From YourTango

According to PsychCentral, new research finds that some people are better off not having a spouse than being in a poor relationship. Furthermore, people in bad relationships had more than double the risk of depression than those with the best relationships.

The interesting thing is that most of the psychological community would believe that you are depressed because your husband isn’t doing the things you want him to do or he is doing things you don’t want him to do. This means that he is completely responsible for your depression and the challenges in your relationship.

I’m going to say it a different way. Please bear with me until the end of this article because in the beginning, it might sound like I’m trying blaming you for your depression but that’s not what I’m doing. By the end of this article, you should understand your depression better and have a more empowered sense of what to do about it.

Depression is not something that comes from outside circumstances. Depression is a behavior you generate in your best attempt to get something you want. When you are unhappy in your relationship, you use depression to help your husband see just how unhappy he is “making” you. Of course, he is not “making” you feel anything. You don’t like what he is doing so you use depression as your best attempt to control him to do what you prefer.

Do I actually think you are doing this with malice and forethought? Of course not! Women do not sit around and plot and plan to use depression to control people. This almost always occurs on a subconscious level.

InsideOut Empowerment, based on the legendary work of psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser, tells us that behavior is never reactive; it is always proactive created to help us get more of what we want. You are in a relationship. You aren’t happy because your relationship isn’t the way you’d hoped it would be. You have identified your husband’s behavior as the cause of this unhappiness. Your depression is a behavior your subconscious creates to help you get your husband to change.

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Maternity leave for a new parent averages usually up to 12 weeks after giving birth, leaving time for bonding with your child, getting adapted to a new role as a mother and time to heal physically (and maybe emotionally) after the process of childbirth. As those weeks wind down, you may find yourself unprepared to pick up where you left off at work.

Use these ten tips to help you get back on the bandwagon at work post-baby without all the strain, stress, and shock of leaving your newborn.

The next Lifetime movie will be an A-list actor, star-studded event, including a couple of our favorites, Academy Award winners Jennifer Hudson and Octavia Spencer. The film, Call Me Crazy: A Five Film tells five interwoven stories each dealing with a type of mental illness. In addition to Hudson and Spencer, the film will also star Melanie Griffith, Chelsea Handler and Ashley Judd and Jennifer Aniston will be behind the camera acting as one of the film’s executive producers. Here’s what she had to say about the project:

“When we started researching this topic, we were all surprised to learn that one in four adults lives with some sort of mental illness. With so many people dealing with this in their private lives, there is still so much stigma and shame. It’s time we bring it out of the closet and into the light of day.”

In the first of the five films, a law student is shocked to learn she is living with schizophrenia. Octavia Spencer will play a psychotherapist in this film. In the second, a teenage daughter is struggling to help her mother living with bipolar disorder. The third film, a comedy, lightens the mood as a family adjusts to  a daughter returning home from an inpatient treatment center. In the fourth, a comedian is suffering from depression. And in the last, a female solider, played by Jennifer Hudson, returns from war to a husband and son and has to adjust to life living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.)

It sounds like a whole lot but Lifetime has never been known to shy away from the tough, touchy issues and mental illness is far too prevalent to be ignored.

The Lifetime movie will air on Saturday, April 20 at 8pm.

If you want more information on the film, including info about the all star cast, read the full press release here.

Will you check this movie out?

We increasingly seem NOT to be able to filter through what we see on social networks. Our Facebook events are loaded with graduation parties, weddings and new job celebration dinners. Our Facebook “friends” are uploading photos of their new homes, their exotic summer vacations in Bali, the newest degree to hang on their walls – while we scroll aimlessly through it all and sigh. No matter how right things might be going in our lives, sometimes we let social networking get to even the best of us, and make us long for something more because well, “they” seem like they’re happy and they’ve got it all.

We torture ourselves with social networks and wonder why we’re miserable. Life coach, Christine Hassler of TheDailyLove put it best in referencing speaker, Steven Furtick: We are often looking at “someone else’s highlight reel while we’re knee-deep in our own behind the scenes footage.” What we see is calculated and controlled. And what we feel when we see everyone else’s perfect lives splashed across our timelines should be conditioned to that very fact.

I had a hard time with this when I first came home from completing my MBA. I thought I would immediately find a great salary, apartment, and car and be living the same happy, go-getter, jet-setting lifestyle that quite a few of my friends had been fortunate enough to find directly out of college. I was very wrong.

