<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Depression &#8211; ELEVATE COUNSELING SOLUTIONS</title>
	<atom:link href="https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/category/depression/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com</link>
	<description>Helping you and your loved ones ELEVATE beyond life&#039;s barriers</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:59:43 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>
	hourly	</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>
	1	</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1</generator>

<image>
	<url>https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-ECS-logo-for-card-3-2-32x32.png</url>
	<title>Depression &#8211; ELEVATE COUNSELING SOLUTIONS</title>
	<link>https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com</link>
	<width>32</width>
	<height>32</height>
</image> 
	<item>
		<title>One of the Faces of Depression</title>
		<link>https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/one-of-the-faces-of-depression/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Langstaff]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:47:57 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life Struggles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Therapy For Men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[counseling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[therapy]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/?p=461</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[“I’m not depressed.  That’s just my face.” Many of us guys tend to hide “depression” to avoid being vulnerable or weak.  We put on a mask to&#8230; <span class="read-more"><a class="more-link" href="https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/one-of-the-faces-of-depression/" rel="bookmark">Read more <span class="screen-reader-text">"One of the Faces of Depression"</span></a></span>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1>“I’m not depressed.  That’s just my face.”</h1>
<p>Many of us guys tend to hide “depression” to avoid being vulnerable or weak.  We put on a mask to avoid pity or unwanted attention.  Some do not realize their mood has noticeably descended to a near-comatose state.  The mood decline may not have been something the man was inherently aware of.  As a therapist working with men and their loved ones, I have experienced it may be a loved one that notices the change.  To begin to address this concern, men must first learn what to look for when assessing their mood. Simultaneously, they will need to unlearn some of the unhealthy lessons of what it means to be strong, independent, reliable, and in control.  For the moment, let us only consider the question: “Is it your face? Or is it something else?”</p>
<h2>A Starting Point</h2>
<p>First, it’s important to understand that everyone experiences sadness or varying levels of depression depending on everything from the weather, the date on the calendar, life events, financial woes, and relationship problems.  These are normal feelings that come with the human experience.</p>
<h2>What&#8217;s the difference?</h2>
<p>Second, we need to be able to differentiate sadness from depression.  The severity of the word choice is important.  For example, exploring similar words in a thesaurus, we learn that depressed may be synonymous with: sad, gloomy, bitter, heartbroken, melancholy, somber, blue, dejected, down in dumps, downcast, glum, heavyhearted, hurting, low-spirited, or troubled.  I would suggest that you would not use all these words to describe what you are feeling.  The key is to recognize your feelings and know that some of those feelings may be normal for you.  Conversely, when the feeling begins to be there “normally” causing other problems then it may be time to consider how depression may have moved to a serious level.</p>
<h2>Some Signs of Depression</h2>
<p>Third, after we have screened out what is “normal” for our own experience, it is essential for us to recognize when depression has grown into an enemy that needs to be conquered.  Here are some questions to ask yourself:</p>
<ul>
<li>Has the “depression” got a hold of you more days than usual? Does it stay around longer than it should?</li>
<li>Does it manage to distract you from enjoying your hunting, fishing, exercise (insert your hobby here)?</li>
<li>Does the “depression” somehow trick you into eating more, less, or not at all so you’ve gained or lost weight?</li>
<li>Is the “depression” you’re carrying so heavy that others noticed you have physically slowed down?</li>
<li>When “depression” is hanging around, does your energy level feel depleted quicker than normal?</li>
<li>Does the “depression” keep you up at night? Or force you to stay in bed longer?</li>
<li>Do you find you’re more indecisive than usual and decisions don’t come as freely?</li>
<li>Is your ability to concentrate diminished since the “depression” made itself at home?</li>
<li>Do you find yourself more irritable or angry? Is it more intense or does it increase faster than usual and stays around longer?  Do others point it out to you…making your more irritable?</li>
<li>Oh, and another thing…does your sex drive rarely get out of first gear? Or is your performance suffering?</li>
</ul>
<h1>What to do next?</h1>
<p>When a client comes to see me, I will ask them about not just the reason they have come but also other areas of their life.  In other words, I always try to start with a holistic approach.  Once you have addressed the physical and spiritual, then you can properly address the mental and emotional.  All of these aspects of our being are intertwined.  Do not underestimate the impact of any of these areas if they are neglected.</p>
<ul>
<li>Have you had a physical lately? Full work-up to include metabolic panel, blood count, hormone levels?  Depending on your age and family history there may be more to consider.  You want to rule out anything health-related.</li>
<li>How’s your diet? Are you getting enough of the good stuff and minimizing the bad?</li>
<li>Are you getting regular exercise? It has been suggested to engage in moderate exercise for at least 30 minutes daily, 5 times per week.</li>
<li>What does your spiritual life look like? That could mean different things for various beliefs.  Do you pray, meditate or surround yourself with similarly-minded believers?</li>
<li>Finally, talk to a therapist, counselor, or minister, priest, or pastor that has been professionally-trained in mental health. They are there to provide a safe place to unload and provide help.  They should be non-judgmental.  They may lift you when appropriate and push you when necessary.  They should direct you using the answers you provide to questions they ask.  It should be a continual feedback loop to shift you to a different position from where you started.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the next article, we will look at another face of depression – anger.  Sometimes depression poses as anger or it may be interwoven with the symptoms of depression.  In the meantime, be honest with yourself and answer this question: What are the emotions you are feeling lately and do they keep you stuck?  Now, what are you going to do about it?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Tony Langstaff is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and owner of Elevate Counseling Solutions </em><em>located in Valdosta, Georgia. He also does therapy online with Georgia residents through a confidential video platform.  If you’re a therapist or agency and are interested in collaborating with him or you would like a free 15-minute consultation for therapy, he can be reached through his website: </em><a href="https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/?customize_changeset_uuid=022dbe8f-e426-4c69-8a5d-cba0032b2eea&amp;customize_messenger_channel=preview-2"><em>www.ElevateCounselingSolutions.com</em></a><em> or directly at 229-234-8569. </em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
					
