Real Student Stories

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Picture of Anna Missing home at the start of his first year, Daniel found himself increasingly severely affected by low mood triggered by unhappiness on his course and relationship difficulties. He is proud of successfully tackling things without using anti-depressants... more > >

Also in "Tackling Depression"...

“Another ritual which did actually help and soothe me was spending a couple of hours every day on the internet looking for alternatives for the future. I just made lists and lists of the options. It really helped me to know that even though I had messed up in the present, moves and other options were possible for the future. I wasn't stuck forever.” Kristy

“Having been forced (eg by a deadline) to put in some effort, when you see a result you can't be so hard on yourself. At least you're up a notch in the way of your emotions. Then if you're up a notch, it gives you a reason to celebrate. So you do something nice for a few hours, and come out realising you actually had fun. You want to repeat that, so you end up doing a course of three things that make you happy. And before you know it, the voices aren't there, and you aren't so depressed...” Fayola

Students Against Depression
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Finding What Works For You

Reverse Spiral

A wide range of strategies

This website offers a wide range of strategies for tackling depression. The more strategies you try, the more chance you have of finding what works for you in turning the depression spiral around. Some of the easier, most quickly effective steps are pointed out in the section menu.

Which strategies will you try?

Every person is affected by depression differently, so some strategies will work better than others for each individual person. Understanding your own depression story better (see why me?) may help you decide which strategies would work best for you. See also the framework for tackling depression applied to Anna's story, for more ideas.

Take it slow

Don't be all-or-nothing about the strategies, though! Plan small steps at first. Because of the mutually-reinforcing effect of the depression habit spiral even very small changes can set off a chain effect that can make a big difference...

Ask yourself:
“What is the smallest change I can make that will make the biggest difference?”

The answer to this will be different for everybody.

Use your imagination

Imagining your depression-free life is another useful strategy:

Imagine what you would like your life to look like on a day to day basis.
Write it down in lots of detail (warning: this might be quite painful as the contrast with your present life is likely to be stark).
Now decide what would be a small first step in the right direction.
Challenge your all-or-nothing thinking - you only have to see the first step, not the whole route. Every little bit counts!

Better and worse days

As you try out strategies and start to turn things around, you will have better and worse days. When you've started to feel quite a bit better for a while and then depression sneaks up on you and you have another low day the contrast can be particularly painful.

But don't believe the old lies

You might find yourself all too easily persuaded by the old all-or-nothing depressed thinking - "You're back to square one. You've been kidding yourself. Nothing works. What's the point?"

A depression-resistant way of life

Getting to grips with depression - like most things - is not an all-or-nothing thing. It may not be possible to eradicate some of the factors making you vulnerable to depression (eg. a genetic tendency to low serotonin levels). But building new constructive habits into your daily life can offer significant resistance to depression.

It takes time

Changing a habit does take time. You won't shake off all your depressed habits without time and effort. But, however low depression has brought you, it is absolutely possible to get into more constructive, happier habits and to find the right strategies for you to make sure that depression affects you as little as possible from now on.

surviving suicidal thoughts > >

Links

More about factors influencing depression: why me?
More about how depression works: the depression habit spiral , depressed thinking , stress, anxiety & anger
More about getting help with choosing and/or employing strategies: tackling depression , what do counsellors offer?
Check page references (*): references and sources

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