S3 E5: Understanding and Addressing a Depressed Mood

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• EPISODE RESOURCES

• EPISODE TAKEAWAYS

  • Depression has many downward effects on individuals, relationships, families, societal functioning, etc.

  • Anxiety and depression often are experienced together.

  • Some people are more predisposed to being more in a low mood than others, whether that is hereditary and/or aspects of how one grew up.

  • A mood is persistent and longer lasting; it is a state of mind and feeling.

  • An emotion is a reaction to a specific aspect of life. It may last long, but it is not chronic and technically is not expected to last for extended periods of time.

  • An emotion can lead to a mood, such as a depressed mood.

  • One theory is that the function of a depressed mood is to help us to step back from our lives, pull back, and mourn and grieve a loss, disappointment, and/or aspect of life that is not going as we had wanted it to.

  • You can think of grief and loss as happening all the time in life, not just during major life events but across changes that can happen in a given day, segment of our life, and/or even in a moment.

  • Life can be viewed as a series of losses that we are meant to grieve and work through, and the function of depression may actually be trying to get us to stop in our tracks so that we can confront this loss to process it and grieve it. Depression can have a label attached to; however, we can consider it more than just a label in this way.

  • When change and unpredictability happens, it can feel very heavy, stopping us in our tracks and shutting us down into a depressive mood.; even for those who never necessarily had a depressive episode before.

  • Even a change in how you view yourself (i.e., changes and crises in identity) can feel like something to grieve.

  • There are things people do and do not do when they are depressed that can maintain the depressed mood. For example, when people feel depressed it may lead them to pull away from the very people in their life who want to and are there to support them.

  • Asking for help can be a very courageous thing to do when depressed due to emotions of shame and guilt that can make it seem difficult to show up not feeling yourself around others.

  • People in a depressed mood may also fall into rumination (repetitive thought patterns) that can keep them stuck in a depressed mood.

  • A depressed mood can also reduce a person’s cognitive functioning and ability to look at someone else’s perspective at a time when that may be exactly what is needed to ‘get out of your own head’.

  • Working your way out of depression is a process and should not be expected to somehow change with a magic wand in a moment or day. There is no one theory that explains depression and usually not one factor that leads a person to become depressed.

  • Validating a person who is feeling depressed can help to feel understood at a time when the person may not feel understood by anyone.

  • Note this is one opinion: Society has come a long way in destigmatizing mental health (and even addictions), which can reduce the shame and guilt that can cripple a person with mental health challenges. At the same time, overly-identifying with a ‘brain-based’ reason as the sole reason for a mental health condition may be related with feeling helpless to do anything to help oneself. Some suggest that changes in one’s life, psychology/psyche, and patterns is what actually helps people to improve their mental health, and even if they take medication, the medication is a way to help people engage in that person but not the ‘cure’. The nuance is validating people while also empowering people to make changes, rather than treating it as an either-or.

  • Examples of factors that can contribute to a depressed mood and getting ‘stuck’ in the mood:

    • Predisopositions.

    • Grieving process that needs to happen (for a wide variety of aspects of life to grieve).

    • Overwhelmed by technology and information (i.e., ‘system overload’).

    • Not having a top-down way of making sense of ourselves, our life, etc. that would otherwise help us feel more grounded.

    • Difficulties in relationships, how we view relationships, and how we navigate relationships. See Interpersonal Therapy.

    • Avoidance of addressing something about ourselves and/or our life that we may need to address

    • Deeper beliefs about ourselves, others, and/or our lives that are extreme, inflexible, and limiting. Justifying those beliefs. Not allowing for other ways of thinking to enter into your belief system. See Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

    • Being ‘stuck in your head’, over-thinking, and ‘fusing’ (attaching) with thoughts that pop into your head that can be limiting. Rather than changing your relationship with your thoughts. See Mindfulness Based Therapies (e.g., ACT, DBT, MCT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

    • Not addressing or solving problems that can be actively addressed or accepted by changing one’s frame of mind around the problem.

    • Using the past to predict the future in an inflexible way. See Psychodynamic Therapy.

    • Anxiety that interferes with fulfilling your needs (e.g., completing tasks, building relationships, trying new things).

    • Challenges with executive function skills or other skills that have yet to be developed, which can interfere with fulfilling your needs (e.g., improving in areas of life, building relationships, trying new things, completing tasks, building confidence).

  • We can connect the process of how we aspire to live our life in a way that is meaningful, valued, and/or helpful with the symptoms of our depressed mood. By doing so, we can see if being more aligned with our process leads us to feel less depressed and/or have more positive experiences in our life. See Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

  • We can learn how to be compassionate with ourselves and others to let go of the anger, guilt, and shame. Sometimes we need to be inspired by someone to do that for ourselves and others.

  • Therapy can help individuals with a depressed mood to 1) identify what aspects of life can be changed, and 2) how the individual can change their relationship with aspects of their life rather than trying to change it. Both can be important in different ways.

  • Behavioral Activation is about identifying changes in behavior that can enhance one’s mood rather than trying to ‘think your way’ out of a mood. An example is getting up to exercise and finding ways to make it at the very least tolerable if not enjoyable because exercise is a clear mood-enhancer, even if it’s hard to believe that it’s true until you actually do it. Treat it like an experiment and see if it actually helps, but give it a fair shot.

  • Individuals can gravitate toward a ‘depressed’ identity (e.g., co-ruminate and co-commiserate with others), which may function as a way to connect with others when there may not seem to be any other way of connecting with others. It can also feel validating when the person lacks validation. However, the caution of identifying with being a ‘depressed person’ may be that they get stuck in depressive patterns or ‘romanticizing’ depression in a way that may interfere with alleviating the depression. As an example, it may prevent the person from feeling motivation and/or permission to not just feel, think, and act depressed or negative.

  • Some therapy is about problem-solving to do something about the situation or circumstances we are in. Another part of therapy is about changing our relationship with a situation and circumstances even if we cannot change it. We can create new meaning as a form of changing the relationship we have with aspects of our life. 

  • Shifting away from using substances that mask emotions underlying depression; substances that can create more problems and symptoms. Finding alternatives to the substances can enhance functioning and help clear one’s mind to function better and achieve their goals.

  • We can learn to forgive ourselves to resolve the guilt that may burden us. Sometimes we need other people to help us do that for ourselves. 

  • When experiencing stressors and major challenges in our lives, we may fall into coping mechanisms that help us survive; however, those coping mechanisms can be limiting if we hold onto them in the long-run. We can learn to ‘upgrade our operating system’ and replace it with a healthier and more adaptive version of coping as time goes on.

  • Change is hard but sometimes it can lead us in a different direction, which can be empowering.

