Here is an insight on how eustress can become stress, leading to depression and subsequently clinical depression and how to cope with it.

Team@CMHF

Stress need to be tackled with good coping skills. Healthy coping skills include things such as: talking to someone who cares, exercise, sports, reading, listening to music, doing something nice for someone else, talking to or spending time with pets, watching a good movie, spending time with a friend, going to your special place to think, developing a sense of humor and anything else that can have the effect of lifting your spirit.

Unhealthy coping skills includes things such as alcohol or drug abuse, reckless driving, promiscuity, self-mutilations, isolation, excessive risk taking, anger acted out as violence, or anything else that has the effect of increasing your shame, guilt, or feelings of poor self-worth.

When eustress leads to stress and on to distress we have a situation where coping skills begin breaking down. This leads to loss and an accumulation of loss leads to a sense of powerlessness. Powerlessness can lead to depression.

The signs and symptoms of depression occur on a continuum—-from mild feelings of sadness or grief, which everyone experiences at some time, to clinical depression, a serious behavioral or emotional pattern in which several symptoms of depression are exhibited over a prolonged period.

Depression is a condition–a combination of feelings, signs and symptoms. Stress is usually an important factor in the depression. Depression is trackable and is part of a process. It doesn’t just happen one day. Symptoms of depression vary widely from individual to individual. Some depression is normal. Usually we call this sadness or grief. Grieving is a process of coming to terms with loss or losses. It is different from depression, as is sadness, although sadness may be a key component in the grieving process.

Depression describes a person’s mood, how one feels. When we talk about depression, we are talking about a feeling.
Clinical depression is different. In order to qualify as clinically depressed, at least four of the following symptoms need to be present nearly every day for a period of at least two weeks.

Symptoms of Clinical Depression:

• poor appetite, significant weight loss when not dieting
• increased appetite, significant weight gain
• insomnia or hypersomnia (inability to fall asleep or need for excessive amounts of sleep)
• physical agitation–a jumpy, nervous, twitching, restless body
• slowed physical body movements, no “spunk,” dragging around
• loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities (not able to have fun)
• apathy (an “I-don’t-care” attitude)
• loss of energy, fatigue
• feelings of worthlessness or excessive feelings of guilt and self-blame
• inability to think or concentrate, slowed thinking and/or inability to make decisions
• frequent thoughts of death or suicide, death wish or suicide attempt

Life Events and Loss:
Life involves a series of losses that begin with birth and the loss of placement in a warm womb. The newborn is thrust into another world that is different from where he was. This represents a loss. Life will continue to teach us about loss up until our final loss, which is death.
Here is a brief worksheet to think about:
Life Factors and Loss Worksheet
1. List Several Life Factors that relate to feelings of loss, powerlessness, depression or anger toward oneself.
2. From your list identify what has been lost
3. When feeling powerless, what might you be thinking?
4. How would you know you were feeling depressed about this event?
5. If you turned your anger on yourself, how might you be thinking, feeling or behaving?
6. What might you be thinking or feeling if you were beginning to accept this loss?
7. What could you say to yourself to turn your anger and disappointment into a powerful resource for growth?

Examples: I can learn from this experience; I’ve learned to survive pain and loss; What other do does not mean there is something wrong with me; I am lovable; I am whole and good, and I have much to offer the world.

Ref: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/angst-anxiety/2012/01/the-stress-connection-to-anxiety-depression-and-suicide-risk-part-two/