Trauma and Beyond Depression Treatment Center in Los Angeles California

Depression can feel like a weight in your body, slowing your movements, distorting your thinking, and numbing your personality to the point where you may feel like you don’t recognize yourself anymore.

Everyone feels sad or low sometimes, but these feelings usually pass with time. If those feelings don’t go away, therapy can help.

“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from themselves.” (p.97)”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

What is Depression?

Depression is a mood disorder that affects how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working. Causes for depression are not set in stone—research shows that chemical imbalances in the brain, along with lived experiences, can cause you to feel depressed.

Where it Begins: Sadness, Guilt, Shame and Grief

Sadness is a normal response to situations that are upsetting, painful, or disappointing. We carry a sense of shame with us when we are unconvinced of our own value or worth, and when we strive to meet the unrealistic expectations we set for ourselves. Guilt may cause us to regret our actions. Grief may arise in a moment of loss to remind us how much we care about something or someone.

Sometimes these feelings can feel more intense, while in other cases they might be fairly mild. While sadness, guilt, shame, and grief should only be temporary, it can take up residence in your heart, mind, and body in the form of depression. If these feelings persist on the day, most days a week, you may be suffering from depression that needs treatment.

How It Affects Us

Depression can generate feelings of loneliness, sadness, and hopelessness, which in turn can prevent us from actively participating in our lives. Furthermore, depression can lead to a vicious cycle of shame and self-hatred that keeps you stuck.

When we have no defense against these emotions, we continue to self-medicate through various outward expressions of our internal struggle, be it a substance or behavioral addiction, self-injury, or unhealthy relationship with food.

Our Approach

Research demonstrates that with depression, our brain chemistry actually changes. For this reason, holistic treatment for depression needs to not only focus on symptom management, but also to target areas of the brain that can rewire and heal these parts of us.

At Trauma and Beyond ®, our intensive treatment for depression can help you find your way out of the depressive cycle and rediscover a sense of hope about the past, present, and future. We offer PHP, IOP, and individual therapy for Depression Treatment in Los Angeles CA. In our PHP and IOP programs clients will meet with our Medical Director for psychiatric assessment.

Our Los Angeles depression treatment can help you move beyond your symptoms in order to rediscover your passions.

Are You Suffering From Depression?

  • Do you often feel overwhelming sadness or have a strong emotional or tearful reaction to things that happen?
  • Are you aware of a constant sense of guilt that you are not good enough, not doing enough?
  • Are you overwhelmed with a sense of loss?
  • Do you feel alone and without a sense of direction?
  • Do you find yourself fatigued with no energy, having trouble sleeping or eating? Or are you sleeping all throughout the day, and still never feel rested?
  • If you’re honest with yourself, do you experience worthlessness, and your thoughts chase one after another in a hopeless circle?
  • Is there a part of you that thinks others might be better off if you weren’t around?
  • Have you lost interest in things that you used to find pleasure in?
  • Do you have a negative sense of yourself, the world, and the future?
  • Do you have suicidal thoughts?
  • Do you experience sadness or depressive thoughts most days?
  • Do you experience a sense of hopelessness?

Does Everyone Feel Like This?

Being able to tell the difference between normal sadness and depression might encourage you to take action and seek resources to deal with what’s keeping you down. Of course, learning to differentiate sadness from depression takes a professional opinion, so if you are feeling any symptoms of depression, a mental health assessment might help you determine your path going forward.

Symptoms of depression can be on a continuum, some people have a long standing low grade depression in which they are able to function but never really feel joy, excitement, passion, or connection. Others are even more debilitated by their symptoms and may even remain in bed, be unable to eat or sleep or function in their day to day life. All depression causes suffering, although people with low grade depression may not even realize there’s anything wrong and believe this is the way life is. While, people with more severe symptoms often feel too hopeless to seek treatment. At Trauma and Beyond ®, we are here to help and treat people at all levels of need.

Take the first step towards finding yourself again. Connect with our depression treatment center in Los Angeles today.