• TRANSCRIPTION

  Gerald Reid  00:25

  Welcome back everybody to season three of the Reid Connect-ED podcast. In this episode today, Alexis and I, are going to have a conversation around the topic of mood. And when we think of mood, a lot of times we'll think of being depressed. And depression is certainly something that has really plagued our society in a lot of ways. And we want to try to differentiate, you know, what is an emotion, what is an mood and What is Depression itself. And what we're going to do is we're going to try to help people to understand, you know, what contributes to a depressed mood. And not only that, but understanding the factors can enlighten what you may be able to do to address the depressed mood, you know, depression is certainly something that does plague our society. And it has many downward effects not only on the person, but on people's families and people's relationships, people's daily functioning even in their career, right, and it does have a downstream effect on just how society is functioning as a whole. And, you know, as we talked about in a previous episode, unfortunately, the mental health of our youth and even of our society as a whole has not been great. It certainly has been getting worse over the past few decades. And now there are questions about are we just identifying mental health challenges more openly now? And is that the reason? Or is there really a deterioration of our mental health that we need to address and, you know, the purpose of this podcast in this episode in general is to try to help people to identify and break things down into parts. Because, you know, some of the best things I hear about in therapy working with individuals is therapy helps as I always say, slow things down and pick apart the pieces that go into a person's mental health so that you can control what you can control and work towards, you know, things be being alleviated things getting a little bit better, step by step and breaking it down into parts into pieces. So hopefully, this episode will help people to do that, around the topic of mood, we want to always encourage the listener to realize that this is not a replacement for therapy, or of their professional services. And we do encourage you, if you are in therapy, to maybe bring up these ideas and with your own therapist, and if you don't have a therapist to consider it and you know, to kind of go through the steps of identifying who might be helpful for you, because this is a topic that is probably going to be affecting a lot of people who are listening, or at least people that you know who if you are listening, it may affect people that you know, because it's very persistent, it's very prevalent in society, just as anxiety is. And you know, we talked about anxiety in the previous episode of season three, and anxiety and depression go hand in hand, it's it's pretty common for people to have both so you know, we want to try to understand how these things play a part in each other. And, you know, part of this is addressing it piece by piece. So we're gonna we're gonna dive into this topic today. And we'll take it step by step for you.

  Alexis Reid  03:47

  So, Jerry, let's break this down a little bit. In your professional opinion, can you describe what mood is in what depression is because these words are thrown around all the time. I've mentioned before on the podcast that I think in this over, you know, psychologize world, there's a lot of terms that get thrown around, and oftentimes, they are more intense than we're using them. And I just want to make sure that we're clarifying the language from a psychological perspective. Before we talk about anything related to mood or depression or anything else we're going to explore on this episode. Yes,

  Gerald Reid  04:22

  so let's start here. So let's differentiate a mood from an emotion so a mood really is just an overall state of mind. It's just kind of your your overall demeanor in terms of how you're thinking how you're feeling, how you're reacting. You can think of like the character you are right and Winnie the Pooh, right? Just kind of slow moving, not really feeling energetic or energized or, or expressing kind of that positive emotion of happiness and joy and so forth. That's a mood. It's kind of just an overall state of mind. It's persistent. It's not just fleeting. It's not just this random feeling that you have in relation to an experience. It's it's more long lasting. And can

  Alexis Reid  05:00

  I also ask a question? Is that mood kind of like a persona or related a personality? Because if it's something that's persistent, is that mood, sort of what you're putting out there to the world?

  Gerald Reid  05:14

  Well, you're getting into the question of what causes a mood in the first place. And, you know, I would say, first and foremost, some people are more predisposed with this genetic or hereditary or, you know, just kind of their, the way that they grew up, that they may be more predisposed to being in a more depressed mood or being more down and not kind of energized, and energetic, and so forth. And some people are also, you know, introverted, right. And so when they're out with people, they may not be the life of the party, or happy or joyful because they're just not in their element. Right? So there's different factors that can contribute. But to your question, you know, a mood is something that is just kind of with you. And there are a lot of factors that go into your mood. And one of them is just your emotions, right, and your emotions are not mood, your emotions are a reaction to something that you're perceiving, I talked about anxiety in a previous episode, anxiety is the perception of a threat. And therefore you feel anxious, because your anxiety is telling you there's a threat to watch out for Be careful of pay attention to, and anxiety comes and goes, it's not something that will just kind of last all day, every day. It's kind of a, it could be persistent, for sure. But a mood is just long lasting, it's going to be there. And sometimes people can feel like in a depressed mood for weeks or for months, or even for years. Right? That could be a very long lasting thing. There's, there's a spectrum of the severity of it, for sure. Yeah. And

  Alexis Reid  06:40

  it's interesting, because sometimes we boil it down to like the dichotomous, I'm in a good mood, or I'm in a bad mood, right. And what you're saying here is that there's potentially like a whole spectrum or range of moods that might be related to emotions we're feeling, but it's more of like, you know, how we're putting ourselves out in a moment in a situation.

  Gerald Reid  07:03

  Yeah, and you're saying, you know, how we put ourselves out there. And in some ways, it's not even like wanted or conscious sometimes, you know, it's like, people who are depressed don't really want to necessarily be depressed, there could be kind of feeling stuck. And we'll get into what what contributes to feeling stuck in a mood, we got to get into those factors to to address them. But you know, backing up a little bit, so So an emotion could lead to depression. So let's think about what the function of depression is. This is an interesting thing when I learned about it, and it's something that people don't always think about, I didn't even think about it till I learned about it. But we talked about the function of anxiety being that anxiety prepares you for a threat, it helps you to be ready and prevent something that's going to be distressing to you or unpleasant or hurtful to you. That's the reason we are built in to have anxiety in our, in our mind in our bodies, right, that prepares you for threat, we need that it's helpful in a lot of ways that can be unhelpful, but there's a lot of ways it's helpful. There's a theory that there's a function of depression to and that function, the reason that we can become depressed is because we're trying to grieve something, and you can think of life is just the whole series of grief. You know, we're disappointed about things that are not going well. We get down on ourselves about things that we feel like are not good enough, we lose people in our lives. There's significant losses in just, you know, changes in our life, you know, we go from high school to college to if you do that, or just from one job to another, like there's so many changes in life, and you got to think about the emotional experience of change. It's hard to change is always hard. And so we're gonna feel sadness and loss in this could be a day it could happen in a day. It could happen in a month. It can happen in a moment, right? You have a friendship and someone's mad at you and you're disappointed Do you have a loss because you don't have that friend anymore in that moment. So you can think of life as a series of losses and disappointments that we need to grieve and work through. In the theory that we have depression for a reason as a function is actually that depression stops us in our tracks because you could think about being in a depressed mood. If you ever been in a depressed mood, you just kind of stuck. You don't want to do anything. You just want to just stop. You want life to stop, you know John Mayer song, stop this train. You just want to stop and not do the things that you used to do. You know, you know, you no longer want to go out and have fun to do things you used to do. You no longer have a hard time making decisions. You just kind of feel trapped. And the theory behind it is that's actually getting you to stop on purpose. Because it's telling you hey, stop, and actually focus yourself on the thing that you're disappointed in that you're grieving so that you can process it it and until you process that you're going to be stuck in this depression, because the depression is actually trying to urge you to stop and to grieve. Which is very interesting, right? It's kind of like, Hey, if you're not going to grieve this, we're going to kind of keep you here.

