Healing Reactive
or Family Depression

Depression is an emotional condition that can severely impact your life as it disrupts how you think and behave. It is more than ‘blues,’ or sadness, though it is the hallmark symptom of the condition. Some that are depressed can flash a smile despite the desolation they feel inside. Despair can overcome you, even when your life seems perfect. It can trigger an avalanche of negative emotions, and it can cause your physical health to decline.

Depression is a ‘family matter.’ It damages and disrupts relationships, particularly with those in their immediate circles. As it takes a downward spin, developing into ‘reactive depression,’ it starts to become a baggage to their families and closest friends as well. Reactive or family depression is the worse form of the condition that can grip your loved ones. You would not wish this to be more painful and painful to them.

The key is to recognize its symptoms early and to seek professional intervention promptly. Know that depression is treatable, and if it develops into reactive or family depression, so is the latter. The only way ‘out of the rut’ is through treatment. If you love and care for your family, you do not want more members affected. You do what it takes to save them from the difficult symptoms of depression.

Know Who Your Enemy Is

Your ‘enemy’ or ‘the intruder’ in your ‘home’ is called depression and its worse form, reactive depression? Reactive or family depression is “a category of clinical depression that refers to an inappropriate state of depression… precipitated by events in the person’s life (to be distinguished from typical grief) arising as a consequence of severe life events,” says Patients Like Me. As a family, you should work together, because “depression has a huge impact on the home and families can have a huge impact on depression.”

What are the important features of depression that will help your family overcome it?

  • Depression can be ‘transmitted’ in the family. It is just not the pathogenic microorganisms that can spread in the family. Depression can creep into your family unit as well. This happens as the rest of the unit experience the radiating difficulties, affecting the members, one after the other. This means that the symptoms of depression, like sadness, loss of energy, helplessness, hopelessness, sleeplessness, etc., are manifested by the affected members.
  • The ‘transmission’ can be indiscernible. According to the Psychology Today, “… just as individuals can be depressed, so can whole families, often without their awareness.” Stuck in a trap of unhealthy thoughts and feelings, depression and its symptoms can spread gradually, so that you won’t be able to notice its ‘gestation.’ Because professional intervention isn’t sought early, the condition can develop without you noticing it.
  • The individual members can manifest unique manifestations. One of the reasons why the symptoms are imperceptible is the fact that the individual members can show varying signs and symptoms. This is because individuals are unique or people are different, even when are related by blood. This means that the manner why which the different members of the family respond to the condition can be unique or different as well. Part of the difficulty in recognizing symptoms can also be due to having medical conditions that can mimic or conceal the depressive symptoms.
  • The symptoms can affect the relationships between and among the family members. Unhappy and projecting the negative emotions – despair, insecurity, desperateness, vulnerability, even anger and irritability – the condition can sap the energy of the family. It can, therefore, dull their ability to keep their heads above the challenges. This means that depression can result in the whole household excessively endure a ‘black hole’ of physical and emotional distress.
  • Depression can weaken your family’s defenses against a lot of stress. Depressed as a unit, your family can be rendered helpless against the onslaught of the depressive symptoms and other emotional conditions or issues, such as anxiety, as well as overwhelm, grief, irritability, self-harm, etc. Unlike the first time when depression hits a member, all of you could continue to struggle more as everyone is gripped with hopelessness and helplessness.
  • Reactive depression can strain family resources. The condition can be difficult to overcome when it starts to exhaust the family’s resources, such as money, time and help from within the unit. These are the ‘logistics’ that keep your unit functioning. Without these resources, you run the risk of becoming dysfunctional, increasing your challenges and decreasing the probability of receiving the right help. This is why depression must be treated from the moment it touches the first family member.

Beating the Vicious Cycle

Missing the symptoms, many of the depressed are not aware that they are gripped by the predicament. This goes for reactive or family depression. Many families are not aware that they are gripped by the claws of depression until they are sucked into the vicious cycle of the emotional condition. Though it is a foremost reason for disability these days, beating out diabetes, cancer and stroke, it remains a ghost in the midst of families. Your family cannot be spared from it once it hits a member and you fail to see the telling signs.

Children acquire it from their parents. Depressed adolescents turn to unhealthy habits as they are overcome by its symptoms. Entire families succumb to the bigger enemy, reactive depression, feeling helpless and fearing that they will show the symptoms anytime soon. This is the kind of cycle that you want to put an end to. Know that you can end your family’s quandary. Depression can be treated. In the hands of the right professionals, your family can emerge victorious from this senseless onslaught.

It is unfortunate, but the symptoms of this emotional condition won’t dissipate unless it is treated. Knowing the enemy, you must decisively ‘give it a fatal blow.’ In the language of depression that means seeking out the help of the most trustworthy and capable professional you know, without fear or shame. Waiting it out should never be an option. Professional intervention must be sought as soon as the you suspect depression your midst.

Keep the Enemy Out!

Like a thorn, depression can dig deeply into your ‘side,’ whether as an individual or in the form of reactive depression. Everyone would want to support the affected member – this is how family depression works. While love is a bond that you want to keep and nurture, this is the same reason that puts everyone in the quandary, including the older adults, the young ones, and the sick.

If you suspect that one member could be depressed, have their symptoms assessed with haste by a licensed, trained professional. An experienced counselor/therapist independently contracted with Carolina Counseling Services – Fuquay-Varina, NC, can help free you and your loved ones from unnecessary anxiousness. Healing and hope are possible for families beset with reactive depression. A family therapist can help you learn to keep the attackers like reactive depression away. Do not allow it to advance. We can help you and your family in this endeavor.

Therapy can help your family resolve reactive depression. Committing to a tailored treatment plan, you and your family can ward off the enemy that can hurt you. Start by calling us now. CCS – Fuquay-Varina NC is the right help in the neighborhood!

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