Does depression ever really go away? Or does depression last forever, and is it still there even on days you feel happy?
It is possible for you to think thoughts like ‘Depression is a part of me’ or ‘Depression is part of my personality’, as if depression is a part of who you are that never goes away, even on days you feel upbeat and happier.
Unfortunately, if you do this, you set yourself up for a lifetime of struggling with depression.
Right now, you’re going to learn why it’s so important to not make this common mistake, and to instead think of depression as being a temporary condition that you can get rid of forever.
Is depression permanent?
Lots of people who struggle with depression identify themselves as people who have depression, as if it is a permanent part of their life that they always have to deal with in some way, even on days that they don’t feel depressed.
From their view, it’s like depression is simply part of the package that comes with them, even on days when they feel good and happy.
This is an incredibly self-destructive view that makes people struggle with depression for as long as they think this way. So don’t do it.
Think about it: when you think that depression is a permanent part of your life, then you fundamentally believe that you can’t get rid of depression.
And as the placebo effect for depression proves, the single most important factor for eliminating depression is to start thinking that you can become depression-free.
So people who view themselves as permanently having depression aren’t doing the single most important thing for getting rid of depression. Instead, they’re continuing to think in a way that makes them feel powerless, helpless, anxious, and stressed, which keeps them depressed.
Will depression ever go away?
The reason many people think that depression is a permanent part of who they are, even on days when they feel better, happier, and not depressed, is because they think of depression as some sort of a mysterious condition inside them that causes them to feel depressed.
In other words, when they feel happy, they think they’re not showing any signs or symptoms of depression, but they think that a dangerous, mysterious, invisible condition within them still remains, waiting to sabotage them and make them feel depressed at any moment.
First of all, remember that it’s both poisonous and absurd to think in terms of symptoms of depression, because it encourages this type of stressful, ridiculous thinking. So don’t do that, and avoid the mistake that people in white lab coats make every single day.
And, second, appreciate that it makes no sense whatsoever to think that depression is some sort of a mysterious, invisible, condition that always exists inside you, just waiting to exhibit its terrible symptoms at any moment.
Using this rationale, if a person is happy for the first 99 years of his life, but then becomes depressed the very last year of his life, you would say that he’d been living with depression his entire life, but just didn’t know it until the very end, when he finally exhibited symptoms of it.
This is completely absurd! Instead, it makes way more sense to appreciate that his condition changed during his last year, and that’s when he started dealing with depression.
Depression is always temporary
To get rid of depression for good, make sure that you never see depression as a permanent part of who you are, even on days that you’re happy. Instead, it’s just a temporary way that you can be, and it’s a condition that changes as you improve your thinking and lifestyle.
To understand this better, think of a balloon that is deflated. Being deflated is not a permanent part of the balloon. It’s simply a way that the balloon can be, and the balloon’s condition changes from deflated to inflated the moment you blow air into it.
Similarly depression not a permanent part of your life and who you are.
Instead, it’s simply a way that you can be, just like anyone else in the world can become this way, and your condition changes from depression to depression-free the moment you feel better and happier and not depressed.
Can you get rid of depression forever?
If you find yourself struggling with depression off and on over the years, like I did all through my 20’s, rest assured that depression is not a mysterious, invisible condition that is always inside you, just waiting to rear its head.
Instead, depression is a condition that is regularly coming and going, depending on how you’re thinking and living.
Just like you can blow up a balloon with air, and then squeeze all the air out of it, you can improve your thinking and lifestyle and feel better and happier, and then revert back to thinking and living in ways that make you feel depressed again.
So to get rid of depression for good and never deal with it again, it’s just a matter of not doing that anymore. Indeed, it’s just a matter of learning how to regularly think and live in ways that make you feel happier and depression-free, so that you never feel depressed again.
And that is exactly what you are learning how to do in this course step by step, by making the 6 Depression-Free Changes a regular part of your lifestyle, and by making changes in thought like the one you’ve just learned.
Next: Is Depression A Disease? →
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Section 6 Lessons:
- Why seeing symptoms of depression makes you depressed
- Does depression ever go away?
- Is depression a disease?
- Is depression genetic?
- Is depression a disorder?
- Am I depressed or not?