  Alexis Reid  10:15

  Yeah, it's so interesting to think about it this way. Because, you know, we'll get into this more in the episode that depression has a lot of stigma attached to it. There's a lot of people who identify as I'm just a depressed person. And what you're saying here is that we need to challenge just depression as a label, and really think about what it's telling us what it could potentially do for us in what is sort of actionable in these moments, which, when you're in a depressed mood, it's really difficult to think this way. So this is why, you know, this is really the purpose of this podcast is to be able to present some information in a psycho educational way, that helps us to better understand ourselves, but also other people who might be experiencing this. And I love how you said, you know, depression, and this idea of change, or grief can happen over the course of a day, over the course of weeks over the course of months, you know, it could be any timeline. But really, what we're talking about is when things change, when unpredictability, happens, and we're in it, it can feel really heavy, it can feel like a lot that we're going through to a point where it literally stops us in our tracks, and he can shut us down. So even people who might not have like a depressed mood typically can kind of have that full swing of things, where they just get stopped in their tracks. And I'm thinking about, you know, my own life and people I've worked with before, who have gotten in these, these stock points is what I call it, because sometimes it turns into depression, sometimes it's just like, What am I doing here, what's happening, what's changing. And, you know, what we do with it, I think turns into the expression of, you know, an emotion or a mood, you know, that could shut us down or can activate us in some way. So I'm thinking about situations where, you know, we're talking about grief and grief is really just understanding, appreciating and dealing with the loss of something. So it could be, you know, a loss of a goldfish, a pet, a friend, a person, both physically or somebody who actually passes away, there can be all different levels and versions of this. But we don't want to dismiss the fact that you can feel a sense of loss from something that, depending on your perspective, might seem simple or normal. But it can feel really heavy in a moment when you don't know what to do with it. So like even, you know, the loss of an expectation, if you expect it to do really well on a test. But you don't even know you've worked hard for it, and you're excited about it, you're proud of the work you did to get there. And then you don't do as well as you expected. That can be a sense of change, and a sense of grief, where you have to really process like, Oh, that is not what I expected. That's not what I thought was gonna

  Gerald Reid  13:11

  happen. That's exactly right. And you know, even identity, you know, kind of going off that right? If you feel like your identity is I'm a good student, I have to uphold that identity. And now I'm not doing well anymore. How am I supposed to process that? And it's, it could be soul crushing, right? They just use the word soul. You ever seen the movie saw? You have seen it? It's such a great movie. Okay, this isn't even a Disney movie, Disney or Pixar one of those. Okay.

  Alexis Reid  13:42

  Apologies, Pixar and Disney. There'll be alright.

  Gerald Reid  13:47

  So. So there's a point in that movie. And something you said stood out to me that relates to this, there's a point in the movie where the character becomes really depressed. And the scene and I'm trying to kind of illuminate the image here, the scene was that person's soul, which is basically the character right? was running away from everyone and everything. And the person who is trying to help that person who was depressed was like, Hey, come on, I want to help you, I'm here for you. And was chasing the person but the person kept running away getting angry getting irritable, like, No, leave me alone, leave me alone, I want to be here. And I think that happens when, you know, we don't make sense of what we're feeling. It's kind of just it takes over the mood becomes, you know, almost fused with the sounds like the matrix right when the Agent Smith puts his hand into the Neo and like takes him over becomes like part of him. And so this is the differentiating part, right is when you try to make sense of what contributes to the depression, versus when you become depressed, it becomes its own thing. And this is where this is where the clinical part is important because you know, Um, you know, there's factors that lead you to become depressed. And when you are depressed, there's also things that people do when they're depressed, that kind of maintains the cycle of being depressed. And one of those things is running away. And sometimes you do have to run away to kind of process things. And people can feel guilt and shame. And they feel like it's too hard to know, they feel like they're disappointing people and so forth. There's reasons for it that you get to work through in therapy. But you know, I'm just kind of making a point here that there's factors that lead people to become depressed. And as we said, some of this is, you know, it's kind of just, some people are more predisposed to it. And then stressful things happen in real life, that activates it, you know, but then when you become depressed, there's also kind of a reinforcing cycle that can come from what happens when people become depressed,

  Alexis Reid  15:45

  you bring up such a great point, and I don't want to move on without coming back to it that sometimes people are going to run away from the help that exists. And I hear this all the time, you know, you know, my kid, my spouse, my partner, whoever it might be, has all the resources available to them? Why aren't they using it to feel better to get out of this depressive state, or whatever they're experiencing? And it to your point, sometimes, you know, there's this activation of shame and embarrassment, like, this isn't who I really am. And this is so difficult for me to, to acknowledge for one, like, Hey, I have shifted, I have changed from how I usually feel, how I usually am embarrassed to be able to share that with other people. And I'm embarrassed to ask for help. So I just want to say this, before we move on that when somebody reaches out for help. That is really such a brave and courageous thing to do, because it's oftentimes the most difficult thing to do that when shame and guilt pump up and show up, you know, it's very difficult to ask for help. And this comes back to, you know, the prefrontal cortex and executive functions, to be able to acknowledge, like, I need to do something different. What are my options, that's a really big deal to be able to get to that point. And often it's the most difficult to do when you're in this state. Because we know the emotional connection that we've talked about many times on the podcast, the emotional connection, limbic system can actually shut down the Executive Function System, that doesn't allow you to do the things that you might have skills to do when you're feeling these big emotions, right? Especially when you're feeling big depressive emotions, that are triggering depression, the big emotions that are triggering depression. So we want to think about, and when people are in the state, it's a really big deal for them to ask for help. And when they don't ask for help, it's not actually their fault, it's very difficult for them to get to a point where they feel comfortable to reach out for the support. So sometimes there's different ways of supporting so before we get to that,

  Gerald Reid  17:52

  I want to elaborate on some you just said, Please, you know, you said that when we become depressed, you know, kind of affects our thinking. And it's true, it kind of makes your your thinking, less less flexible, you kind of get rumination, right, you kind of just repeat the same thoughts over and over, you kind of get stuck in a narrative and a thought process of thinking how bad things are her upsetting things are how guilt like all those things, kind of repeat, repeat, repeat, which can get you feeling stuck. And there's plenty of research, actually, that suggests that your cognitive functioning gets worse when you're depressed, which is why people struggle at work and so forth. And he lacked perspective, he has a hard time taking the perspective of another person, which a lot of times we need the perspective of another person to work through our depression. So that's also that maintaining part. And you're right, asking for help is huge. And it's hard to get out of your head to project that things could get better. I think there's a lot of hopelessness that gets kind of built into the depression. And when you're depressed, it's like, how are things gonna get better. And that's why it's important for everybody, including the therapist, to kind of slow down that process. So it's not an all or nothing, like, you're not going to help someone who's depressed, like magically not be depressed, you know, like, in one session, or like, one day or one week, like it's a process, and it takes time. And, you know, it takes, you know, that says, This is why it's it's not the easiest thing to treat in therapy. And, you know, we're all trying to figure out ways to make therapies more effective for depression because it's, it's, it's tricky, because there's so many factors involved. It's not one thing, there's no one theory that explains depression. You know, that's, that's, that's a misconception for the public that, oh, it's only brain chemistry. It's only this It's only that there is no, there's no, you know, I don't think there's many people in the field that would say it's one thing.

