s too late. Unfortunately it seems women are not immune to this either as you have seen with your friend Amy”.

“I am still a little unsure about the saying though” Gwen smiled as she brought her counsellor back on track. This could happen from time to time with Mrs. Wright but she liked her quirkiness.

“Oh yes! Well, it is absolutely true of course that you can literally lead a horse to water that is thirsty and needs to drink in order to stay alive, but you can’t make it drink. Imagine trying to grab a horse by the mouth or neck and pushing its head to the water. No matter how hard you push, if that horse doesn’t want to drink, you aren’t going to achieve anything aside from maybe straining your muscles and being incredibly frustrated!” said Mrs. Wright.

Gwen couldn’t help but smile at the image of someone trying to force a horse to drink water.

“And so it is with people too Gwen. We can tell them what we know is good for them. We can give them information and material to read and explain how others have been helped by doing certain things but all the best intentions and efforts in the world will amount to nothing if the person is not ready to get help. If the person is not ready to admit they need help and then seek that help, there is not much we can do but just be a gentle reminder to them and keep reaffirming the message that help is available when they are ready”.

Mrs. Wright thought of another client she had helped a few years before who had come to see her only after he had been driving drunk and had ‘wrapped his car around a tree’ and miraculously survived. It was only then that the young twenty-three year old had decided that he needed to do something about his depression before it took his life. Mrs. Wright chose not to share this story with Gwen as she didn’t want her to worry unnecessarily about her friend.

“Do her parents know what is going on?” she asked.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure but I think they must know as they would have seen her withdrawing from netball and social outings. I guess I could try to talk to her mother if I get a chance when I am at her house?” Gwen asked.

“That may be a good idea, you may know things that are happening with Amy at school that they don’t but be prepared for Amy to not be happy about it. However, if you feel it will be in her best interests then go ahead”, Mrs. Wright suggested.

“The other thing I noticed is that she is sleeping a lot and always seems exhausted even though she tells me she has more than 8 hours of sleep a night and will often sleep in on the weekends” said Gwen.

“Yes, another major sign of moderate to severe depression Gwen. The problem with that being that unfortunately lethargy breeds lethargy. The depressed person has lost energy, pulled back from physical and enjoyable activities and thus feels less active and less energetic and so wrongly feels that more rest or sleep will help. Sometimes they don’t want to face the world and sleeping is a way of escaping. But this is what I call one of the major traps of depression. You must keep trying to encourage Amy to get out and do something, anything to get her out of the house. Unfortunately, what happens when people get depressed is their friends and family don’t know how to handle it so they stay away and that is the worst thing that you can do as a friend. This only increases their sense of isolation”.

“What if she gets suicidal?” Gwen asked, frightened by the prospect of this or even having to broach the subject with Amy.

“I know it may seem a very hard thing to do Gwen, but as a close friend, if you feel there is any possibility that she may be thinking about it, you must ask her. Just ask her if she has had any thoughts of self-harm. We call these thoughts ideation. They are very common with moderate to severe depression and while alarming to the people around the depressed person and sometimes quite alarming to the depressed person themselves, it is not unusual. It’s a cry for help. The time to get worried is if you ask the next question which is if they have a plan to carry out their ideation and you know they have the means to do it. If the answer is yes you need to get them immediate help from a doctor and psychologist. It doesn’t sound like Amy is at that stage of things but it doesn’t hurt to check. This is what you can do as a concerned friend if she is not yet willing to get help.”

“What if she doesn’t get help?” asked Gwen

“Another saying I like Gwen is: ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear’. She needs to be ready. She may need to hit bottom before she realises that she is the only one who can change her life by getting the help and support she needs. You can certainly reaffirm how counselling has helped you and that it has made a difference to you and helped you get on with your life. Sometimes a bit of self-disclosure can help because people realise they are not alone and that plenty of people go for counselling. Everyone needs to talk to someone who is not emotionally involved in their lives and that includes us psychologists! Someone who they can tell their deepest darkest secrets to or just say anything they need to say and express their feelings without fear of being judged or preached to”.

Gwen noticed Mrs. Wright was getting a little worked up on this point.

Mrs. Wright realised too and said, “Sorry, that’s my little soap box speech for the day” and smiled.

Gwen smiled too. “You’re right though, Mrs. Wright”. They both laughed at that.

“Okay, so how about you have a talk to her…” said Mrs. Wright.

“But I don’t know what to say to her, I don’t want to set her off” Gwen cut in.

“Well, it may be best to approach it by saying that you are concerned about her and that you have noticed some changes in her behaviour and any other changes you want to acknowledge. She may not even realise that people have noticed some of the changes. Then you could tell her again that you found counselling to be really helpful and how it has helped you get through a difficult time in your life. Tell her that you care about her and maybe offer to talk to her whenever she wants and encourage her to take up some running or netball sessions again. Explain to her how this will improve her mood because it will increase her serotonin levels which could possibly be part of why she is feeling depressed”.

“What are serotonin levels?” Gwen asked

“Serotonin is one of the chemicals in our brain and body that is involved in the creation of feelings of peace, happiness and enjoyment in life. Another important one is called Dopamine.”, explained Mrs. Wright.

“So are you saying Amy may have a chemical imbalance?” asked Gwen.

“Goodness no! This is a big issue in the field of psychology and psychiatry at the moment Gwen and it is so important to understand that depression and anxiety can be healed through natural means. And just because someone may have lower levels of serotonin does not mean they have a chemical imbalance that requires correcting through drugs. There are so many more options available to people before they should consider taking something like an anti-depressant” said Mrs. Wright, clearly showing this an issue she had some fairly strong views on.

