Get help.

With COVID and now extraordinary uncertainty about the future of the United States, it's important for parents to know that there is help available. The following statistics were written BEFORE recent events:

“...approximately 2% of children and at least 4% of adolescents suffer from depression at any given time. By the end of high school, approximately one young person in five will have had at least one episode of depression.

“Children and adolescents who are under stress, who experience loss, or who have attentional, learning, conduct, or anxiety disorders are at a higher risk for depression... The good news is that depression is a treatable illness.”

CLICK HERE for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s online depression resource center.

Give Yourself Grace

I haven’t posted a tip for several days, and that’s okay. As Stuart Smalley, Al Franken’s beloved SNL character, always said, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me!”

Try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. None of us is perfect.

But most of us are pretty darn good.

So do your best to be consistent in your efforts to tame depression, but recognize that sometimes inconsistency or improvisation leads to amazing discoveries and breakthroughs. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” And I make it a practice to always take seriously any sentence that includes the word “hobgoblin”.

Because I’m pretty sure I do not have a little mind, and because I believe these tips may help someone, I will have to try to do better in the consistency department.

Depression is not about what's going on in your life, it's about how you think about what's going on in your life.

Catching self-abusing thoughts and turning them into rational assessments of a situation is key.

Try to remember to react to automatic thoughts with rational responses, and write it down: list automatic thoughts on the left half of a piece of paper and the rational response to each thought on the right side.

Even when you're so depressed you can't see the solution, try this technique, pioneered by David D. Burns, whose books are fundamentals in the field of depression.

Click HERE for a yoga YouTube channel, Yoga with Kassandra, with truly easy stretches, breathing exercises, yoga tutorials, and more. Kassandra is down-to-earth and clear, and her exercises are super-doable.

Write Your Way Out

“In the eye of a hurricane

"There is quiet
For just a moment.
A yellow sky.

"When I was seventeen a hurricane
Destroyed my town.
I didn’t drown.
I couldn’t seem to die.

I wrote my way out”.

– from Hamilton

Journal.

Make lists of things you've accomplished.

Write automatic thoughts and then rational responses to them (David D. Burns). Write down the automatic thought depressing you right now – not what you are feeling but what you are thinking. Then write down a rational response to that automatic thought.

Write your way out.

Get help -- which may come from a variety of resources.

The passage here was written in the first months of the COVID pandemic, but the advice rings true today. With so much change all around them, including heading to the end of the school year and possibly decisions about their futures, kids need someone to listen to them and to guide them.

“Coaches have a vital role to play here. They can help their athletes process what is going on, discuss their feelings, try to come up with ways to make the seniors feel special – even if they never play another game. I promise you, coaches are already doing this.

“Something else coaches are doing – they're checking on their athletes who they know can be in vulnerable positions. As soon as Governor Roy Cooper announced the statewide closure of schools, I saw numerous coaches on Twitter offering to help kids get food and meals, bring them school supplies, help them find Internet connections, or offer other types of help as needed.”

Those of us with mental illness had a fierce advocate in actor and author Carrie Fisher.

She made it OK to be depressed, bipolar, or otherwise mentally ill.

“We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges,” Fisher said. “Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic – not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic, but an emotional survival. An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder.”

– Carrie Fisher interview for The Guardian

“That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.”

– Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

Sometimes it does feel impossible, but you CAN regain hope.

* * * * *

Here's a song I find inspiring. It is rap, and I know that's not for everyone. But it's full of hope and inspiration.

Hold on.

I don't know about you, but right about now, I just want to lock out the world and watch videos. Perhaps you can relate? Many of us are feeling nervous, depressed, frightened, confused, uncertain...

What can you do to stave off depression in precarious times?

As often as you can manage, focus outside of yourself and engage in the world.

Help someone else. Give blood. Talk to a senior citizen. Volunteer once a week.

No need to make a big commitment that may feel overwhelming.

Do something – no matter how small it seems to you – that is not about you. Acts of kindness and acts of service can fend off depression.