  Alexis Reid  19:40

  That's actually my favorite thing to say to people who have big questions about things really, what do you think about this and like, Well, my answer you're gonna either love or hate but the reality is, is that there is no one answer. And the greatest doctors and psychologists in my opinion are those who say, there is never one thing that explains everything. So we I have to be super mindful of that, and in my role, not in the clinical realm is to be able to acknowledge and validate when people feel depressed, because oftentimes they come to me because not not only because they don't have the cognitive skills developed yet, but because they have the skills, and they're not able to use them when they're feeling, you know, depression or anxiety. And these big things come up for them. And what I want us to normalize a little bit here is that we're always going to feel some bouts of depressive states or anxious states at different points in our life, there are going to be the ebbs and the troughs that we're going to keep going through because of change because of the grief of what was or what we expected, not turning out the way it might reveal itself or happen over the course of time. And sometimes we can get attached to these labels, that we just say, Oh, we're just depressed, which might be your state in a moment. But the more we attach ourselves to the label, I believe, and I've seen that sometimes it makes it even more difficult to work through it. So

  Gerald Reid  21:09

  here's, here's some, like literature on that exactly what you're saying. And, you know, I don't want to, I want to make sure that people feel validated here. Because being depresses, it could be crippling, and I don't want to be misperceived. But, you know, there's some literature that suggests you know, that we have come a long way to destigmatize mental health. And we're, you know, we understand there's functions of the brain that can, you know, go go awry to you know, lead to this part. And then

  Alexis Reid  21:41

  also predispositions right, sometimes our, you know, our neuro chemistry sometimes has lower levels of dopamine, dopamine and different levels of activation for different people and different people at different times. And absolutely,

  Gerald Reid  21:54

  right, right. And you're fit in your environment, if your environment is helping you or, or kind of stifling you and stuff like that. So, but but as we, you know, the literature just suggests that, you know, if, if the person overly emphasizes or overly identifies that this is just a brain problem, which a lot of ways help, you know, helps D stigmatize things like substance abuse, right, it's like, people shouldn't feel all this blame on themselves, it's going to cripple them, you know, you can't, you can't be like, This is all your fault that your, your your substance use issues. And that's it. Like that's crippling for persons. So there's a lot of positives to destigmatizing. But there's also pros and cons. And there's nuance to everything. And this is part of the nuances that if people over identify with a mental health problem is just a brain problem, that it could limit what the person does actively to help themselves. And there's spectrum to this in terms of you know, how much this fits a particular person, because everybody's different, and there's different levels of severity. But, you know, certainly, you know, a lot of people in the field suggest, as much as we're treating the brain with things like medication, like the the thing that really helps people to progress is the psychology is the Psychotherapy is that things that people are doing to change whether it's in therapy, or in their, their, their lifestyle, or what they're doing, or, you know, how they're navigating their life is what ultimately happened helps people with their mental health, that you know, even when people take medication is that that's a vehicle to get people engaged in their therapy process. It's not the cure necessarily, right. And we really want to emphasize, you know, we're not psychiatrist or physicians to give advice on medicine or psychopharmacology, that, you know, if you're curious about this, certainly talk to a psychopharmacologist and psychiatrists and medical doctor, to give you guidance on this. We're just talking from a psychological perspective and executive function perspective, you know, in terms of working with people, and some of the literature there, so, but yeah, I mean, Lex, That's right. You know, we want to try to empower people. And this is I think that the challenge of society now is that we've done such a great job of validating people, and understanding people and not just blaming people all the time. And it's a hard balance to know, when it's become too far on that end, that we don't empower people to help them to feel empowered to do things to help themselves, and to make changes. And, you know, I think both are important. It's not either or, you know, you want to help people to feel understood and validated and not blamed. But you also want to empower people, that they can, you know, make changes and that's, you know, that's a nuance and that takes time to figure it out. It's not an either or it's not going to, you know, just be clear to you at any given moment of time. It's just a it's an ongoing process for sure.

  Alexis Reid  24:50

  So let's talk about what actually contributes to getting stuck in a depressed mood. So thinking about the different theories, you've mentioned a little bit more about it, but let's be see we're clear about what could potentially lead to a depressive mood.

  Gerald Reid  25:06

  Yeah, well, like you said before, you know, we were discussing, some people are just more predisposed to it. And so what, there's a lot of factors right through the grieving process that could happen in any given moment in time, right. There's plenty of things that we can agree we recovered that. But even things that are just happening on our lifestyle that we may not have been realized, because it's normal, and you got to think of kids grown up now. Right? You and I are geriatric millennials.

  Alexis Reid  25:34

  Okay, we needed some levity in this episode, because yeah, you know, it's we're talking about depression. It's a heavy conversation, and a lot of people have a lot of different opinions on this. So I am glad you said that because geriatric millennials, that makes me feel depressed, actually.

  Gerald Reid  25:51

  I think I take pride in it. All

  Alexis Reid  25:54

  right, I'm gonna try to reframe my thinking to the same.

  Gerald Reid  25:58

  Well, the idea of that term is that, you know, we're the generation, we're at the end of the millennial generation, we're like the oldest millennials, who, who saw the bridging between a little bit of technology and an immense amount of technology, where we're kind of literate in both ways. Like where our parents are just kind of, they're like digital, they're not digital natives. They didn't grow up with it, we kind of grew up without it. And with it, but we were like adolescence, where it really started to become bigger and stuff. So in college, and as time progressed and got bigger, so we can see what it's like to live without being completely consumed with technology. And also, without that as much obviously technology existed. And this is happening forever. But the the amount of technology increase is exponential, exponentially higher than maybe it's been in the past. So

  Alexis Reid  26:49

  we actually were exposed to technology, digital technology, specifically, as our frontal lobes were developing in adolescence, and young adulthood. So we had that exposure, but it wasn't as pervasive as it is right now for adolescents and young adults, because they have been in it, since they were children, right? They've been exposed to digital technology. You know, if you're a child now, or a teenager, or a young adult, like you've had this in your life, your entire lifetime, which when I stopped to think about it, we were talking about iPhones the other day, when we're iPhones, brought to like mid 2000s, mid 2000s, that's like not that long ago, feels like I can't remember a time when smartphones didn't exist. But we live that which is unbelievable. So thinking about how much exposure to information is impacting us. And we've talked about this in previous episodes, too. Yeah, we have so much access to so much information. And I think that can become all consuming. And it goes back to again, thinking about executive functions. When we have too much information that's hard to prioritize and organize in our brains, it can become overwhelming to a point where we can get more anxious and eventually become depressed because of it because it can like it's almost like a system overload and our brain.