“Like what?” asked Gwen.

“Well, there are so many things really. Most doctors and psychiatrists would not think of suggesting these things to people but I really recommend that you do mention them to Amy. She may feel more comfortable trying these natural ways first anyway and it is certainly the better way to go. We know through scientific evidence that cardiovascular exercise, something like jogging, swimming, cycling or anything that gets the heart rate up and works up a sweat will help to combat depression by increasing serotonin levels. Most people know this but it can be hard, as I said before, for depressed people to get going and do this. But it’s still very important and they only need to do this for 15-20 minutes, two or three times a week. This has been scientifically proven to increase serotonin levels so that’s always a good start. There are a few nutritional things that people don’t usually know about that can also contribute to depression. When we have been under stress for a long period due to any number of stressful life events, our levels of serotonin can be lowered. Stress releases cortisol into our bodies and this chemical can lower serotonin levels over time. The stress reaction can also deplete our levels of the essential B vitamins, especially Vitamin B6 and B12. These are essential for healthy brain function and are actually involved in the body and brain’s process of creating serotonin out of protein. So you could definitely recommend that she start taking a high potency Vitamin B complex” said Mrs. Wright.

“Oh okay, wow I didn’t know that. Maybe I should start taking Vitamin B too?” Gwen asked.

“Absolutely, it’s important for all of us. I take it every day without fail,”, said Mrs. Wright. “the other thing that is essential for effective brain function and mood regulation is getting enough Omega 3. The best way is through high quality fish oils and people who are depressed need to take about 600-800mg of EPA everyday”.

“I feel like I’m in biology class! This is a lot of information,” Gwen laughed.

“Yes, I know. I will write it down for you if you like.” Mrs. Wright offered.

“If you could that would be great. What is EPA?”

“Each capsule of fish oil has both EPA and DHA in it which are both types of fatty acids our brain and bodies need. It’s not really important what it stands for – I couldn’t pronounce it even if I wanted to! –  but most of the commercially available ones have only about 180 EPA per capsule. People with moderate to severe depression need 600-800mg a day so they need to take about 4 capsules a day. There are higher potency ones with more EPA in them so you don’t have to take so many capsules. I take them each day at mid-morning with a fruit and then again after lunch. Best to take them with some food in the stomach”.

“Right. Well, that’s another one I will think about trying myself too” said Gwen.

“She should begin to see some results within a week or two but if not, she may need to add in exercise and counselling too. But again, you can take her to the water, you can tell her what will help her but unless she recognizes the need for help or trying something to help herself, it may not work. But Gwen, I want you to really get this. You can only do your best to help her. You can even go and buy her some fish oil capsules and Vitamin B but you can’t force them down her throat, just as you can’t force the horse to drink”

“Yes, I guess I can just try be there for her as you say and make sure she knows I am there to talk to whenever she needs”, said Gwen – looking a little more encouraged about what she could do to help her friend.

“That’s all you can really do and that may make all the difference in the world to her too. Never underestimate the power of having even one person show kindness, interest and caring towards someone who is suffering in order to help them heal and recover from emotional difficulties”, said Mrs. Wright.

“Absolutely. Once again Mrs. Wright, you are so right”. They both laughed again.

Gwen got up, stretched and thanked Mrs. Wright. She spontaneously gave Mrs. Wright a hug on the way out of the counselling office. Mrs. Wright blushed a little but was very touched and thought once again how lucky she was to do the work she did every day. As tough as it could be at times, making a difference to someone’s life always made it all worthwhile.

David Fox is a psychologist and the author of Change your Life! Hope and Healing for Anxiety and Depression.

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Lesson 2: Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it

Reece wandered into his psychology 101 class, looked around at the theatre like room with the hundred or so chairs leading upwards to the ceiling and smiled as he reflected for the umpteenth time how much the room looked much more like a movie theatre than a classroom. He walked up a few flights of stairs to the middle row and excused himself as he passed a few of the other students and finally sat down next to Rachel.

“Hey, how was the weekend?” asked Rachel.

“Not bad, how was yours?”, asked Reece, trying to act as nonchalant as he could in front of the woman he had had a crush on for the past 6 months. He tried to remain calm and slow his breathing a little. He was so attracted to this woman and was so scared of letting her know how he felt in case she rejected him outright and his mind would race picturing how awful that would be, how utterly mortified he would feel if she didn’t feel the same way and how he may lose her as a friend in the process. He hoped she couldn’t see any signs of his anxiety and kept facing forward.

“Mine was good thanks. Spent some time with the family and went with Eva to see Love Actually 3. Wasn’t as good as the first two”.

“Yeah, sometimes they need to leave a good thing alone hey” smiled Reece.

Rachel laughed out loud and jabbed him in the ribs playfully.

“Ouch, crazy woman”, Reece pretended to be shocked. His mind racing with images and ideas. Did she like him more than a friend? Did the poke and physical contact mean that she may be keen for something more? How on earth would he find the courage or the right time and place to make it obvious to her that he would like to date her and not just meet up in class and spend time cramming for exams together in the library? His thoughts trailed off as their lecturer walked into the room.

Professor Fisher walked into the room with the usual hustle of a man who had too many things to do and not enough time to do them in. He was a middle aged man, in his mid to late forties with a full beard that was beginning to show some grey. He was about 5ft8 with light brown hair and wore rimless glasses. The class would always be intrigued by what he might turn up wearing that day. He appeared to have an endless supply of checkered shirts and sleeveless pullovers that he would invariably wear to his lessons. The university students loved Professor Fisher’s lectures. He had a way of bringing the history of psychology to life. When he spoke about Freud and Jung it was as if he had known them personally and his own person centered approach to dealing with people shone through in how he described the process of therapy. Many of the students would go to him for advice either right after the lecture or they would make an appointment to see him and he always made time for them, no matter how busy he appeared to be.

