Why No One Else Can Cure Your Depression

Have your credit cards bills just sent you into a spiral of depression? Well, you're not the only one. This week is said to be the most depressing week of the year and paying off Christmas is just one of the reasons for it.

Not only are we flat broke after the reckless splurge through the run up to the Christmas festivities, we're also missing the sunshine, feeling run down after our exercise programs have diverted into couch potato sessions, caught a winter cold and broken all our New Year resolutions. Yes if you're depressed, it's no wonder! So how do you get out of the dumps?

A change of attitude may just be what the doctor ordered, or not as the case often is. We tend to think that someone out there can cure our depression. It might be the doctor with his 'cure all' medications, a therapist who can soothe all our problems away or our friends who will bolster us back to top form. But, none of these people can actually do this and we are dealing with a common misconception that they can.

It could even be said that an official diagnosis would be a gift because then we would stop looking to help ourselves - why bother when the NHS is going to take care of us through medications or therapy? Part of depression is feeling helpless and in a weird way, a formal diagnosis may be a step back because we begin to rely on others to look after us.

The bottom line is that only we can actually 'cure' ourselves of depression regardless of all the claims other people make. It's hard to take responsibility for our own recovery but the sooner we start, the quicker we'll find that out and the smarter we'll be in the long run because we'll stop waiting for someone to beat the depression for us.

Having said all of that, it's often easier with others' help. So there is a place for others' intervention but self responsibility is the key to total recovery. It's much easier to recover from depression when working with others who are in a similar situation and that's why self help groups are such an underrated resource.

12 Step programs, for example, are full of people who want to change their lives and are brilliant places to seek peer support, especially if funds are low because they rely on donations and you never have to give anything if you can't afford it.