Depression Treatment Plan

To Develop a Successful Treatment Plan We Must First Assess The Situation That is Creating the Stress, Anxiety and Depression

What are Your Options?

The Toxic Environment

Your Reaction to Bullying

Depression Treatment: What Are Your Options?

This is a simple question but requires an in-depth answer. Depression, especially when caused by bullying has many factors that need to be addressed.

Depression is often accompanied by very high levels of stress and anxiety. We need to look at the underlying causes that are driving these conditions.

The most obvious may be exposure to ongoing bullying. Continuous abuse designed to destroy a persons self-esteem is not an environment conducive to a successful depression treatment plan.

Where possible, get out of the toxic environment. We won't go into a lengthy discussion about that here but you have to break the cycle and staying in a workplace or school environment that is hostile is dangerous to your health.

There is a clear link between psychological stress, such as that caused by bullying, and the onset of depression.

You may have to take time off work or school and go on sick leave or disability until you can get a handle on the situation. Your health and even your life may depend on it. Depression and stress at the levels experienced by targets of bullying and mobbing is not to be underestimated.

Depression does more than simply affect your mood. There are the psychological and emotional depression symptoms such as a feeling of pervasive sadness, low self-worth, lack of joy or motivation, etc. but depression also has physical consequences to your health.

There is a clear link between psychological stress, such as that caused by bullying, and the onset of depression. Prof. Kenneth Westhues describes a form of workplace bullying known as mobbing as "the stressor to beat all stressors". The levels of stress experienced by targets of mobbing is no less serious than that experienced by victims of rape or that of soldiers in battle zones.

These extreme levels of stress and depression play havoc with your physical health. There is a lengthy list of physical and emotional symptoms of stress many of which exacerbate depression. Some of the more serious physical stress symptoms include a compromised immune system, high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke.

So to deal with depression effectively we need a depression treatment plan to address the underlying problem, such as bullying. We need to look at our own reactions to the bullying or mobbing. We must find ways to aleviate the mental, emotional and physical impact of depression.

Depression Treatment: The Toxic Environment

As I mentioned, so long as you remain in a toxic, bullying evironment it will be difficult to catch your breath long enough to overcome depression. Any successful depression treatment plan will need time for you to heal.

In the majority of workplace mobbing cases the bullying gets worse over time regardless of what the target does. If you do nothing - it gets worse, if you report it - it gets worse. In the vast majority of cases it is the victim who is fired while the bully is not disciplined in any way and may even be promoted.

While it is possible to stand up to workplace bullies and succeed this is very much dependant on the willingness of management to deal with bullying. While there are excellent systems and programs available for managers who take bullying seriously many business leaders do not yet understand how high the costs of bullying are (to both the employee and the bottome line).

How to deal with the bullying will depend in large part on you, on your particular situation, on your support network, on your own inner strength and determination. It will depend on how long you have been traumatized, how severely you have been injured, how easily you can find other employment and on your finances.

You will have to take stock of your situation, what are your strengths, what resources are available to you, can you afford to leave, can you afford to stay? Only you can decide the best way for you.

Sick leave, long term disability, quit or wait to be disabled and then fired. Unfortunately, in many cases of workplace mobbing these are the options available to targets.

Most mobbing experts agree that getting out as soon as possible with your sanity, your reputation and your finances intact is best.

Depression Treatment: Your Reaction to Bullying

How we react to being bullied has a great influence on how severe the symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression will be.

Relentless bullying can wear anyone down over time. School bullies often bully simply for the pleasure they derive from watching their victims suffer. The greater the reaction, the greater the enjoyment.

Some suggest that ignoring the bully will help. Deny the bully the reaction they want and they will move on to more "fun" victims. Don't respond to the bully, don't report the bully and certainly don't counterattack.

Understanding the motivations of the bully will help you deal more effectively with how it impacts you mentally. Understanding that it is not necessarily something wrong with you that has attracted the bully, but rather that it is something wrong with the bully that drives them to treat decent people this way.

School bullies will try to find some weakness to exploit. They will make comments about how ugly, skinny, fat, short, tall or whatever it is about you they think you are sensitive about. If you happen to be fat, for example, they will make fat jokes and remarks to try to hurt you.

If it does hurt you it may make you angry, sad or upset to be treated this way. If you show the bully that they are getting to you they will be encouraged to do it even more.

Consider this. There are many fat kids who are not bullied and many fat kids who are. There are many kids that wear glasses who are not bullied and many kids that wear glasses who are. There are many short kids who are not bullied and many short kids who are. You get the idea.

So we can see that it isn't necessarily these traits that cause bullies to choose one target instead of another. What is the difference? Your reaction! Don't feed the bully. Don't give the bully what he or she wants - a sign that they have power over you, that they can control how you feel.

For certain kinds of bullies, mostly school bullies, this approach may work. Before serious damage has been done the bully becomes bored by your lack of reaction and moves on to more fertile ground. This is part of why I disagree that the bullying should not be reported in schools.

School administrators need to be made aware that there is a problem student who is abusing others. The bully may need assistance to learn a better way of raising their own self-esteem or that it is unacceptable to treat others in this way. The bully may be learning this abusive behavior at home and may be on the receiving end of mistreatment there.

Part Two: Depression Medication...

Depression Medication: Can Antidepressant Medication Help?

See Also:

What do the Medical Journals Reveal on
Curing Depression Safely and Naturally? >
Patient run site provides easy to understand research information for anyone who suffers from depression. Offers a complimentary research report on 6 major ingredients/practices that scientific researchers have discovered that must be present in one’s life to prevent and eliminate depression.

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