Reece had also gone to see Professor Fisher on a few occasions when he had been struggling with some of the course work or a particularly difficult essay. In his first few weeks in psych 101, Reece had felt quite overwhelmed and had given serious consideration to dropping out of University and becoming a beach bum. He could see himself living the life of Bodhi from Point Break played by Patrick Swayze, surfing all day and robbing banks behind the mask of a US President for cash and living expenses. Reece’s imagination would sometimes get the better of him!

“Morning class, I hope you all had a good weekend and you are ready for another wonderful week in the land of intellectualism and all things psychological”, said Professor Fisher with a wide smile as he scanned the lecture hall to see who had decided to attend the early morning class. Many of his students would often skip the first lesson on a Monday morning for various reasons he could only too easily imagine. They would often ask their fellow class mates to either record the lesson on their smart phone or to take notes for them and make copies. Reece had never had anyone ask for his notes once they had seen his hand writing. Everyone told him he should be studying to become a doctor.

“As we are nearing the end of term as well as the end of your first year in psychology, I thought it would be a good idea to let you know about some of your options for next year. As you know, you will need a pass mark of at least 70% average in your psych 101 class in order to take Psychology again next year. There are actually quite a few electives next year within psychology and those who are seriously considering making a career out of this will need to do most of these electives as well as their other major for their degree. As part of the requirement to become a psychologist and complete your undergraduate in psychology, you will all be required to complete Psych 202 – Research Design and Analysis which include Psych 202A – which is statistics…” the Professor continued but at this stage Reece’s face had gone white.

Reece, stared at his Professor in an uncomprehending way for a minute before whispering to Rachel, “What the hell? Statistics?!”

Rachel turned to look at Reece and noticed that he looked a distinct shade of pale as she confirmed, “yes, didn’t you know that it was required?” She looked at him with concern, wondering why he was looking like he had just been told he had 3 months to live.

“I’m screwed, that’s it. It’s all over for me”, said Reece, staring once more at his Professor who had gone on to tell the students that they may also want to look at taking electives such as organizational psychology if they were interested in taking the path towards working as a psychologist in business. Reece didn’t even hear that part. He was so preoccupied with the thought that his dream, his vision of becoming a psychologist had just been blown out in one fell swoop. His mind raced with thoughts about how he had just wasted a year of his life, loving a subject and thinking of a career in psychology to only be thwarted by a subject that he couldn’t for the life of him see how it related to sitting down and counselling people through emotional difficulties. Yet, here it was as a prerequisite to becoming a psychologist.

“What are you talking about Reece, you will be fine. Everyone has to do it. I have heard that it’s hard going but you’ll be fine”, reassured Rachel. She rubbed his arm a little.

“You don’t understand, I almost failed maths in school. I hated it so much. When I wrote my last math’s exam, I was so overjoyed. I still have nightmares about having to write my final maths exam where I haven’t studied all year and completely forgot that I was going to have to write a final exam. I’m just no good at it. I’m right brained for God’s sake Rachel, aren’t most people who study the Arts? If we were left-brained people we would be studying accounting not psychology!” said Reece, becoming clearly more agitated by the minute.

“Calm down, maybe you should just go and talk to Professor Fisher about it. I’m sure he will give you a better idea of what’s involved”.

“Yeah, I think I will have to pay him a visit. I will chat to him after class to see when he is free”.

For the rest of the lecture, which was about Freud’s views on dreams and dream interpretation, Reece was there in body only. He tried to bring his concentration back at times and make some notes but eventually gave up and just hit record on his mobile phone. His mind was once again preoccupied with all the possible paths that now lay before him, including changing subjects, looking for another career path, leaving university and getting a job somewhere or taking a year off and heading to South America to reevaluate his life. He felt like a huge weight had been put on his chest and feelings of hopelessness and despondency fluttered through him as they had often done at many other times in his life.

Professor Fisher finished the lecture with a homework assignment for the class to keep a dream journal for one week, explaining how the students could best prepare their minds and their subconscious minds to remember their dreams each morning by keeping a pen and paper next to their beds and keeping very still just as they became aware of becoming awake. They would then need to mentally rehearse as many details of their dream as they could before moving and then go directly their pen and paper and just write whatever details of the dream they could remember without over thinking it. He then wanted to them to try and interpret what their dreams were indicating to them about what was going on in their lives and write a short five page essay on their dream interpretation.

As the last of the students left the lecture hall, Reece waited behind two other students who had some questions for the Professor. When they moved on, the Professor smiled when he saw Reece and then, noticing the look of consternation on Reece’s face, immediately asked him what was wrong.

“Can I come speak to you in your office either today or tomorrow please, Professor. I am really concerned about this statistics course we have to pass next year. I’m really worried this could be the end of me becoming a psychologist” said Reece with a look of dismay clearly showing.

“I know this probably doesn’t help to say right now but you will be fine Reece. But, yes come and see me first thing tomorrow morning. I have some time at 8:30 before my tutorial class”.

“Great, thanks Professor, appreciate it” said Reece as he hitched his backpack over his shoulder again and headed out the lecture hall.

