Depression and narcissistic relationships

hi everyone it's dr romini and welcome back to the series on narcissistic abuse a series designed to sort of orient you to the various patterns that people who experience narcissistic abuse go on to experience it's a syndrome that's still sort of coming into our awareness in the world of mental health and so laying out the patterns i'm hoping gives you some clarity on what you're experiencing today i'm going to talk about the sort of the sense of depression that often accompanies narcissistic abuse or as a part of narcissistic abuse before i get to that welcome to this channel if you're not already subscribing please do subscribe and also hit that bell you'll get notifications about when we put out new content new videos each and every day so let's talk about this idea of the sense of depression or depressed mood we see in people who are experiencing narcissistic abuse so i'm going to start this particular video with a disclaimer as i describe the symptoms of depression if they fit it is absolutely essential that you speak to a health care provider asap and this can be a primary health care provider this could be you seeking out a therapist major depressive disorder and other related mood disorders are no joke they are serious illnesses and absolutely should not go untreated we will include resources at the end of this video to get more information about depression i am briefly going to talk about what depression is and then we'll talk about it within the context of narcissistic abuse depression in its many forms is what we call a mood disorder and diagnostically is classified as a person who for two weeks or longer on more days than not is experiencing sad or irritable mood or is experiencing a loss of pleasure and activities that have typically given the person pleasure then the symptoms and patterns we see typically include a change in appetite a change in sleep patterns for example you can't fall asleep can't stay asleep or can't wake up or all three or when you wake up very exhausted feelings of worthlessness difficulties with concentration low energy and fatigue suicidal thoughts a sense of helplessness or hopelessness a sense of apathy or an inability to get anything going or do anything tearfulness moving more slowly than usual and oftentimes social withdrawal we look to see if these patterns or symptoms are resulting in significant social and occupational impairment meaning you're having trouble at work or with relationships and we also want to see if whether you're able to still take care of yourself take care of other people and also look at whether or not you're able to again engage in work engage in school that's depression a diagnosis one of the most common mental illnesses in the world affecting over 250 million people worldwide now not everyone has the full diagnosis of depression for some people they may have a sad mood that comes and goes they may not get as much pleasure out of life as most people in the same way or they may have selected symptoms that may not last the full two weeks sad mood and the related symptoms are often a response to stress in fact stress and depression are well known to be closely related stress is not only associated with depressive symptoms but also with full-blown major depression and narcissistic abuse is clearly a stressor so let's talk about patterns of depression as a part of narcissistic abuse nearly everyone who experiences narcissistic abuse shows some symptoms of depression it may be sadness or irritability or sleep problems or concentration problems the real challenge arises because a person may develop depression while they are in their narcissistic relationship or they may have had a history of depression they brought into the narcissistic relationship and the stress of the narcissistic abuse is exacerbating the depressive symptomatology in addition the stress of originating from a narcissistically abusive family will also heighten the risk of depression and depressive symptoms again the challenge is this bottom line if you are depressed that's got to be treated whether or not you're experiencing narcissistic abuse or not however there is the elephant in the room if you weren't in this narcissistic relationship would some of these symptoms subside as a mental health practitioner neither myself or anyone else can magically wave a wand and remove your stressors or the people in your life we have to work with the issues in front of us in that way getting your depression or depressive mood symptoms treated becomes an essential first step at a minimum that needs to happen so you have the energy and the focus to start dealing with healing from narcissistic abuse a major challenge is that if you present to therapy as moderately or mildly depressed even severely depressed or or just just depressed that will become the focus of the therapy which can then leave the conversation about narcissistic abuse by the wayside to me the gold standard is that we manage the depressive and other psychiatric symptoms early and then get to the work of narcissistic abuse unfortunately the way insurance works and the lack of information about narcissistic abuse out there means that when the depression starts to resolve and if you especially if you're getting therapy with meds you're going to resolve you may be considered done it makes sense that depression and narcissistic abuse would co-occur and that depressive symptoms would be part and parcel of narcissistic abuse survivorship the powerlessness and self-devaluation that are built into narcissistic relationships are a catalyst and they're also a part of narcissistic abuse but the challenge becomes how much depression and narcissistic abuse actually have in common in this series you will see me take on patterns that are part of both depression and narcissistic abuse people living with depression often experience helplessness hopelessness powerlessness indecisiveness loneliness and isolation worthlessness shame irritability and suicidal thoughts so do people with narcissistic abuse in fact a fair question would be if they have so much in common maybe narcissistic abuse patterns are just depression there i would argue differently first of all many people depression aren't going through narcissistic abuse but let's look at it this way you go to therapy to get help and you look really depressed you're really depressed and again