Battling College Depression
by Jacob Malewitz

College students are apt to depression, because they a great deal of pressures. They are still growing up. They see the world and want to take it. They experience failure. They fall to drugs, receive poor grades, try to work a job and a full class load, and often forget why they are doing it. So, in order to battle depression as a college student, you must be mindful of how tough it is. Then you need to see if you really have depression.

First, you need to be honest about your depression. Often during depression you become an introvert: staying alone, reading, staying up late nights, not seeing anyone for days. If any of this sounds familiar, you are close to a depression side. Drug use is obvious, but doing things like becoming anti-social are less so. There is a fine line for you between enjoying yourself and losing yourself. To battle this you must try at least once a week to do something you normally wouldnít do. This could be a coffee at a nice spot downtown, a football party, or going out to see a movie with someone.

To avoid isolation, which leads to depression in many, you must develop inner points of recognition. When you want to isolate, and are close to doing it, you need to seek help from someone, anyone who will listen. Professional help is almost always the best method.

This makes being alone sound bad. Sometimes you have to fight through a depression by yourself. A college student can do much by themselves, some things more positive than others. If you love reading, a good book could cheer you up. If you like going for walks or jogging, it could have major effects on the lingering depression-decreasing it in many ways.

The other side of this is to not fill yourself with alcohol. Just like marijuana and cocaine, there is a comedown off anything intoxicating you put in your body. Too much coffee will make you edgy; too much alcohol can kill you. It can also be a way of self-medicating. Alcohol in moderation is fine, but can be a dangerous alternative during a college studentís depression.

Battling depression in college is not about the quick-fix. You must be mindful of who you truly are, what you really like doing, and how to make choices. Depression will still come. How you deal with it when it does come can make the difference between a degree and a therapistís bill. In the end, professional help is the best means for defeating college depression before it leads into some worse, like schizophrenia or drug addiction.

Art and Drug Abuse: Steps to Creativity and Hope
By Jacob Malewitz

Art acts upon our inner artist, the one we push down. Drugs act on our insecurities, our painóand all while we forget who we are. There is a path between destroying your life and bringing out the inner artist. Creatively, art is the perfect route to this serenity, for after drug abuse your mind needs, more than anything, a creative art to focus on. This guide can help.

Calling Upon Pain:
In creating art, you will be calling upon pain from the past. Many famous writers are alcoholics or drug users. Some celebrated their drug use, making it seem this was the true path. It is a path Ö but to pain. This isnít to say the dark days have no purpose. You will call upon the pain to be your creative muse.
Whatever form of art you take onóit can be writing, painting, sketching, sculptingóitís important to choose one which will satisfy. You are trying to forget a dark time.

Forgetting Hell:
The dark days will mean so much to you. Maybe you used because of depression or because you just hated life. Art allows you to forget all that pain by bringing it out. Your artist centeróyour creative centerówill be stronger for this experience in hell. You will be a human being trying to make sense of this with a page, a canvass, or a piece of stone. Creatively, the best of us have experienced hell. If you escaped hell, itís time to remember heaven.

Remembering Heaven:
Even during drug addiction, something positive often happened to you. Maybe you used because of a severe mental illness like manic depression or schizophrenia. Yet perhaps you saw people giving you money for food, or encouraging you to quit drugs. Heaven, or any positive force in your life, was there all the while. Maybe you even picked something up while in the hell of addiction and created art. The purpose of a positive force is to find your way out of that hellóby expressing it with inspiration.

Before the Inspirations:
The inspirations will come for you. If you sit in front of a blank page long enough, you will see no point in it being blank anymore. Thatís the best thesis for creativity. Before the inspiration, decide what path you will take. This is important, as a different path means a different journey. Some will lead you back to the temptations of drugs or the pain of depression. Be careful where you step, as sometimes your art will bring things out of you, things you wished to forget.

All the Success:
How does an artist define happiness? When is creativity enough? I see as a simple rule: every day I stay away from drugs, and create art, I am successful. It doesnít mean I have to sell all my art or everyone has to love it. The art is a pathway out of the drug use. Drugs will change you, and show you the bad and good. Some of us take the pathway to heaven, while others fall all the way down the stairs, back to hell. Define your success anyway you want. And create your art the way you want.

There are a lot of reasons why people engage in psychotherapy. The most common reason for this is extreme depression. While it is true that every person encounters different problems of their own, there are people who are having difficulties handling the problems that hound them. This just means that from time to time, there are people who would be needing professional help to get them back on the right track.

There are a couple of formats that psychotherapists follow and a patient has the right to choose which one may possibly be the best choice.

Individual Therapy is a type of therapy wherein there is a one-on-one conversation between the patient and the therapist. This allows the patient to have the full attention of the therapist but it does not allow the therapist to assess the patient based on his social or family relationships.

Family therapy is a type of therapy that involves the family as a group.

Group therapy involves around 3- 15 patients. It gives the patients the opportunity to receive support from people with particular issues. The good thing about this type of therapy is that it may be less expensive and it gives the patients the feeling of belongingness.

Couple’s Therapy is geared towards the betterment of married couples or those who are in a significant other type of relationship who wants to improve their relationship and functioning as a couple.

