Process - Physician - Fraser Health Authority

THINKING REALISTICALLYStep 2: Recognize your own depressive thoughts and howthey trigger low mood.Most thinking is so quick and so automatic that wedon’t even realize we are doing it. We must learn tobecome aware of depressive thinking as it occurs. Anexcellent strategy is to carry around pencil and paperfor a week.Although depression can seem like a constant darkcloud, it actually varies over the course of the day.Every time your mood sinks, ask yourself thisimportant question:“What was going through my mind just then?”What were you thinking about? What were you reactingto? Write this down. For example, perhaps getting onthe bus one morning you suddenly felt a deepeningof the gloom you’ve been feeling. What was goingthrough your mind just then? Perhaps you noticedthat everyone on the bus was facing you, and you hadthe thought that they were judging you negatively.Excellent! Write it down.Keep recording your thoughts until you notice that thesame kinds of depressive thinking come up again andagain. You might find yourself placing a checkmarkbeside some of the thoughts you wrote down earlier.“Oh, that one again.” When this happens, you haveprobably identified the most common kinds ofdepressive thinking you do.Write some of these depressive thoughts here:Then what? Some of your depressive thoughts may seemobviously distorted. “Wait, the reason they were facingme on the bus is that I was at the front, not becausethey wanted to look at what a loser I am!” It can sometimesbe enough just to know that your mind generatesdepressive thinking in certain kinds of situations. Try tobecome aware of the depressive thinking as it happensand remind yourself where it comes from. “I think thisway because my mood is low and because I was a selfconsciouskid – not because they were all judging me.”You may find that you take the depressive thoughtsless seriously once you know where they come from.When you become aware of depressive thoughts youmay feel tempted to attack yourself. “How could I thinksuch stupid thoughts?” Depression causes you to beself-critical, and recognizing depressive thinking cangive you one more way to beat up on yourself. Don’t.Instead, remind yourself that depressive thoughts arethe product of low mood and of your personal history.You are not stupid for having them. They are normalduring depression.SELF-CARE DEPRESSION PROGRAM33 ANTIDEPRESSANT SKILLS WORKBOOK