Depression and anxiety workbooks

Occasionally I've alluded here on the blog to having suffered from depression in the past. While I plan to go into more detail in the future about what happened and how I managed to fight off my depression and anxiety, I thought it might be helpful for those currently suffering or prone to suffer from either or both if I highlighted some of the books I read that were especially helpful for me to reset my thought patterns. A comment I hear often is how well adjusted I am considering my past and I want to emphasis, by way of this post and future posts, that my current state of relative normalcy was hard fought for and is something that requires regular maintenance.

I saw both a psychologist and a psychiatrist during my last major episode of depression a few years ago. I had a great experience with my psychologist (just an okay experience with the psychiatrist) and she was the one to recommend the following books to me. If you learn best by reading and writing, you might find these as helpful as I did. I still have the notes I took for a number of the exercises in these books and find it beneficial to review them from time to time if for nothing else than to see how far I've come.

I found these first two to be the most helpful in breaking down the different aspects of depression and detailing how a change in thoughts and actions will improve your quality of life:

Your Depression Map: Find the Source of Your Depression and Chart Your Own Recovery

The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Move Through Depression and Create a Life Worth Living

The following was one more book that was specifically related to depression. I think I didn't find it as helpful because I had already read through the books above before it and a third workbook was kind of overkill for me.

The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Depression: A Step-by-Step Program

The final two books deal specifically with anxiety. I personally felt the books that focused on depression were better suited for my specific issues at the time, but for those who suffer more acutely from anxiety and its related issues, you could potentially benefit more from workbooks specifically for anxiety.

 

The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety: A Guide to Breaking Free from Anxiety, Phobias, and Worry Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anxiety: A Step-by-Step Program

Have you found a book to be especially helpful in working through your depression and anxiety? If so, which one?

Things that I love: mug cakes

from babble.com

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I want something sweet yet I don't want a lot of it. Since I live alone, if I bake a whole batch of cookies or a buy whole bag of candy, I'm the sole person to polish them off and sometimes (okay, always) that isn't pretty.

One of my favorite food blogs, Budget Bytes, posted about mug cakes a few months ago, but I didn't pay much attention at the time because I didn't have a microwave where I was living then. It wasn't until a few nights ago when I was craving something chocolatey, but not too chocolatey, that I thought back to mug cakes, realized I had all of the ingredients on hand, and gave the one on Budget Bytes a try.

This baby is good, especially if you're in the mood for peanut butter too. I began dreaming of a more chocolaty version though and stumbled upon a recipe for a mug brownie on Pinterest.  Yuuuum!

Two more mug recipes to try in the future: blueberry mug muffins and chocolate chip mug cookies.

Salt water

Print for sale on Etsy

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” - Isak Dinesen

3 ways to meet people in a new city

by n_corboy via Flickr

Once you finish school at any level, your trusty built-in social system disappears. Meeting new people becomes a little trickier. Whether your friends move away or you move away, there are times in almost everyone's life when you will look around and there are less people there than there used to be. I recently moved to the west coast and, just like when I moved to Richmond, Virginia, I find myself in need of some local friends and acquaintances. There are many, many ways to meet people, but I thought I'd share three ways that I have found to be the most successful.

1. Coworkers. Just started a new job? Haven't really ever gotten to know the people you work with? Chances are good that you and your coworkers share similar interests and goals. Sometimes your coworkers will take the initiative and invite you out as a welcoming gesture, but you can't always wait around and hope that someone will reach out first. Coffe, lunch, or happy hour are all good, low commitment ways to get to know a coworker better. If you get along well, then you can plan something a bit more personal or time intensive.

2. Neighbors. When you first move somewhere, be sure to at least smile and say hi to everyone you see in your building and or who live on your block. Bonus points for introducing yourself. Not only does this help to foster an inviting and calm living environment, it helps to ease you into the friend making process. Instead of silently tossing your clothes out of the dryer while your downstairs neighbor silently throws his or her clothes into the washer, start a conversation: say hi, introduce yourself, ask what they do for a living, how long they've lived in the building, etc. If you have a pleasant chat, ask to grab a drink or coffee with them the next time you see them in the building.

3. MeetUp.com. If you've never heard of MeetUp, it's a site where people create groups based around mutual interests and then host events for the group members to attend in real life. I've met a wide range of people through all sorts of groups: Scrabble, German, dachshund owners, 20s and 30s social groups, book clubs. The Bay Area especially seems to have a ton of groups and it's one of the quickest and easiest ways to connect with people who share similar interests.

