Please help —I’m struggling to beat depression

DEAR BEL

I AM now in my 70s, but had to grow up very fast as a child and made mistakes along the way — but the worst thing has been the clinical depression I have suffered since the age of 35.

This set in after I divorced an alcoholic husband and was then rejected by a boyfriend, while having to bring up my children, which was very difficult when I was depressed.

I have had antidepressants, counselling, hypnotherapy — you name it, I have had it. But to no avail as yet. I am at the end of my tether now and don’t know what to do. My doctor doesn’t know how to help me any more. Therefore, with some difficulty, I am writing to seek your help.

This email is very short — although I could write a book. I always read your column every week and just hope you can give me some hope as I have tried everything. MAUREEN

YOUR life has obviously been full of problems and you have had to endure the burden of clinical depression. I’d like to remind readers of what the following information: ‘Depression is more than simply feeling unhappy or fed up for a few days. Most people go through periods of feeling down, but when you’re depressed you feel persistently sad for weeks or months, rather than just a few days.

‘Depression isn’t a sign of weakness or something you can “snap out of” by “pulling yourself together”.

‘The good news is that with the right treatment and support, most people with depression can make a full recovery.’ That’s according to the NHS website. But not you, Maureen. You tell me you have tried everything and that now your doctor has given up.

It occurs to me that perhaps you haven’t tried mindfulness. Have a look at the website mindful.org and spend some time reading through it and thinking. I firmly believe many people have the power to heal their own spirits. I notice on the newsstands a selection of magazines with names such as Breathe and Flow and The Simple Things, not to mention Psychologies.

Full of positive articles, they tell me there’s a real craving for uplift, for creativity, for ways of finding the ‘hope’ that you long for. Try them.

And check out the website dailyom. com — because there are always interesting, inspiring and thoughtprovoking articles on there to discover. A self-help book such as Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life is terribly ‘American’ in a way many British people find difficult, and yet I can’t help feeling that it might do you good to repeat some of its ‘affirmations’. For example: ‘As I say yes to life, life says yes to me.’

You wrote to me because you need a new way of looking towards the next few years and I doubt that path leads back to your doctor’s surgery.

Try to visualise it leading towards a peaceful, sunny garden where you can hear only birdsong and running water. Imagine yourself there, breathing deeply from your stomach. Buy flowers for yourself and tend them carefully, trimming the stems and changing the water every two days. Volunteer. Breathe some more — and let each deep breath out with a loud ‘Whoosh.’

Go on.