That night, Reece struggled to fall asleep. He lay in bed going over in his mind all the possibilities for his future, none of which seems to be appealing outside of him pursuing his dream of becoming a psychologist. He just couldn’t imagine what else he would do with his life at this point. It taken him long enough to figure out that psychology was the road that he wanted to go down and then committing himself to at least 5 years of ongoing study. His mind also wandered to Rachel, thinking about how much he liked her and also rerunning how he had reacted to hearing about the statistics course. He was quite sure that she must think he is a total idiot now and there was no way she would go out with someone who was so terrified of completing a course in statistics. Rachel was very bright and he knew that she would ace the course with no problem. His thoughts rumbled around trying to convince him he was no good for her but he fought back, trying to use some of what he had learned through his own self-study about negative thoughts. He reminded himself that being highly intelligent from an IQ point of view wasn’t everything and that emotional intelligence counted just as much, if not more.  After a long time of tossing and turning he finally fell asleep entangled in the bed sheets.

The next morning, Reece was waiting on a chair outside Professor Fisher’s office looking at his phone, flipping through Facebook status updates. He heard steps coming up the foot well at the end of the corridor and looked up to see Professor Fisher step into the corridor with his leather briefcase in his left hand and a coffee that he usually got from the canteen in his right. He saw Reece and smiled. When he got to his office door he put his briefcase down and asked Reece if he wouldn’t mind holding his coffee while found his keys. Professor Fisher opened the office door and Reece followed him in. Professor Fisher asked him to take a seat on the couch as he put his briefcase down and then came to sit across from Reece on his high back chair that he often used for counselling students.

Reece put his backpack down and sank into the couch, looking fatigued and quite despondent.

Professor Fisher studied Reece’s demeanor and then said, “Ok young man, out with it then, what’s troubling you about the statistics course?”

“Professor, I all but failed maths in high school, I hated it with a passion. I still have nightmares about it. I’m just not intelligent enough and I don’t want to put myself through having to study something that I am just ultimately going to fail. I’ve been seriously thinking of needing to change courses or something” said Reece.

Professor Fisher studied the young man for a minute and then said, “Reece, you will just have to cross that bridge when you get to it”.

“But I really think I am just going to fail Professor so what is the point?”

“Reece, have you ever thought about what that saying really means in life and how you can apply it? Did you know that it directly relates to a psychological distortion of thinking in CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) called Fortune Telling?”

Reece thought about this for a moment, remembering reading a book by Dr. David Burns that had discussed this distortion of thinking that causes anxiety and sometimes depression. He remembered thinking that the book was very good but he had never really tried to apply the practices in it.

“Yes, I think I remember it. It’s when we try to predict something in the future and we often worry about things that haven’t happened and aren’t likely to happen. Is that what you mean?” he said.

“Yes, that’s right. The saying ‘we will cross that bridge when we get to it’ is age old advice that has been handed down through the ages and has survived as a saying for a reason. As have many other sayings that we have heard so many times before but never really stopped to contemplate why they are still around and how to apply them effectively in our lives. Tell me something Reece, can you remember something in your past that you were worried about happening that eventually got resolved? Something where you were worried that things wouldn’t turn out but they somehow did?” asked Professor Fisher with a little bit of a smile showing in his eyes and lips.

Reece had to smile a little in response and thought back to a few events and occasions in his life where he had worried unnecessarily about things that had eventually worked themselves out. He remembered being worried about how he was going to pay for repairs to his car and imagining what would happen if he couldn’t manage to pay for it. His parents didn’t have much money and he had been working as a waiter to have some money to cover costs of his car and doing Tae Kwon Do, which he had only started the year before. But the repairs had ended up not costing as much as he had feared they would and he managed to arrange paying off the bill over 3 months with the mechanic. He remembered being awake for a few nights worrying about it and losing sleep over it.

“Yes, that has happened a few times Professor but this is different. This is huge. If I fail this course, I cannot become a psychologist which is one of my biggest dreams in life. That would be awful”.

“Well now Reece, what you’ve just said there is actually one of the other distortions of thinking! It’s called catastrophizing. You know, blowing things out of proportion. It may not be the way you saw things happening in your life, but I firmly believe that where there is a will there is a way. You may not take the traditional route but you will get there if you have enough desire and passion to keep going for what you want. And that’s assuming that you can’t pass the course. Reece, you’re an intelligent young man, if you need to go for extra lessons or support I’m sure we can arrange that. That’s IF you actually need the support. Statistics is quite different to mathematics. It is very much applied and if you concentrate in lectures and study hard I cannot see why you won’t get the 75% average that you need. And by the way, the minimum requirements is to complete Statistics 201 in the first half of next year but there is also a highly recommended Statistics 202, in the second half of the year”.

Reece looked a shade paler. “You can’t be serious Professor, this is a nightmare”.

“Reece, do you know what worry is?”

“Yes, it’s something I’m very skilled at!” exclaimed Reece, trying hard to maintain his look of dismay but cracking a smile anyway. He felt his state change a little as he was able to laugh at himself a bit.

Professor Fisher chuckled and said, “Well, that may be true Reece and certainly something you should be working on, but I have always loved the description of worry as paying the interest on a debt that you probably don’t owe”.

Reece reflected on this for a bit, realizing how true that had been in his life. How much energy and time he had spent worrying about things that never eventuated, or certainly didn’t turn out as bad as he feared. In fact, he could remember quite a few times when things worked out in ways he could never have imagined. How certain people or events had arrived in his life at just the right time to help him along his path.

“I like that description”, said Reece.