  Gerald Reid  28:10

  Yeah, totally. So I'm thinking of a patient I work with, who struggle with depression, right? And we talked about how, you know, she's processes information bottom up, like she's just constantly taking all this information about her life, about herself about relationships. And I said to her, you know, like, there's no top down here. It's almost like you just kind of grabbing at every bit of information to make sense of what's happening. But there's no bigger picture. There's no bigger context, there's no larger process that's top down to say like, oh, okay, this, this type of stuff fits in this category. And this is how I'm going to make sense of it. It's like, well, I'm trying to make sense of it from every little detail. It's like you're, you're in the woods, and you're completely lost. And you're trying to just find your way through every little detail that you find, rather than having a map.

  Alexis Reid  28:56

  It's like seat you're like noticing every rock, every stone, every twig, every little bug along your path instead of just the path itself.

  Gerald Reid  29:05

  Right, exactly. It's like, well, I'm going to kind of go back to being a geriatric millennial. So when I was delivering pizzas in high school, when I was like a high school, junior, senior, whatever, we didn't have smartphones, I was using a map, right? And I asked for help when I needed help, right. But that was the bigger picture idea. It's like, if I'm lost, or if I need help, I'm going to kind of have something that guide me. And so you know, I think sometimes that depression, you can kind of lose touch with these bigger picture ideas of how to process your life and how to how to move forward and even how to process things in your life. Or, you know, what's going to guide you Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is great act, because it helps you identify what is important to you, what are your values? And that is like a bigger picture context. And you can say, am I moving towards that or away from that? And that just kind of grounds you know how you're navigating your life because when you're depressed, it's just like, nothing matters. And I don't know what decision to make. I don't even know what I should do. I I'm just kind of, you know, grasping at straws and kind of having that bigger picture process. And so when I'm working with people to, like, I've developed this system where I have a spreadsheet that we talk about, you know, what are the fundamentals of how you want to live your life, and let's look at your life as a whole, you know, that'll change this, this will evolve over time as we get older, but, you know, what are the fundamentals that are going to help you to kind of live your life in a way that's meaningful to you, that's going to be fulfilling to you. And it could be things like, you know, just being more present, or, or even asking for help, it's all individual to the person, right? It could be, you know, you know, grieving a loss that you have, it could be whatever that process is, but it just orient people towards, okay, this is what I'm working on in my life, and this is guiding me. And then what we do is we relate that to their symptoms, how anxious Are you? How confident do you feel? How depressed you feel? How are your relationships? how productive Are you feeling. And what we do is we see a relationship between Oh, the process of your life, the fundamentals that are going to help you to feel like you're doing something that makes sense. And there's a process to how you're living, the more you move towards that and utilize that and activate that actually, your symptoms are getting better. I wonder what that means, you know, that's telling us something. So I try to, you know, give some evidence to the things that people are doing.

  Alexis Reid  31:27

  That's so great. And I think the, the emphasis on workability, in different points of our life is so important, because when we get stuck, just where we are, again, we've talked about this so many times, it amplifies that stuck point, and we lose track of the things we care most about. And it almost feels impossible to be able to tackle or deal with. And I have to be careful in my work. I'll just add this in quickly, that a lot of times people associate me and our work together as all about productivity. But when you're feeling depressed and overwhelmed, like that feels impossible. And I want to emphasize this because anybody who works with a person or is in the life of a person who is feeling depressed and experiencing depression, I want us to acknowledge that sometimes it's not about like just doing more things. But we're going to talk about this next piece to that, like physical habits and different things that we can do. We can be sort of action oriented. Once we've kind of like sat with the experiencing, acknowledging what's happening for us, that there there could be something that's workable. And I think that's probably the most important thing for us to focus on. But I want to remind everybody that productivity is not always the answer. Right? It's not about just like getting through a thing. Because oftentimes when we feel big emotions, or we're in a depressive state, we lose touch with what is important to us, and why we're doing it. And if we don't have that, why injected back into our world, it can make any experience sort of feel meaningless, which is, oftentimes that mental state, people who are in a depressive moment or experiencing depression will face

  Gerald Reid  33:21

  definitely right. Like if you, you know, if you're this is kind of a good example, if you're in school, and you're just not motivated to do your work because you're in a depressed mood. First of all, let's work backwards, like what led you to get the press in the first place? Well, maybe your relationships are not going well. How can you not start to become a bit depressed, if you don't have good relationships, if you feel isolated, feel lonely. And to validate that is important. So people can say, Okay, I understand this. It's not just some plague that's taking over me, it's actually there's an emotion that led to this depressed mood and the emotion is loneliness. Okay, we identify the emotion, let's work with that emotion and understand it. And then that can move into, you know, problem solving, you know, well, what gets in the way of your relationships. And this part is so key. I have seen this time and time again. And it's just so human nature, everybody does it. We all do it. I think sometimes people avoid the very thing that they need to work on. They don't even talk about it sometimes.

  Alexis Reid  34:24

  You know why? Because there's a lot of productivity points that we need to get through in our day that sometimes we don't have time and space to deal with the hard thing

  Gerald Reid  34:32

  totally. Or they feel like it's an insurmountable thing, right? If you're feeling lonely, it's like, I'm never going to make friends. And so there's a deeper belief that we also have to address in therapy, which is like, Okay, what, you know, okay, so let's say that you are having a hard time making friends in school. Or maybe you lost your friends and Okay, well, what is the belief that's getting you stuck? And that belief could be something like, oh, there's something wrong with me. I'm never gonna have friends ever again. How can you not become the Breast with beliefs. And so part of the process in therapy is like working through those beliefs and in finding a way to process that and finding alternatives, right? And looking for reasons why an alternative perspective could be true. And that takes so much courage because you have to look at the reality of certain situations. And maybe sometimes people who have a hard time relationships have to say, it's maybe you know, there could be a cut, there could be so many reasons, it could be maybe, maybe I've been stressed lately, and I've been a little irritable around people, and they don't like me anymore, because I'm just not pleasant to be around. And maybe I have to learn how to be less stressed or address the things that are stressing me in life. Okay, that's something to address. Or maybe you're just around the wrong people, it's not a good fit. And that's not your fault. Don't blame yourself for that you just got to find people that you really jive with, with or connect with.