I've found that meeting new people is more about the effort you put into it than any kind of luck or fate involved. What are some of the best ways you've successfully met new people in a new city?

From the archives: anger

by psycholabs via Flickr

Sometimes, especially when I feel down, I like to go back and read things I wrote when I was a teenager. I wrote this entry in 2003 and, while some of it makes me cringe and I feel slightly embarrassed by my less than stellar writing, I think it's an accurate glimpse into how I felt living with my hoarder mother and how it made my teenage years even more challenging than they already were. I couldn't explain or understand it then, but I was incredibly depressed and hurt by my mother's behavior and it caused me to have very strong mood swings and search desperately for a way out. 

bad mood. completely. i was so happy before. mom came home and now i'm pissed. isn't that how it always goes? i get so irritable when people intrude on my thoughts when i'm in a thoughful mood. i just get so pissy, what the heck is wrong with me? i swear, i am the most insane, craziest person ever. as if my thoughts need special attention, like an infant. i just want to be free. driving. alone. music ringing. i just want to scream. i just want to cry hysterically. about nothing! ugh, mom is driving me nuts. we were having an argument about cars which evolved into a money talk which evolved into paying for college and then she walked out in the middle of her own sentence! and i wonder where i get my unstable mind... if i swore, i would swear my head off right now because i haven't been in this bad of a mood in God knows how long. i hate bad moods, they take you over completely, it's like a drug that runs in your blood stream and it just needs to run its course through your body. and it gets horrible when it reaches your brain- then you know you're in trouble. uncontrollable anger, like your whole body shakes and you want to cry and you just want to die because it hurts to be angry, it's like a slow painful suicide. i am such an odd ball, i guess it's just the mentally ill writer inside of me that likes to camp out in my soul and pop out at the strangest moments. i keep listening to bleed american by jimmy eat world. i just want to scream the lyrics at the top of my lungs, it like releases all the anger inside, like a cleansing. it's so completely odd how some songs just draw all of my thoughts out of me, like they spin the wheels in my head like a hamster on it's little wheel in its little cage in its little world. i wish i had that, i wish i was that. God, why must i be so touchy? i know no one like this. i am a complete freak and mental case who can't just abandon their thoughts. why must i think so much? why must i feel my thoughts? i think i am losing it, completely and utterly. i am slightly unhinged. if i wasn't such a happy person naturally, i swear i would have hung myself sometime within the past two years. hahaha, yes people, sweet sarah does have a bad day, and yes i do have other emotions rather than happy. freak out, i am real. i think i would scare off everyone who knows me right now, because i'm scaring myself. i just want to feel alive. i haven't felt it in so long. i want a sweet release. i got so close last weekend, i want it again, and forever. maybe i'm just really stressed out right now. but how can that be, i really don't have much to stress out about. oh whatever. can i run away and never return? i would love that.

The life that is waiting for us

via Free People

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." -E.M. Forster

Life happenings

by finlap via Flickr

It's hard to believe that March is only a few days away. February simply flew by for me!

I've noticed that I usually feel exhausted and antisocial when I get home from work. It feels as though I am working way more now than I did at my old job even though I am working the same number of hours. Maybe I'm just working harder and that's why I feel the way that I do. Regardless, all work and no play is dull.

I've been busy settling into routines and learning my way around my job and city. I'm slowly making friends and being more social. I've even seen an out of town friend a few time whose job and family bring her to the area often (hi, Jen! :-).

I'm trying to be patient with myself and my situation. I'm inclined to tell people who ask that things are going fine, probably as well as they could be going. If I were more honest (pessimistic?), I would say that I'm not loving it, but I'm not hating it either. Most days, I don't really feel like my whole and complete self. My heart is on the east coast while my body is on the west. Missing a lot of people is draining on the spirit.

A coworker invited me to join her book club and for February we read Beyond the Beautiful Forevers which was an engaging, but very sad book about an Indian slum. I'm now reading a biography about the marriage of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning called Dared and Done. I'm about halfway through and reading their letters to one another makes me want to write everyone letters instead of emails and just write in general.

This is my sad, play on repeat jam these days. Really, Waxahatchee's whole album would suit you well if you're looking for something slow and depressing to listen to. The singer, Katie Crutchfield, reminds me of a female Kevin Devine.