“Yes, it’s quite good isn’t it? Like I said Reece, if you were walking along a pathway and someone told you that there was a bridge up ahead on your path that was difficult to cross and a little bit dangerous due to how old it was, you could do one of a number of things. You could stop in your tracks, imagine that bridge and what it would be like to fall to your death in the ravine far below and you wouldn’t take another step forward. You would give up on your goal of getting over that bridge and getting to where you were travelling to in the first place. You might try and immediately think of all other possible routes to get to your destination without having to cross the bridge, which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing as that is just problem solving, but the issue is that you haven’t even seen the bridge yet! It’s purely in your imagination as is the image of you falling to your untimely demise. None of it is real. That is why we call it Fortune Telling. You know, it is very much a human thing to do. We are geared to looking for danger and that comes from our very primitive beginnings and needing to be wary of our environment. It served a real purpose in keeping us alive in the days where we may have ended up some wild animal’s dinner if we didn’t keep our wits about us. But in today’s world, most of what we fear are our own mental creations and imaginings of some horrible misfortune happening to us. Sometimes these imaginings are based on real events that have happened to us, such as your previous experience with maths making you feel as if you will not be able to handle statistics. The same as someone who has lost their job in the past becoming quite fearful and worried about losing their job again if their organization announces a restructure or the economy takes a turn for the worst. But in most cases it is the fear of what may happen and not what has actually happened that causes so much angst for people. And we really all need to learn that trying to cross the bridge before we actually get to it serves no other purpose other than to make us afraid and prevent us from continuing down our path with the faith and belief that we will handle it when we get there. We have handled many other things in the past so why wouldn’t we be able to handle this too?”

Professor Fisher sat back in his chair, taking a sip of his now luke warm coffee, thinking he should warm it up in his little microwave he had bought for just such occasions. He monitored the look on Reece’s face, searching to see how his words had impacted the young man, hoping that they had actually made an impact. Reece certainly appeared more relax and more contemplative than when he had first seem him waiting outside the office.

“I hear what you are saying Professor. Makes sense I guess not to worry about things that haven’t happened yet. I guess I should try live one day at a time and not try and tackle my whole life at once”, Reece remarked.

“Now you’re getting it lad. And keep this in mind too, I am not saying that you shouldn’t think ahead and try to plan your life, set goals or reflect on the consequences of your actions. I am just trying to get you to see that there is a difference between thinking ahead in order to plan and worrying needlessly about things that may or may not happen”.

Reece felt a lot calmer and much more confident about continuing with his goal to become a psychologist. While he still had some concern about how he would cope with the statistics course, he realised that he had been overreacting and catastrophizing, thinking the worst and that this was not helpful. One more question flashes into his mind. He wasn’t sure whether it was appropriate to raise with the Professor but he felt comfortable enough and he had never had a father figure to talk to about such things.

“Professor, can I ask you something unrelated to my studies?”

“Of course you can, although I only have a few more minutes”

“There is this girl in the Psych 101 class…”

“You mean Rachel of course”, said Professor Fisher with a mischievous and knowing glint in his eye.

Reece looked very surprised and smiled, “Yes, how do you know?”

“I observe people for a living my boy, just because there is a class of 100 people doesn’t mean I don’t notice what’s going on in it. You like her but you don’t know if she feels the same way you do”.

“Yes! I’m really worried she just sees me as a friend and I worry that she will reject me or that I will lose her friendship. I also think that she’s maybe out of my league and thinks I am a bit of a dork”, said Reece.

“Well Reece, here is yet another example of thinking that can you wrong. What you are doing is something called Mind Reading as well as Fortune Telling. You are trying to imagine what she thinks of you rather than testing reality by asking her and then you are imagining what she may do if you told her how you feel, which is of course Fortune Telling. You know, you always have a choice about which way you imagine or predict things may go. You may be right on either count. She may respond negatively or she may respond positively. You may as well picture a positive outcome. Why scare yourself with all the negative possibilities? Just ask her out on a date.”

“But what if she says no?” asked Reece.

“I’ll give you one last gem I learnt many years ago. Playing the little game of ‘what if’ with yourself in life rarely leads to a good time and it certainly doesn’t achieve much. Sometimes, a better question to ask yourself is so what if? So what if she says no? Will your world come crashing down? Will you never find another woman you are attracted to? Will you never get married and have kids? You get my drift?” said the Professor as he stood up smiling broadly at Reece. He remembered well his own fears and insecurities about dating in his early twenties.

“I like that one too Professor”, said Reece as he stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Thanks Professor, you really helped me. Don’t know what I would do without you”.

“Well, you would either be fine or you wouldn’t, which one do you choose to think?” said the Professor.

Reece laughed and left the office with a noticeable spring in his step as he walked down the psychology unit hall and headed for the canteen where he knew Rachel would be having her first coffee of the day.

One year later, not only had Reece passed the statistics course with 75% for the first course and 76% for the second, he was asked by the psychology department to tutor first year students for one afternoon a week. Reece would often smile when he remembered his conversation with Professor Fisher and committed to doing everything he could to not cross any bridge until he got to it.

David Fox is a psychologist and the author of Change your Life! Hope and Healing for Anxiety and Depression.

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A worldwide epidemic – the misuse of anti depressant medications

This is a topic that is very close to my heart and just seems to be one of those things where life leads you and you cannot really understand why certain things have happened in your life until later. Sometimes when we get a little older, hopefully a little wiser we realise certain things in life. One of the lessons I have had to learn is that not all people who have letters after their names are actually “gods” or are people who have any special powers to know things about us that is more important than what we can learn about ourselves, our own bodies and our own minds. Blindly following what someone says we need to be doing for our own health (mental or physical) and well being just because they have a white jacket on (so to speak) is usually not in our best interests. I believe it was Dr. Bernie Segiel, author of Love, Medicine and Miracles who said that those patients who took the most active involvement and who researched their own care and recovery were the ones who time and again tended to go into remission from cancer.