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Helping Men See Beyond Their Prison</title>
		<link>https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/seeing-beyond-your-prison/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Langstaff]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 07 Apr 2018 16:21:19 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Brokeness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Therapy For Men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[broken]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dreams]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[goals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[progress]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/?p=446</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[What&#8217;s Your Plan? A quiet, young man in his late 20’s who has been in prison for most of his adult life was diagnosed with a mental&#8230; <span class="read-more"><a class="more-link" href="https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/seeing-beyond-your-prison/" rel="bookmark">Read more <span class="screen-reader-text">"Helping Men See Beyond Their Prison"</span></a></span>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1>What&#8217;s Your Plan?</h1>
<p>A quiet, young man in his late 20’s who has been in prison for most of his adult life was diagnosed with a mental illness that causes him to have difficulty being around others and holding a sustainable job.   In fact, it is largely a part of his story of how he ended up in prison.  I asked him, “What would you like to do one day when you leave prison?”  He frowned momentarily and gets a look of uncertainty on his face.  Hesitatingly, he answered, “I don’t know.  Maybe get a lawnmower and cut grass.  I would sleep in abandoned buildings so I didn’t have to pay for a place.  I just don’t want to come <em>back here</em>.”  The look on his face remained flat.  He was serious.  He rarely smiled except if I happened to catch him positioned outside a group of other inmates while they bantered back and forth.</p>
<p>My mind wanders for a moment and my heart sinks thinking about the day he may be released.  Then my next thought jumps to the day that he may likely be escorted <em>back here</em> dressed in a tan county jail uniform only to be exchanged for the white state uniform with a faded blue stripe down each side.  My logic, based mostly on my own life experience, doesn’t allow me to imagine living in an abandoned building; his life experience doesn’t allow him to imagine much else.</p>
<h1>Where Are You Going?</h1>
<p>These men, like so many of us, drift along in life with the rudder half in the water steering with the minimal effort towards an unclear destination.  Occasionally, and generally by circumstance, we are nudged or maybe jolted in other directions by our peers, our environment, and the state of our cultural, political, and economic times.  A laser-focused, ordered, and deliberate plan of action is not as common for most of us.  We may not be given the tools to plan, don’t know how to plan, or fail to plan with the tools given.  Many of us do not have enough drive to push ourselves along and lack that one thing or person to motivate us to action.</p>
<p>Over the last few years, I have been working with men in a close-security prison.  These men have struggled most of their life with a varying degree of moderate to severe mental health issues.  As a therapist to these men and to many others who have never set foot in a prison, I have discovered a common thread among most, if not all of us.  The thread we share is woven with contrasting fibers of brokenness but resiliency.  Despair but the desire for a better life.  Hidden fears but hopeful for internal and external peace.  A need to be apart but connected.  And a greater purpose whether it is to own a lawnmower to make a living or to be able to spur men to live more intentionally.</p>
<h1>The Brokenness Keeps Us Stuck</h1>
<p>We are men from different backgrounds that may be punctuated by broken homes, incidents of abuse, our own addictions or that of a loved one, lack of a mentor, and left wanting to be heard, understood, and loved.  The brokenness often keeps us from extending our views to something greater such as a fulfilled life with purpose.  Many of us may have only a faint outline for the direction for our lives.  The thread we share is our capacity to survive where we are right now in time and space and in our absence of intentionality.  My hope is to continue to shape my own notion of survival into an internalized drive to take steps towards accomplishing whatever my greater purpose is…and to guide a few along as I go.</p>
<h1>Just Surviving Today&#8230;and Also Charging Towards Tomorrow</h1>
<p>As for the lawnmower man, he continues to wait for the day of his release with no further mention of long grass needing cut, abandoned buildings, or fears of returning to prison.  His focus is on surviving today.  Isn&#8217;t that where we get stuck sometimes?  Just surviving today?  Maybe tomorrow we can revisit his goals and have a conversation about the necessary steps to building his new life.  He smiled the other day when I spoke to him about the dormitory environment and some general improvements I noticed in the “community” he lived in.  I wondered if simply asking a future-oriented question was the impetus to allow him to envision a goal, a new life, or some movement towards a greater purpose instead of just mere survival.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s holding you back from becoming intentional about the goals and progress in your life?  What do you need to do today to take the next step? If you need someone to come alongside you and walk with you on a new journey, give me a call or send me an email today.  I&#8217;d be glad to help you begin that journey.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Tony Langstaff is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist living in Valdosta, Georgia.  If you’re interested in working with him, he can be reached through his website: </em><a href="https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/?customize_changeset_uuid=022dbe8f-e426-4c69-8a5d-cba0032b2eea&amp;customize_messenger_channel=preview-2"><em>www.ElevateCounselingSolutions.com</em></a><em> or directly at 229-234-8569.</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
					
