Many times when you get the end of the tunnel of depression, it doesn’t mean you’ll be free of it forever. In fact, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel sad or down from time to time, so Refinery 29 just ran a report on what to do if you experience a depression relapse.
As Refinery 29 points out, recovering from depression is “not a straightforward process, and relapses do happen.” As one doctor at the Montefiore Medical Center says, “We try to treat psychological disorders with what we call total remission, which is the absence of symptoms of the disorder. Sometimes we get to partial remission, meaning there’s significant improvement but there still may be a few symptoms remaining, maybe with lesser intensity.”
This article also states that according to the American Psychiatric Association, “at least half of people who have had a major depressive episode are at risk for more episodes down the road. For those who’ve experienced two major episodes, 80% are likely to experience an additional episode.”
But ultimately, if you suffer from depression, you shouldn’t fear. As this article concludes, “Remember that relapses are common, and they don’t have to be the end of the world. Recovery is not a linear process, and running into a bump (or a few bumps) in the road doesn’t render all your progress obsolete.”
And as one doctor explains, when dealing with a patient who has relapsed with depression, “Whatever was successful the previous time, we would start with that and hope it would create a similar response. But this time we would do a bit more to pursue their progress towards formal relapse prevention, with more extensive recommendations such as booster sessions where you check in with your therapist.”
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