Let me first clarify my position on all of what I am about to say in this article so that there are no misunderstandings:

  1. I am not saying that people should not listen to their medical professionals but I am saying that most of the time those who heal need to be actively involved in their own healing and research and learn as much if not more than their so called “specialists”. This is the only way we can make true informed choices about our own health and welling being and what is right and what is wrong for us should we ever need help or “treatment” of any kind.
  2. I am not saying that all of psychiatry and that all psychiatrists or doctors are to blame for what has happened and what is happening in the world today. There are many fantastic doctors and psychiatrists who understand what is going on and are doing their best to help. Unfortunately there are also many who are oblivious, ignorant or even arrogant and will not listen to what their patients are telling them.
  3. I am not saying that people should NEVER take or be on anti depressant medication. There is certainly a time and a place for them and a need when people get severely debilitated by depression and certainly if they become suicidal. From that point of view, one could say that sometimes, these medications can save lives. However, what I am going to talk about here is the far too many cases where anti depressants have been prescribed prematurely for anxiety, phobias, post natal depression, a divorce, a job loss or any other “normal” life event that causes normal human sadness and grief but then they go see their doctor and the first thing that happens is that they are offered medication.

I certainly don’t speak about these things just as a psychologist and someone who has been interested in anxiety and depression for most of my career (and life since around 19 years of age) but also as someone who has helped hundreds of people with their anxiety and depression over the years. I also speak about these things from deep personal experience and I have written an article on a website called Mad in America which attracted over 89 000 views since 2013. I have had hundreds of people writing to me from every corner of the world sharing their plight, their anguish, their pain and desperation to get off these terrible drugs. People in their twenties through to people in their sixties. People who has just started on them and people who have been on them for over 20 or even 30 years!

I believe in time, we will eventually see the use of some of the medications as insane and as barbaric as we now see treatments like ECT (electro convulsive therapy) or worse the drilling of holes in peoples heads to let the demons or black bile out that used to happen in the 19th century.

To be put onto an anti depressant at the age of 23 because I had had a mild panic attack just after completing my masters degree in psychology and had received my thesis back with lots of red pen all over it, was not a good reason to be put onto an anti depressant. The psychiatrist at the time said I had GAD (general anxiety disorder) and said I would feel amazing with this new drug called Ciprimal (citalopram). Anyway, that is a long story that has already been discussed elsewhere but I will share more of it here over time.

Today, I want to really put down a challenge and hopefully begin a wave of awareness and protest against a multi billion dollar industry that is probably destroying more lives than cancer, heart disease and AIDS put together. I know that is a bold statement and I do not make it lightly. The reason I say destroying more lives is because it is so unrecognised, not just what these medications do that changes people forever while they are on them but also because depression is still so stigmatised in society that no one really wants to talk about it. In some cultures they still do not believe it is even real or even exists and members of that culture or society are actually shunned if they show signs of mental distress, especially depression. Absolutely ludicrous in the world we live in today. The other reasons include the ongoing lack of recognition by the medical community (largely fueled by the big pharmaceutical companies) that there is no such thing as anti depressant withdrawal. Whenever a patient tries to go off their medication no matter how slow or what tapering process they may use, they will experience a withdrawal reaction just as you would from any other mind/brain altering drug. The pharmaceuticals vehemently denied this for decades until finally they acknowledged something they euphemistically called “anti-depressant discontinuation syndrome”! Let’s call it what it is people, its a drug withdrawal issue. So, the patient goes back to the doctor and says they have stopped their medication and feel anxious or depressed again. The doctor invariably says well that’s your depression coming back so you best just go back onto your anti depressants.

Even if you manage to taper off the drugs there is no guarantee that you will not experience some major withdrawal symptoms including increased anxiety, agitation and anger, crying spells, depressive thoughts, electric shock like sensations in your brain, vertigo, flu like symptoms and potentially a few others as well. What this does is often push the person to start taking the drug again to get relief from the withdrawal. If people aren’t made aware of the withdrawal they will believe – falsely – that their original “condition” of anxiety or depression is returning. I am astounded at how many doctors and psychiatrists will agree that this is the case and that the person just needs to go back onto their medication. Family and friends – having witnessed the destruction that can occur in their loved ones life when they do try to come off anti-depressants – will unwittingly be supporting the doctors and psychiatrists assessment and encourage their loved one to go back onto their medication. And so, an awful vicious cycle continues. Sometimes, unfortunately and very sadly it can lead to the person paying some hefty prices in terms of relationships, jobs and health. Sometimes, even the ultimate price of taking their own lives.

And many, in mental agony and pain, are forced back onto the medication or a different one and so the cycle goes on and on. Unfortunately, I believe that the longer you are on these medications, the harder it may be to come off them. This may not be entirely true but it seems that way to me. Having said that, I have had people write to me who have only been on them for a few months and try get off and have a major withdrawal problems. Another lady wrote to me recently saying that she had started having seizures after being on one particular anti depressant for only a few months!

One of the biggest issues we are facing is that we just do not know the real long term damage that these drugs may be doing to people. We do know that there is a possible link to heart disease as well as many other health problems the longer people are on them, some of which I will detail later on.

People are crying out for help. Marriages are breaking down, careers are falling apart, the quality of people’s lives is being severely compromised. I had one man write to me saying he had been on anti depressants for 20 years from 40 years old to 60 years old and that during that time he had lost both his parents and had be UNABLE to grieve their loss. Why? Because whilst anti-depressants may be preventing people from feeling the very negative emotions of anxiety and  deep unrelenting sadness, they also prevent people experiencing the normal range of sadness and love and joy and ecstasy that others just take for granted. It is an extremely painful realisation to think that you have lost part of your humanity because your ability to feel deeply about anything has been taken away, the good and the bad. So what are we becoming then? It raises questions of what it means to be human and if emotions are taken out of the question I don’t believe we are truly living.

