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Sunday, August 12, 2012

Self Esteem and Depression



Everyone has one of the I never should have gotten out of bed days. When you find yourself at the far end of an emotional spectrum. When you lose your inner balance and find that you cannot return to it that is the time to take action. Most people feel bad about themselves from time to time. Low self esteem can be triggered by an incident in the recent past or by the judgment which you may have of yourself. You deserve to feel good about yourself. It is not easy when you are under the stress if having symptoms that are difficult or impossible to manage or when you have a disability. The episodes in life draw you into a downward spiral leading to lower and lower self esteem. The negative self thoughts make you feel so bad about yourself and you may do something that could only make you feel even worse.

Low self esteem is a symptom of depression.

Manic episodes produce irrational ideas which seem to be absolutely possible and will lead to great success and rewards and the contagious optimism where life is limitless and so along with it
your energy. Then a clearer picture of your symptoms and how they affect your daily life and those around you shows the devastating crash of depression which the maxed out credit cards can not fix.

Suddenly you find yourself at the point of the realization that life is not all that rosy and the nightmare will continue to pursue you until you fear your own self. he past seems to loam over your head and you reach the end of the infectious high and sink deeper and deeper into a depressive state. All seems lost and hopeless, bleak and dismal. You look at the past few days, weeks, months of the high and you see that it was filled with bad decisions and expectations. You wonder how you ever thought of yourself as anything other than a loser, a person who could never and would never do anything productive and if it was it would be mediocre and not even impress your own mother. Life was filled with half started attempts at things that you were never able to achieve or even worthy of achieving. You think of your High School prom and how you were never cheerleader material, never the valedictorian of your class, never an honor student. Incapable of anything worthwhile you wonder where life will lead you and why.

Before you go off the deep end losing all to the depression.


Think of the chocolate cakes that you consumed, all the cups of dark and sweet coffee that you deluged your body with craving quarts of ice cream and candy.


Processed sugar is addictive and contributes to depression

Junk food, foods containing a lot of sugar need to be avoided. Taking good care of yourself and working at taking good care of yourself will make you feel better about yourself. Eat healthy vegetables and fruit; whole grain foods and protein foods can lift your self esteem in time when added to a constructive exercise routine. Do things that make use of your talents and abilities it may be studying a language, playing an instrument creativity builds self confidence and thereby lifting a sagging self esteem. One way to boost your self esteem is learn something new or improve your skills at something you may already do.

Pay attention to your own needs and wants; get in tune with your body if you are tired of sitting stand for a while or take a short walk, a moving body helps to make you feel better and improves you opinion of yourself. Make a point of treating yourself well everyday.


There are probably a lot of negative messages passing through your mind about yourself. Many people have these thoughts, these are learned messages many come from prejudice and the stigma about mental disorders in our society. These negative thoughts make you feel bad about yourself and contribute to low self esteem. Become aware of the negative messages and develop positive statements to replace them.

Self esteem is like Bipolar disorder in that what goes down can go up and learning to balance your self esteem leads to a balance in your life overall. Lifting self esteem gives you the confidence to actively approach your mental disorder and face it in an objective and hopeful way. To those struggling with bipolar disorder or any other mental disorder the road to recovery need not be hopeless the chances that a medication treatment is positive and the prognosis is becoming better as the new medications are discovered. Life with a mental disorder need not be an end to life but can be the beginning of a new way of living.

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