if you're experiencing the patterns of narcissistic abuse many if not most clinicians are also going to think you're depressed narcissistic abuse depression they're just going to think you're depressed so they treat it in good faith as depression and then you start doing a little bit better but you're still in your narcissistic relationship or relationships or if it's a lot more narcissistic abuse you may not start getting that much better at all i remember years ago attending a lecture in south africa from a person or with a person who was working with trauma survivors in south africa and she said sometimes we need to scratch our heads and ask ourselves exactly what we are doing putting people back together again having having them do the hard work of therapy just to send them back into abusive and traumatic situations i remember listening to her and i felt this combination of sadness and anger and frustration because she was absolutely right what are we doing so perhaps you go to therapy maybe you even are referred to a psychiatrist or physician you get some medication and while you may feel a bit more energized maybe even a little bit less depressed you are still dealing with the day-to-day invalidation minimization dismissiveness gaslighting manipulation and rage you know the drill it's normal to feel depressed if you are in an emotionally abusive relationship and a world of people telling you to cheer up and count your blessings is just a cruel gaslighty antagonism so if you are in a narcissistically abusive relationship of any kind and are experiencing depressive symptoms the optimal setup is to work with the therapist who understands narcissistic abuse those of us who do this work on narcissistic abuse will address the depression but simultaneously will also address the narcissistic abuse and just when your mood may be resolving is when the work on the narcissistic abuse needs to ramp up interestingly if the narcissistic abuse occurred in your family of origin or occurs in your family of origin you may not experience these sort of depressive symptoms every day you may actually kind of be living your life and then get propelled back into your family of origin for some reason holidays family illness some other family event and have to deal with it all of it again and then the sadness and other sort of depression adjacent symptoms will emerge again that tells you something right there you were living your life get close to the family again and then you start feeling sad narcissistic relationships are something we can sort of term dose response relationships the more of the dose you get the stronger the response like certain medications the more you take the stronger the effect these relationships get more toxic the more of the narcissist you have to experience pay attention to your patterns if your narcissist or narcissists are not a daily feature you may find that your depressive symptoms ramp up only when you are in their presence but otherwise you are doing fine logic would dictate that you remove the stimulus that is associated with the negative response in this case the depressive mood the stimulus would be the toxic person but i know that's not always possible being from a narcissistic family of origin can actually leave you with a sort of a heavy sense that kind of bothers you for a lifetime the more you can recognize that you are not responsible for them the better it is for you but that's a process so what do you do first of all regardless of the stimulus or the trigger or the reasons if you are experiencing depressive symptoms you must get intervention untreated depression is very bad for your health so treatment is essential in an ideal universe you would work with someone clinically who is well versed in both narcissistic abuse and general mental health there's just not a lot of people who do it number two if you are feeling suicidal you must seek out help immediately whether that's calling emergency services or the suicide hotline and we are going to have those resources in the notes for this video you must call immediately number three i want you to pay attention to patterns do you find that your depressive symptoms get significantly exacerbated when you spend more time with the narcissist in your life and that these symptoms may actually abate or fade away when you're not with the narcissist that's not how classical clinical depression typically works traditionally in most cases of depression the symptoms are present across situations and are pervasive and relatively continuous if there is that stop start pay attention to that because in that case this really may be about getting education and support for your narcissistic abuse with as much rigor as you're dealing with your depressive symptoms fourth treatment is absolutely essential for depression but so too are what we call adjunct treatments such as exercise better sleep mindfulness and other daily practices such as meditation can all be essential in addition this isn't just about addressing your negative thoughts about yourself but also about maintaining realistic thoughts about your narcissistic relationship sometimes as hard as those thoughts are thoughts like this isn't going to change this person really does not care about me or anyone else it's still a lot better for you and easier than blaming yourself thank you so much for listening to this content about depression it's very very easy to write it off as depression and for many clinicians that we've treated the depression then you go back into your narcissistic relationship and they feel like a resolving door i'm sorry i could feel it's funny i said resolving door i meant revolving door could feel like a revolving door going around and around and around with nothing ever getting better please do refer to the notes for this video we will be putting some fact sheets and other information about the suicide hotline so you have that information if you are if you do want more information about depression and treatment again depressive symptoms are a very very common part of the picture of narcissistic abuse and kind of separating out what part is narcissistic abuse and what part is classical depression can actually be a bit of a tricky and surgical diagnostic procedure thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 122,247

Keywords: yt:cc=on

Id: df8dsKuMaig

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020