  Alexis Reid  35:53

  You talked about this in the anxiety episode, where we talked a little bit about how when we get overly committed to a belief, it can really impact the way in which we navigate through different situations. And I think when it comes to relationships, I mean, we can get hooked on a belief that travels with us across so many different aspects of our life, whether it's relationship with the teacher, or with your peers, or with other students, with friends with, you know, as you're stepping into a college campus, when you're trying to figure out what relationships you even want to have, when you have no other prior experience. What do you do with that? And if you're walking into it with the belief that I'm not going to make friends with anybody, there's just something wrong with me, why would anybody want to, you know, talk to me that's going to, you know, stop things in a path before even get started. But the same goes when you're, you know, working when you're in the workforce for adults or young adults who are trying to think about the role in an environment or in an organization know, how am I going to be interacting with each other, not to mention romantic relationships, right? Like, oh, this is just never going to happen. It's always happened this way before. And oftentimes, we're letting our thoughts these, like, abstract things that aren't tangible, dictate what happens in real life. And that just hearing me say all this and saying aloud is making me think, oh, my gosh, like, no wonder people get so stuck. That's

  Gerald Reid  37:25

  exactly right. And, you know, we pull apart evidence to justify our beliefs. We're like, oh, well, you know, during middle school, which, by the way, is peak bullying time. It's pretty sad, right? And there's a reason for that developmentally, you know, like, maybe you had a horrible experience in middle school, and you're like, Well, that happens. So it's always gonna happen, right? Because we use the past to predict the future, because we're not fortune tellers. What else are we going by other than the past? That's a more psychodynamic view of therapy, which is like, Okay, well, where did these beliefs come from in the first place? And let's resolve that and realize, like, okay, that's, that's using one piece of evidence to explain everything in life doesn't necessarily work that way, you know, sometimes you got to learn from the past, and it can actually help you to, you know, avoid certain things that could be unhelpful, that you had said something that's important, when you're anxious about things and how they're going to go. Sometimes things don't actually go the way you want it, because you're so darn anxious. Right? If you're gonna go in to try to meet people, and you're just completely anxious about it, you're gonna have a hard time building those relationships. And that's why anxiety and depression are like cousins, you know, they go hand in hand. For that reason,

  Alexis Reid  38:35

  totally, I'm just going to touch upon that example. Because it people don't recognize this. And I've had so many conversations, especially since COVID. Because it's impacted most children who grew up during COVID, because they didn't have as many social interactions, that when you are conversing with somebody else, and building relationship, you need to be able to hold on to the information that the person you're talking to is sharing using your working memory, you need to inhibit and wait for the right and appropriate time to share something and be cognitively flexible that like if the idea you have in your mind is not what the person you're talking to is, is carrying about in this moment, that maybe it's not the right time to share it. Right. There's so many different implications that, that come up in these moments that are related to executive function skill challenges, that when you are anxious, it makes it harder to do these things. And to be able to have an interaction, a dynamic conversation going back and forth. That feels authentic, because sometimes especially young people who haven't developed these skills yet or has been impacted by something else that's delayed the development of these skills. It makes it really hard to develop these relationships. And it's not that there's something quote unquote wrong with the kid or the individual. It's just that these skills need to be practiced and developed. Totally,

  Gerald Reid  40:00

  that could be part of the process is practicing and repeating themselves, it could be, you know, finding different ways of developing friendships or for whatever, whatever goal you're working on. And we all got to be compassionate with ourselves, right, we all got to y'all got to, you know, learn how to be compassionate without that, you know, unconditional love, and the fact that we can be, you know, redeemed in some way that we can let go of things that we feel guilty about or ashamed of is, is one of the miracles of life, that we can actually do that, you know, that we can actually and sometimes we need someone else to help us to do that for ourselves. You know, because people really need to forgive themselves and forgive other people and to, to let go of things that they're holding on. And that is the grieving process that we talked about in the beginning, right? You know, you can feel so hurt by people or by things, or how life is and you can get stuck from, from doing things that are, you know, the next best thing to do, even though the circumstances are not, as you had want them to be, you know, sometimes we have to learn how to do our best with the circumstances, we're in and figure out what that means to us. And sometimes we need to be inspired by someone to help us to do that, too. You know, that's why, you know, there's different you know, there's, there's so many factors, right,

  Alexis Reid  41:18

  so I'm gonna recap for a second, because we've touched upon so many important things. And I want to recap that sometimes a depressive state or depressive mood can come from, you know, different factors that maybe you're predisposed to, whether it's neuro biochemical, or potentially, you're, you know, in a family that has a lot of other individuals that experienced depression, or depressive moods quite consistently, right, that can impact a child or an individual growing up, you know, we think about this nature nurture, dynamic, you know, we talked a little bit about executive function challenges can potentially be a factor that impacts somebody feeling depressed, when they're not able to do the things that they want to do, or that they know they have the ability to do, or they want to develop skills get to, sometimes there's some unresolved issues or circumstances that have happened in relationships, that can lead to feeling a depressed mood, there might be some unresolved feelings about yourself, right, a lack of confidence in yourself, or these core beliefs that you've developed over time through struggle and challenges, that what your experience has been in the past will become what's going to happen anyway. So what's the point, and then also, there's, like, not feeling understood, or validated or appreciated, or, you know, we hear all the time from, you know, our clients that we work with, who are experiencing depression that they feel so invalidated, that people just say, Oh, just, you'll feel better, it'll be fine, rather than really acknowledging their experience. And you know, there's a lot of pieces that lead to just getting very stuck in this depressive experience.

  Gerald Reid  43:05

  Yeah. So as you're saying, right, there are factors that can contribute to feeling emotions, that could lead to depression, right. And so one part of therapy would be to work on those factors, right, you know, what led you to feel these emotions that ultimately led you to become depressed in the first place, let's address them, you know, the things that you can control. And another part of it is also what's called behavioral activation, this is cognitive behavioral therapy, you know, you had talked about this a little bit before is that, you know, when you're depressed, you don't want to do anything, that's part of that reciprocal nature of depression, you just feel like you don't want to do anything, therefore, you don't do anything. And as I said, Before, there could be a function to not doing anything. And that's the first part of therapy is, maybe you're pulling back because you got to process things and learn about things and work through whatever led you to become depressed in the first place. But you know, you also have to live your life in a lot of ways, right, and you don't want to just kind of, you know, hibernate in your bedroom for for months at a time, because that's going to, you know, prevent you from getting better. So both things are important, I would say Prosit, pulling back and understanding the function of it to process things and make an learn about yourself, you know, what led you to become depressed. And then secondly, is behavioral activation, which is keeping up with things that are going to help you to feel at least a little bit better on a daily basis. And I can't tell you how many times people you know, will tell me, you know, well, stop smoking marijuana, and I went to, and I go to the gym a lot, and I've been eating healthier, and just that really has helped me to feel a little bit better in sticking up with that, right.