An effective way to combat depression, especially among teenagers, is a combination of Prozac medication and psychotherapy. A study from The Duke University has supported this statement in their published issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

One out of eight teenagers is detected to have clinical depression due to hereditary factors (depression can also be passed through genes), peer pressure, loss, failure, etc. Some of them gets healed by undergoing to cognitive therapies and taking anti-depressants, while the others, who are misinformed or clueless about their psychological situation sinks in pain, or worse, commits suicide.

Prozac, for those of you who have less knowledge on this matter is a drug called fluoxetine hydrochloride that works as an anti-depressant. It is a type of serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that increases serotonin in the body, improving the psychological health of the patient. It has been prescribed since 1986 for depressed patients. Because of its effectiveness, it’s been stated that psychotherapy would not be that helpful if prozac isn’t prescribed.

Psychotherapy, on the other hand, works as a psychological support for the depressed patient. A professional or a psychiatrist conducts series of sessions to discuss about one’s personal situation and treats its “depressing cases.”

It is in the nature of human beings to feel sad in different times. Loss, break-up, nostalgia, failure, among other things are the reasons for sadness. But, if it lingers in you for a long time, then, it is no longer considered normal. And worse, it may something that you should be worried of – for it might be a psychological disorder that we can just call “depression.”

Clearly, “depression” is something people wrongly use in several conversations. It’s a psychological state where a person experiences deep sadness or has very low self-esteem. There are times when people have no idea that they are already manifesting signs of depression, thinking that it is normal to feel such way. But, as I said, it is a psychological disorder and needs to be healed, before it gets worse.

But before you get anxious with your psychological condition, you need to know the signs of depression first before jumping into conclusion that you might be clinically depressed….

1. Low self-esteem. One of the strongest factor of having depression is lack of self-worth and low self-esteem. You think that you are a failure and a worthless individual who cannot do anything good.

2. Abnormal eating and sleeping patterns. You got such a good sleep last week but now, you are having trouble to have one. Irregular sleeping habit can imply that you are having some disturbances deep inside you which causes you to lose sleep or have a smooth one. Same thing applies to irregular eating patterns, where it can become an outlet for a strong emotion or the loss of appetite can indicate that something deeply affects it.

3. Lack of concentration. Difficulty in focusing on something can suggest an emotional disturbance.

4. Suicidal tendencies. A very dangerous factor than can cause the life of the depressed. Because of extreme feeling of worthlessness, guilt, or anxiety, the person thinks that the only way to escape pain is death.

There are also biological factor in acquiring depression like an insufficient amount of serotonin, or the “happy hormone,” in the body. On the other hand, once these factors are all present in your situation, then it’s best to treat it right away, with psychotherapy and a professional helping you out.

This is a blog for people who are hiding in the shadows, depriving themselves from this “silver lining” and scared from the inner-monsters that kept them extremely down. The words written here might be speaking your feeling…. because my existence used to be a phantom. However, my words are not meant to bury your flesh deeper, but to share the changes I already started.

I understand why I denied myself a psychological therapy even when I knew I really needed one. People had a way of jumping into conclusions in the most foolish way, thinking that you’ve gone mad or have become a complete psychopath once once you start seeing a shrink. I, being one of these idiots, thought of the same way. I also had this burden of believing that my situation was shameful, so I kept on concealing it myself even if I knew it would hurt me more. Thus, I deprived myself for getting a help from a professional, making my depression even worse.

As I expected, things have become worse. I didn’t know how to stand up, because my self-worth has stopped me from doing so. I guess this was the result of being abused by the person who used to be the dearest for you. Believing in every word he said was only natural, especially when you valued him in the most overwhelming way. It was a wonderful feeling at first, but little by little it became poignant. But because I valued him with every inch of my flesh, I remained silent just to keep him, even though it hurt me – sexually, physically, emotionally. And so, here I was, a person who no longer had a self-worth.

But something happened. On that day, my mother found out about this burden. I had a self-journal as the only medium to somehow ease this pain and she had read about everything. I guess it was more painful for her, knowing her daughter, the girl she had hopes for, was crashed by a guy who didn’t seem to have a soul. She was open-minded, unlike us who thought that psychological therapy only belonged for the psychopaths. Understanding my needs, she encouraged me to undergo a therapy with a professional. And it was then…. it was then when I finally gathered my courage to face my inner-demons that had been haunting me for a long time.

It wasn’t easy at first. Opening yourself to a stranger, even if she’s a psychiatrist was difficult. But I knew I had to speak, otherwise, everything would turn pointless. As I went on with my story, my doctor realized that I had chronic depression, meaning I have been clinically depressed for a years. She then gave me several assignments aimed for the betterment of my condition and prescribed me a medicine called Zoloft, an anti-depressant.

I am still undergoing to this therapy. I would be a complete fool if I said that I am healed. This sadness, lack of self-worth, low self-esteem, and a feeling of solitude are still here. Nevertheless, there are changes. Thinking that it’s not shameful to undergo a psychological therapy is one. That it is alright to feel this way. And that changes can still be done, even in the people felt hopeless and lost.