I know this is deeply controversial and I know that there are many who will say that anti depressants save people’s lives. And again let me repeat that I don’t disagree with that but let me put forward a potential solution to this world wide epidemic. And speaking of epidemics, I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in the story of how these medications began, how they developed and where they have led us should get a copy of Robert Whitaker’s fantastic book called Anatomy of an Epidemic. I contacted Robert immediately after reading his book and he asked me to write my story for his website. There are now two parts to that story online. The third part is in the making as I continue on this path. I have written my own book about my views on anxiety, depression and all the tools that I believe are the best tools available to help without needing to resort to the medications. The book covers a range of topics such as cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance commitment therapy, meditation, exercise, goal setting, mindfulness practices as well as other chapters on dealing with emotion and letting go of our fears. The link to the book and eBook will be included at the end of this article for those who are interested.

For the majority of medical ailments and diseases, the disease was discovered and the epidemiology (underlying causes and history) first studied and then once fully understood through medical and scientific proof, successful cures were developed. This was never the case with depression or anxiety. Experiments with such wonderful substances such as jet fuel and clothing dye led to products which were tested on lab animals and then theories were created about why the mice or rats acted in a certain way when given these “calming” drugs and then human tests inevitably followed. After that, the psychiatric community and pharmaceutical companies got involved and the rest is history. A very sad history for the human race or at least for the poor souls who have suffered because of the neglect of the primary principle of the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors and I presume psychiatrists (and alright I will include psychologists too!) would have sworn to when they qualified in their degrees: “FIRST DO NO HARM”. This has clearly and unfortunately not been the case when it comes to some of the results from using psychiatric medication in the treatment of anxiety disorders and depression.

I will always say anti-depressants should be a last resort and only used when people are being debilitated by their condition and are not able to function normally in their world in terms of working or looking after themselves and/or other people in their lives. No-one should have to be on anti-depressants for the rest of their lives. That old story that people who need anti-depressants are the same as a diabetic who needs his or her insulin is just plain and simply not true. Talk to most doctors or psychiatrists and they will most likely tell you something along the lines of: “People with depression and anxiety need to take medication just as a diabetic needs to take insulin”. Why? Because it is a lack of insulin causing the diabetes and similarly, it is a lack of serotonin that causes depression and anxiety. However, a closer look at the research shows that this is just not true and has never been conclusively proven. The research that the pharmaceutical companies rely on to prove the deficiency theory is usually paid for by the pharmaceutical companies themselves. Important bits of information are either adjusted or ignored altogether such as the fact that in some of the trials, there was no clinically significant difference in serotonin levels between the depressed and non-depressed people. Another issue is that for the FDA in America to pass a drug it only needs to show it has been effective within a few weeks and there is no systematic follow up of how these patients fare of the longer term. Do their lives continue to improve and do they stay happy and well? Unfortunately, most of the time the answer is no.

Let me add a caveat to that as well. I am not saying that serotonin doesn’t play a major part in how we feel and it is well known to be the mood chemical in terms of helping us feel happiness and joy. But, many people don’t really know how an anti-depressant actually works. What it does is effectively blocks the “re-uptake” of serotonin in the brain which basically means that when you have a thought, your brain sends an electrical signal between two neurons. In order for the two neurons to communicate chemicals are released in a tiny micro gap between them. Chemicals float across the gap and connect to receptors on the other neuron and off the signals goes. Now, if there is not enough of the chemical getting through some of what is left in the gap is taken back or reabsorbed into the first neuron. Add in an anti depressant and what is does is block or stop the re-uptake of the serotonin chemical (hence the drugs are called SSRI -selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors). With more serotonin available in the gap – more floats across and fires the signal off for happiness and joy etc.

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Wonderful isn’t it? And that’s all we needed to know right? Pop a pill and problem solved, you’re happy again. Or are you? As the years have gone by and more and more side effects and issues has arisen over time with people taking the drugs, we are learning more and more that is just isn’t that simple and that playing around with the brain and the body’s chemistry can have some debilitating and life altering impacts. Some of these include:

  • lack of libido
  • loss of motor control and facial tics (I had one client come to see me who had been put on such high doses of Zoloft for so long that she had an embarassing and highly distressing condition of legs and arms shooting out uncontrollably whenever she tried to relax!)
  • increased anger and irritability
  • difficulty accessing emotions both positive and negative
  • delayed or lack of ability to orgasm (leading to major issues in marriages and relationships)
  • ongoing and sometimes even worsened anxiety and depression whilst being on the drugs
  • major problems with trying to stop taking the drug even when the actual situational factors that may have caused the depression have long since past and people are now ready to go off and resume their lives and just want to be who they were before they started taking the drugs
  • major problems with short term memory (this was even detailed as far back as 1999 in Dr. Joseph Glenmullen’s book Prozac Backlash)
  • issues of the drugs just stopping to be effective known as the “poop out” effect – unfortunate terminology – which is basically when they drug just stops working. And so people are moved from drug to the next in an endless human experiment. I am sorry to say this but psychiatry is about as close to a science as black magic at this stage in our understanding of how they brain works.