  Alexis Reid  44:38

  I'm gonna rewind and say sometimes just getting out of bed is a big deal for people who are experiencing depression, right? Feeling depressed,

  Gerald Reid  44:46

  right? Just getting out of the pits, the activation, it's movement, it's, it's doing instead of waiting to feel better. You're going to act your way into feeling better. You're not going to necessarily think your way into it, or wish for it. You're going to kind of act through weigh into it through your behaviors. So it's like, you know, that's the book exercise for mood that we talked about in the last episode is, you know, once you start exercising, you actually begin to feel better, I can't tell you how many patients have told me, No way, I am not going to feel better by exercising, and all of them are like, You know what, I feel better, I'm sleeping better. It's definitely helped me, I didn't believe it was gonna happen. But it happens. There's

  Alexis Reid  45:21

  so much research and actually, you know, a lot of a lot of psychiatrists will say, like, one of the greatest prescriptions is actually to get up and exercise, right, and to be able to build that into your routine. And a lot of the individuals I work with who have been oppressed in have shifted by studying exercise, I will tell you that almost all of them started to do the research and have written papers on why it's so beneficial, because they want more people to understand it. And they want to understand the mechanisms behind it rather than like, Oh, I just exercise, therefore I feel better. So it's so cool, because they're like, Oh, this is why exercise is helping me and is shifting my mood. So I'm able to do more and to experience life differently. I

  Gerald Reid  46:03

  love that. And you got to be creative with it do something that you'd like doing or that you could like doing, you know, you said mixed your motivations. Like, when I exercise, I watch TV or listen to music that I like, or I'm watching the food channels, email, like mix it do something that makes sense for you. And treat it as an experiment. You know, we talked about this in the emotions episode of season one, you know, you treat it like an experiment, you can't just say, Oh, no, that's not gonna happen. You gotta be open to the experiment of life, your whole life is like an experiment. And you won't know until you try, you know, to see what works. And, and I gotta tell you, you know, you can really get stuck in kind of an identity of being depressed. I've seen this with people. And some people come around to kind of saying, like, oh, it's almost like, I've romanticize my depression, as if it's like an identity, like your movie character. And you kind of feel like, Oh, this is who I am, I'm not kind of like, you can kind of take on a persona of like, Oh, I'm just not a happy person, I'm never going to be, but I identify with it. And I feel like this is my, because everybody wants an identity identity, right? We all want to feel like we have an identity makes it feel powerful and strong. The caution with this, I have seen in times, if you overly identify with being depressed, and maybe that takes a stigma away, and maybe there's benefits to it. But there are times that I have seen that it prevents the person from getting better, because when you attach to identity your whole life revolves around,

  Alexis Reid  47:26

  and there's a comfort, there's a comfort to that, too. Sometimes there's a

  Gerald Reid  47:29

  comfort, right, and that's, you know, sometimes it could D stigmatize it right? It can make you feel less ashamed and less guilt. But there, but when when you have an identity, your whole life revolves around it, your thoughts, your beliefs, your actions revolve around it. And you got to be careful with that, because it could be maintaining the depression. And I've seen people who break out of that identity. And they say, well, that that wasn't actually helping me that was getting in the way.

  Alexis Reid  47:51

  And it's interesting. And to that point, I, I run a college group, and we were talking about what are some of the things that can get in the way of us, you know, working towards our goals and doing things that feel like they're aligned with our values. And somebody shared, that they want to be more mindful of not falling into the trap of like gossiping, or talking negatively about themselves or others? Because you know, something that you often say is that something that you often say is that, you know, negativity will will breed more negativity, right and reinforces itself. So we always want to be mindful of, of what different behaviors interactions, and ways of being are reinforcing these habits that might lead us towards amplifying the big emotion versus figuring out ways to better identify what's happening and moving in a direction that's going to work towards your goals in a values oriented way.

  Gerald Reid  48:52

  Definitely, yeah. So there's pros and cons to it, right? You know, you co you kind of CO ruminate with people, you co commiserate with people, you feel more understood. And sometimes people need that. And maybe they don't have it anywhere else. And that's the only way they can get it. It's like I got to talk to my friend and just commiserate about something because literally nobody else understands. There's a big benefit to that with the caution as well. There's nuance to everything. And that I hope that's what this podcast can can exemplifies that there is nuance. It's not like that's always going to help someone.

  Alexis Reid  49:20

  But I want to acknowledge to you that just because somebody hasn't had the exact same experience as you do, doesn't mean that they might not be able to share some insight, perspective and support. Yeah, you know, we

  Gerald Reid  49:31

  all try to understand each other, everyone's different. And, you know, we're all here to support and understand each other regardless of our differences.

  Alexis Reid  49:39

  And so, okay, let's go through this really quickly. We've mentioned all these things before, but can we recap, you know, what can we do to address depressed mood, like when you're experiencing depressive mode or you're experiencing depression? What is something that you can do that helps you navigate through those moments? I

  Gerald Reid  50:00

  want to caution that there's one thing or a few things, there's just you know, really depends on the person, right, you know, everything is so nuanced, so nuanced, and I'm sure, and so like, you know, there's interpersonal therapy, which is based around the idea that, you know, our whole lives revolve revolve around relationships. So let's understand what it is about how we navigate relationships, how we view relationships, the way our relationships are going and just address them, I'm not going to get into detail about all that you can look up into personal therapy, but it's helpful for depression. And that's the reason is that it helps you to just work through all this stuff that goes on in your relationships, right? So that's one, you know, there's other parts of it, you know, more cognitive, behavioral, or mindfulness based where you try to get out of your head, right? When we're anxious to depress, we feel like whatever thought that is going through our head is the truth. And that it's the most important thing ever, because why else? Would it be going through our head if it wasn't important? And so it's a way to externalize our thoughts to look at them objectively and say, Wait, just because it popped in my head doesn't mean what I did, or I really believe that, or is it just something that kind of popped in my head? Every thought is not equally important? Or has the equal meaning to it? Right, sometimes, this is, you know, when I work with people who have obsessive intrusive thoughts, I'm like, you know, the difference between you and someone who doesn't develop this kind of OCD is that you're making a lot of meaning out of these intrusive thoughts, you're making them seem like they mean something. Whereas maybe someone who doesn't have OCD will have an intrusive thought and just say, Oh, that's a weird thought. I'm not gonna really think much about it. And because the person could become so scared of it, or attach onto what we call fuse into it, like it becomes reality that that scares the heck out of people. Yeah.

  Alexis Reid  51:49

  And the rumination on it just overthinking about just that over and over again, can become really frightening.

  Gerald Reid  51:55

  Exactly right. And so part of it is changing your relationship with your thoughts and your beliefs, and what's going on internally to change your relationship with it. That's a really key term, you know, you changed your relationship with what's going through your head instead of just thinking, Oh, well, it's the truth, because it popped in my head, everything that I think is always true. Good point. You know, we talked about, you know, just problem solving, right? Another function of depression could be this falls into the category of grieving, right? If something's not going, well, maybe there's a problem that hasn't been solved yet. And there's two directions. This is a broad way of saying it. And sometimes there's an active solution. And sometimes acceptance is the solution itself. And that's a hard thing to figure out, what are you willing to accept, sometimes there is something you can do about your situation. And sometimes, you can just change the way you think about it, and maybe accept it or just change your relationship to the situation that you're in. And

  Alexis Reid  52:52

  I'm going to, I'm going to put a couple of sub bullets below that, going back to what we talked about before that sometimes there's skills that haven't been developed, that people might be trying to use in different circumstances, that can lead to feeling depressed or lead to depressive state, because maybe they haven't learned or developed the skills yet. So whether it's executive function, whether it's communicative skills, or relational and relational skills, so many different aspects of our lives, that sometimes we want to be able to utilize and to activate in different situations. And we just can't because we don't have the skills yet, or we're feeling depressed, therefore the skills can't be accessed. So there's that that relationship to that can get in the way. Yeah. And

  Gerald Reid  53:36

  like, everything's a skill, right? Like me saying to you, hey, Alexa, I need some help with something I'm confused about. That's a skill.

