'Beating the Senior Blues'

Robert W. Griffith, MD
October 7, 2002 (Reviewed: October 19, 2004)

One of the problems of depression in seniors is the difficulty in dealing with thought processes. Here's a chapter extract from "Beating the Senior Blues", an excellent book by Leslie Eckford and Amanda Lambert, which addresses this particular problem. It's entitled "How To Master Your Thoughts And Build Your Self-Esteem".

"Beating the Senior Blues" is a self-help guide for older people who, for one reason or another, find they are slipping into depression. Based on their work with older adults, the authors have written a practical workbook that, with the help of numerous stories and exercises, guides the reader to recognize the signs of depression, and provides techniques and strategies that can lead to recovery.

Apart from helping to address an important aspect of dealing with depression, this extract gives you a flavor of the book that will certainly whet your appetite for more. Robert W Griffith, Content Editor.

Many people with depression are plagued with unhappy and hopeless thoughts. These negative thoughts can have a destructive impact on your outlook and behavior. By deciding to challenge these thoughts, you can make a change in your attitude and your life.

Ted's story

Ted, a seventy-eight-year-old former accountant, lost his wife ten years ago to cancer. He retired two years later. He relates how these events started a stressful period in his life that led to depression:

"I hadn't wanted to retire at that time and I felt at the end that I was being forced into it. I felt that my colleagues at work had abandoned me and I felt betrayed. I had never experienced anything like it, so my retirement, which I'd been looking forward to, didn't get off to such a great start. I hadn't realized, I guess because I was suddenly spending so much time alone, how much my attitude had changed. I don't think that it happened over night. I would spend hours thinking about everything that had happened at work, and after a while, I couldn't think about anything else. I began to feel worse and worse about myself. I would think 'If only I had been smarter or younger, they wouldn't have pushed me to get out of there.' My children would invite me out to dinner and I would think of how I would just bring them down and I'd make excuses not to go. I started to doubt how well I was managing my bills and just stopped taking care of them. They were piling up in a corner and it just paralyzed me to look at them. I couldn't believe it. This from me, who always paid on time, on the dot, never late! I felt more and more ashamed. I finally talked to my doctor about how I was feeling and he sent me to a therapist. It was such a relief to talk to someone about all the thoughts I was having.

"As I started to get better, I began to see how the depression had changed how I was looking at the world and myself. I'd always been an upbeat kind of fellow, and I wanted to get back to that, to my old self. I remember one day that I got tired of thinking about all of these things and just sort of started talking back to myself, and that really helped."

Taking charge of your thoughts

In this chapter, we will look at the connection between your thinking and your self-esteem. In addition, we will look at how you can take action to change your thinking to help you feel better about yourself. When you are depressed, it may take more than one approach to chip away at these thoughts. There are exercises that you can do along the way that will help you learn more about how these thoughts may be controlling your life. Take your time to do each one, even if you write something very brief. Then, you will complete the goals of this chapter when you are not reading the book. This will give you the opportunity to start practicing more healthy ways of dealing with these thoughts every day. The goals will present strategies that have helped other older adults to release themselves from these thoughts and rebuild their self-esteem.

For some people with depression, it is unclear which started first, the change in their mood or the negative thoughts. Either way, the negativity seems to take on a life of its own. It may be hard for you to remember a time when you didn't have so many negative thoughts. Or, you notice that there has been a more recent change in your usual attitude about life and yourself. This change in thinking may be described as being "down about everything." To make matters worse, a sense of guilt develops because of your inability to overcome intense and distressing negative thoughts. Perhaps you wonder why you cannot simply tell yourself to get over it. This isn't as easy as it sounds.

It's essential to remember that you are having thoughts that have a powerful effect on your emotional state. This reduces your ability to be objective about these thoughts and actually encourages you to be unfair to yourself. You become more pessimistic and sound more cynical and even angry. You may notice a change in your tone of voice. You may be speaking more quietly or finding it harder to glance up at other people. You may be communicating your doubts about yourself and your life in more ways than you realize.

Be your own best friend

Think about a good friend of yours. Imagine if that friend came to you and said, "You know, I'm just not the person I used to be, I really think that I'm worthless. My life is terrible. I probably was never very good at those things that I thought I was good at and my family probably would agree." Most likely, you'd be amazed at your friend's sudden loss of connection to the truth. You'd realize that he or she is a valuable contributing member of society, with many talents and well loved. You might respond by refuting your friend's misconceptions. You'd remind him or her of specific reasons that these thoughts are not accurate, such as "You've been helpful to others and even now your family relies on your good advice and counsel. You are still the best bridge player in our group and could teach a lot of younger folks about the history of this state. You're a good person with a great sense of humor that everyone appreciates." In other words, you would present realistic evidence to disprove the negative thoughts.

With the same direct and reasonable attention, you must examine your own thinking. But even though you would immediately recognize it in a good friend, it is often quite challenging to identify your own negative, distorted thoughts. Negative thoughts are sometimes referred to as negative 'self-talk,' because it's like an ongoing conversation that you are having with yourself. You may have become so accustomed to these thoughts being a part of your 'mental landscape' that you hardly notice them. They are there so much of the time that you no longer think about questioning them. So, it may be a bit like catching butterflies at first. But, with practice, you will spot them with more certainty.

Unsure of what your negative thoughts may sound like? Here are some examples:

• "I can never think of the right thing to say."
• "I'll never get this house cleaned up."
• "My family would be better off if I were dead."
• "I'm sure there is nothing that would interest me at the senior center."
• "If my son really loved me, he would call more often."
• "If people really knew me, they wouldn't like me."

When your mind is filled with negative thoughts, it becomes almost impossible to consider more positive ones. Your focus becomes narrower and narrower and less open to new possibilities. The thoughts cause a number of emotional responses. You do not feel good when you are having negative thoughts. The thoughts cause a chain reaction resulting in a bad feeling. As you have these thoughts you may become aware of feelings, such as uneasiness, tension, anger, guilt, anxiety, fear and pain. These feelings can become an important clue to help you identify your negative thoughts.

The chapter goes on to help the reader identify the characteristics of his or her negative thoughts, and the steps that need to be taken to re-build self-esteem and change negative to positive thoughts.

You can buy this book at Amazon, just click here.

You can also learn more about the authors at their website Mindfulaging.com (see link below).

Source

• Beating the Senior Blues: how to feel better and enjoy life again. L. Eckfrod, A. Lambert, New Harbinger Publications, Inc., Oakland, CA 94609., 2002

Related Links
Mindful Aging
A 'Silent' Cause of Depression in the Elderly
Walk Away From Depression

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