If these drugs are truly the answer to anxiety and depression, how about you answer me one little question: Have you ever been tested for a serotonin deficiency? Have you ever gone to a doctor and had a test that came up with a result saying yes indeed my friend you are deficient in serotonin and this much medication will correct the problem and you will be A okay for the rest of your life? No? Why not? Because it is extremely difficult to measure serotonin levels in the brain and body. As far as I am aware, the only way to measure serotonin levels is through your cerebral spinal fluid and even that is not a direct measure of actual levels as it is more about what is wasted or taken away by the body and then doctors would guess from that how much you have. How would we even know what the “correct” amount of serotonin would be for each individual? The medical community only in recent times have identified that serotonin does not only reside in the brain but it resides in the stomach too. So we are playing around with people’s brains, people minds and people’s quality of life in ways that we just don’t fully understand and my very real and serious concern is the impact this is having on the lives of millions of people all over the globe.

My own further research found that there are natural products that can actually help the body produce more serotonin naturally, rather than artificially increase the levels with dangerous drugs with major side effects and extreme difficulty in ever stopping them. These supplements include the well known ones like St John’s Wort which is the most prescribed in Germany as they are one of the few countries trying to avoid the overuse of anti depressant medications. Others include the natural amino acid called 5 HTP (5 Hydroxy-tryptophan). This is the basic building block that your body and brain use to make/create serotonin and dopamine. Why aren’t doctors and psychiatrists trying these methods first along with all the other known methods of relieving anxiety and depression such as exercise, meditation, yoga, counselling, CBT, ACT etc.? This is just a sampling of potential natural methods that can and absolutely should be tried before medication is indicated.

Whilst I am certainly not saying that I am an expert in the field by any means, I do believe that there are some things that the medical fraternity and government health authorities should be taking into account in terms of the prescribing of anti depressant medications.

Here are some important questions all doctors, psychiatrists and government health authorities should be asking themselves before the prescribing of any anti depressant medications:

  1. Does this patient have a psychological condition that is severe enough to warrant psychiatric drugs that may alter his or her personality, relationships, career and quality of life in general?
  1. If so, is this patient mildly, moderately or severely anxious or depressed? How do I know this? (In my opinion and this is in agreement with Dr. Joseph Glenmullen’s conclusions in his book – only those who are severely affected by anxiety or depression should be put onto these medications and even then for only 4-6 months until they are able to resolve their psychological issues with a therapist).
  1. Have I informed my patient of the 4-6 week period of adaption that may cause some significant distress to the patient and that they may need an additional anti-anxiety medication to assist with the increased agitation and anxiety until the anti-depressant “kicks in”.
  1. Have I warned my patient that they are more than likely to experience difficulty withdrawing from the anti-depressant and that they will need to taper very slowly off the drug and possibly switch to one of the longest acting anti-depressants such as Prozac in order to successfully come off the drug?\
  1. Have I warned my patient that he or she may experience any or all of the following:
  • Decreased libido.
  • Delayed orgasm/failure to achieve orgasm.
  • Increased agitation/anger.
  • Difficulty accessing his or her emotions and thus ability to empathise with others.
  • Potential memory loss if taken for a period of years due to the chemicals effect on the hippocampus in the brain (the brains memory site).
  • (…and other side effects that I have already been mentioned earlier)
  1. Have I arranged to follow up with the patient and his or her counsellor to assist them in getting off the drugs as soon as possible once the patient is feeling better and has resolved the primary situational and psychological issues that led to the anxiety or depression in the first place?

The sad reality is that many doctors do not even know that a patient can experience withdrawal reactions. I had a client come to see me with his wife once, extremely worried about the fact that he had been experiencing electric shock like sensations in his brain and legs as well as vertigo after suddenly stopping an anti-depressant. I asked him if he had discussed coming off with his doctor and he said he had and that his doctor had agreed he could just stop taking them. When I informed the patient that this was a normal reaction and that he needed to either try to handle it – as he had not been on them for very long so it was likely he would be fine – or to go back to a lower dose and taper off, the look of relief on both their faces was amazing. He told me he thought he was either going mad or dying!

There should be much stricter controls over when a person is given these drugs and who gives it to them. There should be a formal assessment of how depressed a person really is using a valid an reliable depression tool such as the Beck Depression Inventory and not a 10 question form filled in at the doctors office while the patient is in tears and feeling at their very worst. Being asked how often have you felt this way or that in the last 2 weeks is too short a time  frame to assess a clinical and severe episode of depression. Obviously if the person is reporting suicidal thoughts and appears to have some ideas of following through some immediate action must be taken including letting the patients family know and potentially getting an acute care mental health team involved. Starting anti depressants for a patient such as this may be the very thing that is needed but once again I question for how long? Forever? Who takes control to oversee how the patient is fairing in a few weeks, months, years and then assists them to taper off when the time is right? I believe this is a very important missing link in our health system, not just in Australia but around the world from what I have gathered from the hundreds of people who have written to me over the past 3 years.

As I have mentioned, there are many tools and techniques that can be learned to help people get better and stay better, many of which I have detailed in my book along with my descriptions of exactly what I believe anxiety and depression are and how they differ from stress or situational anxiety and low mood.

It is my mission to continue to talk about and help people with these and other issues in terms of living the best life they can, having the greatest quality of life mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. As a wise author once said: I am not saying to you that I am on the top of the mountain, all I am saying is that I have been climbing it a bit longer and I can hopefully point out some of the pitfalls and pathways that you may be encountering as you climb too.

To those of you who are struggling out there, know that you are not alone, there is a growing number of people speaking out about what has been happening to them and more people learning alternative ways to get better and stay better. I would recommend joining up with sites such as http://www.survivingantidepressants.org as well as keeping abreast on what is happening on Robert Whitaker’s site http://www.madinamerica.com.

If you are interested in getting a copy of the latest second edition and fully updated version of my book you can follow the links below. I am always happy to hear feedback on the book and welcome comments on Amazon or iBooks.

With love and light, Namaste.

David

 

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