  Alexis Reid  53:44

  Yeah, totally. You know, I'm

  Gerald Reid  53:45

  saying like, you got to understand what the skill is that the person may need to develop over time,

  Alexis Reid  53:50

  or even more concretely, somebody who's learning an instrument for the first time I hear it from young people and from adults, too, that are like, I just want to be able to play a song. And I'm just not good at this. And it's like, Well, you haven't learned the foundations of the fundamentals. Yet, to be able to get to that point, doesn't mean you're going to be hard on yourself or get down because you can't do it automatically. But you know, a lot of the people we work with are really bright individuals, who things haven't always been difficult for them, right? They've been able to use their intellect in their natural gifts to get through different situations. And then all of a sudden, the context changes. And the situation presents itself that's way more challenging than they have ever experienced before. That their natural gifts and skills and intellect can't actually get through that point, which can also be a really devastating experience for people where they just shut down and they get depressed because they think that there's something wrong, versus maybe I need to learn differently, or I need to figure out what's necessary to get to this endpoint, rather than just, you know, skating through it and getting to it in a less resistant way.

  Gerald Reid  55:01

  Yeah, that's the identity crisis, right? They how many, you know, even athletes I've worked with, right, they get an injury or something happens, and they're not the best anymore, or they can't do what they used to do to prove their worth. And the whole process of therapy is like, well, who are you outside of just proving your worth through an achievement in sport. And that becomes actually a huge change in meaning. So part of you know, working through depression is finding new meaning. And your meaning is up to you. Right, however, you want to make meaning out of something is up to you, that's a gift that we have, as human beings, it's another miracle is like, wow, like I can literally have things not work out the way that I wanted to, but I'm going to change the way I frame it and make new meaning out of it. Wow, like, That's powerful. And that's not to say that everybody's going to do that, or have an easy time doing that, that can take a long process. And you got glimmers of hope, you know, sometimes as a therapist, I'm like, I'm going to show up for you, you know, I'm going to keep showing up, I'm going to try to see inside of you what there is that you forgot is there that you forgot, right? You know, you weren't born, how you are right now, you may be the lost touch with who you really are. And we got to re nurture that and re acclimate yourself and remembering that who you are. And I've seen people with horrible substance use issues, who, you know, they'll say, you know, somebody always reminded me that I'm more than this, this is not who I really am. And they stopped using substances in their life gets so much better. finding

  Alexis Reid  56:28

  your purpose, there's, again, a whole body of research on how when we understand and begin to live our purpose that life becomes different, right? It feels better, you can have more activation of joy, and experience life on a little bit more clear level. But I want to go back to your point. And just that and your example of you know, shifting away from using substances to mask some of the big feelings that you might be experiencing. Because you're, you said before that there's two paths, there's action, and there's acceptance, and it sounds like, you know, to be able to do that you need to do a little bit of both, like the acceptance of like, this way of being in thinking isn't really helpful right now. And even if that's the acceptance in and of itself, I think that's a good start. Like, this isn't helping me to do the things I want to do to live in line with my values, whatever the end of the sentence may be, and where can I get started. And I want to go back to what we said at the very beginning of the episode that many people experience really terrible things. And being exposed to not only things that we experienced in our own personal lives, but also that are happening around the world can make us feel a lot of fields can make you feel very depressed. Yeah, of course. Okay, not. And as we wrap up this episode, I want us to just go back to the point of, we can oftentimes take even the smallest step, to make a change and how we're feeling and how we show up every day. And maybe it is just getting out of bed. Maybe it is brushing your teeth and taking care of your hygiene. Maybe it is showing up to the gym or getting outside and going for a walk. Right, all of these small steps are a part of the first phase of making that change taking that action. And I appreciate and respect people who are showing up and doing this work every day. Because there's a lot that can become points that lead us to feeling really depressed, and any course of our life, especially now being exposed to everything that's happening in the world. So I want to just be really clear about the fact that, you know, we've talked about the clinical side, we've talked about the behavioral side of depression, there's so much more that we can talk about here. But I think for me, one of the biggest takeaways that I hope people walk away with is the fact that we can think about our own version and form of acceptance and action that makes the most sense for us. When we're in this experience, and it could be even the smallest step. And I want to encourage people and those who are around people with depression, to acknowledge that that's a big deal. And we see, we appreciate you and we're here for you,

  Gerald Reid  59:32

  right I always say only you know what this is like, only you know what this is like really, I really want to emphasize that you know, my my takeaway messages, you know, you got to forgive yourself and forgive and be compassionate. You know, that is a gift that we can choose to embrace. And sometimes we need other people to help us to do that and to do that for us. And secondly, remember that, you know, this is a theory that we go through hard times and we cope to survive. And the way that we cope to survive with terrible things that happen in our life. We take with them, we take those coping mechanisms with us throughout the rest of our lives until we realize, Oh, I was only doing those things to survive something because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have any other options. Like whether it's substance use or you know, becoming an angry person or shutting down, right. Like, you can think of that like, well, of course, he did that, you know, be compassionate to yourself, you went through a hard time, that was your way of coping. And now you have the opportunity, as you've time has gone by in the circumstances may have changed, you have the opportunity to replace those coping mechanisms with something healthier, a healthier version. So instead of you know, commiserating with people to have friends who learn, oh, I can actually be more positive and develop different types of friendships as well, not just with people I'm going to co commiserate with all the time, you know, maybe co commiserating was the only way I can survive because I felt like I needed to talk to someone, you know, but maybe you can learn over time that there's other options to cope, that are going to do the same thing, they're going to fulfill a need. And if that need is connection, or using your strengths, to do something, to feel confident, you're going to find other versions of coping, because that form of coping, maybe it helped you in that moment, or that time of your life, but maybe it's not going to help you now. Maybe you got to find alternatives. We're always evolving as people, you know, part of life is evolving and growing in different ways and being open to that. And so as we get older, that's a gift that we have, we can talk to people or learn or read or go to therapy to, to learn different ways of coping, into release. And that's the grieving process of when you release this old form of of coping and replace it with something that could serve me now and in the future. Yeah,

  Alexis Reid  1:01:59

  change is hard, and sometimes it can lead us in a different direction. And that might be challenging, but it also can be empowering. Cool. Thanks, Jer.

  Gerald Reid  

  Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and we look forward to future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.

Understanding depression and how to address a depressed mood can be a difficult task. There are many different perspectives in the field of psychology and when someone experiences or lives with depression it can be challenging to both navigate and support. In this episode we aim to discuss mood and depression in an empathetic way for those going through it to recognize what may be possible as well as how to best support people experiencing a depressed mood. 

Be curious. Be Open. Be well.

The ReidConnect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com

*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.