Giving Voice to Depression

2020 has been a year like no other. Its year-end holidays will be too. Licensed psychologist Dr. Maggie Mulqueen acknowledges this year's challenges and threats and offers advice on both how to re-frame the holidays to make them better, as well as what to avoid to keep from making them worse. It's 19 minutes that could help you in the coming weeks. Link to referenced article: https://www.drmaggiem...

Last week we observed Veteran's Day. This, and every day, we have the opportunity to help connect with and support the veterans in our lives. In the second of this 2-part episode, we continue our conversation with VA Psychologist Dr. Michael McBride about the challenges vets are having during this pandemic and how civilians can help keep them connected and safe. https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/...

The military veteran world is a culture to itself. While that provides connection on one level, it can cause feelings of disconnect on others. Dr. Michael McBride, a veteran and Veteran's Administration psychiatrist who treats and supports vets with some level of mental-health distress including PTSD and depression. In the first of a 2-part interview, we ask Dr. McBride if the pandemic has impacte...

Living with a mental illness can be quite challenging. Living with and caring for someone with a condition like depression or bipolar disorder, especially a parent, can be "punishing." That's the word this week's guest, Michelle Dickinson, uses to describe being the child (and sometimes caretaker) of a mother with bipolar disorder. It's a candid conversation between two women who understand and ex...

We need all the help we can get to deal with the unrelenting blows of 2020. And Mindful Self Compassion offers tools that can help us. This bonus track is a 9-minute guided MSC practice, with Dr. Barbara Moser, a Mindful Self Compassion teacher, mental health and suicide-prevention advocate and retired physician. Feel free to download this so it's handy if/when you need it.

2020 is testing us. Even the most resilient among us are feeling the strain. Our reserves are depleted. Mindful Self Compassion offers tools that can help us help ourselves; taking short, needed breaks to re-ground and re-frame, speaking to ourselves as we would a dear friend, and deep-breathing. Our guest, Dr. Barbara Moser, is a MSC teacher, a fierce mental health and suicide-prevention advocate...

In these upside-down and unpredictable times, it can feel like everything is out of our control. That makes tools like mindfulness and self compassion even more important since they are readily-accessible tools that can help us regulate and cope with difficult emotions. And when life finally settles (which it will!) these valuable tools will still be available in our self-care and depression-manag...

"How Are You?" It used to be almost a throw-away question, with the expected answer "fine." Not anymore. Between a deadly and lingering global pandemic, contentious and divided election season, civil unrest over systemic racism, job losses and the countless changes to our everyday routines, these are trying times. To put it mildly. Our guest this week, podcast listener Hobbs, says his emotions hav...

In just 21 minutes, you can sample more than a dozen recent episodes of the Giving Voice to Depression podcast. Interviews in this episode focus on mental health during the pandemic and others produced specifically for Suicide Prevention Month. If you're curious about a podcast on depression, whether it would "be depressing," etc. this is an easy way to sample. Thank you for listening. You are not...

We buy all kinds of insurance to protect ourselves. A Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) is "emotional insurance." It can help us recognize when/why we are in A Good Place, warn us if/when we (or our minds) start to wander into Less-Good Places, and can protect us and give us some control in a mental-health crisisi. In this episode, Katrina Copple, an advanced-level WRAP facilitator, continues w...

Let's face it: Self-care is not always a priority. But for those of us living with mental-health challenges, NOT caring for ourselves can put us on a path toward possible crisis. There are daily actions we can take to nourish and center ourselves. And there are triggers we need to recognize and manage. We all have early warning signs that our "wellness" is being threatened. But do we know and heed...

If you are thinking that you don't matter, that you're a failure and a burden and that things will never get better- STOP. Take 21 minutes to listen to a group of people who have had those same thoughts. Some acted on them and lived to regret their attempts. Others came close. ALL are talking to you, offering the powerful message that things can and do get better. TRUST THEM, not depression.

In depression's grip, it can be nearly impossible to believe that you will not always feel like you do right now. That you will reconnect with your worth and live a life worth living. But it's true. As Suicide Prevention Month (or Suicide Prevention Awareness Month) begins, we pulled five interviews from our archives that address misconceptions about suicide, the value of crisis lines, and a real-...

If you have experience with depression, odds are you've experienced its dark thoughts: You are worthless. A burden. Your best days are long gone. Your worst will be worse than your terrible now. What's the point? But the fact you just read that is a clue: Depression tells us all the same thing. And that should be cause for doubt it's actually true about you. But since we don't talk about depressio...

It's back to school time. And even though that experience is a very-different one this year because of the COVID pandemic, some things are the same. One is the fact that there will be students who experience depression. And if their parents are a potential source of support (emotional and/or financial) they may need to be informed. But how? What if you're afraid they'll dismiss you or tell you to...

Depression is a mental illness that affects how we think, feel and act. Those who have made the effort to learn the symptoms or warning signs still often expect depression to look like sadness. But that leads to us missing the opportunity to help many who present differently. Like children. In this episode, therapist Susan Ringle, who works with and helps children and their families as a registere...

A Giving Voice to Depression podcast listener, who had never spoken publicly about his history or struggles, shares several powerful and memorable metaphors for the experience of living with depression. Wait for the spreadsheet comment- it alone is worth the 16 minutes it takes to listen to this episode!

You don't have to have depression to be familiar with the cycles of negative thoughts; self shame, blame, doubt and self-criticism. Guest and author Dr. Steven C. Hayes explains how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help "get out of your mind and into your life." In his workbook by that name, Dr. Hayes definses the ACT process as one that hiinges on the distinction between pain and suffe...

Michelle was told that getting professional help for her mental illnesses would be a stain on her "permament record" that would prevent her from getting into a prestigious college or worse (in her parents' minds) from finding a husband. So her bipolar disorder and anxiety went undiagnosed and untreated for decades. Michelle's story is one of stigma, unnecessary pain and ultimate recovery. Michelle...

She knew something was wrong. That she was "different." At times she could not distinguish reality from her troubled thoughts. She begged her parents to bring her to a professional to get help. But they were afraid a diagnosis of mental illness would prevent her from getting into a good college or from finding a husband. So she suffered. Michelle Yang's story is a powerful and important one. Recov...

We frequently hear about the high-risk groups for COVID-19. Less attention is paid to the people most likely to have their mental health challenged by the pandemic. Healthcare workers are high on that list. A hospital chaplain/spiritual-care specialist gives us a look behind the curtain at what she sees in the Wisconsin hospitals she's worked in during this strange, historic time. https://www.thea...

This pandemic has been a roller-coaster. Many of us had our depression and anxiety worsen as a result of the many changes to our daily lives. Now, as our world begin to reopen, there are new stressors and concerns. In this 19-minute episode, we talk with therapist Sa'Aire Salton who challenges businesses to encourage frank discussions with employees to address back-to-work worries. https://www.apa...

We have all been there. Something we've done routinely without strain, suddenly becomes The Impossible Task. Take a shower? Dishes in the sink? Laundry (yep, putting it away, too!) Returning or answering calls. In this 17-minute podcast episode, we talk with author M. Molly Backes, who knows depression from the inside, too, we discuss this unacknowledged symtom of depression. And she gives it a na...

Need a laugh? If you listen to our Giving Voice to Depression podcast, you know that I (Terry ) co-host with my sister, Bridget. What you may not realize is that I am also the producer, which means I have to listen for pacing, pronunciation, etc. and make sure the episode is clear and engaging. Steve, our audio engineer, has a lot of jobs too, including walking behind us like the guy with the buck...

As "invisible" illnesses depression, anxiety and other mental-health challenges are misunderstood, dismissed, even discounted. But living in the stressful, unfamiliar and threatening environment of the COVID-19 pandemic has been an "equalizier." People who have never before conciously had their productivity, abilities and overall well-being affected by something out of their control suddenly find...