That wasn’t the course my life took. Regardless of how many rings of employment I threw my WELL-qualified hat into, more often than not I never even heard back once I applied. I fell into depression without even realizing the depths to which I was sinking. I was angry all the time. I refused to leave the house. I sat around in my bathrobe, with a mug of hot chocolate (even during the summer months) watching The Food Network and reruns of A Different World. I scrolled through my Facebook and Twitter timelines aimlessly, watching everyone else live while I felt like I was dying inside. I felt like a failure. Why? Not because I actually was. I had gained two degrees within the course of seven years, gained three years worth of invaluable work experience within a dynamic graduate assistantship, and had gotten over my fear of driving. By any fair standard, I was no failure, but by comparison and low self-esteem I was a complete failure. I had allowed others’ highlight reels via social networks to mash my view of myself into a tiny bit of a thing, thus cementing the fear that I would never get out of this jobless, bathrobed slump.

What was my cure? Getting so busy living my own life instead of vicariously living every controlled moment of someone else’s. It really was that simple. I deactivated my Facebook account quite a few times when I felt that I was getting sucked into the comparison game. I looked at my life – where my strengths, gifts and passions were and decided to make the most of those things. I created my own website geared to the empowerment of young women of color and began to look for women from all walks of life with inspiring stories to tell and interviewed them.

It was the most liberating and life-affirming thing that I had done in quite a while because I was using my gifts, my values, to be a catalyst for inspiration. To help other young women avoid the very things I had previously succumbed to. It mattered very little now what others were doing. I was happy for “them.” But I was truly excited for me.

The times that we are most down on ourselves and envious of others’ lifestyles are when we’re too lazy, too fearful, too overwhelmed to get up and make something of our own lives. And I had been all of the above. What we then admire and envy in others is not their experiences, but their fortitude, their courage, their drive, their freedom to live.

Social networks are great tools when used for what they were originally intended: to catch up with old friends, to network, to market products, to share ideas. It’s when we internalize what we see via these networks that things begin to go left. If we simply choose to live well and fully, there will be no time for comparison because life will unfold into a blessed experience we could never have imagined.

La Truly’s writing is powered by a lifetime of anecdotal proof that awkward can transform to awesome and fear can cast its crown before courage. La seeks to encourage thought, discussion and change among young women through her writing. Check her out on Twitter: @AshleyLaTruly and AboutMe www.about.me/latruly.

Hi Damon, 

Me and my husband have been going through a really rough time. Four months ago he lost his job and since then things between us have steadily been on the decline. I’m stressed because I have to pay our bills, clean the house and take care of our children while he basically sits at home all day. I don’t want to nag him and question him everyday about whether or not he’s taking the proper steps to find employment; but judging by the way the house looks when I come home in the evening, I’m pretty sure he’s lounging in front of the tv all day. 

 

The other morning things came to a head as I was trying to get the kids ready for school. He was still in bed and I asked him if he could help me out a little bit. He wouldn’t get up so I had to ask him at least three times. I guess he got frustrated because he called me out of my name. I know this wasn’t right but I completely lost it. I started screaming and throwing things at him. Once I’d calmed down, I asked him not to be home when I got back.

 

Despite this rough patch, I still want to work on my marriage and I think it would be best to understand where his head is at right now. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in this position but can you, as a man, explain to me where a man’s head might be at when he’s unemployed. And then secondly, do you think I was wrong for putting him out of the house– at least temporarily? Where should we go from here?

 

Thanks in advance, 

 

Distressed and Desperate

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Humans, we’re such a weird bunch, aren’t we?  As much of some would like to claim that we’re creatures of habit, there’s this little thing called “human error” that we can’t account for.  Small things that seem so innocuous can have such a large effect on our behavior.  What things you might ask? Let’s see.

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Work, money and relationships are stressing out millennials so much that many of them are suffering from depression, according to  a new study. While rates are falling for the rest of Americans, the Millennial generation, ages 18 to 33, are reporting more stress, depression and anxiety.

An online “Stress in America” survey of 2,020 U.S. adults 18 and older conducted in 2012 by Harris Interactive for American Psychological Association found that millennials are also more likely to be told by a health care provider they have depression or an anxiety disorder. In the survey, 39 percent of millennials said their stress level increased in the past year and 52 percent say stress has kept them awake at night in the past month. “On a 10-point scale, where 1 means ‘little or no stress’ and 10 means ‘a great deal of stress,’ the 2012 average is 4.9.  But for millennials, it’s 5.4,” reports USA Today. Top stress sources for millennials are work (cited by 76 percent), money (73 percent) and relationships (59 percent), family  responsibilities (56 percent) and the economy (55 percent).