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Man and His Wall</title>
		<link>https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/a-man-and-his-wall/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Langstaff]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Mar 2018 07:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Depression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life Struggles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Therapy For Men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Man Therapy Counseling Depression Anxiety Marriage Divorce]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/?p=417</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Brick by Brick, Layer upon Layer Just over 45 minutes had passed since he sat down and began narrating the story of his life that “just happened”&#8230; <span class="read-more"><a class="more-link" href="https://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/a-man-and-his-wall/" rel="bookmark">Read more <span class="screen-reader-text">"A Man and His Wall"</span></a></span>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2><strong>Brick by Brick, Layer upon Layer</strong></h2>
<p>Just over 45 minutes had passed since he sat down and began narrating the story of his life that “just happened” over the past 20 years.  He unloaded layer after layer of his frustrations, disappointments, and fears.  He’s told the story before to one of his closest friends.  But even back then while telling his friend, he held back the tears and pieces of the story that revealed his deepest wounds.  This was different though.  Across from him was a complete stranger.   A therapist.  He never imagined telling anyone else and especially not a therapist.  It startled him at one point after looking at the clock realizing his time was almost up.</p>
<h2><strong>The Stories Others Tell Us</strong></h2>
<p>The characters in his early years and throughout his time being <em>forged</em> <em>as a man</em> taught him to be strong.  Be a man.  Lead the way.  Lead the team. Lead your family.  Some told him, “Stop crying, you’re too old for that.”  “Toughen up”. Others appeased him and said, “It’s going to be fine.  It’ll work itself out”.  But what did that mean?  Some never told him anything.  He watched the big people around him and figured out his own way.  He learned to be quiet about his pain.  He learned that life will create its own path and he didn’t have to face the deeper issues behind the pain.  He learned to believe that in revealing his inability to figure out a better way would translate as weakness.  He learned to be strong, build his castle, put a wall around it and rule over the kingdom he made…or that life gave him.  But, can I say, even an ancient and wise king made it known that “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.”</p>
<h2><strong>The Catalysts</strong></h2>
<p>So how do some men decide it’s time to look over the wall?  What leads some to seek relief from the perspective of a therapist?  For some It may be the threat of losing something special such as their spouse.  For many it’s been a depression that has had it’s way too long in their lives.  Another may want to face the anxiety that creeps up on him every time he has to make a weighty decision.  Some men experience an earth-shifting moment and realize their life has been only a veneer layer over a false self.  Or maybe for some it was the curiosity sparked from overhearing another man mention his visit to a therapist.</p>
<h2><strong>The Stories We Tell Ourselves</strong></h2>
<p>For the man in this story, it is the pain he could no longer carry alone.  Well into his retirement years he recognized an insurmountable challenge with no feasible answer.  He had been financially successful all his life.  He had managed to have a loving family and grandchildren who adored him.  However, there was one piece of his life that had overtaken the rest.  His joy, peace, and hope had been stuffed down so far, he began to have transient thoughts of never waking up.  After one session that had taken him deeper inside his story, with faint tears welling in the corner of his eyes, he stood to leave.  His eyes and his demeanor brightened.  He had experienced a small taste of what some call a “breakthrough”.  He wondered if the missing element was something he learned as a little boy.  It was not the direct, harsh lessons to hide his pain.   It was not the unintended education he received from those who lived what they learned about being a man.  He knew he could not change the piece of his life that overtook him.  However, he recognized the greater thing was becoming strong for himself and those he loved by removing the wall.</p>
<h2><strong>A View From the Top</strong></h2>
<p>What has life taught you?  What stories in your life shape you and your decisions?  Are those the stories you want to define you? Is it the lesson you want to teach those who look up to you?  If your fears, anxiety, depression, anger or anything negative holds you back, maybe it’s time to peek over the wall of your own story.  Look inside you.  If you would rather see something different, a therapist can help you to use that wall to create a new narrative.</p>
<p><em>Tony Langstaff is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist living in Valdosta, Georgia.  If you’re interested in working with him, he can be reached through his website: </em><a href="http://www.elevatecounselingsolutions.com/"><em>www.ElevateCounselingSolutions.com</em></a><em> or directly at 229-234-8569.</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
					
		
		
			</item>
	</channel>
</rss>