What have I enjoyed on the internet lately? Let's see:

I'm a big Downton Abbey fan and have been entertained by this Sesame Street parody and googly eyed Edith.

Grumpy Cat always delights. This time he's dissing Michelangelo and here he is hating on The Beatles.

The 15th century equivalent of your cat walking on your keyboard


Hoping for a great new month ahead!

Beauty in the breakdown

Two weeks ago, I got into my car to go grocery shopping, but when I turned the key, my car wouldn't start. My battery was dead. I hadn't been running my car enough and so my battery wasn't holding a charge. I called my insurance company and they sent out a person to jump it. If you've ever gotten your car jumped, you'll know that you typically have to drive your car for at least 20 minutes in order to charge your battery enough so that it'll start when you turn your car off and on again.

I was on my way to go grocery shopping and I had a million other things to do that day, so the thought of having to drive around for at least 20 minutes was not appealing. Not at all. It felt like such a waste of time. But I had to do it if I didn't want to have to call them again to jump my car in the grocery story parking lot.

So, off I went, past the grocery store, and I continued driving aimlessly, not having the least idea of where I was going in this new city. I wound up going north and decided to head for some hills instead of the highway. I found my way into a nice development and decided to turn around at the top of the highest hill since I'd been driving for at least 15 minutes. As I headed back down toward the city, I was greeted by this gorgeous view of the Bay Area. I stopped my grumbling immediately and was simply in awe of what I had stumbled upon. I had no idea that this view was behind me while I was complaining about traveling forward up into the hills. If my car battery hadn't died, I probably never would have found my way up into these hills to see this view.

In this case, it would have been nearly impossible for me to miss the silver lining of my situation. Often times, it's not as easy to see the positives when life doesn't seem to be going your way. It's easier to get mad or upset about being inconvenienced instead of finding the opportunities, the humor, the beauty in the chaos. But it's there. You just have to look for it and be willing to see it.

Virtual clutter

by mikemcilveen via Flickr

It should come as no surprise to you that I hate clutter. I have a pretty low tolerance for stuff lying around my living spaces and don't generally like useless things that fill up space. I find that it's hard for me to think and be efficient if I'm surrounded by things in disarray. I tend to feel very frazzled and go in circles, physically and mentally, when there's just too much around me.

While it's not as immediately obvious as actual, physical things in front of me, sometimes I find myself feeling overwhelmed and circling and I'll realize it's because I have too much virtual clutter demanding my attention: email, text messages, voice mails, friends on social media. When I find this is the case, I take a few extra minutes to get it organized. How? Here's my general plan of attack:

• Delete the obvious: an email with an expired coupon code; an invitation for a past event; spam; texts from an ex; a one night stand's phone number; a voicemail reminder from your doctor's office for last month's visit; a person you friended on Facebook, but haven't seen or talked to in a year (or find their updates particularly annoying). Delete! Just get it out of your life. 
• File away the important, but not urgent stuff: create folders and or tags and use them! Did a friend email you a long article that you'd like to read, but don't think you'll get around to it this week? Put it in a "too read later" folder. Just bought something online and they emailed you the receipt? File it away in a receipts folder. This stuff doesn't need to be in your sight every time you check your email.
• Act on things that need to be done: Need to pay a bill that you just got an email about? Pay it. Did an invite come in that needs to be added to your calendar? Add it. A la Getting Things Done, if it takes less than 2 minutes, just do it right when it enters your radar and then either delete or file away the corresponding message. 
• Hold on to the good stuff: the things left over should be things that bring you joy to see. Keep that text and or voicemail from your significant other that gives you butterflies, the encouraging email from your best friend. When you're having a bad day, seeing these bits of greatness snuggled in between more daunting things can really make a difference.
• One last bit of advice: less stuff coming in means there will be less stuff to pile up and create clutter for you. If you find yourself barely looking at an email subscription or newsletter that comes in, be sure to unsubscribe. Find all of those social media notifications annoying? Change your preferences so you don't get emails or alerts on your phone every time someone breathes while they're using Facebook.

I know that none of this is rocket science, but I find that I start to feel like it's normal to be completely inundated with useless virtual notices if I'm not constantly reminded that my mind is much more at ease when I get my online life organized and less in my face all of the time. 

Speaking of which, my email is in disperate need of inbox zero. Guess what my weekend project is? :-)

The art of being happy

"The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things." -Henry Ward Beecher