“Millennials are growing up at a tough time. They were sheltered in many ways, with a lot of high expectations for what they should achieve. Individual failure is difficult to accept when confronted with a sense you’re an important person and expected to achieve,” Mike Hais of Arcadia, CA, a market researcher and co-author of two books on that generation, including 2011′s Millennial Momentum, told USA Today. “Even though, in most instances, it’s not their fault — the economy collapsed just as many of them were getting out of college and coming of age — that does lead to a greater sense of stress,” he says.

Depression has been diagnosed for 19 percent of millennials, compared with 14 percent of Generation X (ages 34 to 47); 12 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 48 to 66) and 11 percent of those ages 67 and older. Anxiety disorder has also been cited in millennials more than other generations, 12 percent, compared with eight percent of Gen X, seven percent of Boomers and four percent of seniors.

Millennials often try to cope with stress on their own, with more than a third saying they eat, play video games, or surf the Web. “But the most common coping mechanism is listening to music, cited by 59% of young adults; 51% exercise or walk, about the same as the national average (52%),” reports the newspaper.

Source: TLC

Towards the end of last month, many were shocked to learn that Lamar Odom’s 14-year-old  daughter Destiny, whom he shares with Starter Wives Confidential star, Liza Morales is battling some serious issues regarding her mental and emotional health. The bomb was dropped when the teen took to her Twitter page to express her low emotional state.

“I feel as If I am drowning in my own emotions, and I have no home to save me,” she tweeted.

What came after that tweet is what grabbed the attention and concern of many. While we’re not exactly sure what prompted this, a follower asked her how frequently she cuts herself and when was the last time she did it.

 “Tonight and I don’t count,” Destiny replied.

Since then, a slew of stories have been circulating around the rumor mill regarding Destiny, her step-mother Khloe’s desperate attempts to pull her out of the fragile state that she has found herself in and Lamar being an absentee dad for the earlier years of her life. According to Star Magazine, it has also been rumored that Destiny’s sorrowful state has been a result of the limited amount of time she’s been able to spend with her mother Liza over the past few months due to the filming of Starter Wives Confidential.

Liza recently spoke to Radar Online regarding these rumors and expressed that although Destiny may be experiencing depression, both she and Lamar are doing everything that they can to tend to their daughter’s needs.

“My children have always and will always be my top priority in life.”

“This matter has been addressed with our daughter. We have a professional on board to evaluate the situation; Destiny is not hurting herself but we are not taking this lightly,”

“With the added pressures of Hollywood and the instant attention of social media, it’s not always easy for a teenager to express their emotions in the best way. This is a private family matter, and we would appreciate respect and privacy during this time.”

It’s good to see that Liza and Lamar have not taken their daughter’s cry for help lightly and are seeking professional help.

Jazmine Denise is a news writer for Madame Noire. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise.

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Even the most positive of people will have their down days when life gets the best of them; when so much has stacked up against them that their usual cheery defenses are shot. So don’t panic if your man hits a rough patch. But that’s all it should be—a patch. Because being someone’s cheerleader every day, and having to believe in someone when he doesn’t believe in himself, is not only exhausting; it’s unhealthy. All your energy will go to supporting the other person, and you’ll have none left for yourself. And the saddest part is, that energy will be wasted because you can’t make a person think positively who doesn’t want to. So, are you dating a negative man? Here are the signs.

Source: WENN

Mental health and depression can be such taboo topics in the Black community as well as in our society in general. No one wants to be labeled as “unstable” or “crazy”, which is why so many suffer in silence. Anytime a person can speak out about their personal struggles with these issues, it illustrates great strength. The latest heroine in the fight against depression has been singer, actress and one-third of Destiny’s Child, Michelle Williams. The 32-year-old shocked many when she opened up to Mark Kennedy of The AP and revealed that she has struggled on and off with depression since she was fifteen or sixteen years old.

“I’ve dealt with depression. I had to choose to get out of bed and do whatever I needed to do to be happy.”

She shared that she was able to avoid needing medication, but advises anyone who is struggling with this issue to seek professional help:

“We’re taught, ‘Just go to church and pray about it. The Lord is going to heal you.’ Well, in the meantime, I believe God-gifted people, physicians, doctors, therapists — that’s your healing. Take advantage of it. Go see a professional so that they can assess you. It’s OK if you’re going through something. Depression is not OK, but it is OK to go get help.”

It seems that the singer isn’t allowing anything to slow her down, though. She is currently gearing up to release another solo album as well as to assume a starring role in Broadway musical “Fela!”, not to mention the highly anticipated, upcoming Superbowl performance with Destiny’s Child.

It’s great that Michelle has found the strength to speak openly about her battle with depression. Hopefully her transparency can serve as an inspiration to others. You just never know what a person is going through.

What do you think of Michelle openly discussing her experiences with depression?

Jazmine Denise is a news writer for Madame Noire. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise