Depression Tip 39: Hidden Stress 💙

When we think about stress, we often think about things that are external and are affecting us negatively.

So we've got the stress of work of a deadline that we don't think we can meet. Or we've got the stress of bills to pay that we don't think we can afford. We've got the stress of the children acting up and it being difficult, or the stress of caring for elderly relatives. But a lot of time, especially in depression, internal stresses are the ones that cause us the most problems. 💙

And that can be either thinking, so excessive negative thinking and rumination causes huge amounts of internal stress. And also our feelings. Often we can't cope with vulnerable feelings such as embarrassment or powerlessness, helplessness, things like that. 💙

And so we try to avoid those feelings. And there's a huge internal stress at cost to avoiding those feelings. So negative thoughts and avoiding feelings are internal stresses. And those cause a lot of the problems in depression. 💙